No More Heroes

Aaah, Zizou!

2006-07-10T16:05:00.000+01:00

After that Final, I couldn't help posting on Rob Smyth's blog again...

Aaah, Zizou! Zizou! How could you do this to me? And after we rubbed shoulders, too, on that flight from Milan to Paris, back in the autumn of 1998, as you basked in the glow of what we now know was your greatest triumph! OK, you were taking an irritatingly long time putting your expensive leather jacket in the overhead locker in First Class, and I was pushing past to reach Economy, but I felt we were in some sense comrades, literally fellow-travellers…

But, after we overcome the shock of the image that will always be associated with Germany 2006, who will be judged the real villain of the piece? Whose behaviour and attitudes will be examined most forensically, whose future will be blighted the most by that one moment in Berlin? Materazzi – the Italian Cristiano Ronaldo – is the one who will ultimately hang his head in shame.

What an image, though! We can imagine how the anger erupted, flowing round the mental blocks that restrained it. You merely clenched your fists, but did not strike with them. And in that instant you wanted to smash that face. Again the censor inside your head did not permit the action. But the impulse could not be stopped entirely. What a catharsis that head-butt must have been. Until a moment later you realised what you had done…

Stop! What’s happening? The formal justice of this game, this sophisticated expression of our culture, has punished only Zidane. It may even – by referring to video evidence – have broken its own rules to do so. Yet Materazzi, like Ronaldo, will be condemned by a more natural, popular system of justice. There is a disconnect, a gaping chasm, between the procedures of the game and the form of policing its supposed owners, the fans, want to see. Shouldn’t the early shower welcome the provocateur, and not just his victim? It’s not as if, with the all-seeing eye of the camera, we have no means of detecting the crime.

I remember two incidents watching Southampton as a small boy in the 1970s. A few minutes before the end of the first game of one season, Mike Summerbee, playing for Manchester City, had had enough. He felled the notoriously robust Southampton defender Denis Hollywood with what I fondly remember as a superbly executed right uppercut. Hollywood was still on the turf receiving treatment when Summerbee finished his early bath. I remember the fans leaving the ground chuckling that Summerbee wasn’t yet ready to end his summer holiday. He wanted another week off, for that was the extent of the punishment he was likely to receive. No one condemned the City forward. The fans knew their Denis the Menace, and knew natural justice had been served.

On another occasion, Ron Davies, Southampton’s lilywhite Welsh international centre-forward, received his first ever booking. When he snapped he lashed out like a donkey at Chelsea’s Ron “Chopper” Harris. The referee knew Davies was reacting to an hour of physical abuse, and didn’t send him off. When “Chopper” eventually returned to the pitch (Chelsea had already used the one substitute they were permitted), his leg was bandaged so heavily it looked like it was in plaster. He was reduced to hobbling around in the centre-circle. How we laughed!

Yet how things have changed! Now, any retaliation, however ineffectual – think Beckham in 1998 – incurs draconian punishment. Although Materazzi’s bruised ribs, like Carvalho’s tackled tackle, have surely suffered no lasting damage, Zidane’s reputation is supposedly destroyed. Yet the behaviour that provokes retaliation, the sneaky fouls, the nipple-tweaking, the deeply wounding comments, all this simply goes unpunished! Does this reflect the values of the 21st century? Or is the policing of the game failing?

Let’s answer the question simply: the referee is the authority figure, the parent on the pitch. And he acts like a parent who is too easily deceived. What sort of children are raised by parents who punish only the child they see striking another? Continually ignoring any possible causes of retaliation, they raise self-centred sneaks and bullies. In other words, exactly what modern football is creating. A wise parent would look at the whole picture.

We love the drama, but those of us who love football more want to see a different spirit reflected in the game, and are losing patience with those who control the sport. The game no longer embodies the values of the common man. Instead, the policing of the game puts a desire to protect the authority of its administrators above popular demands for more objectivity. They try to screw down the lid ever tighter on the pressure-cooker inside the head of the Zidane, the Rooney, the Beckham. Yet they let the pressure rise ever higher, until, time after time, with all the certainty of the laws of physics, a valve inevitably gives way.

Elizondo

2006-07-07T00:22:00.000+01:00

Elizondo getting the WC Final is an insult.

This should positively be the last football post. But I feel the same as when I buy any other product and find I've been done.

Here's my post on the Guardian blog on what's wrong with the game:

The main problems with the game for me are the influence of the officials on the game and time-wasting.

I agree with many of the ideas here. Some are no brainers, in particular using video/technology for line calls and offsides, and reviewing punishments after the game. Much as I've admired Figo over the years, he should have had more than a yellow for the head-butt.

One thing I detest is players - usually defenders - shepherding the ball out of play, sometimes for 10 yards. If you prevent another player getting to the ball, it should be treated as if you've touched it.

Another no-brainer is to give us the 90 minutes we've paid for and stop the clock when the ball is out of play. The clock should be stopped if a player is shielding the ball (usually in the corner) so that an opponent can't get to it.

Because of the role of officials, players try to influence them far too much. It's absurd that this is allowed. Football is well behind other sports in this respect: rugby referees don't tolerate Ronaldo-esque behaviour.

Football also lags in the use of technology. Photographs have been used to separate race-horses for a century! Yet we can't even get offside decisions right. Spain-Ukraine could have been quite a different game: probably about 6-3, since Spain could have got as many as they wanted against that defence. Correct calls might have told the Spanish their offside trap was pants while there was still time to do something about it. There's absolutely no reason why video replays couldn't be used when a goal has been scored to check for offside or other infringement, as is done for tries in rugby. Having said this, though, they're apparently thinking about using Hawkeye technology (as used to judge LBWs in cricket) at Wimbledon to replace the current Cyclops line call machine which gives real-time decisions. Football will be two generations of technology behind! Even boxing has addressed some of its problems by having many judges "voting" on decisions in real-time. Football could even do something like that.

These things are unlikely to happen, though, with the present structure of the game. FIFA is far too dictatorial: we're now being told we can't have a FRIENDLY with Greece, because some Greek government minister has put FIFA's nose out of joint. And Blatter is telling us the World Cup will be in Brazil in 2014. Um, are we having a vote? FIFA should just run the World Cup (and women's, U-20, U-17 etc.) - and be a bit more transparent (how are referees selected, for example? Elizondo getting the WC Final has annoyed me again, just as I thought I'd got over Sunday) - and keep its nose out of other competitions. This might also allow a bit more experimentation in national leagues etc. FIFA could then see what changes might work best for the World Cup.

Far too much that FIFA does is to preserve its own authority and the myth that the man in black can stand in the middle of the pitch and get every decision right.

There also needs to be a complete rethink of what behaviours want to be eliminated and the best way to do that. For example, professional fouls have to be picked up and punished at the time, so that a team can't gain an advantage, but violent conduct should be punished with a lengthy ban through looking at video evidence in the cold light of day - the Bowyer-Dyer fight ultimately ended up in court. And (back to the Rooney incident) you can't assume guilt. Players should only be red-carded if they're totally out of control.

Have a look at the vision on FIFA's site if you want to see what's wrong with the game.

Rooney speaks!!

2006-07-04T10:10:00.000+01:00

As reported here and here... The boy himself has backed up my narrative. Perhaps we could now give him some support. My friends at BBC News 24 say we can watch the video evidence and make our own minds up. Seems to me they're implying he's lying. What is this, class prejudice? "Paul Doyle" - another Guardian blogger, or maybe the same one as Rob Smyth, perhaps they should use "M Yass" (reference is to "Enron: the Smartest Guys in the Room") - even describes him as "brutish". Looks like a boy who wants to play football to me. And one who, unlike Maradona, for example, has (so far) resisted the dark side of the force and not started falling over at the slightest touch all the time.

Well, Mr News 24, you look at the video and get some biomechanical experts in and see where Rooney has to put his foot to keep his balance and go after the ball. I've tried to mimic his position and weight distribution and he has to put his left foot back, behind the right. He can't push off his right foot without strain on that knee. He can't put it in front of him without crumpling further. No, he has to put his foot back and push off, straightening his body. And, remember, none of this was happening in slo-mo.

If McLaren wants to break from Sven (and he should), he should back Rooney too: come out and say refs need to give players the benefit of the doubt in these sorts of situations. There was no premeditated flying tackle to stop an attack or to injure someone, in fact no real motive at all. We're supposed to believe it was a "crime of passion" - retaliation, but to what, precisely? - when instead it seems Rooney had just won out in the tussle. His incentive was to get on with the game, or if the whistle had already gone (as it might have) to see which way the free-kick was going. How would the case stand up in a court of law?

And what's more FIFA have to take away the incentive for defenders to generate foul play all the time to prevent a dangerous attack: often they're the first to foul, but end up getting the decision as the tussling escalates, sometimes spectacularly so as in this case.

Come on Steve, show some leadership! Everyone else seems to be allowed a say, even Elizondo. Yeah, of course he wasn't influenced by the winker. If he doesn't believe Rooney, why should we believe his sel-serving account? Perhaps there he is thinking: "That's looks like it hurt, don't see that very often, must have been an accident". Then someone shouts: "Foul! Red card!" and he starts to think: "Really, could it have been deliberate?". Then he decides to get the red card out.

But of course the game shouldn't depend so much on the way refs interpret the laws. It'll destroy itself eventually. I'd pay to see Rooney (even if he takes my team apart), but I've stopped going to Premiership games for, to be fair, many reasons, but partly because what you end up remembering at the end of the day is the performance of the Man in Black.

Aaaaaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhhh!

2006-07-03T12:49:00.000+01:00

I don't believe it, to coin a phrase. Every time I think it can't get any worse, but it does. We can't say we weren't forewarned... Rooney's metatarsal, Owen's cruciate, disproportionate yellow cards to Terry, Robinson and Carragher - giving the likelihood of another Gazza moment, the distraction to a key player knowing he will miss the next game. In fact, deep down, we already felt we'd read the script. And then Saturday comes.

My earliest international football memory is the 1970 World Cup. Those who write that the excitement of 2006 has been greater are talking complete tosh. Back then the country was gripped by "football fever", of an intensity not repeated in the daft competition of 1982, the worst World Cup ever, the cheat of 1986 ("Messi is the new Maradona", they say, as if we need another fat, drug-taking cheat), the tragedies of 1990 and 1998 nor the defeat by Ronaldhino in 2002. Moore, Charlton, the peerless Banks and the rest were destined to duel with Brazil like gods on the Elysian Fields. That's when it started. That sick feeling in the pit of the stomach.

Watching the old footage of Bank's save from Pele in 1970 - as kids we believed Banks had performed a back-somersault and thought Pele must possess some secret ability to hang in the air - it's hard to believe that that first match was as good as it's ever been. We lost 1-0, but no matter, there was the Final to come. But it never happened. Is that all I get?

The signs were there back then: Moore's arrest, the noise outside the team hotel before the Brazil game, the heat. We thought we could just shrug these factors off. We'd just play better football. Then came Bank's bad bottle of beer and Bonetti's nightmare, Ramsey's substitution to keep Charlton fresh...

Let's be perfectly clear, since then there's only been one clear-cut knock-out defeat in the Finals! And it was on the Elysian Fields against the Brazilians. And even then the afternoon heat was a factor. The 2002 Quarter-Final was really lost when we failed to win the group. Or maybe it was the tackle on Beckham (probably a straight red had it been in this World Cup) weeks before, or perhaps the Gerrard or Neville injuries.

And again, so close: if only we'd managed to get past Portugal and reach the cool evening games of the Semi and the Final!

And external factors and pure luck have - incredibly - played an even greater part. Those, like Terry Butcher, who claim we are just not good enough are too quick to condemn. Sure, if England had really turned it on, they might have won easily and the Rooney incident might never have happened. But let's remember: there are two teams on the pitch! And you don't win these competitions by peaking in the early stages: ask Argentina and Spain. The fact that England didn't play like Chelsea at their best against Sunderland on a bad day doesn't mean they deserved to lose. There are only prizes for winning games, not for extravagant football. If England had won on Saturday, we'd still be expecting to win this thing. And imagine what the mood there would have been in the country this week! That's what makes me feel sick about it. We have too little to celebrate in this country. Even the sun that shone as we won the right to host the 2012 Olympics was lost to a dark cloud four screwed up little f***ers thought they had a right to conjure up.

Back to Saturday. Let's look at the facts. Why didn't we win?

Martin O'Neill (BBC punditry) is right: England would have won had Rooney stayed on the field. And he was the victim of one of the worst pieces of refereeing in this or any other World Cup. The "experts" (the BBC panel) have been far too quick to rework the old narrative. Rob Smyth (who he?) is even conscious that he is looking at the present through the past: "Rooney has been giving an increasingly disquieting homage to the 1991 Paul Gascoigne". Smyth is privy to some special knowledge. He is certain that Rooney "stamped on Ricardo Carvalho deliberately and recklessly". He asks what Ronaldo supposed to do? Let the referee make a decision, that's what. Until we get away from the myth of an omniscient man in black we won't have anything like objectivity, but let's at least try. Any unsolicited approach to the referee should be carded immediately.

If the curse of 1966 is to be dispelled we have to look at what's happening with new eyes. What really happened? Rooney's view would be useful, but let's have a look at the video evidence.

[I've just heard on the radio that Frings has a one-match ban for fighting - don't want a German to miss the final do we? - Rooney is facing at least two + the punishment he's already had!].

Lamps plays the ball accurately onto Rooney's chest. He has to hold it up. Gerrard is running on. It's already clear that moments like this can win the game. Just as against Ecuador, Rooney has conserved his energy in the first half and is starting to try to seal the game. The situation is not without danger for the Portuguese (I happened to record Match of the Day so I have been able to review this). If Rooney emerges with the ball, Carvalho is out of position, Petit is also behind the play and the defence are exposed to a break by Gerrard and Rooney, two of the most dangerous players in world football. And the speedy Lennon is to Rooney's right as well.

That's why, as Rooney received the ball, Carvalho goes through the back of him. Had Rooney collapsed like he'd been shot - the Portuguese way - a yellow card would have been likely from an unbiassed referee. But our man Elizondo doesn't whistle or wave play on. No foul. Complete incompetence. Or...?

But Rooney just wants to play football. As he foxes Petit (who starts appealing for no apparent reason) and tussles with Carvalho - both are fouling at one point: Carvalho, blatantly, has our boy's shirt and Rooney is pushing Carvalho away, grabbing his shorts and thigh - the stakes are high. The Portuguese would be quite happy to give away a free-kick (itself symptomatic of the sport's problems). Carvalho goes to ground behind Rooney, and instead of rolling away or getting up he carries on (likely illegally) attempting to tackle and/or bring our man down. Back in the 1970s or 1980s, I recollect, players going to ground became a problem and the refereeing initiative at one World Cup was to try to outlaw the behaviour altogether. I guess we've forgotten. Carvalho had no business being where he was. Rooney couldn't see what was going on behind him. No wonder there was an accident.

Eventually the referee blows. As he does, Rooney appears to stand on Carvalho's privates. The Portuguese is apparently in agony. Rooney raises his arm: "Sorry, mate!". If this had been a Sunday league game, Carvalho would accept the apology, the rest of us would be a bit concerned or have a laugh and get on with the game. We'd remember it, and there'd be retribution if one player stepped on too many others. But this competition doesn't even have the ethics of pub team rivalry. Portuguese players protest and demand punishment. The referee can't think straight, maybe he even gives in to his own preconceptions of English players. We know what happened next.

The key moment of England's World Cup. Hundreds of millions of pounds spent, tens of millions of hours dedicated to the event just that afternoon, many billions more over the previous weeks and months. And for this?

Elizondo, an Argentinian known not to give England celebrity footballers the benefit of the doubt (remember David Beckham in the World Club Championship) is, according to Sven, "100% sure it was a red card". This is absurd. Only Rooney knows whether there was intent, and if there wasn't it was an accident. This is the same game, remember, where Nuno Valente pushed over Beckham - another potential match-winner - and then trod on the back of his ankle. Achilles injury: 6 weeks out. And just as likely to have been accidental as Carvalho's squashed testicles.

We have the benefit of albeit piss-poor German TV pictures, from just one angle, except for one close up sequence shown on BBC. Look closely at what Rooney is trying to do at the crucial moment. His weight is all on his right leg, he's nearly bent double, and the ball is loose. He needs to stay on his feet and go after it. You try it: you want to straighten up and start running. So Rooney puts his left foot back to push off. Does he have eyes in the back of his head? No. his eyes are on the ball and it's unclear whether he knows exactly where Carvalho is, much less what bit of him is where. Is he starting to think where this ball is going? Yes. Should Carvalho be where he is? No. So Rooney's foot attempt to find somewhere to put his foot encounters the inside of Carvalho's knee and slides up to his groin area. Ouch! This, my friends, was an accident. If anything, Carvalho was reckless. Any free kick should have gone to England.

FIFA will no doubt ban the boy Rooney for several games: they need to try to preserve the myth that some godlike man in black, can judge in an instant, under enormous pressure, with partisan suggestions interrupting his confused thoughts - can judge not just who did what, but why as well.

Let's look at it another way. Had the red mist descended? No. Rooney was just trying to play football. Why be annoyed with Ronaldo? This was the reaction of someone thinking: I didn't do anything and these guys, including my supposed "friend", are trying to get me sent off. And if anyone out there's uncertain, the shove on Ronaldo was not a sending-off offence (according to Eriksson, the referee said the punishment was for stamping). It was ignored by the ref: it wasn't even the worst shove that happened in that melee. The fact that some sources (Google them yourself) think Rooney was sent off for the shove, suggests real doubt rather than the referee's "100%" certainty about the original "offence". And we have the benefit of replays. As Lawro said on the Beeb: "The only thing he can be sent off for is a stamp" (recollected, may not be verbatim). If Rooney had really stamped on Carvalho, he would have been angry already. He'd then be wondering what he'd done, and trying to limit the damage, not shoving someone. He reacted with disbelief rather than acceptance when the card was brandished. This was just a boy trying to play football. And the game is the worse every time a player is punished for doing that and another rewarded for trying to win the game another way.

And let's try looking at it another way. If Rooney HAD stamped on the Carvalho cojones, it would be indefensible. Yet Gerrard and Lampard are defending him strongly. With the wisdom of crowds, the jury of the British public is not reacting as they did to Beckham in 1998 (because he WAS stupid, immature and petulant, though, like Alan Hansen, I still think his sending off was "harsh"). They're not convinced this time, whatever Rob Smyth might say. Instead, Ronaldo is the focus of our anger and bitter disappointment. A wink shows he has chosen the wrong father figure and that Scolari is the real villain of the piece. It's hard to believe getting Rooney off the pitch was not part of the Portuguese game-plan (those who still don't believe how good he is should go and see him play live and watch no-one else). But the stupid boy Ronaldo has not only counted his Real Madrid chickens, he's slaughtered and eaten them as well, and then pulled the wishbone with that nauseating pre-penalty kiss of the ball. The best thing Ferguson could do for football is loan him to Preston instead. Then we'd see what his fellow professionals think of him.

I accept the Carvalho castration incident looked bad, and Rooney hasn't made a statement himself yet, so I may be forced to eat my words, but for me more acid has been thrown in the face of the "beautiful game". Sepp Blatter, I think it was, said that, in this World Cup, the skilful players would be allowed to play. He has no idea how to make this happen. The game will carry on plummeting downhill until FIFA ditches its antiquated system of controlling games with its random (or worse) and disproportionate enforcement of the rules, starts punishing cheating, provocation and deception consistently and stops pretending retaliation and reckless tackling are its most serious problems. Maybe they'll suddenly wake up and find we've all discovered something better to do with our time, money and emotional energy. If they don't look out, there could be something akin to a revolution. The moment of greatest domination of the empire of football - at least as presided over by the FIFA dynasty - could be its moment of greatest weakness.

PS There's sanity out there (and also some useful footage) if you look for it...

In praise of... basic numeracy, oh, and solar power

2006-06-08T15:15:00.000+01:00

We will surely never solve the problem of global warming until basic numeracy is required for in the recruits to the organisations that claim to represent our views. How can you have a view without a feel for the numbers?

The Guardian's recent article "Desert cities are living on borrowed time, UN warns" recently committed the cardinal sin of saying "square miles" (that is, x square miles) rather than "miles square" (that is, x2 [squared] square miles). Doh! My old maths teacher would have given them a 5 minute lecture about what the consequences would have been had he made such a mistake during the war... and then belted them round the head. At least the Graunida has now added the correction to the original article on its website.

Obviously the good old Beeb did not want to be outdone. In a direct quote(!!) [though one that is never terminated] in their report on the start of work on a solar power array being built in Portugal they claimed: "It will save 30 tonnes of CO2 emissions...". Over an area of 60 hectares this would be less than 0.5 tonnes/hectare, far less than planting trees. Double doh! This is where basic numeracy comes in. How can you report on this sort of stuff without some kind of a feel for the figures?

Thanks to the Google brothers we can find the same story reported by dozens of news organisations from Business Week to the local press in Nova Scotia to China and India (which unfortunately gives a larger site). If I were a (modern, online) news organisation I'd have thought the low switching cost of the broadband user would put a high premium on preserving a reputation for accuracy, but seemingly not.

Incidentally, the figure of emissions saved is 30,000 tonnes (or maybe tons of a British Imperial or American variety, media "opinion" is divided - what does a 10% difference matter?) of CO2 PER YEAR, which NONE of my sample of media outlets managed to copy from the Press Release. A report from GE did manage to clarify this point. And what's more it added the crucial proviso "compared with equivalent fossil fuel generation", because if the coal, oil or gas doesn't stay in the groundyou haven't saved anything, a point, dear reader, that we may return to at a later date.

When we start to think about renewable energy, a crucial point is the amount of land required. This often seems to be forgotten. I mean, it's only a resource we have been fighting over for millennia. At 30,000/60 = 500 ton[ne]s CO2 emissions saved p.a., solar power seems pretty effective. Compare that to a range from negative values to 7 tonnes absolute tops for biofuels. Hmm...

Warning: the following is in note form. I may or may not get round to tidying it up.

A quick check:
Back to that Guardian article. 800 km * 800 km is 640 000km2 which is 64 million hectares. At 0.2 MW/hect (11 MW over 60 hectares) as implied by the Portugal plant, the Sahara box gives a total generating capacity of approx. 13 million MW, that is 13 tera (10 exp 12) Watts.

Over a year this is 13 * 365 * 24 = approx. 110 * 10 exp 15 [peta] Watt hours. But the Sun doesn't shine all the time, so let's give it 20% efficiency, so we have approx. 20 * 10 exp 15 Watt hours.

This compares with current world energy consumption of approx. 400 "quadrillion" [that is, peta] BTUs. i.e approx. 400 * 0.3 (1 BTU = approx 0.3 Watt hours) * 10 exp 15 = 130 * 10 exp 15 [aka peta] Wh.

Another check: Philip's World Atlas (p.38) gives a figure of 9,124.8 million tonnes oil equivalent for 2001 world energy consumption. According to no less an authority than BP 1 tonne of oil equivalent is 40 million BTU, so 2001 world energy consumption was (rounding) approx. 9 * 10 exp 9 * 40 * 10 exp 6 BTU, i.e. 9 * 40 = 360 * 10 exp 15 ["quadrillion" or peta] BTU, not too far off the figure above.

So it seems that when the Gruniaad claims this area could generate "enough electricity for the whole world", perhaps they mean all the electricity we're generating now, NOT all the power we require. This would require an area 6.5 times bigger by my rough calculation, that is 6.5 * 640,000 km2 = getting on for 4 million square kilometres. Still less than half the area of the Sahara. Unless of course the 11MW ouput is the average and not the peak. Be nice if someone told us.

This is just under 1% of the area of the world (land and sea), which seems a bit high compared to Wikipedia's quote: "Solar cells can convert around 15% of the energy of incident sunlight to electrical energy. If built out as solar collectors, 1% of the land today used for crops and pasture could supply the world's total energy consumption."

Odd. Solar influx at top of atmosphere is (on average) 240 Watts/m2 = 2.4 MW/hectare day and night. At 0.2 MW/hectare this plant is reasonably efficient, though nowhere near 15% (assuming Portugal gets an average amount of sunlight).

Meyer's unfeasible cojones claim

2006-01-13T15:27:00.000Z

Attentive readers will recollect my doubts about Sir Christopher Meyer's claim that in 2002 he was "...the only member of the waiting British team who understood this [cojones] meant balls." (extracts from his book are no longer on the Guradina site - I wonder whether perhaps this is for commercial reasons not entirely unconnected with Meyer's trousers - so I'm afraid some of the links in my previous blog entries are broken: this introductory piece mentions the incident, though).

Now, I don't know whether any of you saw the film Primary Colours, shown I think on Sunday evening. I managed to watch 10 minutes or so, before I could stomach John Travolta's Clinton impression no longer (the handshake parody was particularly vomit-inducing). I was also unsure whether I'd seen it before or not: from similar past experiences, this probably means I had, but found it totally unmemorable. The point, though, is that just before I switched off on Sunday, "cojones" were mentioned several times...

Primary Colours was released in 1998. I think we can reasonably suppose it has since been watched avidly by those moving in political circles: Clinton himself loved it, apparently. It therefore seems likely to me that many members of the British team are likely to have heard Travolta discussing "cojones". So is it really likely that Meyer was the only one who knew what the word meant? And, if he put this assertion in simply for effect, what else did he distort in his book?

Incidentally, reading my same blog entry (someone's got to) again, I notice the last paragraph where I spout on about the delectable Peter Oborne's seemingly unsubstantiated dissing of our esteemed PM, based on his no doubt uniquely insightful reading of Meyer's memoirs. You'll remember that Oborne made the astonishing claim that: "Our Prime Minister would go into a meeting with the President armed by his advisers with a list of concessions that needed to be won and never even raise one of them." I am yet to work out where in Meyer's memoirs he read this...

I now recollect my eye being caught recently by a book gathering dust on the Right-wing Propaganda shelf in my local store. Could the same Peter Oborne possibly be the proud author of The Rise of Political Lying? As I have no intention of buying it, even reduced by Amazon to £6.39, thanks to one of Amazon's reviewers, Simon Cawkwell from London (that's London in London, United Kingdom, in case you're confused), for letting us know that it's about consistent deception of the British electorate on a deliberate basis. Hmm.

Keeping the lights on

2005-11-30T18:24:00.000Z

George Monbiot’s latest column (originally published in the Guardian) analysing UK electricity demand and supply raises a number of issues.

George modestly says he is not qualified to carry out this analysis. I’m not any more qualified, but I suggest it is only the facts that require expert input, not the analysis itself, a large part of which is simply a matter of addition.

I’ve spent some considerable time since buying yesterday’s Guardian poring over the numbers and I feel I have to gently chide George for his presentation being even more confusing than necessary.

I suggest that a clearer approach would be to consider first the total amount of power that the UK can generate by renewable means.

Then let’s consider what would need to be done to ensure that peak requirements can be met. This should include what measures can be taken to reduce the peak consumption.

Finally we should think about what spare capacity is necessary.

1. Power generation capacity
According to the DTI the UK currently uses about 400,000 GWh of electricity a year. I do not share George’s optimism that this can be significantly reduced. Currently it is increasing. We should also not consider electricity generation in isolation. In particular, solutions to reduce CO2 emissions from the transport sector are likely to require increased electricity generation, either to power public transport or to power cars directly or indirectly (if electricity is used to produce hydrogen, for example). I suggest that we assume instead that we can maintain this demand at a constant level.

From the figures in the article the UK could generate power as follows:
· 100,000 GWh from offshore wind;
· 58,000 GWh from onshore wind;
· 53,000 GWh from wave power;
· 36,000 GWh from tidal stream machines;
· 24,000 GWh from tidal lagoons;
· an unknown amount from sunlight;
· 17,000 GWh from willow plantations;
· 6,000 GWh from hydro power;
· 5,000 GWh from landfill gas.

That is, a total of 299,000 GWh + solar. Not too bad at all.

I’d like to make a few points, though:
· I don’t buy into any of the supposed limitations on expanding offshore wind power electricity generation beyond 100,000 GWh per year. GM notes that “shallow water with a firm seabed” is required. Surely this is just an engineering problem – why can’t they be built on floating platforms, for example? We seem to be able to overcome similar problems to extract oil from the most hospitable environments. I suggest that with sufficient market demand this problem will be solved. The need to stay out of the paths of migrating birds is debatable and of military exercises just lame. Furthermore, on the internet I find a report Sea Wind East report by AEA for Greenpeace. This stated (in 2002) that by 2020 84,000 GWh of offshore windpower could be produced from the resources of East Anglia alone! Elsewhere on the Web I find the UK’s accessible wind resource estimated at 340 TWh, i.e. 340,000 GWh pa. Can anyone comment on the true potential for wind power generation in the UK?
· the production of 17,000 GWh pa by 2030 from willow plantations is just not going to happen. Apart from being ecological barbarism, I calculate that this will require a minimum of 400,000 hectares of suitable land. This is presumably in addition to the 1.25 million hectares required to meet the UK’s Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (see GM’s article “Fuel for nought”, Guardian 23/11/04, also available online on his site as “Feeding Cars not People”). I suspect some double-counting as DEFRA statistics suggest there are only 680,000 hectares of set-aside land in the UK. The 5.7 million hectares mentioned in “Fuel for nought”, refers to the total arable land in the UK, all of which (it seems) is being used to grow crops or has been rotated to pasture (or is fallow). We need to eat. Furthermore, the willow will require fertilization, herbicides and (inevitable in a monoculture) pesticides. It also requires huge amounts of water. Quite apart from all this, in the limited time I have had available, my internet surfing suggests that those countries, such as Canada and Sweden, where willow is currently being used for power are at least 10 years ahead of the UK in trialling specific varieties, but still at a scale of 1,000s rather than 100,000s of hectares. In most cases the production of willow seems to be a by-product of using the crop to get rid of polluted water. Besides all this, isn't there a good chance the climate will change significantly during the 25 year lifetime of the crop, shortening its useful life and undermining the viability of the investment? Indeed, if this were a financial investment, my advice would be “avoid”.
· we need to understand the potential of local electricity generation using solar power and wind turbines. Can anyone comment on this? [It is a non sequitur in GM's article that electricity from sunlight should not be counted because ... "it isn't produced when we need it most" as he goes on a couple of paragraphs later to assume the development of energy storage facilities].

OK, so we’re 101,000 GWh short, (or 118,000 if we forget the willows).

2. Peak capacity
Apart from the absolute amount of power we can generate, we also have the problem of meeting peak demand, as GM stresses in his article. It seems to me that this problem is not totally insoluble.

First, the article is mistaken when it says: “The need for spare capacity could be greatly reduced if we managed demand rather than supply…”. In fact it’s the peak that would be reduced. (The need for spare capacity will instead depend on the technologies used.). Matching of demand to supply must clearly be investigated. For example, according to DTI figures, the biggest single industrial user is the chemical industry, at 23,000 GWh per annum. How much of this could be moved to times when sufficient power is available? Remember, the supply of wind-power is predictable in advance.

Second, it should be noted, as Graham Sinden of Oxford University points out, that the profile of wind energy production matches demand reasonably well: it peaks in winter and during the day, for example.

Third, we already manage peak demand in two ways: we use pumped storage facilities and we import power. According to DTI figures, pumped storage is 75% efficient, so George is being pessimistic when he assumes 50% efficiency for storage. Could such facilities be expanded? Even if expensive, wouldn’t this be more desirable than building nuclear power stations?

Importing and exporting power seems an even more attractive method of smoothing out peaks and troughs in supply. Over a large enough area the wind will always be blowing somewhere. It seems an expansion of international power transmission infrastructure has not been sufficiently allowed for. The whole climate change debate is conducted as if it is a separate problem for each individual state. In fact, it’s a global problem and requires global solutions.

3. Spare capacity
As we’ve already seen, the need for spare capacity will depend on the technologies used. It seems to me that, because nuclear power generation is “lumpy” – with a few facilities each generating vast amounts of power- and the safety concerns so serious, a solution with a high proportion of nuclear power will require most spare capacity, to allow for power stations to be closed for maintenance for long periods. It may also be necessary to allow for unplanned maintenance. Conversely, wouldn’t the need for spare capacity be much reduced if we rely more on renewable energy?

Conclusions
I have no over-riding objection to nuclear power. After all, we’re already importing electricity produced using French nuclear power and a nuclear accident in France is likely to affect me in the south of England at least as much as one in Scotland. Like other forms of power it is risky, and these risks need to be taken account of in a full cost analysis. Such analyses seem to show that it is an expensive way to generate power and even if it did make us self-sufficient, this is a mistaken objective: we have to trade to survive anyway. I also understand there are not unlimited supplies of uranium ore. We need to factor into our calculations what happens to costs if there is worldwide construction of nuclear power stations over the next 20 years or so. The numbers suggest to me that before we make a decision we must get a better understanding of the potential for electricity generation by offshore wind power. An exercise should be carried out to consider what we would do if we couldn’t build any new nuclear power stations.

Even if we do opt to build more nuclear power stations, there are several steps which can be taken to reduce their number:
· extend real-time pricing mechanisms to better match demand to supply;
· invest in facilities to store power, for example further pumped storage facilities;
· invest further in international power transmission infrastructure.

I’d certainly like to see a clearer analysis before I concede that it’s necessary to build more nuclear power stations.

Finally, there’s really no reason why one of most densely populated places on the planet (the UK) should be self-sufficient in power. I’d hate to think that we’re building nuclear power stations because politicians find that an easier solution than building infrastructure to ensure that renewable forms of power can be fully exploited - and perhaps having to do deals with other European countries!

In praise of... logic

2005-11-22T18:36:00.000Z

A Guardian editorial (sorry, "Leader" - hmm, "take me to your Leader") today laments the drop in numbers of physics A-level students. Just in case we're confused it helpfully notes that physics: "...deals with the constituents of the universe on which other scientific disciplines such as chemistry and biology depend." That doesn't mean you have to study physics in order to study those subjects (or IT, engineering etc.) though, does it? As anyone who has read the laughable, sorry, acclaimed, "Critical Mass" by Philip Ball, will be well aware, physicists now consider themselves a race of superior beings simply by dint of having studied a particular subject. And the Leader goes on to support them: "There will continue to be a great need for physics graduates in industries ranging from computer games (which attract top brains because of their complexity) to nuclear power, if the government, as reported, adopts a new nuclear building programme to combat greenhouse gasses." Love it. And is that the "top brains" that are complex or the computer games? If it was August or the skiing season I'd assume the editor was away and an intern (to reluctantly adopt an Americanism) was writing the editorial, sorry "Leader".

SteelyGlint suggests that perhaps it would be preferable for students to study logic.

Consider Zoe Williams' column on the previous page, which begins: "Two things have happened in the world of the wonder web. First, it emerged that Nigeria's third-largest source of hard currency, after oil and cocoa, is revenue from internet scams. I don't believe it, not unless its oil reserves are paltry, or it's selling its cocoa dirt cheap." No, Zoe dear, if Nigeria's oil reserves were paltry or its cocoa dirt cheap then revenue from internet scams might well be Nigeria's second-largest source of hard currency. If both its reserves were paltry and its cocoa cheap then internet scams might be its largest source of hard currency. How did this get past the sub-editor?

For the record I read on, as I caught a mention of eBay, a subject which interests me. Zoe seems to conflate the issues, though. The internet auction business model, over which we have allowed eBay a virtual monopoly - obviously we want to pay another tax - relies fundamentally on trust between buyers and sellers. eBay enforces this through its feedback mechanism (this is the innovation), but also through the courts. And a good thing, too. Though obviously not a reason to ignore the ancient dictum caveat emptor ("let the buyer beware"), as I think Zoe is trying to say.

Slight digression there, as today's Guardian was a vintage edition, with perhaps the single most nonsensical letter I have ever seen. Don't bother with the link: it's worth quoting in full:
"Going cold over taxation reforms
It is regrettable that Charles Kennedy has not yet seen the light on the 50p tax rate (Kennedy plans policy shift on taxation to woo floating voters, November 19). Aside from the usual arguments about taxing aspiration there is the point that those earning £100, 000 or more are those most able to influence their own remuneration. On the day after this policy is implemented they will have been hit by a tax rise of up to £1,000 for every £10,000 over £100,000 they own. They will demand or execute wage rises that compensate them for the tax rise. Those rises will be extremely disproportionate because for every additional £1 rise, there will be 50p going to the government. So far from contributing to social justice, the 50p rate makes inequality even worse.
Andy Mayer
London"
Hard to know where to start. Andy Mayer should be reassured, though, that in his fantasy world inequality would not be made "even worse", because , oh stuff it... the letter's drivel.

Kennedy has not yet ditched the idea of a redistributive tax, but has said he wants to be on the tax middle ground. Sigh! None of them, Tory, Labour or Lib Dem make any sense. I don't wake up on Monday morning and say to myself: "I think I'll have a middle-spending week". No, I buy this and that, have a couple of meals out and as a result I spend less, more, or about the same as average. Or, if I see I'm going to spend more money than I want to, then perhaps I'll stay in one evening. It's nonsense, this "we'll tax less than you" politics. OK, often one party (when in Opposition, of course) will say they'll spend the money "more efficiently". I think we all know that's tosh. Attempting to maintain the same level of provision whilst imposing spending cuts simply means deferring expenditure (rail, tube and building maintenance can always be pushed into the next 4 year term) or reducing the quality of services (2 year waiting lists, anyone?). So, Charles, what are you going to spend less on?

"90 days", 12 days on revisited: aye, there's the rub

2005-11-22T12:35:00.000Z

To quote Shakespeare!

In my previous post, I noted that Blair is playing a long game, but the media have a much shorter time horizon. The problem, of course, is, though, that we have what in science would be termed a "participant observation" problem; to put it another way, media predictions of Blair's demise could become self-fulfilling. Strictly, Blair just needs to keep the PLP (Parliamentary Labour Party) sufficiently onside to remain capable of running a government, able to win any vote of confidence by a sufficient majority, etc. But in the real world MPs are influenced by all manner of other interests, in particular by the media. They could be egged on to ditch Blair before his time is otherwise up. The danger to our democracy is that the short-termism of the media becomes the only show in town.

New Labour's strategy has been to accept the power of the media and try to control it. I suspect this won't be possible a second time. If we're ever to have a government that addresses the ever-growing inequalities in our society (and globally), at some point that government will need to tackle the in-built biases of our political system towards vested interests. The media, of course, are a key part of our political system.

Looking back over the last 25 years or so, it's interesting to see how little fundamental change Clinton and Blair - both political geniuses - have been able to achieve. What might be even more instructive would be to also look at the areas Thatcher and Reagan wanted to, but were unable to influence. For example, even they didn't reduce the size of the state as much as their rhetoric would have you believe they wanted to.

Meyer-faced cheek!

2005-11-22T11:06:00.000Z

Having been out of circulation for most of the weekend, I hadn't really caught up with the latest developments when I wrote my previous piece on the Meyer affair. I later read that Prezza and Ian MacShane have laid into Meyer. Scary! One point caught my eye. Meyer has apparently promised to donate the serialisation rights for DC Confidential to charity. Not his fees and royalties for the sale of the book itself. Of course, the serialisation will only promote sales of the book. Getting paid for the serialisation was just the icing on the cake. And, the real Meyer-faced cheek is that his wife is employed, according to MacShane, with a salary of £34K p.a. (for how much work, I wonder?) by one of the charities. Will the government we've just elected be able to get rid of this dishonourable "fop" (um, what does that word mean? - I see, "dandy" according to my Concise Oxford)? Anyway, I'd love to be proved wrong, but I doubt even the entire government acting with unprecedented unity of purpose would be able to shift him. We don't really want to be ruled by the people we've chosen, do we?

"90 days", 12 days on

2005-11-21T12:23:00.000Z

SteelyGlint is hugely enthused by an edited version of his piece on "the new commentariat" being quoted in the Guardian's "How the bloggers saw it..." column on Saturday (it seems this is only in the print edition). If he'd realised this particular rant was going to be so widely read he might have been more thoughtful. The fact that the mainstream media "get their facts wrong continually" is not, on reflection, a primary cause of the problem. Rather, it is a symptom of their short time horizon, which has many other effects.

This led me to reflect on the "90 day" vote, lost by the government less than 2 weeks ago. At the time we were treated to a new wave of speculation that Blair would soon hand over to Brown. Yawn! The dissonance between what the press was saying and what I was seeing with my own eyes (thanks to the BBC News 24 & Parliament channels) was painful. Blair looks to me like a man in control, as he should be with a renewed mandate. He's not the tired, haunted figure of 2003, during the run-up and early days of the Iraq war.

And let's look at the 90 day vote itself. Blair forced a vote on this issue, but what was his alternative? If he'd proposed 60 days, or 42, or anything more than 28 he may still have lost. Then how would the Government have looked? What did he gain by forcing the vote, though? I saw several comments in the BBC's "Have Your Say" forum from people swearing never to vote Conservative again. Blair may not have managed to split the Tories in the House, but he may have undermined some of their support in the country.

But I think Blair gained in other ways as well: most importantly he's been able to size up the rebel problem (as well as draw their fire: some will be reluctant to rebel again, wanting Brown, if not Blair, to trust them sometime in the future). I've seen something similar done effectively in business, when pushing a team to meet timescales. If you go for broke and fail, you take a short-term hit, but may also learn what you have to do to succeed. A weak Blair would never have been able to do this. What's more he's done it early, which is also important.

My comment on the BBC's "Have Your Say" [which incidentally they managed to lose before failing to respond to my query about the problem - never again] was to the effect that the "90 day" vote may have reflected parliamentary opinion, but only by accident! Many Labour MPs probably voted for 90 days against their better judgement, and almost certainly many Tories voted against it despite theirs. Hardly an advert for parliamentary democracy, as many claimed in the aftermath of the vote. Quite the opposite. The public, I suggest, will only have limited tolerance of Parliament becoming an exercise in defeating the government for the sake of it (by the opposition parties combining forces and allying with Labour rebels) rather than a forum for debate according to what the parties believe in (which is admittedly becoming ever more obscure). I suspect Blair senses this. The Tories obviously do not. I was staggered that they blew more capital by organising a vote on the licensing bill: not only contradicting their stance before the election but also leaving their likely new leader looking foolish (see here & here, for example). It should be put off until after the Christmas season: pathetic!

And Blair has bailed out his Home Secretary. Clarke made a pig's ear of this, but there hasn't been a murmur about his position. And now I think of it, he forced Brown into a public show of support.

No, the 90 day vote was a sign of Blair's strength, not his weakness. He knew he was playing a long game: the media were looking only a few days ahead.

Chancellor lands one on Meyer!

2005-11-21T10:27:00.000Z

Regular readers will remember that I previously had a bit of a go at Alexander Chancellor. I won't take back what I said then, but I have to note that Chancellor has made an Ernest Saunders' like recovery from whatever was ailing him then. OK, let's not overdo it, one swallow doesn't make a supper, but his piece in the Guardian this week was a rather amusing dig at Sir Christopher Meyer, in fact it was a Howe-like dead-sheep savaging!

Chancellor's was just one of at least 3 articles on Meyer in the Guardian on Saturday. Joel Rickett notes in a column on the publishing industry that: "Sir Christopher argues that civil servants should be able to fight back against claims in books from former ministers and advisers - Mo Mowlam, Clare Short, Robin Cook, Lance Price." This is disingenuous nonsense. It is politicians the public can hold to account, politicians they are interested in. Of course there are exceptions, such as Alastair Campbell, but even he was a political appointee, not a civil servant. There is no sense in which Meyer's book represents a quid pro quo. Has he personally been slagged off in any political memoirs? I suspect not. [It occurs to me that perhaps Meyer sincerely believes this argument, perhaps it is a symptom of his obvious arrogance].

In another article in the review section, Ian Jack considers whether Meyer remains fit to be chairman of the PCC. It turns out the PCC itself explicitly stipulates: "that the PCC chairman 'must not be engaged in or, otherwise than by his office as Chairman, connected with or interested in the business of publishing newspapers, periodicals or magazines'." Seems like an open and shut case to me.

What bothers me as well are issues of Meyer's integrity and ability to act as an independent arbiter: consider not only the contents of his book, but the very fact that he's written it. I could go on (so I will!): I understand his book was released - coincidentally no doubt - just after his PCC contract was renewed; I find it curious that his wife is very active in the Conservative Party; and I wonder how much work he did for the PCC while writing his book. [SteelyGlint finds even this blog a distraction as well as preparation - or practice - for his magnum opus].

But the main reason Meyer should not remain as chairman of the PCC is he's just not the right man for the job. Controlling the Press is an important role. It needs someone who is going to stand up powerful editors and drive through implementation of a code of conduct, particularly to ensure the independence of the political process - someone with cojones. Ian Jack notes in his piece that: "[the PCC's] biggest worry is the introduction of privacy legislation." This is a huge area of concern: it seems to me the lack of effective controls in this country over invasions of privacy must be a disincentive to those considering a career in public life, which cannot be a good thing. The PCC is meant to be a (self-)regulatory body: by the sound of things it is acting less in the public interest and more like an industry lobby group.

Coca Cola crime!

2005-11-18T09:59:00.000Z

The story of the Mexican corner-shop owner who sued Coke made my day yesterday. Hee hee hee!

I have to say admit I might feel a bit differently if I liked their product (in fact it makes me feel a bit queasy) but I first started my anti-Coke campaign when I was in Ecuador. I'm not a charity, but when I'm visiting places I like to think much of my money is going to help the local economy, particularly in places like Ecuador where there are large numbers of displaced, disadvantaged people. Even though a proportion of them seem to be very keen to rob me. I also like to experience things I can't get at home: even soft drinks, though to be honest I get more excited about the local beers and wines.

Anyway, back to the story. The restaurants in Quito offer water with your meal. And guess who makes (or at least owns the brand of) the only water on offer? Yeap, Coca Cola. Bon Aqua, I think they were offering. So the dollar I was paying for each small bottle was at least partly going on keeping Coca Cola executives (and Warren Buffett) in the style to which they've become accustomed.

As I travelled the world I started trying to avoid Coca Cola products. It's not always easy (especially if you try to avoid Pepsi as well). In Estonia, for example, I was proudly drinking a local product only to be told that Coca Cola had bought the company that produced it! I'm informed that the kiosk guys in Tallinn just did what they were told when Coke gave them fridges and told them they couldn't use them for drinks from other suppliers (why is this practice legal?; is it legal?). [Funnily enough, as local companies copy Coke, there is now a proliferation of fridges in some places: I remember one store in a small town in Estonia with no less than 3, 2 of them for drinks from particular suppliers, the third for everything else!].

When we looked at the "Cola Wars" during my MBA I was naive enough to suppose that Coca Cola and Pepsi are so dominant simply because they've spent so much on advertising over the years (building up "brand equity"). It turns out, though, that this is only part of the story. It was also exclusive (read anti-competitive) deals with bottlers (that is, local drink manufacturers and distributors) that led to the dominance of the duopoly in the US. They have both repeated this strategy throughout the world. Curiously their strategy includes supplying the concentrate, so when Coke moved into supplying water they've stretched the envelope and done the same thing. Bon Aqua and Dasani are manufactured, not spring water.

Yesterday I read that the EU is asking for more powers to rule on mergers within countries. This is good news as it seems the only world body (barring perhaps the Chinese government) that has the power, will and understanding to really promote competition. Today's Guardian leader, for example, comments on Nellie Kroes' (the EU Competition Commissioner) ruling on English Premiership football rights (what a day it was!). According to the football club chairmen this is the end of the world, but I believe it's in the best interests of the fans and, in the long term, the game.

I'm sure the public perception of what drives capitalism is that key is competition between companies. But in so many areas there is hardly any competition. The existence of so many sheltered near-monopolies doesn't bode well for "Western" economies as China and India get going.

Support for eagle owls

2005-11-17T18:10:00.000Z

Tried out a search on Technorati for the first time (I'm new to this) and spotted someone else who clearly feels the same as I do.

Eagle owls

2005-11-17T16:42:00.000Z

Did you see the nature documentary about eagle owls on Beeb 2 last night? These amazing birds have started to recolonise the UK after being hunted to extinction a century or two ago. Well, probably, there were some commentators given airtime on the programme who claimed the bird was not native to the UK. One was I think from the British Ornithologists' Union, the other from the RSPB.

These morons are somehow able to ignore the fact that these birds can cross the North Sea before breakfast. They're all over northern Europe. Why wouldn't they come here? The very fact that they can survive here shows they belong here. They fly at 40km/hr. They can go where they like.

Besides that, there are documentary records of them having been in the UK up to the 19th century. Not definitive enough proof, though, for some people, apparently. And that might mean they're not legally protected from those disgusting individuals who think they have the right to destroy an entire species.

I'll tell you something that is definitely not part of the natural ecosystem. People making value judgements about what animals should be allowed to survive, that's what.

Apparently, though there was no evidence of this in the programme, the owls might endanger other bird species that are protected or in low numbers. Well, I'm sorry, that's how nature works. Animals eat other animals. The numbers of any species depend on a balance based on how much they manage to eat and how often they get eaten (among other things!). The best way to have a variety of wildlife is to allow complex ecosystems to develop. Not just rabbits and foxes. And to have big enough areas of wilderness. That way, everything survives somewhere (and has somewhere to go if predators arrive or conditions change - if it gets warmer in the south they can go north).

SteelyGlint reckons he can see through the pathetic excuse of a human being from the British Ornithologists' Union, in particular. He's making decisions as a birdwatcher, not out of any ecological insight or understanding. That is, he just wants the countryside to be full of the particular things he wants to see. Sick-making.

Here's a couple of points for these narrow-minded twit-chers to bear in mind:

(1) Our ecosystem in the UK has hardly any predators - none of a decent size (probably the eagle owl is now our most powerful predator). That's why, as could clearly be seen in the documentary, the grass was 1/2 inch long, and rabbits were running around everywhere waiting to be eaten. In Holland, the habitat around the eagles was practically a forest. Our towns and cities are overrun with pigeons because we won't allow a few hawks to live there. I took my Estonian better half to the New Forest recently and she couldn't believe how overgrazed it was. It's not really a forest, more somewhere a Hobbit might want to live. If we had some wolves and bears, say, the forests in the UK would be much more interesting (and store much more carbon).

(2) With global warming what can live here is going to change. Factor that into your English idyll. We might - actually we will - have to introduce (because we're an island) animal species and see what survives here. Otherwise we might end up with nothing more than a few snakes in 100 years or so. And we'll be shooting any birds that arrive as "non-native", "invasive" species.

Why do people blog?

2005-11-17T16:03:00.000Z

Interesting article, titled "The New Commentariat", in G2 (part of the Guardian) today discussing political bloggers & why they do it. Caused a lot of chatter: at Harry's Place and elsewhere.

This isn't what the article actually says, but I'm convinced "the new commentariat" has arisen because of deep dissatisfaction with the dynamic of the mainstream media. How can we characterise this?

(1) They get their facts wrong continually. By way of example, yesterday I felt driven enough to write to the Independent about the "Environmental Map of the World" they included with their print edition. Australia, one of the world's worst carbon emitters is shown as one of the least bad - the box is yellow, when it should be red, like the US. (And I put some more about this chart here). So far the Indy don't seem to have taken any notice of my complaint. And I keep meaning to get round to dropping a note to the Guardian about this TV review article. Completely factually wrong: they write that: "Breakfast is generally a live rat snake...". Actually in the programme the "nut" who is (heroically in my view) trying to save these magnificent creatures preferred to feed his snakes on dead rats. I could go on. As long as these papers don't libel anyone they don't have enough incentive to simply get things right. Pages to fill up, deadlines to meet: they just write any old rubbish.

(2) They have great power in our electoral process. "It's the Sun wot won it". And the arrogance to make use of it. After all, it's very difficult to get a job as a journo or at the BBC. So the opinions of those who are there must be more important than anyone else's mustn't they? Perhaps by misleading headlines and pushing their views as "news" they are sowing the seeds of their own destruction. The bloggers could end up taking on some of the current role of the mainstream media.

(3) They are victims of groupthink. The BBC is the best and worst example. They cherish their "independence" and claim this is important for the political process in this country. But they are not an umbrella for independent thinkers. Instead they have developed their own ideology, and have their own line on issues. And they have no self-awareness of this - as evidenced by the hubristic Greg Dyke and pitiful Gavyn Davies, who would have been out of his depth in the shallow end, not swimming with the sharks.

This is why the political bloggers are disproportionately "pro-war" left, as reported in the article. With very few media organisations each having developed their own organisational culture and view on the war, important views are just not represented. Passages of the article are fascinating, as we have now reached the point where at least the Guardian (especially now that Julie Burchill and David Aaronovitch have moved on) is deep in confluent groupthink. Get this: "How all these feelings metamorphosed into support for the war is harder to discern: it sometimes seemed as if the leftwing hawks, out of distaste for some aspects of the anti-war lobby, were propelled by magnetic repulsion to a default position of support for the war that didn't always ring true." What??? The writer seems to assume they are right, and these people are temporarily deranged. All analysis has disappeared. Blair lied and took us to war because he wanted to steal Iraq's oil. Or whatever.

Cojones

2005-11-16T17:46:00.000Z

Not written too much over the last week, owing to a preoccupation with biofuels and climate change. Instead, I've been doing a little bit of research. My conclusion so far is that we're screwed and most people seem to be in denial. Including the self-appointed opinion formers in the media (funny how what started out as mediums of communication now have so many opinions of their own). Oh, and ignorant: get this from the Grauniad: "the [F1] cars should switch over to engines running on ethanol: a grain-based fuel, biodegradable and emitting no carbon dioxide." Not quite.

Did you notice this piece in the Guardian, which began: "You are unlikely to have heard of Gazprom..."? This started me thinking. This was discussing a fund in which readers may consider investing. Those readers who are so ignorant they haven't heard of Gazprom. Hmm. I'm beginning to get a glimmer of understanding as to why I have to indirectly fund people who have been "mis-sold" endowment mortgages and personal pensions. Are we developing a culture where people are assumed to be ignorant? Yet we have media who tell us what to think. But they have no responsibility to present a true picture. These media themselves, who, what with deadlines (and probably staffing levels cut to the bone like most businesses), are permitted to be sloppy. Where, exactly, does responsibility for getting the facts right actually start?

Maybe I should write to the PCC and ask. But the chairman of this ineffectual organisation is none other than Sir Christopher "Solomon" Meyer. I say "Solomon" as somehow, in the famous passage, he knew that "he may have been the only member of the waiting British team who understood this [cojones] meant balls." I may be the only person reading the Guardian's Money section who's heard of Gazprom, but somehow I doubt it. Perhaps Sir Christopher is just revealing - how shall I put it? - his breath-taking arrogance. I particularly loved the bit where he "cursed [himself] afterwards for not piping up." As if he could have thereby brought about a second UN resolution. The monkey thinks he's the organ-grinder.

I read all the Meyer extracts in the Guardian, and entertaining as it was (and a breach of trust, by the way - don't buy a used car off this man, he'll tell the world what a sucker you were), I was left wondering exactly what Blair - supposedly the same Bliar, who decided with Bush in 2002 that this war would happen - had done wrong. Simon Jenkins is closer when he says: "Blair had no leverage on Iraq with Washington's neocons - but, like Wilson over Vietnam, he did have a choice." In my view Blair chose - but not in one momemt, rather by a series of many, many decisions over several years - to get rid of a dictator and maintain the UK's historic alliance with the US, because those were his and the government's foreign policy objectives. He neither wanted to, nor would have been able to, stand up to the forces of history. I happen to think that many of the complex causes of dramatic world events are systemic. The reasons are embedded in systems of behaviour, deeply rooted in the past and not simply subject to change by the will of single individuals, however powerful they and we think they are. This war, I believe, was inevitable the moment the planes hit the Twin Towers, and probably had been since the unfinished first Gulf War.

"The media" don't need to maintain a consistent line as to what Blair did wrong. They can lay into Blair one week for having been scheming and the next for having been ineffectual with the Americans. And they can spin all they like, all the while accusing the government itself of spinning. How about the Guardian headline on Monday 7th November: "Blair's litany of failures on Iraq - ambassador's damning verdict". How do you justify that? Sells papers better than: "Civil servant disagrees with PM (who should know) about extent of UK leverage over US foreign policy."

I'd like to think the Guardian is well-meaning and at some level attempting to be objective in its reporting (that headline is not headed "Comment", though). It gets more amusing when we get to papers like the Evening Standard (which I buy because it has a monopoly, as I will keep insisting on reminding everyone). On Monday 7th, they reported (on a "News" page) not only that the former ambassador made a "withering critique" (really?), but also that "Mr Blair wore trousers so tight he had to get changed." This may be true, but it's not what Meyer wrote (at least in the extracts). The trousers he changed were on another occasion when he realised his were too casual: no-one else was wearing jeans.

But that distortion and inaccuracy is nothing compared to what the columnists can get away with. In the same edition of the ES, Peter Oborne writes: "Our Prime Minister would go into a meeting with the President armed by his advisers with a list of concessions that needed to be won and never even raise one of them." Having read reams of Meyer's supposed revelations I see nothing to suggest this. Where did Oborne get that? Perhaps someone can direct me to a passage in Meyer's memoir that suggests such an interpretation, otherwise I guess I'll have to assume Oborne just made it up.

Biofuels are a good idea?

2005-11-16T17:16:00.000Z

Saw this story in Monday's Guardian. Francisco Anselmo de Barros, a leading environmental campaigner, set fire to himself in protest at an expansion of biofuel production in the Mato Grosso region of Brazil. Hmm, hasn't our government just announced a "Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation"? Almost totally unquestioned by our media.

In fact, this is not a good idea, far from it. It will lead to disaster. It takes no account of the amount of land required (some millions of hectares for the UK's needs, that is tens of thousands of square kilometres - 10,000 square km is an area 100km by 100km - that is about 60 miles by 60 miles). Not only does this ignore concerns about the impact on biodiversity in the UK, it will in fact have the opposite effect to that intended. Land being used to produce biofuels cannot be used for forests, which both store huge amounts of carbon, and are part of nature's way of slowly removing carbon from the atmosphere. Biofuels are just a way of meeting the letter, but not the spirit of Kyoto - and of maintaining an economy based on burning carbon fuels rather than technology based on renewable ways of generating electricity.

10 Things... no. 4: nuisance calls

2005-11-07T11:22:00.000Z

I've just been called by Supreme Promotions (unfortunately not the Supreme Promotions who apparently promote music events in the Caribbean). I didn't stay on the line very long, but I know, because they've called me before, that they sell double-glazing. Last time, in fact, I told them in (what I now realise) was my smarmiest manner, that I wasn't going to answer their questions (they dress up their sales pitch as a survey). This succeeded in provoking their caller, and a slanging match resulted (it hurts, yes, but I can't help also being amused that someone in a call centre, selling, yes, I repeat, double-glazing, can call a complete stranger a "loser"). Just what I wanted first thing in the morning. Anyway, it didn't take long to find them on the internet (this site lists a few other great firms I may have to mention again). Seems to me they are ignoring the Telephone Preference Service, though some comments here (out of date?) suggest the service doesn't do what I think it does. Either way, what are TPS (and Ofcom etc.) doing? Don't they realise the cost of these ridiculous calls in peoples' time? (I read that it takes 15 minutes to get back into "flow" after having your concentration broken).

I even got called by the reputable NOP organisation (though now taken over by some other firm) at Sunday lunchtime(!!) a week ago. All sorts of excuses - my number must have "slipped through" (defying much of computer science), the call was not covered by TPS provisions, etc. - then an apologetic manager on the line, all of which left me totally confused what their policy was. According to the TPS site if I don't want unsolicited calls I shouldn't get them. Why aren't we getting tough with these companies? Why aren't their executives and directors being served with ASBOs?

Remember, remember the 7th July?

2005-11-07T10:25:00.000Z

So fun and games continue on the streets (and here) of Paris and many other French cities. I remember the aftermath of the 7th July bombings, when it was all our fault in the UK, partly for the way we had (allegedly) failed to integrate Muslim immigrants. Many said we should be following similar policies to those in France. How does that look now?

The truth of the matter is that the history and social traditions of France and Britain (or any 2 European countries, for that matter) are so different that what works in one will not necessarily work in the other. No, each must solve the problems of integration in its own way.

Incidentally, a Horizon documentary recently looked at the psychology of suicide bombers, showing how small group behaviour and loyalty to the group could have led to July 7th. OK, but that's not the whole story. The idea to do it must come from somewhere. In France of course, there is rioting rather than suicide bombing, spurred by the same sort of disaffection and feelings of isolation. Horizon also looked at a 2nd generation immigrant effect, but omitted to note the obvious point that almost all the bombers they identified (in Israel, US 9/11 & London 7/7 and 21/7) were under 30. They claimed their "'bunch of guys' theory is a vital breakthrough in understanding the mind of suicide bombers." Sure, but the anomie (a more correct term than "alienation") that leads to violence and self-destruction can also be expressed in by membership of cults or political groups, social group behaviour such as drug-use, gangsterism, football violence, etc or resolved by "normal" behaviour such as joining the army or police or a corporation... It's not new. What is new is the cult of the suicide bomber. This is what must be condemned more strongly, not "understood" (a la Cherie Blair). At the end of the day those celebrating this behaviour are sending young men from their community to die and to kill people from another (or in the case of London, their own) community. This ideology is what must be universely condemned.

While I'm back on all this, the Guardian I see is still repeating... over and over the myth that Blair claims "that the war has not exposed Britain to terrorist attacks". As I keep saying, Blair and Straw have not argued anything of the sort. [What they in fact say is that even without the war we would still be a target, the problem of Islamic terrorism would not just have gone away, there would be another justification for any attacks, which is not the same thing at all]. To deny any link at all would be daft, but then according to the press (and BBC) politicians are all, to a man, stupid, incompetent liars seeking only personal gain. And of course, that's much more likely than that they are a mixed bunch of people (most of whom could earn much more more in business without the ever-present risk of character assassination) with the common characteristic (shared by many journos, incidentally) that they have strong views on how society should be organised.

Kill, policeman, kill, kill...

2005-10-26T11:32:00.000+01:00

The obsession of the police with gaining increased "rights" to "shoot to kill" is deeply troubling. According to a number of articles in the UK press over the past couple of days, such as this one in the Independent, their "right" has now been extended beyond suicide bombers. What democratic process was followed to give them this "right" is unclear. What bothers me even more is that I would expect any justification of this to include a catalogue of specific cases (such as cases of "kidnapping, stalking and domestic violence" mentioned in the article) where police have been present but unable to prevent deaths of victims because they couldn't "shoot to kill". I haven't heard of such a catalogue of such cases, I've never seen a police chief interviewed on TV saying how he could have saved someone if he'd been able to allow his firearms officers to shoot. I think people have been watching too much TV.

Then, while I'm back on this topic (of course we remember the catastrophic Menezes shooting as discussed in previous blog entries), the Harry Stanley table-leg case has been in the news again. An inquest verdict of unlawful killing has been overturned, as reported here. What bothers me most about this case is why the police put themselves in a situation where they believed they had no alternative but to shoot someone who they had been told had a sawn-off shotgun. One would have thought their training would have been to do something commonsensical like hide behind a wall until they had sized up the situation.

Morally bankrupt

2005-10-20T10:10:00.000+01:00

I've been heard to remark several times, when in a lather over some issue, that I consider our society to be "morally bankrupt". Nobody has ever challenged me on this, so perhaps they have the same feeling. Maybe what I meant was obvious in the context. On the other hand, we may have had quite different interpretations of the phrase. Perhaps I can use this story about use of the name "Gmail" to illustrate my point. This company Protec, a subsidiary of iiir, which no-one's ever heard of (do a Google search and you get several versions of the name wrangle story before their company website), reckon that because they had an email service "G-mail" (anyone heard of it? is it even available to the general public?), that Google should pay them £25M!!!!!! Google isn't going to. Instead they are going to rename the UK service "Googlemail". For the time being I can keep my gmail address, but perhaps this will eventually have to change. This is a worry for me. It's vital that I receive my emails.

There are a few issues here, the mess of local trademark rules versus global domain names, for example, and the ways of assessing compensation payments. Whole books have no doubt been written on such topics. But the point I want to make is that this company clearly believes they are justified in inconveniencing millions of people in order to try to obtain a windfall of £25M. That is, money they haven't earned. This is what I mean by "morally bankrupt".

When I say "inconveniencing" millions, perhaps I'm not using a strong enough word. In economic terms it would be a cost to millions of people to lose their "gmail" address and have to switch to "googlemail". For iiir/Pronet, this would be an "external" cost. This company could bank their £25M and ignore all the direct and indirect costs to millions of people - which would no doubt exceed £25M. Apart from being unfair this is inefficient for the economy as a whole. And I hate inefficiency almost as much as I hate unfairness. The more efficient the economy is, the less work I have to do to afford the good things in life.

All companies behave this way. It is their raison d'etre to try to maximise their profits, by whatever means the law and society allow them. With everyone being bullied like this day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, is it any wonder that some start to treat others with the same disdain, the same disregard for fairness? Is it any wonder that it is so difficult to control petty crime and inconsiderate, "loutish" behaviour?

Problem clears!

2005-10-20T09:36:00.000+01:00

The problem with Blogger which affected my other blog Cambridge2London, and which I documented, first here, then here, then here and here went away late yesterday evening (i.e. about 12 hours after I noticed it). I can now post to Cambridge2London, and I no longer have to solve a CAPTCHA to do so. Thanks for the comments on my first posting on the issue, but I can't help. All I got was an automated reply to my support request, so I don't even know whether the problem was fixed or just went away. I also don't know whether the inability to post and the need to enter a CAPTCHA to add or amend a post were related, or separate, issues. Sorry I can't help more.

Anyway, at least I can now get blogging!

"We're sorry, but we were unable to complete your request." - revisited again

2005-10-19T17:39:00.000+01:00

Everything happens the same in IE, and I can't think of any other potential workarounds, so I've raised a support request, which, for future reference, can be done here. There's a known problem with republishing blogs, which I thought I might be hitting, but that one still allows new postings to be added, so is probably not it. Will just have to wait. Grrr! I was in full flow on the inadequacies of the railway service around here, particularly from Cambridge to London!

"We're sorry, but we were unable to complete your request." - revisited

2005-10-19T17:05:00.000+01:00

Now I've tried everything - I can re-edit the first entry in my new blog. It requests me to solve (is that correct terminology?) a CAPTCHA but does allow me to update the entry. I did this because I wanted to remove all the links in that first entry, my idea being that these are causing this blog to be interpreted as spam. It didn't make any difference - I still can't create a new blog entry. The idea may be wrong or it may be too late and the blog is somehow blacklisted. Perhaps the CAPTCHA is a red-herring and there is some other problem with adding a second entry to this blog.

The only other thing I can think of doing is trying IE (so far I've done everything in Firefox)...

"We're sorry, but we were unable to complete your request."

2005-10-19T16:30:00.000+01:00

I STILL can't publish on my new blog. This is very frustrating. I admit I'm irascible (try to use a new word every day!), but after 15 years producing bomb-proof software, I feel I'm entitled to a lack of tolerance of software faults (and to cover the case where I've done something daft, for me that includes flaws in user instructions). There is 1 new comment added to the Blogger Buzz/Blogger Knowledge "Spam Barriers" article (Oct 18th), and I agree that stopping spam is a jolly good thing, but the fact remains that it's just not working. I don't understand why Cambridge2London has been flagged as spammy, and I don't understand why I fail the CAPTCHA test. Help, somebody!

Cambridge2London

2005-10-19T11:16:00.000+01:00

Maybe trying to list "10 Things..." was a bit ambitious. I'll get there in the end! The first 2 (and a bit of inspiration from Going Underground) have shown me that there is enough wrong just with the one rail service from Cambridge to London to justify a blog all of it's own. So I've started it.

Btw "started" is the operative word as when I tried to add a second entry it asked me to do a word verification and then (when I got it right - I got an error message when I got it wrong) told me sorry it was unable to post. Repeatedly, after logoff, reboot etc. Kind of frustrating. I wonder if it could have something to do with this? Maybe it's not working properly. Part of the reason for this post is to see whether or not the problem is confined to my new blog.

10 Things... no. 3 Sainsbury's

2005-10-18T17:55:00.000+01:00

I've just been to Sainsbury's (if you're outside the UK, Sainsbury's is a leading supermarket, though overtaken over the last 5-10 years by Tesco's as Britain's biggest) and that's reminded me of one organisation that really p***es me off on a regular basis. I'd love to have a good alternative place to shop.

So, Sainsbury's if your reading this, here are 3 things you do that make me want to end a 25 year relationship with you:

1. You push your own brand goods.
Actually, Sainsbury's, I don't really consider a store that can't keep it's shelves properly stocked a quality brand. And in any case, I consider food an experiential good (what isn't?), and want to buy what I consider the best, even if the only discernible difference is in the packaging. Sainsbury's, you are gradually giving me less & less of a choice, and don't think I'm not noticing! You ant an example? Some while ago you stopped stocking I think it was Napoletana(?) grated parmesan cheese, in fact any but your own brand - "Sainsbury's grated Italian hard cheese". Design-free packaging, so really is cool, especially when you're entertaining. And I detect a slight lack of taste. Someday, I'll gear up to grate my own parmesan...

Today, though I wanted to buy spaghetti. You have recently given over 90% of the spaghetti shelf-space to your own brands!! The brand I used to get (Buitoni?) has disappeared, so I'm buying de Cecco in preference to your own. One thing I've noticed with inferior spaghetti is that it doesn't retain its firmness when slightly overcooked - it goes mushy and disgusting. I don't know what de Cecco will be like yet.

Probably just me, but I'm sure everyone has their individual subtle preferences. Who doesn't remember their mother sending them out on an errand and saying, don't get this brand, your father doesn't like it, make sure you get this brand...? Of course, Sainsbury's, you're a food store, so you must know this. So why do you want to force your own brand products down our throats? I'll tell you what I think. I think it's cheaper and easier for you. You don't have to give so much of your profits to those suppliers. They no longer "own" the customer. If you can wean everyone off brands and on to Sainsbury's "own-label", they'd have no reason to go shopping somewhere else because your store is crowded, has long queues at the checkout... In fact, it would be inconvenient for them to do so, as they would then have to learn to like what's available somewhere else, say at Tesco's. The beauty of this game is that all the supermarkets can play it. Once it's difficult for customers to switch, then each supermarket can concentrate on squeezing as much profit as possible out of its captive customers.

2. "Buy 2 for" offers
Sainsbury's, don't you realise how annoying these reduced price for 2 offers are? Luckily I have a freezer so I can buy 2 of something when I only want 1. Even so, I'm sure I waste some of those non-freezer items I'm compelled to buy 2 of. But those people who can't use 2 are effectively subsidising those who can! That is, the little old ladies living on their own with no freezer, are subsidising the rest of us. Another group who probably can't store food very effectively are students. So for Sainsbury's in Cambridge to have so many of these offers is even more crass. Doubly annoying, is that these offers are effectively random (from a customer perspective), and given your inability to keep shelves properly stocked anyway, tend to lead to empty spaces. The whole point of a supermarket is so the shopper can get everything you want in one visit, so what should you do your utmost to avoid? Yes, you've got it, empty shelves! For a saving of 18p on 2 packs, you are about to have an empty space this evening where the McVities Hobnob biscuits should be. Frankly, I'd rather pay an extra 18p than come home without something I want. And I want Hobnobs! So, a practice which alienates customers and is criminally wasteful. Great customer-care!

3. Strategically positioned impulse purchase items
My favourite here is the chewing gum at the one-queue-to-many-cashier checkouts. They may be basket only, but they're the ones I always use. Instead of a flat shelf in front of the cashier where I want to pack my bag, there are sloping trays of chewing-gum. The sticks of gum are bashed up through people packing their bags there anyway and sometimes fall on the floor. This is daft! You inconvenience your customers all the time just to try to sell a few packets of gum!

May I also spell out that the supermarket layout was once, way back in the distant past, designed to allow the customers enough space to move around. Why, then, is it OK to put a few hundred pumpkins in what last week was circulation space? I won't even mention fire regulations. Oops, just done it!

So how does Sainsbury's get away with all this? Simply because they are a de facto monopoly. People shop there because it is there. There are a few smaller food shops in the centre of Cambridge, but the nearest alternative supermarket is a Tesco's a mile away (on Newmarket Road) that is designed for people to drive to - in fact, not really safe to cycle to. I keep meaning to go there just to see if they are playing the same games to squeeze profits as Sainsbury's. Quite probably they are, simply because there is an element of monopoly about every supermarket. Most people probably shop at the most local or convenient supermarket. The business is not about winning customers - competition - but about getting the best sites, and (as I've alluded too) making it difficult for customers to switch.

Is this really so bad? I say it is. We have a number of chains which now monopolise our high streets and "malls" (as the Yanks say). This is degrading our quality of life. All towns are the same. On top of that, buying quality goods is becoming more and more difficult. And what's more, it is inefficient. The only way these monopoly suppliers can increase their profits is to give us, the consumer, less for our money. As we are limited in what we can spend, they give us lower and lower quality goods, and a more and more stressful shopping experience, imposing costs (in terms of stress) on us all, in the hope of selling a stick or two extra of chewing gum. All that ever appears in their books is that extra few pence profit, they don't see the costs of all the annoyance they cause you and I.

What can be done about this? Broadly, if we want to address this problem, there are 2 ways for us to go. We can either insist on competition. We could limit the size of stores, we could ensure leases were low enough for areas to support competing stores of a particular type. We could reserve sites for different food stores, rather than letting the highest bidders - monopolists in different sectors - um, monopolise them.

Or we could regulate the behaviour of these companies. We could restrict own brand goods. Supermarkets are not markets at all. Markets are full of competing businesses. The role of supermarkets should be to offer as much choice as possible, not restrict it. Sainsbury's in Cambridge, for example, gives up some space to CDs, despite the lack of choice on food items I've described (and many other stores selling CDs in Cambridge) - perhaps we could restrict them to selling certain types of goods only. We could ban wasteful "2 for less" offers. And we could force them to internalise costs they don't currently see. I'll write about queuing another time, no doubt, but we could be imaginative: we could regulate these businesses by charging them a cost if the store is too crowded. Then, they could choose to avoid that cost, by, for example, keeping the aisles and circulation areas free. Then they'd see whether it was worth squeezing those few 100 pumpkins into the store.

I'd argue we should do both. We should do what we can to encourage it, but competition can only achieve so much. There is a limit to the number of stores in a given locality. Every store is to some extent a monopoly and should be regulated as such.

If we want a more pleasant, efficient society, that is.

Why am I writing this blog? revisited, or 10 Things That Have Really Pissed Me Off This Week and What Should Be Done About Them

2005-10-15T15:38:00.000+01:00

Trying to be a bit more imaginative with the blog entry titles: "10 Things..." above is an attempt at a takeoff of the Harvard Business School (HBS) style books. Hope you appreciate it! I also just changed the title of the previous entry to a direct quote from Iain M Banks' classic space opera "Consider Phlebas". It's spoken when the young, vibrant Culture civilization encounters the old, god-like, disembodied Dra'Azon. I call this a "space opera", and it is - and very entertaining too - but Banks is also concerned to present a utopian society, the Culture. Exploring such ideas is an important role for fiction, and I detect an upsurge in interest in science fiction. The last "Golden Age" is considered to have been from 1939 through the 1950s, so perhaps a revival is due. This could be a generational thing (or part of a Kondratieff wave). Alternatively, though, it could be because we are on the threshold of social changes as significant as those which swept the world after WWII.

Back to the point: why am I writing this blog? Well, it has a bit to do with my opening remarks. We are at a turning point. But not only that, the economic system which now dominates the world is starting to show its weaknesses. This system has brought tremendous affluence, first to the West (and Japan and later the "tiger economies" of the Far East) in the 20th century and now to more and more of the world - China, India and soon South America and maybe even Africa. As environmental and other problems mount, there is, in my view, a deficit of analysis, no new philosophy to take us forward. Francis Fukuyama struck a chord when he claimed that we had reached the "end of history".

So what are the problems, and how might they be addressed? Well, I'll come to the fact that we're destroying the planet later and consider some more mundane examples. So: 1o Things That Have Really Pissed Me Off This Week:

1. Wagn, a rail company owned by National Express. I'm in Cambridge, UK, which is about 50 miles north of London, so there is a relatively short rail journey between these two key areas of the new UK economy. This Wednesday I went to London for the afternoon & evening, cost £13.85 with a railcard (£25, but I'm a frequent traveller), that's about US$20, if you are outside the UK (can you believe that?). The train on the way to London was delayed by over 1/2 hr - - signal problems etc. etc. - which meant I had to drop part of the point of the trip. And on the way back, there's no train for part of the way. Now this was scheduled train working, which I should have known about before reaching London (or even leaving home) - it wasn't just me, though, no-one else knew. Wagn put up pitifully inadequate notices at King's Cross and Cambridge and made no other attempt to let customers know about the delay. No message on the ticket-machine in the afternoon, no announcement on the platform or the train, no word from the guard on the train, no leaflets on arrival at King's Cross, etc. etc. Suffice to say I arrived back at 00:15 on Thursday instead of 23:11 on Wednesday evening.

Do I get any compensation for what really was a major event in my week? No. Wagn have no incentive either to avoid disrupting journeys or to communicate properly to their customers. Their overriding objective is to maximise their revenues. OK, everyone knows the privatisation of the UK railways was a screw-up, but 10 years later we seem no closer to a workable model. I happen to think there are major advantages in private operation of services such as the railways, but only if an overriding authority ensures that such operation is in the interest of the consumer. This can only be done by:
(a) Ensuring there is effective competition and (or at the very least) or,
(b) Ensuring that operators do not transfer costs to the customers (or other party). Wagn does this in many ways, not just in charging let's just say a full rate, for tickets, whether or not it provides the promised service, and I'll note a few others another time.

2. The RMT union: flashback to Wednesday again, and I'm trying to get to King's Cross after watching England vs Poland in the pub. But the underground system in London is run more in the interests of the staff, who use THEIR monopoly power on many occasions. The passenger, for whose needs the underground system supposedly exists comes behind their interests and of course those of the companies running the network. Anyway, on Wednesday the RMT decided to use their power to stop the Northern Line - without any sort of warning. They claimed this was necessary because of a problem with a safety system on the trains. There was, and most people blame the Underground management for the problem, (hmm, actually it's more complicated - see this Times article, but this blog and the Evening Standard - print edition - blame management) but the problem had been known about for some time and was not severe. Well, I don't know the full ins and outs of this, but what I do know is that there are people whose job it is to rule as to whether it is safe to run the system. It is up to these people to decide whether or not it is worth inconveniencing tens of thousands of passengers, not a handful of drivers.

OK, let's pause here. I happen to think that the future prosperity of the south-east of England and many other areas depends on having an effective public transport system. It's very simple: mass-transit systems are energy-efficient and the cost of energy is just going to carry on going up. It's simple supply and demand economics: the supply of our current fuels is peaking and alternatives are not going to come on stream fast enough. China and India are increasing demand and are very big. Businesses in the future are going to preferentially locate themselves where transport costs are lowest - for themselves and for their employees, whose salaries they have to pay.

On top of that, this area, like other parts of the world, is becoming ever more densely populated, because this is economically efficient (maybe I'll develop this point another time). And road transport just doesn't scale very well. It's fine for certain parts of the journey, but bringing cars the last mile or so from the main road to the front door of your house, your office, or a busy shopping area is just not efficient when thousands of other people are trying to do the same thing.

And, if we're going to have an efficient transport system, it has to be run in the interests of the passengers, not companies providing the service or employees who, when unionised - in what is effectively a monopoly - have great power.

So a large part of my reason for writing this blog is to explore how we can deal with problems such as these. And remember we're only on 2 out of 10. I'll discuss a few more problems with living at the "end of history" later and we'll see what patterns emerge...

"Obviously hopelessly senile."

2005-10-14T11:42:00.000+01:00

Alexander Chancellor's column in the Guardian Saturday magazine section has been irritating me for some time now, but this one last weekend has pushed me over the edge.

What particularly annoys me about it? Well, I guess it's the last couple of paragraphs where he basically accuses all politicians of lying (mentioning Straw and Brown). Great sport, of course, so what's my beef with this?

First, this is not debate. Calling someone a liar when you disagree with their point of view is hardly constructive, is it? Instead of a debate about the best way to deal with Iraq (and by extension other abhorrent regimes) we're continually treated to this childish name-calling. Maybe invading Iraq was the right thing to do, maybe it wasn't, given the lack of international support, but I still have an unanswered question. How did those opposing the invasion propose we dealt with Saddam? And by extension other dictatorships? Do we leave them in place? (And by the disjointed, schizoid thinking I keep hearing, would we also refuse to take asylum-seekers from these blighted countries?). If not, then how do we get rid of those, like Saddam, who cut their countries off from the civilized world community?

Second, this assault by the media undermines the political process. Just when we need it. The more I think about the state of the world today, the more I feel a sense of impending crisis. Not only will we be forced to deal with climate change (& the exhaustion of fossil fuel reserves), we also face incredible dangers from the ongoing clash of ideologies. The danger of the next 9/11 is not so much in the event itself (as if that wouldn't be bad enough), but in the reaction. Not much of a catalyst will be required to escalate the ongoing "cold war" with Syria and Iran, with who knows what consequences. Oh, and don't forget, of course, everything is linked. The end of the "age of oil" will exacerbate the already extreme inequalities in the world today, building resentment and making conflicts more likely. I'll write more another time about where I'm coming from.

Third, Chancellor is no better than those politicians he slanders. The article is full of misleading statements, mostly perpetuating recent media myths, which he seemingly hasn't bothered to investigate (and I assume he gets paid for writing this drivel). As I've noted before there is not "more and more... violent crime" in the UK as he asserts (which pretty much undermines the whole article). He also states that: "According to the World Health Organisation, drink and drugs explain why Scotland has the second highest murder rate in western Europe." This doesn't even make sense. In what way is the murder rate explained? (Cause & effect is always tricky, but Chancellor seems to have reached his ripe old age without realising this: 2 possibilities are (1) that high drink & drug consumption directly leads to more murders, in which case, what causes the drinking & drug-taking? Or (2) both behaviour patterns may be caused by a third factor, something about Scotland that causes both high levels of drinking & drug-taking & a high murder rate).

I decided to investigate a little bit further. This Guardian article sheds a bit of light on the matter. It turns out, for example, that in fact the murder figures are entirely distorted by Glasgow. The statistics claim there are 2.33 murders per 100,000 people in Scotland each year. With a population of about 5 million that's about 117 murders. 70 take place in Glasgow. The population of Glasgow is about 630,000 (though that of the surrounding urban area is much higher - I'm assuming the statistic refers to Glasgow itself, as it says it does). Those 630,000 people therefore have a much higher murder rate of over 10 per 100,000 per year(!). That only leaves, though, 38 murders amongst the remaining 4 million+ people in Scotland - less than 1 per 100,000 per year. The Guardian goes on to note that: "Much of the violence is caused by gangs vying to control the city's drugs trade." The article goes on to briefly discuss the policing situation. So, perhaps the cause and effect here is more complicated. Perhaps the relatively high murder rate is caused by the particular culture in parts of Glasgow, not general decadent drinking and drug-taking behaviour. Just perhaps, the solution is NOT to restrict peoples' behaviour. What if, for example, the city's drugs trade was not illegal? Would gangs still vie to control it? The point of all this, of course, is that Chancellor - who clearly is not an expert on the subject - is part of the backlash against the government's proposed liberalisation of drinking laws (in England and I assume Wales).

There's one other interesting point about the data: Finland of all places has the highest murder rate in Europe, but according to the Guardian this is (I love this!): "...attributed to its liberal penal policy, which sees offenders sent to jail only as a very last resort, [whereas] Scotland's rate is put down to the use of alcohol and drugs." Great! Not only should we stop people drinking, we should lock 'em up!! Actually, as this Finnish newspaper article notes, although Finland has a relatively low level of alcohol consumption (by European standards) it does have a problem with "binge-drinking". The plot thickens... Personally, I would like to see 2 things: leave these issues to the experts (perhaps we should respect the study of sociology a bit more, but more about that another time), and don't tell me what to do. It's all too easy to try to solve problems by imposing restrictions on everybody, but will these really address the underlying causes? Who is this buffoon Alexander Chancellor (or David Davis or Tony Blair for that matter) to tell me or anybody else now to live their lives if it's not causing any harm to anyone else?

I've digressed a bit: back to Alexander Chancellor's hypocrisy. He notes (of course!) that Walter Wolfgang was "detained under anti-terrorist powers". Really? For 3 months? No, according to the BBC: "Police later used powers under the Terrorism Act to prevent Mr Wolfgang's re-entry, but he was not arrested." So what is this "detained under anti-terrorism powers" business that we've heard so much about, now from Chancellor? Just pure spin, isn't it? I'm sure if it was the other way round and a politician had said "detained under anti-terrorism powers" in a similar circumstance people like Chancellor would be lining up to call him a liar.

And did Walter Wolfgang even accuse Jack Straw of lying, as Chancellor writes? I'm getting a bit confused here, because I would have thought calling a speaker a liar, as opposed to making a debating point, WAS grounds for ejection from a debate (or even worse from the audience of a set speech) - it is in the House of Commons for example - though Chancellor and his cronies seem to be trying to change that. "Wolfie" seems a bit too nice to have done that, anyway. 5 minutes research (take note, Mr Chancellor) suggests that actually, no, he (probably) didn't. His subscription only article in the Independent is (handily) reprinted here and here. He says he only said the one word "nonsense" (although the Telegraph disagrees - apparently: "There came a cry from the back of the hall: 'That's a lie and you know it.' " [Is there video evidence of exactly what actually happened? Maybe Wolfie is downplaying what he did...].).

So the level of political debate Chancellor has reached in his dotage is to say what he likes, whether it is backed up by the facts or not (hey, it saves doing any work!), while calling anyone he disagrees with - sorry, as long as they are politicians, as other media outlets, corporates etc. would likely sue - liars.

Until a year or so ago, calling a politician a liar was a serious offence, likely to end up in the courts. Michael Howard, as part of his attempt to win an election by dragging politics into the gutter, has colluded with the media to change this. It's open season now. All great fun, no doubt, but the result is that it has become just that bit more difficult for the political process to solve the problems that face us.

Chancellor's column used to be (until the recent Guardian "re-launch") headed "Guide to Age", which makes me kind of worried about growing old myself. Instead of being a font of wisdom in his old age, Chancellor is spouting gibberish.

Death by cop bombers

2005-08-04T09:21:00.000+01:00

It's been a couple of weeks since my last post. Somewhat disappointed that I can't locate this page with a Google search yet. How does that work, then? Should I set up my own site rather than a "blogspot"?

Hopefully some final thoughts on the London bombings, though, despite a few wishful thinkers, I agree with the majority view that this is something that's going to hang over us indefinitely. The atmosphere of early July - Live8, the Olympic bid win, leading the world on Africa and climate change at G8 - has been totally changed by a few screwed up kids (and their puppetmasters). Why couldn't they have just started a band?

The effect of the failed bombs on 21/7 has been more dramatic than those of 7/7. There was panic apparently on 21/7 and, I read, on a bus which caught on fire a few days ago. I've been to London a few times over the last couple of weeks and the tubes are, basically, deserted. I read somewhere that passenger numbers are down something like 15%. But that probably represents (at least) 50% of those using the tube voluntarily, rather than to get to work. So during the day the carriages are practically empty.

The shooting on 22/7 was the worst aspect of the panic, and just totally unacceptable, however much Ian Blair tries to justify his shoot to kill policy. I don't really see this as a policy question, anyway. A 6 year old child could tell you it is better to shoot a suicide bomber rather than let him (or her, careful cops) kill others. The issue is the need for certainty.

The Menezes shooting was idiotic (as I say, panic) not just because of the surveillance failure (he came out of a different flat, had travelled on a bus(!) and could have been stopped much sooner etc.) but also due to superficial evaluation of the situation. First, there is no reason to suppose that the current bombers have the technology to make bomb-belts. Otherwise, they'd already be using them. Second, maybe I've watched too many movies, but bullets go pretty fast. Is there a need to shoot a man when you can see his hands? At root cause this must be due to poor training and briefing.

The so-called "policy" is also misinformed. It underestimates the costs of (as occurred) shooting the wrong man AND of shooting a bomber. I understand the policy is based on that in Israel, but the situation here is quite different. We're not yet a as close to a war zone as Israel/Palestine. We're trying to get back to normality, so the cost of "collateral damage" is much higher. As the West Midlands force demonstrated, the value of taking the bomber alive is extremely high. In Israel they do not expect to find all the bomb-makers and other conspirators. Here we expect to. We therefore need all the evidence we can get.

This policy needs to be properly thought through, and reflected in police firearms training, before it's too late and we do become a war zone. I'm sorry, it's just not good enough.

...but the Guardian cheers me up

2005-07-21T13:01:00.000+01:00

This is a much more balanced piece. Compare and contrast.

I hate to lay into the BBC again...

2005-07-21T10:17:00.000+01:00

Actually that title meets official BBC standards of reporting. In fact I quite enjoy it.

Consider this headline on the BBC site this morning. In fact the apparent rise in violent crimes is almost certainly a statistical anomaly. You have to read to the end of the article to get a true picture. It misleads through the first paragraph as well, just to make sure 99% of viewers get the wrong impression (it's been shown that 90% of people only read the headline and of the 10% reading on 90% only read the first paragraph).

In fact:
- violent crime has not gone up, only recorded violent crime has ;
- a statistically valid survey of violent crime - not distorted by changes in recording criteria - shows a drop. This is reported in the same article.

Logically, either the BBC writers and editors are too stupid to appreciate this or they don't care or they are deliberately sensationalising and misleading the public. I'm sure many newspapers will report these figures in the same way, but my point is that the BBC as a supposedly unbiassed, state-owned broadcaster should be scrupulous in its reporting.

Is this Liberty?

2005-07-20T13:09:00.000+01:00

Some days you wake up, switch on breakfast TV, scan the online news sites and everything pisses you off.

Take this development as reported by the BBC in the battle to make our streets safe. Liberty have managed to get a court to rule that child (that is under 16 and unaccompanied by an adult) curfew (that is, from 9pm) zones are illegal.

For starters Auntie's report is totally misleading (as usual). In fact, their own News 24 interview with a Liberty spokesman (I presume the Alex Gask referred to in the online report) revealed that Liberty - not the boy - initiated this case. Not only that, they found it difficult to find a suitable teenager to front it, so popular are these curfew orders. They've chosen one from an area where curfew orders are hardly used.

So we now live in a society where parents can be prosecuted up for going on holiday and leaving 15 year olds home alone, yet the same 15 year olds can wander the streets unaccompanied by an adult after 9pm. There is a political consensus that our streets are not as safe as we would like and we want to bring down the levels of petty crime, disorderly behaviour and the more serious incidents that result. This is only going to be done by giving the police some reasonable discretionary powers. Trying to solve the problem by after the fact investigation and prosecution is just not going to work.

Is this really the way Liberty wants to expend the capital that has been built up over the last few years, for example by the media profile of the admirable Shami Chakrabarti?

Iraq: this is what the media should be doing

2005-07-20T12:58:00.000+01:00

This Independent leader (at least the first 2, free paras anyway) hits the spot. The study producing the 24,865 figure has a bizarre breakdown (and reeks of political motivation rather than objectivity), but at least establishes a number for discussion. The point is the conduct of the occupation has just not been good enough. Attitudes and behaviour have to change if this (misguided) global intifada is ever to be contained.

Iraq: come on, we're on the same side!

2005-07-19T17:49:00.000+01:00

There's nothing more stifling of intelligent debate than oversimplifying an opposing position in argument in order to criticise it. This is exactly what is happening over the issue of the links between Iraq and the suicide bombings.

Gary Younge (or perhaps his sub-editor) writes in a piece titled "Blair's blowback" in the Guardian that "of course those who backed the Iraq war refute any link with the London bombs - they are in the deepest denial". A few people may hold these views, but don't tell the rest of us what we think, thanks.

The Guardian writes that "Straw rejects war link to bombings". No he doesn't. Nowhere in the article does Straw reject some kind of a link. And despite listening to dozens of news bulletins, I have yet to hear Blair deny a link. Or you can go to the BBC site to read that "Ministers reject Iraq terror link". No they don't. Read the article.

In fact, what Gary and those others harping on about "the link" are stating is blindingly obvious, as evidenced by the Guardian's opinion poll summarised online this morning. There is a link in that Iraq is used as a justification again and again by the perpetrators of these crimes and their apologists. There is a link in that one of their demands (such as we can determine them) is that we withdraw our troops from Iraq.

Rather than just telling us what we all know already, I'd like some intelligent debate from those privileged to have a voice in the mainstream media. There are several arguments that reveal simply asserting "the link" to be an oversimplification and totally unconstructive:

if Britain wasn't trying to help create a better Iraq, wouldn't we just move the problem? Wouldn't the terrorists attack someone else or find another excuse to attack us? Since there were attacks before the invasion of Iraq the government argues that this exactly is what would happen.
would it be in our interests in the long-run to give in to the terrorists' demands? Or rather, should we let our foreign policy be influenced by the fear of terrorist events like 7/7? The government argues that we can't: we have to choose a foreign policy and pursue it consistently. The alternative is some kind of "I'm all right Jack" non-involvement, but where do you draw the line? We may be attacked because our trade policy supports a regime the terrorists object to. Do we change our policy then? Or maybe we're attacked just for being part of the "West". In today's interconnected world we have a duty to help resolve international problems. (The lack of consensus on the Iraq problem ahead of the invasion in 2003 was a disaster, for which the US must take much of the blame, but what exactly was the position of France? That there wasn't a problem? When the sanctions were killing thousands of Iraqis as well as being a corrupting influence, with no end in sight? Should we have normalised relations with Saddam, perhaps? Is that the sort of world we want to live in?).
what exactly are we going to do about it? Let's say the government says you're right, fair cop, it was our fault (not those nice boys from Leeds or their al Qaeda mentors, no, we made them do it). Are we going to pull out of Iraq tomorrow and leave the Americans to try to stop a civil war? In any case it is already our policy to pull out as soon as we can (which perhaps the government should stress more), but we've now taken on a moral obligation to only hand over to Iraqi security forces when they are able to maintain order.

Instead, let's move beyond arguing that we shouldn't have invaded in the first place, and focus on issues that something can be done about now. The energy and column inches that are being wasted on the "you were wrong to invade" arguments could be much better spent. For example, is the behaviour of the coalition soldiers in Iraq the best it could be? I hate to pick on Gary Younge again, but in his article he repeats as fact that "100,000 people" ... "have been killed in Iraq." This comes from a Lancet paper of October 2004 and is significantly higher than other estimates such as that of 24,865 (civilians only included) published today (see BBC story). Now, I don't know whether the real figure is nearer 100,000 or 24,865, but what bothers me is that the 100,000 figure is rhetoric - used for effect - and not analysis of the problem. But the figure of 24,865, based on media reports, can be discussed sensibly. It has increased since last October, for example, which the 100,000 figure seemingly hasn't. We can agree that one civilian death is too many, each is a personal tragedy and makes it more difficult to win "hearts and minds" - and, yes, exacerbates the problems we face with "insurgents" and terrorists.

Moreover, quoting "100,000" repeatedly does the Iraqis themselves a disservice. Looking at each incident allows the causes to be explored. Are there problems with the culture or training of the US and other forces in Iraq? Are the occupying forces unjustifiably using weapons (such as cluster-bombs) and tactics that take a heavy toll on civilians? How many civilians have been killed in cases of mistaken-identity (or bombing the wrong house)? Should procedures at road-blocks be changed?

Look, the invasion was 2 years ago, we've just had a General Election where Iraq was a major issue (and, in my opinion, undemocratically given undue prominence by a set of institutions, including the BBC, who are there to mediate between the public and the politicians, not set the agenda). We are where we are. It's time to start to discuss the issues we face now, not a decision that was taken over 2 years ago. It seems to me that voices of the left have more to gain by participating in a constructive debate, not a destructive one. Many on the left - who, with their concern for civil liberty, should have a lot to offer in these difficult times - are excluding themselves from this debate, by fighting an old battle. Guys, we're on the same side!

Mr Akram's helpful comments

2005-07-18T11:57:00.000+01:00

The Guardian (and others) write that Pakistan's UN ambassador, Mr Akram, has said that the bombings in London are due solely to problems with Britain's foreign policy and British society. Mr Akram is wrong on so many levels it's difficult to know where to start. But I'll try!

The whole point about al Qaeda is that it is an international network.

It's ambitions are global. To start to say the bombings were carried out purely for local reasons is ludicrous. There are reasons, such as Britain's involvement in Iraq, why London was specifically targeted (more on this later), reasons, such as poor community integration in some areas of the UK, why British bombers could be found, but these do not provide the whole explanation.

The only way we're going to counter an international network is by international cooperation. Weaknesses inherent in a world order of competing nation states are being savagely exposed by the terrorists. As the diplomats say, in this context Mr Akram's comments are "extremely unhelpful".

Perhaps Mr Akram has spoken out for domestic political reasons or for reasons of UN politics. After all, as the article goes on to say, there have already been a number of arrests in Pakistan. Nevertheless, why is he saying anything at all? All Mr Akram and, I should also note, the Egyptian interior minister, should be saying is that they are doing everything they can to help with the investigation.

On a common-sense level: we don't know who else was behind the bombings so it might be best not to jump to conclusions. I trust the Brits won't turn round in a few months and say (in public anyway) that see, the "mastermind" did live in Pakistan.

Perhaps there's a misunderstanding: sure, there's veiled criticism of the madrassas in Pakistan in the press here in the UK, but it's nothing compared to the hand-wringing that's going on about local problems. If I may try to summarize the British attitude: the madrassas are part of the problem, but not something we can directly change.

Perhaps a final word should be reserved for another politician who can't keep his mouth shut: the suave Mr Sarkozy. If he's the best France has to offer after the anachronistic Chirac we're in for at least another decade of cross-Channel sniping. By commenting on detail of the investigation - whether misinterpreted or leaked - he is saying subtly what Mr Akram is saying bluntly: these stupid Brits have brought this on themselves, we're so much smarter we can even tell you things about the investigation that they won't. Shut up, Sarkozy. Shut up, Mr Akram.

Suicide bombers? revisited again...

2005-07-16T02:28:00.000+01:00

Well, the enquiry is moving apace. Pictures of the bus bomber show he at least was wearing a rucksack, not carrying a holdall. That'll teach me to believe anything I read in the Mail (see previous entry).

Nevertheless, the bomber in the photograph does have a bag that can be left rather than a bomb belt/jacket. An article "Was it Suicide?" in today's Mirror newspaper picks this up (and makes me feel less of a nut). I was wondering whether the bombers had bought return tickets! The Mirror article also notes (so I don't have to!) a few other points weighing against the simple suicide bomber hypothesis.

I'm warming to Ian Blair, the head of the Metropolitan Police - he's becoming London's Rudolph Guiliani (though Ken Livingstone has a lot of insight, too). Previously, he'd been a been a bit too outspoken, especially during the General Election campaign. He's emphasising "al Qaeda links" and that the bombers were "foot-soldiers" in this operation, and this has been picked up by the media (who hardly seem to be able to think for themselves this week - maybe the Sunday papers will have some intelligent articles in). We've heard much less of the "search for the 5th man" over the last 24 hours. It's generally sinking in that this was a complex operation. Some appreciation of the expertise and materials required to make the bomb would reinforce this. It may not just have been made with TATP ("Mother of Satan") as most sources seem to imply. It may also have contained C4, like the shoe-bomb, the TATP being used to detonate this. The Times here (last paragraph) seems best informed on this, but this article yesterday and this one from a few days ago are also interesting. This is not to mention any electrics which may have required a different technician.

Incidentally, I tried to find out how much of the shoe-bomber's support network had been rolled up, but didn't get too far. Anyone know where to look? This Time article gives some background.

Ian Blair has also appealed for information about the "missing 81 minutes" of the bus-bomber. Spot-on! The televised appeal made it clear (to anyone with a London A to Z, anyway) that the bus the bomber caught was travelling north, but had not yet reached King's Cross. So he either walked quite a way (seems unlikely to me, especially on a hot day with that rucksack) or, as I've said previously, caught a tube heading in a southerly direction before getting a bus back to King's Cross. Obviously there are lots of leads to follow up, but in terms of working out what exactly happened (and whether it was what all participants intended or thought was going to happen) this is key, as well as rebuilding the bombs to determine the detonation method, of course, though I expect that will take some weeks.

It's important that we understand that this attack was international terrorism, masquerading as home-grown terrorism. I suspect the chain of command planning this operation will lead to the centre of al Qaeda, for the particular reason that the use of British "mules" is so calculated to divide us (see here for an alarming development, for example). For a similar reason Saudis were used on the 9/11 planes. The idea (so the theory goes) was to undermine US support for the Saudi regime.

The "mastermind" of this operation has made sure that the homegrown aspect was obvious: the bombers' id has been found easily (the fact that one bomber's id was found at 2 sites is particularly suspicious!), the car in Luton contained explosives and bomb "factories" appear to have just been left (rather than dismantled) in Leeds. (These obvious leads might also be an attempt to distract the police from other lines of enquiry, that might lead to the "mastermind" himself, of course).

We must be careful in our response. The terrorists want to undermine integration and tolerance in modern Britain. This outrage happened here, yes, partly because we have many alienated young Moslems who are susceptible to the ideas of the extremists, but also because the reverse is true, we have many Moslems who are integrated into the broader community, and this is a threat to the extremists. So, whilst we've been mad to allow some of these fanatics to preach to impressionable young people, we must not lurch towards intolerance.

Suicide bombers? revisited...

2005-07-14T14:15:00.000+01:00

I posted a couple of questions on this Guardian online debate. Awaiting interesting responses...

The Mail online also, I've noticed, says the bombers were carrying "holdalls" and not "rucksacks". This reinforces my suggestion that we should not dismiss the possibility that the bombers set out with a different scenario in mind to what actually happened. They could have been trying to converge somewhere (as suggested in my previous post) or even headed for other mainline stations (eg Paddington, Liverpool St., Waterloo and Victoria). Of course, the police could have evidence to the contrary...

Why does this matter, though? It seems to me that the "mastermind" was not just trying to shock us - perhaps into questioning our involvement in Iraq - but also trying to do this in a particular way. He wants us to believe there are bombers in our midst. He wants to create a backlash against the Muslim community in this country and, indeed throughout Europe and around the world. The fanatics are not going to wipe out the rest of us simply by blowing us up. One of their objectives is to recruit more fanatics, by provoking a reaction against Muslims, which itself radicalises more young people... The majority of us are reacting - perhaps instinctively - in the best way, by showing that the Muslim community in this country is part of a larger community. The last thing the fanatics want is a successful multicultural society. They want to encourage the extremist minority, such as in the BNP, who are already trying to capitalise on the 7/7 atrocity to increase their support.

So the mastermind deliberately used British citizens in this attack, to show us that there are terrorists living amongst us. He even made sure the bombers were easily traced, by ensuring id was found at the sites of the explosions. This was a risk on his part, as in terms of his safety and that of the rest of the network, the trail is less cold than it would have been otherwise. Our instinctive reaction is the right one, but it would perhaps be more effective if we had more awareness of the psychological warfare that is taking place, of the sort of reactions the terrorists are trying to provoke.

It would be even more effective if we could show that the mastermind had cut corners in his desire to send the message he did. The message - and perhaps even future recruitment by the fanatics - would be undermined if it turned out to be the case that the bombers (or even one of them) thought they were on a mission that was something other than a massacre of normal Londoners, ordinary people like them. That's why I think the investigation is still important, even if it doesn't directly help to catch the mastermind and other members of the network. If it turns out the dominant media story is correct then what have we lost? - that's what everyone thinks anyway.

Suicide bombers?

2005-07-14T01:56:00.000+01:00

The previous post explains some of my long-term reasons for starting this blog. This post deals with the immediate cause, what prompted me to start it today.

Apart from being the early hours of Bastille Day (hoping the French have a good holiday... honest... really...), it's just a week since the world changed over here, on the other side of la Manche (that's the English Channel to the rest of you). It's starting to become clear what happened and a "story" is being put out in the media.

The media narrative (and this link to the Independent is just an example) is that 4 young men from Yorkshire, with outside assistance, armed themselves each with a bomb in a rucksack. They arrived at King's Cross at 8:30am last Thursday, 7/7, and 3 of them detonated their bombs within 50 seconds of each other at 8:50am, on separate tube trains heading south, east and west. The 4th bomber couldn't get on a train heading north, due to an unrelated problem on the (infamous) Northern Line. Instead he got on a number 30 bus headed north and detonated his bomb nearly an hour after the others.

There are many puzzling aspects of the story we have been given. Whilst I hope the police are keeping more of an open mind, my concern is that we have collectively jumped to a conclusion. We're not about to convict the wrong people, as we did after the Guildford and Birmingham pub bombings 30 years ago, but could suffer all kinds of other consequences. The investigation may be affected, legislation and other government (and transport provider etc.) action may be misguided and, worst, the effects on community relations in the UK may be exacerbated.

The media account (the police themselves have been more cautious in their statements) may be correct. That is quite likely. I don't want to get grassy knoll about it, but the problem I have is that it implicitly rules out other possibilities. Broadly these are:

the boys weren't suicide bombers at all, and the bombs were detonated by timer;
the boys were suicide bombers but at least the first 3 of the bombs were detonated before they expected.

Clearly both scenarios rely on the bombs being detonated by a timing device. The BBC today has been saying (on News 24 and here, for example) that the police have not found timing devices. This contradicts earlier stories, here, for example. What is not clear is whether the police are saying there definitely were no timing devices or whether they could still find them. This is crucial.

Why do I think the bombs may have been detonated by timer? Two main reasons:

the synchronicity and timing of the explosions.

surely at least one of the 3 tube bombers would taken some time to compose themselves. Assuming they went through with it, who could hold them to account?
in particular, the Piccadilly line bomber had only just got on the train. Would he have had the self-awareness to realise the prearranged time had arrived as soon as he'd got on? Wouldn't he in particular have needed to calm himself after (presumably, if this story is correct) having been worried about not being able to get on a train before the deadline? The bombers had been on the Circle line trains for 10 minutes, given the distance they had to travel. They had no way of knowing the other bomber had just got on a train. Why cut it so fine?
we're told the bombers arrived at King's Cross at 8:30 and the bombs went off 20 minutes later. This just doesn't feel right. Why the rush?

the positioning of the bombs: we're told the bombs were on the floor of the tube trains.

if you were going to blow yourself up would you put the bomb at your feet? No, of course not. You'd want to die instantly and would want the bomb at chest level.
how did they detonate the bombs? Leaning over (if sitting) or bending down (if standing) seems awkward. How did they detonate the bombs if they were in rucksacks, anyway?

Perhaps the boys weren't even suicide bombers. We've not been told that (as is customary for suicide bombers in Israel at least) videos were made beforehand - though of course the police could be withholding this information. But again, what I find most puzzling is that they used bags, rather than body belts. They also left explosives behind in the car (and in Leeds). Why did they take explosive material they wouldn't need? To help the police investigation?

If the bombs did go off prematurely, this suggests the bombers were on their way somewhere. First, what is this idea that the bombers were going in all 4 directions of the compass? If you go north from King's Cross you leave central London. Not only would there be fewer victims (it was the morning rush-hour, remember - people are by and large travelling in to London to work), you are also lessening the impact of the bombing - who's heard of al Qaeda or any other terrorist groups for that matter carrying out their "spectacular" in a suburb? Second, why the 1 hour delay for the bus bomb? The theory is that the bus bomber tried to get on a north-bound Northern line train, but there was a problem with this line that morning. He then left the station and got on a bus and set off his device within 1/2 mile of King's Cross. This just wouldn't take that long. He had over an hour. Did he stop for breakfast as well? There are a number of possibilities. For example:

it was always the plan to bomb a bus an hour after the tube trains, the bomber waited and the bomb was detonated manually. This is incompatible with the "4 directions" hypothesis.
the bomber was trying to get somewhere. For example, he caught a tube train, but exited at a station (Warren Street perhaps) when the trains were stopped in response to the explosions. He then caught abus back towards King's Cross. His bomb then went off unexpectedly - perhaps his timer was defective.

I suggest, instead, that the bombers were all following different routes to the same place. If you follow the Circle line round from King's Cross in either direction (it's circular, that's why it's called the Circle line) you reach Westminster, for example. The Piccadilly line can also take you to Westminster, with one change. The Victoria line would be another option from King's Cross. (I'm not claiming Westminster was necessarily the destination - there are plenty of other landmarks they could have been headed for).

So the bombers could have been suicide bombers or on their way to plant the bombs. In either case their bombs may have exploded before they expected, the timer set by the bomb-maker.

Perhaps the alternatives are no more likely than the dominant media story and the true picture should come out in the investigation, anyway. Maybe I just don't understand the suicide bomber mentality and can't accept that as a regular user of London public transport I have so little control over my fate - I can at least be alert for packages left in trains and on buses. Nevertheless, it seems to me this could be a case of media effects distorting the picture presented to the public, with indeterminate, but potentially far-reaching consequences.

Why am I writing this blog?

2005-07-14T00:35:00.000+01:00

What did you think of the Business Manifesto Labour launched during the recent UK General Election campaign? Nothing much, I should think. Most probably you're not really interested (though I am) and most probably it's not very interesting (maybe not even to me). But if you were interested you would probably still know nothing about it. It was launched by the Labour Party at a news conference a day or so after the leak to the media of the Attorney General's full legal advice on the legality of the UK going to war with Iraq. No questions were asked at that news conference about the Business Manifesto. Instead the same questions were asked over and over about the Attorney General's advice. I only know that it exists because I recognised someone in the audience at the news conference. A couple of weeks later I asked him why he had been there. He told me about the Business Manifesto, which was the first I'd heard of it - and I watched days worth of election coverage!

My point is that, if we are to have a democracy in this country (UK) or anywhere else for that matter we must respect the process. The campaign should be a time to leave the stage to the politicians, listen to what they all have to say and make our choice at the ballot box. Instead the media seem intent on controlling the agenda, and seem to be succeeding.

This is just one example: my reason for starting this blog is dissatisfaction with the mainstream media. I'll try to highlight issues where I think the news is being distorted by the interests of media organisations, their herd mentality and the groupthink that occurs within them. And I'm nothing if not ambitious: I want to get closer to the truth AND show why it is being distorted.

I can't say I spent a long time thinking up a blog title or my "handle", but they do have some rationale. I'll try to explain another time...