Implausability Corner #2 - The Merger

 This month's award for the most blatently self-serving load of PR flummery to be heard for a long time goes, by huge popular acclaim, to the spokesman for Vodafone. The mobile comms giant wishes to merge with another massive company, Three, to form a conglomerate that will have something like half of the UK mobile phone market.

Naturally there are concerns that this is an attempt to stifle the market and use economies of scale to drive others out of business, significantly reducing competition and enabling the directors to give themselves huge salary boosts plus bonuses because they will now be directing a much bigger enterprise than before. Oh, and presumably profits will have to go up to justify whatever the cost of the merger is, and in an essentially static market place there is only way for that to happen (and I'm not talking about cutting portion size in the middle-managers' canteen).

The Competition and Markets Authority has provisionally concluded the proposal would weaken competition. Good spot guys, but lose several house points for the weasel-like chickening out of "provisional" [erm, weaselly and chickening in the same phrase. I don't like it, I don't like it one little bit: Ed]

 Naturally the big boys of telecomms took their fight to the airwaves and I caught the interview on the morning broadcast on the BBC

Vodafone's CEO for European Markets, Ahmed Essam, told the Today programme, on BBC Radio 4, that he still believed the merger would make a better network for customers, and add to the competition in the market.
source: BBC

 Well he would, wouldn't he? There has never been a merger in history that has increased competition. The entire purpose of mergers is to reduce it without the economically efficient way of being better than the others. Because a merger does it quickly whereas actually being better and gradually atracting business through lower prices, better network coverage and better customer service ¹ takes time and requires taking risks. Although this is supposed to be what competitive markets are all about, the Vodafone/Three tie-up is all about cutting risks so that their future investment has a guaranteed customer base.

But the Vodafone CEO says it will add to competition, and sure he is an honourable man. 

There is one potential technical justification for the claim. If a very dominant player already controlled the market, and this merger would create a business sufficiently strong to challenge it, then there might be good reason for approval. But the mergees² already have the market in their grip. Does this in Vodafone seem like competition? But Mr Essam says it will increase competition and he is an honourable man, so all they are all, all honourable men. 

I suppose I must declare an interest. I am indirectly a customer of Three, via a reseller called Smarty who, for a very small amount of monthly cash, give me all the minutes, texts and internet data I could wish for, and throw in European roaming as well.  I am a little nervous that this happy state of affairs may not last once the merger goes a little sour, as they usually do, and costs far more than expected to make a single system of the two existing ones, as invariably happens, and the shareholders begin shifting uneasily in their seats at AGMs and things begin to be said about whether the merger was delivering all that had been promised. But by then, no doubt, Mr Essam and his chums will have taken their massive bonuses for making it happen and it really won't be their problem at all. It will be ours, the consumers.

Footnotes:

1. This was never going to happen, comments of forums such as on Reddit make it very clear how awful it is

 2. Do you like it? I may launch a Kickstealer campaign for a book called "My 100 best neologisms" if there is enough support.

Carry On Larking

 In a wonderful instance of life imitating art, this recent story in the papers seems to show that when it comes to having a rollicking good wheeze at the expense of the taxpayer, nobody competes with the Senior Service. Of course, when I say "art", I really mean the glorious British tradition of comic film, tv and radio where no institution is sacred.

source: The Independent

We've seen them dealing with a nasty leak. We've followed them into the war-torn waters of the Gulf. It looks like we need to go round again.

Scene: The choppy waters of the English Channel somewhere near, but conveniently out of sight of, Portsmouth. The bridge of a certain warship seems remarkably quiet as the officers go professionally about their duties, hunched over their instruments.

CPO Pertwee:  (to himself). Come on, come on, just a little bit more ...ease it off there ...that's got it just where I want it, lovely.
Sub-lieutenant Phillips: (to himself) I say, jolly well done, straight back over the bowler's head.
Distorted voice over loudspeaker Lookout here. Boat approaching, looks like the commander with some other geezer.
Pertwee: Oo-er, he's back early.
Phillips: I'm sure it's nothing to worry about, chief. Probably giving a friend a joy ride.
Distorted voice. Just to let you know, the Commander's friend is wearing rather a lot of pips. And carrying a clipboard
Pertwee: I'm not sure about this, Mr Philips, not sure at all, sir. Perhaps we should make ourselves scarce.
Phillips: Yes, chief, good idea and all that but, correct me if I'm wrong, aren't we supposed to be on watch?
Pertwee: Watching out for ourselves is what we should be doing right now, sir
Bosun's whistle heralds return of Commander Murray and guest
Pertwee: Whoops, too late
Murray: Through here, sir. You'll find my officers hard at work and totally in control. Gentlemen, this is Commodore Chumbleton, very high up in Naval Intelligence. Nothing gets past you, eh, Commodore?
Phillips: (sotto voce). Oh, lummee
Chumbleton: Just carry on as usual gentlemen. I'm just reviewing our state of readiness for, well, anything really, we haven't the faintest idea what might take place, anything can happen at sea, what, what, what.
Pertwee: What?
Chumbleton: That's the spirit. Now then, CPO, that screen looks jolly interesting. Seems to be some of wiring diagram - what's this say here "Plan of security lock, Atkinson's Jewellers". Well, I'm sure you have a perfectly sound reason for examining it, but isn't this supposed to be the short-wave radar screen thingy?
Murray: Yes, chief, I seem to recall we did used to have a short wave radar screen but, um, there's a  really important reason why we don't. Perhaps you could remind us.
Pertwee: Being tested, sir. In the special bay. Where the radioactivity levels are up dangerously high, so you really don't want to go anywhere near that, sir. This screen here is a medium wave radar replacement, nuffink like as risky as the other, just happens to be tuned to a frequency that matches the jeweller's computers and so of course their lock details get displayed.
Chumbleton: I see. Yes, that makes perfect sense. And the sub-lieutenant ...
Murray: Phillips, sir
Chumbleton: Phillips. I'm no expert, I leave that sort of thing to my technical people, but that looks very much like a cricket match.
Phillips: I know. It's amazing. And we managed to rig it up without having to pay a subsc...I mean, it's some of interference on the VHF band...er, isn't it, chief?
Pertwee: Yes, sir, these systems are so sophisticated they can pick up television channels, like Netflix or Sky, and display them even while doing all the rest of the normal navy stuff sort of in the background.
Chumbleton: Are you saying that is the tactical weapons status screen? Why don't you fix it?
Phillips: Well sir, to be frank, all those numbers going up and down the screen give me a bit of a headache.
Chumbleton: Must admit, I get them as well. So everything is perfectly alright here, then?
Phillips: Tickety-boo, sir.
Pertwee: Everything is just as it normally is, sir.
Murray: Shall we have a pink gin in the officers' mess now, sir? You certainly don't want Mr Phillips to change the channel and start all those little squiggly things dancing up and down, not in these rough seas.
Chumbleton: Lead on, Commander Murray.

Ketchup on your locket, madam?

 There are some key cultural moments, tectonic shifts in the zeitgeist, quantum leaps in the social consciousness (insert other portentous phrases here) that must be documented. This, future historians (that is, historians in the future looking back, not historians who study the future in some weird time-reversal universe),will say is the point at which things changed. The divide that reshaped the lives of all who, in some ways, were touched by it. 

This column has from time to time brought some of these to light - the "artist" whose work comprised burying himself under ground over the weekend and the creation of the British Toast Association to name but two. Today we can add, without hesitation, the announcement by the much-loved baker Greggs that they are to commemorate some of the nation's favourite snacks in the form of jewellery.

Source: Greggs

The "Baked in Gold" range features earrings. lockets, bracelets and rings that resemble miniature sausage rolls and pasties, in genuine fake imitation faux 22 carrot caret gold. Whether the interiors of these pieces can be heated to the 1100c of the products handed out over the counter to hungry punters, who spend the next ten minutes going "Oww" as they juggle them from hand to hand, is not yet known.  Nor is it clear if they will shed little gold-like flakes of pseudo pastry to stick to your jumper.

Greggs have announced, in what appears to be a genuine blurb rather than some belated April Fool japery, that the range is to be launched this coming Friday in time for London Fashion Week. Here at Ramblings we always investigate the claims of advertisers and our crack team of news-sleuths have already unearthed the following astonishing facts.

Fact: London Fashion Week begins on 12 September. Greggs are launching "Baked in Gold" on Friday 13th. Why the delay? Could the launch date be a clue? Is this going to be another Ratners - Prawn Sandwich event?

Fact: London Fashion Week has a number of sponsors. As is now customary with such things, some of them are the usual big companies whose products have absolutely nothing to do with the event (think World Cup / Olympics). Thus we find Coke and 1664 as sponsors, products that are neither fashionable, avant garde or new. But, and I want the jury to pay particular attention to this point, Greggs are not listed as a sponsor. We are not to see a line of haughty models swishing up and down the catwalks with little golden sausage rolls dangling from strategic places. Surely the PR department has bungled. Or are they, quite rightly, keeping a low profile instead?

It would appear that there is no connection with London Fashion Week and they might just as well have linked it to the race meeting at Sandown Park, the Worcester music festival or the welcome home party for Britain's paralympians.

However, inevitably, we must consider if this is the start of a trend. Who will follow the path so boisterously blazed by the beaconing bakers? 

Perhaps the Egg Industry Council could create an exqusite pair of pearl-style earrings in the shape of eggs, each adorned with a hand-painted lion mark in brilliant blue.

Every smartly-dressed male commuter would certainly wish to be able to flash a pair of Return Ticket cufflinks, with the words "not eligible before 9:30" visible under a microscope.

And surely any fashionista would proudly sport a sequin-studded tie pin in the shape of a prawn sandwich, by Ratners. If only they still existed.

Crowdstruck

 Woke this fine, sunny morning to hear of a worldwide IT outage. Many hospitals and health services, airlines, hotels and other time-critical organisations were unable to work normally. I checked my GP's online presence and the NHS app was unable to retrieve any information from them.

Initial reports identified this as a Windows issue but it rapidly became clear it was caused by a botched update from a software supplier called Crowdstrike. They provide anti-hacking solutions. Must admit I've never heard of them but today, for all the wrong reasons, they are a household name.

Exasperated IT professionals vented their anger on the Reddit r/sysadmin forum, making two key points. Updates should not be rolled out on a Friday, and, crucially, asking whether Crowdstrike bothered to test the update, seeing how readily it has prevented Windows based systems from working. Any test would, it seems, have shown that the update was defective.

Surely the cause was not our old friend getting out of his depth....

Scene. Update Control room at Crowdstrike. Although the company is based in Austin, Texas, this is in England (just go with it, ok). A group of seasoned coders, analysts and hacking experts are crowded round a screen. Enter a fresh-faced, eager young intern.

Taz (for it is he): Gosh, guys, what's up?
Rodney: That's the code for our latest update. We're just scrolling through it and admiring the beautiful structure. See that little recursive call there? That's one of George's finest
George: Too kind, Rodders, too kind.
Rodney: And here, these curly brackets enclosing square brackets enclosing another set of curly brackets with two extra quote marks round the text string? Take a bow, Amanda
Amanda: Only up all night polishing that little lot, that's all
Taz: It's amazing stuff, really. Only Customer Services have asked me to find out when the update is going to be released. Early next week, right?
Amanda: As far as I am concerned, it's finished.
Rodney: Yup, just put a full stop after the last rem and I'm done. George?
George: I think I'll just put in a Do until x=2, x=x+1 Loop. Give the punters good measure. All done, old boy.
Amanda: Lovely work, George.
Rodney: Right, I'll just copy it to this flash drive and we can call it a day. There's a bar stool down at the Red Lion with my name on it. Might catch a bit of the Test Match. Tell you what, young feller, you can help us out. Take this and do the usual, alright?
Taz: Er, the usual...
George: That's the spirit. We'll make a programmer of you yet. Let's go, people.

They exit.

Taz: Umm...I suppose they want me to take this straight back and get it out there, get all those computers round the world updated as quick as possible. Yes, that must be it. I can tell them in Customer Services that everything has finished here so it must be ready to go. Brilliant, everyone will be happy that it is going out so fast and on a Friday too, they can rest easy over the weekend...

Shock! Horror! Local!!

 Now that my friends at Google know I live in Warwickshire, they are keen to flag up stories of local interest to me and today a snippet from Worcester News was featured.

 

 This is not the time to ponder the difference between a major and a minor milestone, or to write a begging letter to the lucky owner of the unusual coin. Our attention has to be focussed on the big cat story. This is one of the great recurring themes of local news across the country  - there is always a breathless eye-witness, a few seconds of seeing something that always runs away, never to be seen again, and no other direct evidence apart from a blurry photo now and then. I was drawn to it, however, because of the "face to face" element and had a look at the story. And this was what confronted me:

Worcester News

Terrifying, is it not? Er, no, not really. For what we have here is a stock image of a black panther, an animal indigenous to South-East Asia, and not Worcestershire at all. This is not a photograph taken by the woman in the story. It is not even claimed to be what she saw. It is just a photograph, supplied by Getty Images, that the paper chose to publish immediately under the headline.

 It turns out that this "terrifying" moment was in 2013. The woman in question was driving in the country and glimpsed, no less than 20 yards away, something big and black that moved like a cat. The animal ran off at once and vanished. No trace of it was found. 

I do not doubt that the lady saw something that disturbed her. My fascination with this classic example of crap local journalism is the the way that the newspaper has attempted to sensationalise it. She did not have a "face-to-face" encounter - she was in her car and it was in the field some way away. It did not leap on her bonnet and snarl at her through the window, flashing enormous blood-stained teeth, whilst its razor sharp claws slashed deep grooves in the paintwork. It took one look at her and was off. Perhaps it was the animal that was terrified - the motorist may have been startled. A bit.

Anyway, if you want gripping stories with a local interest that have a searing, must-read, headline that bears little resemblance to the content, read on, gentle reader, read on.

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My Inferno Nightmare - Local Pensioner's Lucky Escape

A fire somewhere else

 Grandfather of two Norman Maltravers has told us of how he narrowly missed first degree burns and loss of 95% of his skin when he visited the chip shop in Lower Bishop's Nodules. "I'll never forget it" he told our reporter "There I was, queuing up for a small cod and chips same as every Thursday when it happened! I saw one of the assistants put some fish in the deep fat fryer and I thought - Blimey, if that lot goes up, we'll all take one hell of a pasting and no mistake. The whole shop will go, I shouldn't wonder, if not half the ruddy street.". 

Fortunately there was no explosion of boiling, rancid fat to splatter flesh-tearing gobbets of liquid terror over the plucky pensioner and the two other customers. "By some miracle nothing at all happened" said a still shaken Mr Maltravers "We got out alive and with our fish suppers still intact. I went home and gave thanks for my deliverance. To this day I believe that it was the blessed Saint Peter himself who looked after me - he's the one who covers fish bars, isn't he?"

Later Mr Maltravers explained that this near fatal incident occurred "sometime in 1995, I think, or anyway round about the Queen's Jubilee celebrations". He founded a support group for others with similar experiences and is hoping to have someone join it one day.

Road Horror Heroine 

A tanker similar to the one in the crash

Keen bowls player and owner of two cats, Deirdre Flint of  Great Silage is counting her blessings today. A terrifying accident between a truck full of high explosives and a petrol tanker brought traffic to a standstill on the B347 just moments after she backed her Morris Minor into Abattoir Lane. "That could have been me" said a quivering Mrs Flint "and it was pure chance that this red-hot vortex of destruction happened on the B347 in Santa Maria province, Argentina, and not here in peaceful Warwickshire"

"If it had happened here and I was caught up in it " the battling housewife went on "I would have had no hesitation in driving away as fast as possible before phoning someone to tell them to do something about it"

Local Man Nominated for US Presidency!

 

Bumford born and bred Hartley Harrow, 47, has been nominated for the top job in America and may pose a serious challenge to Donald Trump at the Republican convention. He remains in Bumford doing his day job as assistant vice-secretary to the Bumford Allotments Society but is bursting with enthusiasm to fly to Los Angeles and start "mixing it with the Hollywood jet set and the rest of those guys".

Mr Harrow was nominated by his wife, Hilda, who wrote his name on the back of a breakfast cereal box and sent it in four months ago. "He's the right man to lead the Republicans" she enthused "He has a baseball cap and a badge that says 'President', which I made out of tinfoil and some sticky-backed plastic".

We asked if there had been any contact from the Republican party. Mr Harrow seemed doubtful but his wife pointed out that it didn't matter in the least. "You just turn up and say you want to run, and next thing you are on the platform and everyone is cheering and bursting balloons. I've seen it on the telly"

Mrs Harrow is organising a jumble sale and kids face painting to raise the funds for the air ticket and says there has been a surprising amount of support from the neighbours. 

"I'm really surprised there has been zero interest so far" she told our reporter "But that's bound to change now that the national press have picked up the story".

When it was pointed out that the convention was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, over 2,000 miles from Los Angeles, Mr Harrow remained undaunted "One of those film stars will give me a lift, they all want to be friends with America's next president". 

Asked about his policies, should he win, Mr Harrow was emphatic. "No US air base in the Bumford allotments, that is right out, I'm putting my foot down on this one. A cultural exchange between Bumford and San Francisco. The CIA to 'take out' those bastards from Great Silage who park outside our village shop on Wednesday mornings. Er, that's it for the moment.

The good wishes of all our readers go with this gallant contender.