Anthropology, Woking-style

I happened to be wandering through Woking town centre when I came across a group of welfare heffers grazing peacefully at a food court. No men were visible. There were a number of infants strapped into various kinds of pushchairs distributed through the herd, and a number of hatchet-faced crones (who I took to be mothers and grandmothers of herd members) circling the group. I was shocked at my own revulsion, but it was nevertheless real. I'm decidedly overweight, but couldn't help but reflect that many of these girls -- still teenagers -- were absolutely huge.

How does this happen? Eleven years of compulsory edukashun has left most of them pretty thick, for sure, but they must be at least vaguely aware of the connection between food and obesity (even if they don't seem aware of the connection between sex and pregnancy). I wonder if the Green Party should make more of an effort to target this group: they are consuming far more than their share of the world's resources and they are causing problems for the overcrowded world of the future by continually having children that they rely on the rest of the world to support.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Titled

It's competition time (just for fun, don't phone in). One of these is a real person and the other is made up.

Poo Bah, First Lord of the Treasury, Lord Chief Justice, Commander-in-Chief, Lord High Admiral, Master of the Buckhounds, Groom of the Back Stairs, Archbishop of Titipu, Lord Mayor, both acting and elect, and Lord High Everything Else.

Lord Mandelson of Hartlepool and Foy, First Secretary of State, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, President of the Board of Trade and Lord President of the Council and Church Commissioner.

Difficult isn't it? Especially when I tell you that one of them is planning sacrifice economic growth to a few content oligarchs via a draconian and expensive scheme that will never actually work.

Well, as was covered on the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning, Poo Bah is a made-up character from Gilbert & Sullivan's comic opera The Mikado, whereas Lord Mandelson is, sadly, real.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

The doormen of perception

In a sane society, you don't have the right to show "fire" in a crowded theatre and nor do you have the right to force (for example) airlines to respect your view that the world is flat. Developed countries live with a post-renaissance notion of scientific progress that rests on evidence and argument, not emotion and belief. However, here in Gordon Brown's Looking Glass Britain (the Land of Perverse Incentives), the institutionalising of stupidity of all forms has substituted for more traditional notions of progress.

A police worker who was sacked because he believed psychics can help solve criminal investigations is to go to court today to defend his right to legal protection from religious discrimination.

[From Man sacked for belief in psychics backed by judge (but, of course, he knew that would happen) - Home News, UK - The Independent]

You can see his thinking -- even without extra-sensory powers -- with absolute clarity. Nowhere does the inviolable law of unintended consequences exert such vengance as in the strange world of equality legislation, where hard cases make very bad law indeed. It's difficult to fault his logic, though: since you're not allowed to sack me for stupidity, because stupidity is my religion, I deserve recompense. It's only a matter of time before a burglar is able to demonstrate that his attraction to your property is a sacrament and therefore obtain similar legal protection.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Age and beauty

I was listening to the radio the other day, and the government's age commissar Joan Bakewell was making some point about impending legislation to end age discrimination. At first, I thought this might be a good idea, as I could use a free bus pass and I've often been tempted to order the pensioners' half-price lunchtime special at the fish and chip shop round the corner. I shall do this, and when they say no, I'll sue the for the mental distress they cause me because of their blatant age discrimination. That goodness for the new approach.

You should check that your recruitment process is non-discriminatory, eg aim to place advertisements in publications read by a range of age groups, and avoid using terms which imply a particular age group, such as 'mature', 'enthusiastic', 'highly experienced' or 'recent graduate'. See our guide on employing older workers.

[From Age discrimination | Business Link]

Enthusiastic? Oh well, I'm sure businesses will get used to advertising for people who are disinterested, I must mention that to our HR people. But there's something else that started to bother me about the automatic assumption that getting older persons to stay at work is a good thing. Isn't it better for society if they move over to provide more jobs for young people? Unemployed young persons are quite likely to beat me to death in the street (this happens about once a week in the UK as far as I can see) whereas unemployed old people will go and join a bridge four (which is one of things I look forward to about being old, frankly).

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Healthty scepticism

I see things are going well over at the NHS Supercomputer (for £20 billion, it better be pretty bloody super) and having spent god knows what on new software for the NHS' million staff, virtually none of them are using it.

here are only 174 clinicians using Lorenzo patient software across the five early adopter trusts, according to Mike O'Brien, minister for the National Programme for IT (NPfIT).

[From Only 175 people using flagship NHS software, says minister - 30 Oct 2009 - Computing]

The acumen of those in charge continues to stagger.

the recently signed contracts with BT to deploy Cerner Millennium at hospitals in the south require BT to be paid even if the hospitals refuse the systems – a possibility if they think they will not work... Junior Treasury minister Sarah McCarthy-Fry defended The NPfIT in the debate.

[From Only 175 people using flagship NHS software, says minister - 30 Oct 2009 - Computing]

I have a memory of the head of Westminster council (was it the Tesco woman, Porter?) being prosecuted for wasting public money on stupid schemes for party political reasons, and that was only a few million. Shouldn't some of the NHS IT people be in jail by now?

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

The other tsunami

How do you get to be an MP? And where are all of the prostitutes? I started wondering about this because I read that

On Monday, Labour MP Fiona McTaggart asked Tessa Jowell, Minister for the Olympics whether she had commissioned any research on the effect of increased visitor numbers for the London 2012 Olympics on demand for the sex industry.

[From MPs prepare to beat off phantom Olympic hooker invasion • The Register]

I was wondering when this tidal wave of prostitutes would arrive. When I was last in Woking town centre after 10pm (last week) I did notice a number of very scantily glad young woman (all wearing mini skirts and shoulderless dresses despite a wind chill of -12) simultaneously shivering and smoking. But they were hardly of normal build, let alone size zero, and too badly-dressed to be Eastern European prostitutes. But then the name, and topic, rang a bell. I had a vague memory of reading a newspaper report that all of this stuff about sporting event-related tart tsunamis had been completely made up, and sure enough, it had been. When even The Guardian says that it's a "moral panic", you know they must be on shaky ground. In fact that august body came up with a rather nice phrase for ill-informed, evidence-free government lunatics egging each other on in order to waste public money:

The cacophony of voices has created the illusion of confirmation.

[From Prostitution and trafficking – the anatomy of a moral panic | UK news | The Guardian]

That's rather a good way to put it, and I will certainly use it again! But it led me to think: how do you get to be an MP? Surely, you'd think, you must have a certain amount of intelligence. Surely you would know when you are parroting made-up rubbish? So much for evidence-based policy.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Chip the lot of them

Isn't it typical of us British that we love our pets so much that we will hapily go along with a law to help us manage them better. If we've lost our dog, or it's been injured in accident, or whatever, then we want the vet to be able to contact us and get hold of their records. And, of course, we want to be able to track miscreants.

Owners will be forced to install the microchip containing a barcode that can store their pet's name, breed, age and health along with their own address and phone number.

[From All dogs to be microchipped with owner's details to 'help track pets' - Telegraph]

Surely it would make more sense to insist that these chips are installed in the feral children of the underclass that roam freely along our highways and byways. We could put detectors in all public places and then we could easily solve crimes like this. I doubt we would go so far as to actually punish the offenders, but at least we would know who they are.

This is important because one of the government's newest mental schemes is to set up public league tables of yobs. Their idiotic notion is that the underclass would somehow be shamed by having their names published.

Every yob handed an Asbo will be named and shamed online under radical plans outlined last night. All local councils will be told to publish names and photographs of louts.

[From People.co.uk - Asbo yobs shamed in web move]

They won't, of course, since in our new responsibility-free Britain they will only be interested in getting themselves to the top of the league. I bet they'll link their Facebook pages to the councils' online hall of shame, and firmly predict an immediate rise in anti-social behaviour once the system goes live.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]