Background Graphics

I work with spreadsheets every day. I create them, edit them, review them. I consider some of them to be works of art. In yesterday's mail I received one with a background logo across the page that made it difficult to read the numbers. My short note back was not complimentary about that feature:

Like most background graphics, it adds to storage space and retrieval time, at the same time as hindering the clear viewing of the data. Bad on top of bad.

And don't give me the "oh it looks pretty" argument, save that for birds and flowers, not for spreadsheets.

( Though a good spreadsheet should look pretty, because of the elegance and clarity of the data there :)

Of course design and white space are important too. My reply was not entirely serious, but I stand by every word there. The official RNB guiding principles of spreadsheet design to follow shortly.

Honk if you support us

Obviously I touched a nerve with the last note. It was intended. In survey after survey, the vast majority of people always respond positively when asked "would you prefer lower fuel taxes?". But it's a really stupid question if phrased that way, without presenting an alternative, like compensating higher taxes elsewhere.

And I've said before that the notes here consciously try not to reflect popular opinion anyway. They should make you think different, if only for a moment.

The reason that truckers block roads is because they find it easy to block roads. A different economic change could cause disproportionate hurt to equal numbers of office cleaners, care assistants, supply teachers, airline pilots, organic farmers, whatever, but they can't all disrupt the whole country so easily. And they don't find it so easy to hoodwink the public with nonsensical survey questions.

And even when a road is not completely blocked, the go-slow or lane restriction always causes jams. Drivers slow down to avoid or gawk. No you prat, I'm not honking because I support your selfish bullying tactics, I'm honking because I want you to get out of the bloody way.

I'm reminded of a joke, this one.

Truck Off

To all those who support the fuel protests.

The UK government has a "windfall" of perhaps a billion pounds because of the rapid price in the price of oil, partly through increased sale price of North Sea crude and partly through increased tax revenues on processed petrol and diesel.

We have two ways to distribute the money:

1a. Use the extra tax revenue to appease a bunch of loud-mouthed fat bullies who use their tankers to block up the roads and cause disruption to millions
1b. The majority of the benefits go to those who use the most fuel. Hummer owners benefit more than hybrid owners.

2a. Use the extra tax revenue to raise the minimum tax threshold
2b. The majority of the benefits go to the poorest members of society, those who can least afford extra fuel costs.

There are a lot of selfish bastards in this country.

Diversity Cold Play

I like diversity. That is not management consulting political correctness, it is a statement of fact about my feelings for humanity. And of course, life reflects cricket and cricket reflects life.

Obviously I cannot help but support my home team, and my unfortunate affection for the mighty Kolkata has been noted elsewhere. But aside from the Knight Riders, my favourite players tend to be those who are the most diverse. As a supporter I want to see the best bowlers, batters and fielders, I don't want every team full of bits-and-pieces allrounders. And I am not alone.

Why is Monty Panesar cheered so loudly whenever he strokes a boundary or takes a catch, even more so than when he takes a wicket? It is not just for his childish enthusiasm, nor for his skin colour. It is because he is so inept at batting and fielding.

There is an old common term used in cricket for the worst batsmen, they are called bunnies, presumably after the stereotype image of the rabbit caught in the headlights. The New Zealand number eleven is a ferret, he goes in after the rabbits.

Phil Tufnell. Courtney Walsh. Devon Malcolm. Chris Martin. We salute you.

MyPod

Last week I finally got an iPod. It's only a low end model, acquired second-hand - basically it's a test to see if I am going to properly buy into the Apple ethos.

Initial impression - I completely agree that it is sleek and elegant and completely intuitive to use. But something about it is wrong. It's too closed. It's Steve Jobs' vision of the world, not mine.

For example ideally any new media player, if connected up to my computer, would immediately show as a set of directories from which I could copy or move files either way. But I have no choice but to download and use iTunes too. I've already got WinAmp and VLC here to run my videos, in addition to Microsoft's own players. Do I really want another one?

As Marc Nohr notes in Marketing Direct:

The shining vision of one man and his coterie of trusted advisers drives everything - and the space for individual expression outside of that clique is minimal, whether you're an employee or a customer.

The author of the article contrasts the Apple approach with "co-creation", where producers and consumers work together, the obvious example being open source software, but it is also applicable in marketing. Because we should all know that customer-centricity, interactivity and dialogue lie at the heart of DM.

Blogging - It's good for you

Scientific American offers reasons to keep going ...

Scientists (and writers) have long known about the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. But besides serving as a stress-coping mechanism, expressive writing produces many physiological benefits. Research shows that it improves memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral load in AIDS patients, and even speeds healing after surgery.

So far so good ...

The frontal and temporal lobes, which govern speech—no dedicated writing center is hardwired in the brain—may also figure in. For example, lesions in Wernicke’s area, located in the left temporal lobe, result in excessive speech and loss of language comprehension. People with Wernicke’s aphasia speak in gibberish and often write constantly. In light of these traits, Flaherty speculates that some activity in this area could foster the urge to blog.

Gibberish?

Circular Reasoning

According to the digital cuttlefish, Friday is limerick day, but don't worry, there's no attempt here.

At times the sentiments on this site are liberal, at times they are conservative, at times they are green, at times they are libertarian, and I don't mind being labelled as any of them - so long as you stick with lower case. However what is more appropriate as a description of the common opinion here is sceptical - of management directives, of psychics, of faith healers, of religion, of popular opinion, of marketing hype. Plus I occasionally delight in adding a little filth (or at least dodgy innuendo) to proceedings.

So in that roundabout way, I suggest that today is the day to visit the Skeptic's Circle.

Winning and Losing

Two bits of good news for many in my extended family yesterday.

1. A victory for sense and science and money over mindless tradition and superstition.

2. A victory for mindless tradition and superstition over sense and science and money.

Two bits of related news for many in my extended family yesterday.

1. It has started raining heavily in northern India, so the last game of the Kolkata Knight Riders was washed out

2. It has started raining heavily in northern India, so fears of drought recede and the temperatures are starting to cool down

Small losses, big victories - but it's hard to see that when your team gets knocked out after so much effort.

Kick off

At last. ITV tonight. It's the big event. Teams from across Europe have been working solidly and focused towards this one day for nearly a year. It's cost a lot of money, but it should generate even more. A group of diverse talent talent from around the world was assembled here in England for this goal, though foreign money (particularly Russian) has been a big influence too. Today it finally comes together and we see the result of all that effort. It will be broadcast to millions watching across Europe. Only a select few made it to the actual party, though plenty will be celebrating afterwards. But some will watch and think, if only...

Gorillas, Trucks and Money

To continue this little sequence, yesterday I noted the high profile of advertising agencies in the 1980s, and today I noticed that a similar sentiment was in the copy of Marketing Week that's on my desk now. From Jonathan Durden's article: "Charles and Maurice Saatchi pierced the public consciousness and came to represent hope and success in the same way as Sir Richard Branson or Rupert Murdoch. They even came close to buying Midland Bank, which was remarkable in its audacity and ambition."

Leaving aside the irony in lumping together Saatchi and Branson who seemed to me completely opposed politically, socially, and legally in the battle for virgin atlantic traffic, the majority of the article asked the question: are there really no heroes in advertising today?

But there is perhaps an icon for advertising in the 21st century, at least according to Scamp. It's the title of a public article, so I doubt that it is much of a revelation:

Juan Cabral does earn a million pounds a year. And he's worth every penny.

I like the headline. It conveys a fact with an opinion very concisely. And the style is familiar.

Scamp goes on to explain why advertising is a bit like "writing, acting, music and art. Musicians and artists are prepared to earn next-to nothing for years, in the hope that they could one day become Mick Jagger or Damien Hirst." Though in my view that's a pretty poor argument for inequality.

And they are ultimately judged on client sales and profits anyway.

Brand Aids

The inaccuracy of television subtitles is a source of regular annoyance, I specifically mentioned it yesterday as it was relevant at the moment that I was writing, and because the accuracy of message seemed very appropriate in a programme about how the advertising industry interprets the wishes of the client.

On that subject, what stood out for me yesterday were the claims by the creatives of the advertising agency that they were the only ones who really knew the essence of the brand, and much of their jobs consisted of convincing the account directors, and much of the account directors' jobs consisted of convincing the clients.

I don't have the specific quotes from Charles Saatchi and others used in the programme, but a similar sentiment is expressed here. And I'm not going to disagree with them anyway.

However the brand is arguably much more important to the advertising agency than to the client. Initially at least, the agency is judged on creativity, insight, brand recognition. The client is judged on sales and profits - the brand is just one of the symbols that is manipulated to get there.

Using the right words

I've said before that there are occasions when it is important to be precise in your language. Not necessarily grammatically correct as defined by self-appointed mavens, but correct in terms of conveyed message.

Now I'm watching The Men From The Agency - about how trailblazers in the British Advertising industry of the 1960s ended up as trailblazers in the British film industry in the 1980s. And because there is a fair bit of "background noise", and I want to be clear about what these guys are actually saying, I stuck the subtitles on.

And the discrepancy is shocking. The subtitle writers are just lazy. It's ok to miss the odd interjection, even the odd non-essential word:

Subtitles: CDP's most talked about campaign of the 70s grew out of new restrictions on cigarette advertising.

Voiceover: CDP's most talked about campaign of the 70s ironically [sic] grew out of new restrictions on cigarette advertising.

David Puttnam subtitles: Alan and Ridley put huge amounts of their own money into those films. In Alan's case, enormous courage. £80,000 may not seem like a lot people today. But in 1976 it was half of what Alan had.

David Puttnam actually: What people forget about Alan and Ridley is that, in both cases, they put enormous amounts of their own money into those films. In Alan's case, enormous courage, now £80,000 may not seem like a lot to some people today, but £80,000 in 1976 I think was half of everything Alan had in the world.

Subtitles: While Puttnam and the ads directors were conquering America, Britain was entering turbulent times.

Actual Voiceover: While Puttnam and the commercials directors were conquering America, the country they left behind was about to enter one of the most turbulent times in its history.

Almost every single line is wrong. Yes it approximates the intended meaning, but it loses the individual style of the speaker. It is meant to be transcription not summary.

Gordon Brown Dravid

I don't often write about politics.

I do often write about cricket.

But what I really write about is synchronicity.

As the senior player behind Saurav Ganguly and others, Rahul Dravid was an excellent number two for more than a decade. In fact I'd go so far as to say that, despite the fact that he was not officially leader, he was actually responsible for most of the team's success this century. And he seems a genuinely nice guy too, fully aware of his own ability but always prepared to work hard to improve, determined on the field but friendly and self-effacing in interviews.

Yet finally, in charge of his own team, everything seems to be going wrong and the whole world even supposed supporters seem turned against him. Admittedly some of his team are proving to be incompetent fools. But as for Dravid himself, in some ways, he is performing heroically in adversity. The 1990s reputation for being slow is now entirely unjustified. Today, as reported on CricInfo a few minutes ago, he scored 75 in 36 balls. The entire rest of his team, all ten of them together, scored a total of 51 in 84. Do the maths.

Selfish Idiot

This morning's BBC thought for the day was particularly inspiring - of course I mean inspiring as in suggesting to me that I write something here, as opposed to being truly inspirational.

So today the speaker took off from the topical headline that crime rates for girls are increasing sharply. And the solution, justified with selected quotes from his sacred old book, was to make sure that the differences between the sexes are maintained. I notice that the quotes used to justify everything from physical assault to denial of voting rights were not used in this instance, though they would have been equally representative of his ridiculous book.

It's also funny how his special book does not even explain the fact that some people can be born with XXY chromosomes, that genes control the production of hormonal proteins and those proteins control the development of sexual characteristics, that neurological differences explain behavioural differences. But he still paraded his medieval nonsense as the source of unquestioned divine revelation.

But actually that wasn't the bit of his lecture that inspired me. It was his wilful and stupid misinterpretation of modern scientific thinking, blaming the apparent rise in individualism with the "selfish gene". Idiot. Only a nutcase could read Richard Dawkins and still not recognise that the selfish gene is precisely an explanation for co-operation and altruism.

Wolf Work

In the last post I raised a general set of observations about the different types of human personality, but to me they seem even more applicable and relevant when applied to daily interactions in the office.

Whenever a problem arises, there are three ways to approach it:

1. It's part of my job to sort these things, all I can do is to try to fix it and put process in place to reduce future recurrence
2. It's a disaster, this is currently the most important issue in the whole organisation, stop everything and get it sorted
3. There is no such thing as a problem, only an opportunity.

Category 2 obviously belongs to those who may lose their nerve, their poise, their rationality and often their temper when put under pressure. And there may appear to be significant overlap between categories 1 and 3, but 1 acknowledges that there are things outside their control, 3 does not accept that.

Are You Lucky?

This is not a reference to last night's Apprentice, not about trucks having fun, not a reference to an old BBC study that showed how you can make your own luck anyway.

But is your glass half-full or half-empty?

First rule out one exception - clearly anyone born with a serious genetic defect or into war-ravaged famine-festering slums is less "lucky" than a broadly healthy person in the developed world. But let us just look at the different ways that people here deal with misfortune …

The usual distinction into optimists and pessimists is too obvious, there are at least three different ways that people tend to deal with the same unfortunate incident:

1. It's no big deal, we understand that it is human nature to remember the occasional disruption more than the usual smooth journey, but these things even out
2. I'm so unlucky, the breaks never go my way, my queue is the slowest, moan moan moan
3. I love the taste of defeat because it only makes me stronger. It's all of part of an almighty master plan.

There is overlap, people behave differently in different situations. Funnily enough, although category 2 (the traditional pessimists) are the pariahs of society, it is category 3 that can sometimes be the most annoying.

Time for blog

Only dead fish swim with the water. And today Neil Perkin wrote something that echoed here:

When I talk about blogging, the number one question I get asked by non-bloggers is where do you find the time? I think this is the wrong question about the wrong thing. I find the time because I believe it is important enough to do so.

I might expand on that another day. Meanwhile the American blogger vjack has just started a series of blogging guidelines. I'm sure that plenty of others have too. But I still aspire to the basic top ten guidelines that I published last year. Rule number one was simple: One post per day, no more, no less.

But yesterday was an exception. If I get back home too late, if I've had a few drinks, then I don't trust myself to write anything that will stand the test of time.

So this year only 134 posts in 135 days. I'll make it up.

Supporting Your Team (part two)

Of course a manager needs to be a leader, a guide, an enforcer. But a manager also needs to be a supporter. And I mean that in every sense.

I do not just mean in the obvious usage of cheerleading or defending her team from criticism, though both those attributes are critical too. But I also mean support as in assistance to help do their jobs. When someone gets stuck in their work, when they cannot resolve a problem, it is the manager's responsibility to clear that blockage. And that takes knowledge, of the problem specifics and if necessary of the appropriate additional resources required to resolve it.

Clearly not every manager is going to know more of the detail of the individual jobs and tasks than those who report to her. But if she does, then I say that is unquestionably a good thing. Knowledge is definitely a positive attribute. Narrow-minded thinking and prejudice are clearly bad qualities, they may be positively correlated with experience; energy and enthusiasm are clearly good qualities, they may be negatively correlated with experience; but again, knowledge itself is a good thing.

That is not taking away all the other qualities necessary for leadership, basic human qualities still preside. But I could not write a post called "supporting your team", as I did yesterday, without stressing this particular one.

Supporting Your Team

There were a lot of big football matches today. I watched the afternoon game on a big screen TV in a big room full of Manchester United supporters. So there was a lot of tension and passion in there.

But not from me. I was far more concerned with who won our park game in the morning. I guess because my family had to move so often when I was young, despite a childhood obsession with Liverpool FC, I never really adopted a "home" club.

However, I'll finish with a block quote from A Fan's Dilemma published this week on CricInfo:

I went back to thinking about it. And I realised that, for me at least, it would have to be support for the team that bore the name of the place I come from: Kolkata. You can't choose your hometown, just as you can't choose your parents, and wherever you live afterwards, and whoever you become, that place remains with you, becomes a part of you in a way like no other.

Listen to Bruce Springsteen, and you'll know what I'm talking about.

Flint off the Free man

You know I don't like speed cameras. Or to be more precise, I think that speed camera penalties are disproportionately harsh. For most people.

This week, Andrew Flintoff was caught on apparently driving at 87 mph in a 50 mph area. However he was cleared on a technicality.

The lawyer who defended him is the same guy who defended Jeremy Clarkson - his car was caught doing 82 mph in a 50 mph area.

The same lawyer successfully defended Alex Ferguson, David Beckham, Tiff Needell, Wayne Rooney, Colin Montgomerie, and many others who can afford fees reported to be up to ten thousand pounds per day.

The lawyer's name. Nick Freeman. This is not the time to scoff at the aptonym. This is the time to scoff at what he said: "He is very relieved to have the matter disposed of ... now he can concentrate on his cricket."

Because main headline on BBC cricket page today: Injury dashes Flintoff Test hopes.

Appeasing the gods

I spent over a year developing a Management Information System for a large insurance company based in East Anglia. I worked with the actuaries on the business processes of matching payment schedules to claim rates, and we created systems to allow dynamic exploration of the data to accurately identify the profitable and worthless market segments.

But from Marginal Revolution this week: some people buy insurance because they think it will prevent the bad thing from happening?

It was actually a reference to an excellent article in the NY Times by John Tierney: We may not slaughter animals anymore to ward off a plague, but we think buying health insurance will keep us from getting sick. Our brains may understand meteorology, but in our guts we still think that not carrying an umbrella will make it rain.

And one professor of psychology claims in the same article that "rationalists were just as likely as superstitious people to believe that insurance would ward off accidents".

Obviously I don't buy it.

The Economic Ape

Like a minuscule version of Scott Adams' blog, I try to find new ways of looking at old issues, merging economics with psychology with statistics - and consequently there is a fair overlap with Freakonomics. However although that is an excellent site, I think they usually don't do enough to look at the fundamental causes of human behaviour, the basic science. But yesterday they did ... as there was an interview with Frans de Waal. One of his key observations was that it is part of our inescapable nature to be concerned not so much with absolute wealth as with relative wealth and perceived notions of fairness, something I constantly echo at this site.

It's also worth directly quoting his views on a particular Oxford-based scientist: [He] is the most underrated behavioral biologist (ethologist) of his generation. His books have shaped the view of many, because he openly discussed, with great humor and flair, the human-animal connection before we had sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, and the like.

I admire the guy, because it took guts to write what he wrote. As a student, I learned about his book because my professors kept warning us not to read Desmond Morris.

That is almost exactly what I said here just a few months ago.

A Conference Tivo

A followup to the last post. There was clearly an overload of relevant material at the conference.

Most of the small exhibitor stalls were set up largely to sell products and services to small potential buyers. But the seminars were a genuine exposition of new learning. However with over 180 sessions just in the direct marketing area, each taking at least half an hour, there was no way to attend all those that were relevant.

Some attempt was made to divide it into different streams, but for any fairly senior consultant the field of direct interest already spans far more than the full spectrum of direct marketing (hence the association with internet world) and to restrict to one stream in ten is an unhealthy level of specialisation anyway.

Obviously what we wanted was a simple matrix that listed all the sessions together so it was easy to see what was available at each time, to carefully and easily plan personal schedules. But there was none.

I guess it's a bit like the commercial television backlash against the PVR, if you make it too easy to preselect all of your viewing, you will rarely get those elusive viewers who only chance upon your advertisements.

Current Task List

Last week I pointed out that the blog was effectively a current, evolving, comprehensive job resumé, and a far better source of information than most CVs. So in that spirit, and answering the question of "what do you do", a selection of my working life:

Data and The Digital Age
o Data Integration between on and offline environments, sorting the Wheat from the Chaff
o How to use data to drive effective digital communications
o Case Study of An Award Winning Digital Marketing Programme
Customer Experience: the Only Real Differentiator
o Understand the ROI of investing in customer experience
o Why online experience matters more in an age of social networking
o The science behind creating great customer experiences
Engagement Loyalty – Keeping customers interested in an increasingly fragmented market
o What drives customer engagement
o Interacting with customers differently
o Identifying customer differences
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
Web Analytics for DM
o Does DM drive online marketing?
o How to spot the impact of DM campaigns online
o Tracking the interaction of DM and PPC, affiliates and email
o To understand what customer insight is
o To understand the tools and techniques that enable learning about customers
o To understand how analysis can be turned into measurable results
Real World Proposition Development
o Defining the role of relevant propositions in today's entropic society
o Sourcing original propositions in a competitive market
o Developing high-impact propositions in a me-too environment
Advanced Search Engine Marketing & Online Brand Reputation
o Overview of how website architecture and content structure have the ability to impact SEO rankings and PPC ROI
o Exploit the opportunities that Universal Search provides
o Understand the options for link building and the level of resource needed to succeed in competitive markets
o Build a strategy to engage with users and influence brand conversations online
The Missing Millions – How Opt-Outs Can Ruin your ROI and What To Do About It
o Calculating the cost of marketing opt-outs to your business
o Avoiding opt-out triggers and tactics for retaining permission
o “Re-permissioning” legacy data
Multi channel response handling
o Understand what makes the difference to the client and focus on that
o Scripting, briefing, management and reporting
o Integrate call handling with the rest of your campaign
New Opportunities for Today’s Advertisers Using Pay per Click (PPC)
o Beyond Bid Management for Pay per Click
o Win through Continuous Quality Improvement – see how the experts do it
o Opportunities with New Ad Formats – gain a competitive advantage
B2B Digital and Direct Marketing
o What’s new in B2B marketing
o What’s working and what’s not
o What you must do in the next 6 months to stay competitive
Using Narrative Structures to Build Powerful Brand Experiences Online
o How scenarios and narratives are a vital planning tool in user-centred web campaigns
o Optimising messaging by building scenarios for different user segments
o Developing narratives that work across online and offline campaign metrics that measure engagement as well as clicks and conversions
Maximising Campaign Performance: Using Data to Increase Campaign Profitability
o How data can help you to better understand your customers
o What do your "best" customers look like?
o Understanding the campaign cycle - learn from your successes ... and your mistakes
Best Practice Campaign Management
o How to build an integrated campaign
o Setting objectives and defining the business case
o Identifying the target audience and media channels
How Testing Will Improve your Email Marketing Performance
o Why should you bother testing?
o How to test?
o What should you test? – a few big wins to get you started
Statistics and Testing for Direct Marketers
o Why statistics matter
o To control or not control
o Top Tips for Designing a Test
Semiotics: What is it? Why should I use it?
...etc.

Obviously that was not a description of my typical day, it was just a small selection from the IDMF conference that I mentioned last week. But it still helps to answer the question.

Improving Flow - Part Two

It is not easy finding a plumber in central London. According to The Times: If you live in Kensington and Chelsea and need a tap fixing in one of your palatial bathrooms, you may have a problem: for every 6,137 residents of the royal borough, there is one plumber, and nowhere in Britain are they rarer.

Kevin Wellman, operations director at the Institute of Plumbing and Heating Engineering, suggests reasons for this: "The congestion charge is another factor putting plumbers off, and the heavy traffic generally makes it difficult to get around from one job to another. Plumbers have just said, 'We don't want to work in London any more'."

Sorry, Wellman is talking nonsense. The congestion charge is another factor that reduces traffic. And plumbers here charge up to a hundred pounds for each single callout, and will probably do many of these every day. So I guess they can afford it.

For all of Ken Livingstone's misuse of vegetables, he can be proud that he pioneered groundbreaking economic strategy in the face of massive almost universal opposition. Now even the gas guzzling Americans recognise that some form of congestion/pollution charging is inevitable, whether that is in the form of higher gas taxes or road use pricing. However, with his proposed push westwards from the commercial city to the more residential west end, he just pushed a good idea a step too far too soon.

A Day on the Tiles

The weather forecast was completely wrong, the predicted rain never arrived and it was bright and sunny. A miracle. So I was up on the roof again.

Whenever it rains then one of the gutters overflows and a constant stream of water splashes noisily outside the window. It didn't need great detective powers to predict a blockage, so I borrowed a ladder and went up to see. Yes, there was a small pile of debris in the gutter and muck had piled up behind it.

While I had the ladder I looked round the rest of the guttering. Everything else clear. The one blockage was very close to the point where I had paid a roofer to fix the tiles. The suspicious part of me was alerted. Now surely he had an incentive to secretly create that little pile of mud, no immediate incident, but he would have known that after a few months this would eventually cause an overflow and, for those without tall ladders, another callout.

I wonder.

How to Berry the Miracle Sweetener

I heard something odd on the radio today. They were doing some sort of weekly news round up, and they mentioned a story about a "miracle berry".

Now the word "miracle" usually indicates the presence of both a power-hungry charlatan to initiate the news and a gullible fool to spread it, but I wondered if this was something different. So I looked up the story.

The search is always on for replacements for those things that, eaten in excess, make us obese - fatty and sugary foods. In the 1960s, Robert Harvey, a biomedical postgraduate student, encountered the miracle berry, a fruit from west Africa which turns sour tastes to sweet.

This completely natural product "can be used to manufacture sweet tasting foods without sugar or sweeteners". In reported tests: "miracle berry ice lollies, in four different flavours, were compared to similar, sugar-sweetened versions by schoolchildren in Boston. The berry won every time."

But on the eve of launch in 1974, the US Food and Drugs Administration "effectively banned it". Or to be more precise, as I read it, they reclassified it from natural product to food additive, a ruling which which would require many more years of testing.

The worrying thing would be if a combination of big sugar and artificial sweetener manufacturers deliberately conspired to prevent its release. The former vice president of the miracle berry company certainly thinks so: "I honestly believe that we were done in by some industrial interest that did not want to see us survive because we were a threat. Somebody influenced somebody in the FDA to cause the regulatory action that was taken against us."

Unlike the BBC article, I'm not yet convinced.

Birds Beer Curry

When the lads go out for a curry after a few beers, it is often a challenge to see who can manage the hottest curry. I don't think I have a genetic advantage based on my DNA, but I should have a cultural advantage based on decades of tastebud desensitisation.

Unfortunately research proves that it is birds who can manage the hottest - chilis that would make not just my eyes but my whole head water are just tasteless vegetables for some.

Of course I'm not talking about my wife's habit of putting her coffee back into the microwave for a reheat before I even start drinking mine.

I've said before, the word hot is definitely misleading, arguably just wrong. The word should be jhal.

Indexed

I often repeat that, like Dirk Gently and his application of the fundamental interconnectness of everything, this blog points out links between apparently unrelated areas.

But I should have decided to do it with pictures and not with words.

See Jessica Hagy.

Direct Marketing Internet World

International direct marketing. The world of the internet. There is not really a difference any more.

But the exhibitions were still organised separately. Separate registration. Separate exhibitors. Separate entrances. Even though they were held in the same hall at the same time.

Of course there is a huge great overlap, and most of the work related sections of this blog are located in that intersection. But both fields are changing so quickly that it's always good to catch up with different people, different technology, different ideas.

However some things don't fit in the overlap. Just staying with cars, I knew that the traditional mailshot could be excellent, interactive, tactile, something really different from the online world. But the award-winning mailshot for the Seat fleet campaign was essentially a full size flipchart. I guess that's not something you can fit into an email.

But it's enough to drive you online. I'll have some more to say about this later.

Counting up to two

The one place that is the birthplace of cricket is England and Wales. The one place. But that is not the issue. According to the BBC article today:

Glamorgan chairman Paul Russell has backed proposals to create a new Twenty20 competition in Britain.

"We have two things going for us: one is that in June the only place that cricket is played is England and Wales," Russell told BBC Sport Wales. "Secondly, all the players around the world are available."

Now surely that is only one thing and not explicitly two? Because cricket is played nowhere else at that time, that is the reason why all the players are available. All the players around the world are available, so it's pretty clear that cricket is being played nowhere else. Tautology. I'm pleased that he is chairman and not scorer.


Disclaimer: I first met Paul Russell on the very first day of my very first job after college. I was a fresh-faced new graduate, and he was the Partner in charge of Human Resources who said "welcome to the firm". We've both changed a lot since then.

The CV Newsletter

Why join a social networking site? Why write a blog? There have been numerous articles written about the risks, and there have already been many cases where something published on-line has come back to haunt. All of us in the on-line world also have a life in the real world, and reputation is slow to build and easy to destroy.

I've covered the basic reasons before, and this is not the place for a repeat of self analysis and psychology. This time the argument is simple economics, the benefits outweigh the costs.

The ever-readable Seamus McCauley recently noted that a friend of his had recently enrolled in a graduate program at a reasonably well known university in England. However, his experience there was poor, he soon realised that the course was basically just a pathetic degree provider for high-paying foreign studeents, especially from China. So great for generating fees for the particular institution, not so great for the reputation of English universities as a whiole.

But more interesting was this comment in the article: I will not advertise my degree at UEA on my CV, whether or not I graduate.

Whether or not he realises it now, it is too late for that unfortunate student. I consider that everything that he has written on the blog is already a part of his "CV", whether he likes it or not.

Employers, isn't a current, comprehensive, searchable evolving blog a much better guide to a candidate than a couple of typed pages anyway?

Facebook (again)

I'll repeat here what I've said on the application itself - I'm on Facebook, I periodically log in there, I'm happy to add friends there, but I have an odd view on its applications.

There are loads of people on Facebook who laugh at the zombie and pirate and werewolf applications, who scoff at the pokes and superpokes, who would never dream of sending random online slaps and tickles. I'm not like them.

Because I have nothing. No artificial colours or preservatives anyway. The organic food section of the Facebook supermarket.

A profile. A wall. A circle of friends. A link to this blog. That's about it. Hello.

Base Six

Synchronicity. Or psychic prediction. Just yesterday I wrote about the new world of IPL cricket and suggested that the basic attractions of the game were very similar to baseball. And I noted that although I still love the game(s), there should be at least three major disciplines involved, and the increasing prevalence of sixes (home runs) was disrupting it. Both cricket and baseball need to restore that balance.

And the title of today's article on Freakonomics: Ideas for Making Baseball More Interesting

Lots of good ideas there, some overlap with mine. Even better, Scott Adams just wrote today about America's Favorite Pastime:

Yesterday I went to a Giants baseball game. It was Little League Day, so there were about ten thousand young boys running wild in the stands. It was also free bat day, courtesy Bank of America ...
Do you know what happens when you hand an 8-year old boy a new bat, sit him behind the exposed heads of several adults, and ask him to sit patiently for four hours while nothing much happens on the big field in front of him?

Very funny. A lot of fans with sore heads the next morning. And another demonstration of the great decision making of the top executives in the US banking sector.

Finally, another quote from Scott:
I wish someone would invent a device that allowed you to watch sporting events from your home. I think that would be popular.

Running Home

The last post was a personal indulgence. But on the same subject, time for a practical suggestion.

I spent a while living in America, but although I think I understand the game, their version of football never interested me. But for some reason baseball instantly appealed. I went to see both the Yankees and the Mets during my time there, and more than that, I loved the fact that there always seemed to be a first class game on TV, even though a hundred other channels were spewing rubbish.

Why do I like baseball? Despite what you may think, it's not about the stats. It may be the pace of the game. About 120 pitches per side spread over about 3 hours ... sorry, that's 20:20 cricket again.

But what I don't particularly like, funnily enough, are home runs. To me they spoil the flow of the game. Batting bowling and fielding should all be part of it. What I like are the balls smacked to far left field, the cheeky singles, the fly balls parried and caught. It's about "runs batted in", not "runs walked in".

Which brings me to my suggestion for cricket. The general lament from the traditionalists is that the new game favours the batsman. It's not easy to legislate on batting technology or to control the pitch. But at the very least keep the ground as big as possible, stop bringing the boundaries in.

The Twenty Twenty Test

Like Harold Pinter, Rory Bremner, Mick Jagger, I share a particular affection for cricket. In my case even for the bastardised version that is currently taking shape in the form of the Indian Premier League.

Some hate it. However I share with many modernisers the view that the 20:20 format needs to be promoted rather than discarded. I have no financial interest, but as it seems to be so poorly advertised in the UK, I'll remind viewers here that they can watch it on Setanta.

I don't wish to see it replace test cricket. That is eternal. But perhaps a rare view, I would have no problem at all if it completely displaced the "traditional" fifty-over one-day format.

However I share with many traditionalists the view that essence of cricket needs to remain and not be overwhelmed by the razzmatazz. I like the new format because it provides an interesting condensed format of the game, not because it comes in expensive packaging.

A good match should not need music blaring through loudspeakers to create atmosphere. The cameras should focus on the play on the pitch not the celebrities in the crowd. But I don't mind the cheerleaders.

The Fast Show Comic

Oh no, Scott Adams recently "redesigned the Dilbert.com web site and added a ton of features, such as animation, deeper archives, mash ups, and more."

It's horrible. You know my views on this subject. Simplicity. Space. Sex. Speed.

However, Scott suggested that there are three types of reader:

• The first group is the ultra-techies who have an almost romantic relationship with technology …


• The second group objected to the new level of color and complexity, and the associated slowness …


• The third group subscribes to the philosophy that more free stuff is better than less free stuff …

Obviously I'd be in group two at the moment. But good news, I'm catered for. There is a superb new comic site here.

Chicken Little

According to various kinds of splendid squid, a lizard is always a lizard.

However, recall how our image of dinosaurs has changed over just a single generation. The models of dinosaurs I saw as a child really did look like terrible lizards, roughly equal-sized legs splayed out from the side of the body.

But science works and opinion changes. Gradually increasing evidence suggests that they were more like birds than lizards, not just in general appearance (models of dinosaurs are very different now) but even possibly in internal warm-blooded physiology.

Now possibly the final straw. The T-Rex was basically just an overgrown chicken :)

I Want a Pay Riise

At last, another diagram. Deduced from the match yesterday.




Yesterday Liverpool were 1-0 up against Chelsea after the allotted 90 minutes, and only a few seconds of injury time remained. Chelsea striker Kalou fired in a low cross from the left wing, Liverpool defender John Arne Riise was marginally ahead of the second incoming striker. In that position, 99 per cent of footballers, even me, would have swung the right foot and belted the ball clear.

Instead the defender dived forward to try to head it away. I was too gutted to listen to post-match analysis, but I have not read any explanation for his action. He earns a lot of money. But I suggest he does not do enough training.

I suggest that only a select few footballers would have attempted that clearance; Kinkladze, Hagi, Maradona, even Jon Wood. They're half decent players.

A New Kind of Life

Of course only idiots ever thought that differing numbers of chromosomes in different species of animal ruled out evolution of new species, but I did wonder about the mechanisms by which these chromosome numbers could change. But yesterday a very simple explanation was provided at the website of PZ Myers, the biologist who was recently expelled from a movie theater.

And the superb XKCD comically showed how artificial life could be created with a cheap PC, basic accessories and a hamster wheel.

The legendary digital cuttlefish has already written long epics about each of those two subjects, I just think of silly ways to link them:

Two of the blogs I most rated
An unholy new species created
This cuttle you see
And X K C D
Have finally now consummated!

Branding Children

Just like last Sunday evening, I have been watching the next installment of how powders washed whiter back in the golden days of television advertising.

It was amusing to see the main advertising strategies in the post war years. The biggest selling point was usually to emphasize just how much energy was contained (the more calories in anything, the better for you).

The other common approach was to attribute medicinal qualities to the foodstuff on display. Thankfully these claims now need to be tested before being advertised. And today we know that many supposed nutritional supplements are useless anyway.

But the main story of this week's show was about the dubious practice of directly targeting innocent children. Other groups do that too.

The Elephant Siren

According to new research "an ancient ancestor of the elephant from 37 million years ago lived in water and had a similar lifestyle to a hippo"

There is further detail in analysis of the peer-reviewed research at Greg Laden's blog. And there is increasing evidence to support the claim - not just general observations about the hairless skin and long trunk being well suited for water, but specific and scientifically measurable features of the dental and renal systems have shown genuine evidence for the amphibious transition.

Elephants now live primarily on land, and the research talks about changes that happened tens of millions of years ago in Africa, it is a fair deduction that the region dried out considerably during that period. The modern human form also appeared tens of millions of years ago in Africa. You can see where I am going with this. Desmond Morris has been banging on for decades with the same suggestion.

Early humans may have evolved the ability to swim and lost the fur (unlike other chimpanzee groups) precisely because they lived in the water. The "aquatic ape" theory could be reborn.

Sold Out

I said yesterday that people who are not directly in sales tend to be in jobs where the percentage of successful transactions is higher. Another way to put it is to say that, at least in choice of career, we are more risk averse.

And as it's Friday, I may risk a verse.

Sorry, that pun was a crime.

So I'll resist this time.

But next week the gags will be worse.

Death of a Salesman

The main "point" of yesterday's post was derision at the pathetic BBC attempts to maintain "balance" by bringing in prejudiced self-interested salesmanship, but there was casual personal line thrown in at the end. So perhaps a little aside about the nature of salesmanship. It's personal again, look away now if you are not interested, or if you are easily sickened by shameless self-promotion.

Much of this blog is inevitably a sales pitch for myself. Somehow I claim genuine expertise and experience in a strange combination of data analysis, customer insight, problem solving, financial transaction processing, project management, data modelling, systems architecture, information warehouse, application design, direct marketing, internet technology, marketing infrastructure, campaign management, etc. But even more strangely, I genuinely like it too.

But, and this is not good for the personal sales pitch, I do not like sales work, at least the low level petty transactions such as those of weekly Apprentice tasks. One reason I've mentioned, that short term tasks encourage dishonesty. But a second reason - it comes down to percentages. In our line of work, most of the time we must succeed, otherwise we'd be sacked. Most of our interactions with other people have a positive outcome, they keep the operations flowing or move the project forward. By contrast, in most sales jobs, most of your individual interactions do not have a "successful" outcome, if you judge "success" as most sales managers seem to. We can look at the bigger picture of building up brand image, but only a small percentage of salesman interactions result in an immediate sale.

So basically we all like to win, and we choose the environments where we are most likely to win.

Bursting Bubbles and Silencing Quacks

As usual, I listened to BBC Radio 4 this morning. They got the balance all wrong. Because some things just don't.

First they reported on the credit crunch. And to unbalance the news from journalists who talk of more difficulty borrowing, potential house price falls, impending recessions, etc. what they had was an estate agent! Obviously he talked about the need to always keep talking up prices; to maintain confidence in the market, not for his own job of course. So let's ignore the evidence and the underlying economic factors, instead let's just keep talking up prices so then we can all have a pretty mansion with a big garden full of dutch tulips. Yes journalists can be too sensationalist, but it was just ridiculous to expect a sensible comment from an estate agent here.

Then, even worse, the programme reported on an independent study from the Cochrane Foundation that amalgamated the results of various antioxidant supplements and found that, unsurprisingly, they don't do much good compared to a normal balanced diet. But to unbalance these facts they also alllowed equal time to well-known quack Patrick Holford. Patrick Holford sells pills. Please BBC, the balance to objective research is better objective research, not the prejudiced rambling of a discredited supplement salesman.

Incidentally, a salesman I know left his job today.

Ford Fiesta smashes Porsche 911

Not the result of any particular road test, but something I saw at the Pharyngula site.

According to the BBC story :

Jack Higgs, 93, was uninjured when his Ford Fiesta hit a Carrera II then flipped over onto a Porsche 911 outside a showroom in Penarth, near Cardiff.

Mr Higgs said he could not explain how he managed to lose control of his 13-year-old car and smash into the Porsches.

"It was a miracle I got out alive and I put it down to the power of prayer and God looking after me."

"But that's it - the end of my driving career, I'm never driving again."

I will not comment here upon the obvious dementia of thinking that his prayer made any difference whatsoever to the world outside his brain. But seeing the main protagonists in this incident - the doddery old man, the ancient old Fiesta and the two flash Porsches - I obviously thought of the old old joke:


The old guy in his ancient battered little Ford Fiesta breaks down and pulls to the side of the road. Fairly soon a yuppy in his new Porshe 911 sees him by the side of the road and offers to help. The old man doesn't want to leave his car. So the dude offers to tow it. The old guy is a bit nervous, he doesn't like going fast. But the guy reassures him "don't worry, I'll stick to 50. And if you want me to slow down then just flash your lights, if you want me to stop then just honk the horn".

So slightly nervously in the case of the old man, they set off. At first the Porsche owner tootles along at 50 as promised. Then he is overtaken by another Porshe owner doing 70. The yuppy does not like this and catches up. The other driver doesn't like this and speeds to 90. The first driver retaliates and accelerates to 90 too. Pretty soon they are neck and neck roaring down the highway at 150 miles per hour.

They flash past an unmarked police car. The cop radios in to base: "You'll never guess what I saw, two brand new Porsches racing side by side at 150 miles per hour..." The dispatch interrupts "that's no surprise, we see that sort of thing all the time". "That wasn't the strange thing" says the cop "right on their tail was an old geezer in a battered old Ford Fiesta. He's flashing his lights, he's tooting his horn, but they still won't let him past!"

Can we fix it?

A bad workman always blames his tools.

I changed a tyre on my car today. Just started driving down the road, almost immediately noticed the telltale shudder and drift.

It would have been easy to call the AA to fix it, but it would also have been borderline dishonesty. I don't have their "home start" service. I could have crept an extra few yards to get far enough away to claim roadside assistance. I could have used a card based at a distant address. But I did not.

It was bloody hard work though: Taking all the junk out of the boot to remove the surprisingly heavy "space saver" wheel and jack. Reading four pages of car manual that was warning of apocalypse unless I removed all the skirting, checked the road was level, made the wheel perfectly straight and placed the jack to the correct millimetre. Marvelling at how such a tiny piece of steel could hold up a ton. Fighting with the wheel nuts that seemed to have been tightened by titans. Fighting even more to release the wheel from the hub, eventually resorting to smacking it around with a hammer - that was actually a bit dangerous when the whole car was supported by aforementioned tiny jack on a road that was anything but level.

Eventually managed it. The tyre was clearly beyond repair. So I stopped at Kwik-fit on the way to work for a new tyre. Hydraulic jacks and electric wrenches, job done in seconds.

The Voice of God Washes Whiter

The television is on, and I am watching television adverts. No, I have not lost the PVR, but it's the excellent BBC programme Washes Whiter about the advertising industry, and it is mixing work with pleasure to see something so entertaining.

Interesting that the voiceover was referred to within the advertising creative industry as "the voice of god", that disembodied prompt that triggered the wife to tell the world just how well her washing powder really worked. She often looked upwards to the camera before speaking.

But, apparently, this "voice of god" did not work when advertising men's products - a man needed a genuine source of authority, someone like James Bond, or Jimmy Hill. Men would not talk to a voice from the sky in the way that women would.

And of course, while watching these back and white stereotypes, the 21st century man just laughs at how outdated and sexist those advertisements seem. That evil "old white man elite" seeking to perpetuate its authority ...

... but there is a less discussed counterargument in there. Probably from the 1960s onwards, and certainly today, those who worked in creative advertising have actually been at the forefront of progressive values - but most attempts of their attempts to push the boundaries too far, to try to switch away from stereotypical roles, were met with either incomprehension or distaste by the mass market world, or at least by the focus groups which represented that world.

So yes conservatives, be afraid, the advertising industry really is out to keep changing society.

Squids etc

Remember that Friday is sometimes limerick day.

Well I was amused to see that a rather amusing rather obscure little note by Jeff Vrabel caused a bit of a stir in the strange world of the squid loving community. I'm not part of that community, it's a day late anyway - but here's a little filler in praise of cuttlefish and in derision of IDiots.

There was a fellow called Vrabel who
On evolution had an unstable view.
This may surprise
But octopus eyes
Can see better than we are able to.

Our optic nerves give us a blind spot
But cephalopods have somehow got
The layout reversed.
So humans are cursed
With defects that cuttles have not.

House Values

A little personal diversion. Following the publication of this picture a few days ago, have received a couple of offline comments ...
Complementary: that looks really great for a "back yard", not what I'd expect in London
Accusatory: that's just hypocritical, you with your detached house talking about "natural" rights for everyone.

Now if we did have a really expensive house, that would be nothing to be proud of. That would just be an ostentatious display of wealth. Impossible. But what I am somewhat proud of is that the house was not expensive. Barely the average price nationwide, let alone the average price in London.

Because we prioritise peace and quiet at home, we consciously chose something without attached neighbours in a road without traffic. But you never get something for nothing, so other things are compromised. The neigbourhood is hardly trendy, there are no fancy bars or clubs anywhere near. The house itself is correspondingly unfashionable, neither refurbished victorian nor stylish modern, just the cheap red bricks common in the 1970s. Inside it's equally basic. But it is also quiet, homely and convenient.

It is just a question of values and priorities.

How To Be Happy

The question is a bit of a hot topic. There have been recent books and TV series examining the question, and there has been a recent flurry of posts in the webworld.

Obviously I don't have the answer, but the question gets to the root of economics. The Freakonomics team, the Undercover Economist and Marginal Revolution have all considered the issue recently.

The traditional profit/utility maximising models are only useful up to a point, beyond that they are garbage, because many people are generally "satisfied" at a given level of a specific variable. A recent article in Spiked magazine dissed a couple of serious attempts to answer the question, both the "enoughism" of John Naish and the academic analysis of Oliver James were rejected as anti-consumer defeatism, though I think each has its merits.

The British Psychology Society offers plenty of theories, but I think the true answer is probably to be found in the relationship of mood-influencing chemicals to neural networks. Yes, you don't need to be a brain scientist to be happy, but you need to be a brain scientist to understand happiness.

But what a marketer might say is that a good brand can make you happy.

Alan Sugar Gregory House

There are big issues in the real world, not everybody can afford the property that they would like, not everybody can afford the food that they would like, but let's retreat briefly to the unreal world of television. There are not many shows that I watch, at the moment only two with any regularity - I've mentioned both before, but have just realised that they are basically the same.

House Series Four. Apprentice Series Three. A gruff autocratic leader, maverick methods, terse gravelly put-downs, needs a shave. Character is defined as cold and rational and ruthless, only the results count. Has undoubted ability, a worldwide reputation, but only two confidants who really trust him, one man and one woman. A dozen candidates on an extended on-the-job interview. Evaluation tasks seem fairly random and unrelated to the desired criteria. Apparently decent candidates seem to lose out due to no fault of their own. Petty personal squabbles in the team seem a source of amusement. Attitude: the world is tough, there is no other, deal with it.

But one key difference. House is usually right.

The Job Interview

I have been sitting and conducting interviews for many years, and it is currently a subject of great relevance. And in the Times at the weekend was an article about the job interview, and to its enormous credit, it did not mention the Apprentice even once. What it did say was this:

Looking around, I don't think I'm alone in doubting the effectiveness of the traditional job interview. The business world wouldn't be so keen to adopt new evaluation techniques such as psychometric testing if it were satisfied. And recruiters wouldn't be forever coming up with gimmicky ways of trying to improve interviews.

So it then documents some of these new techniques:

• Talk about the weather. If they whine about it then they will whine about work and shouldn't be hired.
• Begin interrogations with the question: “if our roles were reversed what would you ask yourself?”
• Interview someone in a restaurant, and see how they deal with the waiters.

Then there are those who try to tackle the predictability of job interviews by asking unconventional questions. This approach owes something to the Oxbridge entrance system, where tutors seek to bamboozle candidates with questions like: “why don't plants have brains?”

Actually that last question could be interesting for a research biologist, but I agree that a question that is "irrelevant" during an interview is likely to be irrelevant to the job too. And the Times article concludes:


Indeed, it seems there might be a good reason why the predictable and traditional job interview has survived so long: it is better than all the alternatives. [It] at least has the advantage that it requires candidates to (1) put effort into preparing answers in advance and (2) fake enthusiasm. And preparation and faking enthusiasm are the two basic skills anyone needs to succeed in business.

Broadly true. Though many managers would not like to believe it. But if I had three months to whittle twelve candidates down to one, I'd hope to find real knowledge and real enthusiasm.

What we want

Stories of the "credit crunch", potential recession and threatened collapse in house prices are everywhere at the moment. Almost everyone suffers some negative effects.

But some seem immune from this turmoil. From the Times yesterday: The luxury property market shrugs off the slowdown. Prime country houses are holding their value despite turmoil elsewhere.

They describe the perfect residence: “It must have complete peace, away from road or air noise, yet be accessible to a market town or motorway. It must be private, and so ideally come with land, and it must have protected views and some water, such as a lake or stream.”

Seems obvious, and seems uncontroversial. Most people would want that.

But that is why the people who think that only absolute wealth matters are wrong, completely wrong.

Those resources are limited. With high disparity in relative wealth, if some people will have them, then others will not. However many little gadgets people cram into their little homes, these basic "rights" of peace and quiet and seclusion (while still maintaining closeness to nature and historical social and transport links) will only be available to those with the most relative wealth.

It is why immigration matters. Congestion matters. Population matters.

April Cool Joke

I was due to play football this morning. The summer season starts in April. But I get up this morning, and the back yard looks this.

Exactly how much housework does a husband create?

That was the title of the scientific article, summarised from detailed time-diaries for a project at the University of Michigan, and the first paragraph answers:
It creates an extra seven hours a week of housework for women
But a wife saves men from about an hour of housework a week

Not true here. It's also worth seeing this earlier study from the same source, and only a few months old:
Married Men Really Do Do Less Housework Than Live-in Boyfriends

Yet the summary of data presented for the recent study actually seems to suggest a completely different conclusion. Larry Moran draws the same conclusion that I saw from the data:
The average married man does eight more hours of housework than the average single man.

So the original headline, like many others, was misleading. Actually other factors like age of responder and number of dependents are the relevant variables.

But eight more hours of housework per week? I don't keep a time diary, but I wonder if it applies to me?

Sex With Vegetables

There are some things that I like about Ken Livingstone. Of course there are some things that I dislike too, for example his reputed association with religious bigots and his general support for incongruous skyscrapers.

But despite many practical difficulties with the implementations and pricing of his policies, his general attitudes to transport, housing and personal liberty have much to commend them.

However he has now crossed the line. While defending his decision to refuse to discuss his three children from earlier relationships, and making sure that the BBC beat the Mail to the exclusive story, he said that you should be free to do whatever you want in your private life "as long as you don't involve children, animals or vegetables"

Vegetables? So it is ok to abuse tomatoes then?

Ironic Moronic Cricket

The cricketing coincidences continue, and this time they were so obvious that even real journals pick up on them.

In England's last capitulation, I commented on the fact that the one-day game used to be 55 overs per side, New Zealand declared their test innings after exactly 55 overs, and England folded after exactly 55 overs.

But today my mother country has performed even worse than that. The Indian players recently signed up for a lucrative 20:20 competition, though that doesn't start till next month. Today they started a supposedly five day test match. And in two hours this morning, after choosing to bat, India were bowled out in exactly 20 overs. All out for 76. Just coincidence? Just embarrassing.

Immigration

In countless economics journals over the years, and from the BBC today:

Something approaching conventional wisdom has suggested that immigration brings net benefits to the economy.

Various pieces of research have tended to back up this thinking, but the Lords Committee robustly takes issue with that.

And despite being an immigrant myself, I take issue too. Because however much I would like certain things to be true, I know that some variables make more sense than others.

So I think The House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs has finally pointed out that this particular emperor is not wearing any clothes:

The use of GDP as the measure of immigration's economic contribution was "irrelevant and misleading".

Instead, GDP per capita - or income per head of the population - would be a better measure.

That seems blatantly obvious to me. Of course overall gross domestic product is likely to rise if the population increases, but what surely matters is the welfare of the people, not the number of people.

Revelation

After careful consideration, particularly of the many wicked transgressions in my youth (really), I have come to the conclusion that I should accept Jesus as my Saviour. Lord have mercy on me for my earlier sins, forgive me for my trespasses, or at least allow me the chance to repent for them. One day perhaps you too will find the one true path to salvation. Love to all. R.