I don't commute as much as I used to so there is more time to study the web. This morning a story about Sainsbury's changing their advice about when to freeze food, on the BBC news site, caught my eye.
"The average UK family wastes up to £50 worth of perfectly good food a month."
Sorry, but the author of this sentence. and it is not clear who is the author, is writing nonsense. Either "the average family wastes £xx" where average denotes either the arithmetic mean of families sampled or the median (but whatever it is, you should tell us anyway) Or "some families waste up to £50". But you cannot have "up to" being the maximum in the same phrase as "average". If you still don't get this point, and would like to, consider this sentence:
"The average Premier league footballer scores up to 38 goals a season". Obviously some footballers, a small number one imagines, might score a lot of goals. The average footballer must score a lot less given that teams play roughly 50 competitive games a season and 1 or 2 goals a match is a reasonable amount to get. So this sentence is simply wrong.
The horrible wording that gets me angry is "up to". Everybody uses it in adverts when they are trying to lie. Broadband suppliers talk about speeds "up to " 24mbs or whatever, utterly meaningless because if you are considering switching the only speed that matters is the one you will get. Comparison and insurance ads talk about savings "up to" some figure that they never explain. And now the BBC has joined in.
When I am King, anyone using "up to" without fully qualifying what they mean, in text at least as large as the headline, will go to the Tower, will go directly to the Tower without passing Go and will stay there until they pay a fine up to £25,0000.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Saturday, February 04, 2012
The meaning of 0 degrees
Thursday, February 02, 2012
Just like old times
I don't travel into London as much as I used to so am a little more tolerant of the foibles and irritations of the Tube experience. Yesterday, sadly, was a reminder of what I am happy to put behind me. In the morning we were delayed due to a stalled train at Finchley Road. In the evening, earlier signal failure at Ruislip and an ongoing problem on the Piccadilly made for some ominous announcements but, fortunately, I did not have to wait too long - in the freezing Harrow air - for an Uxbridge bound Met. It continues to irritate when they announce "Severe delays" without giving an indication of how many trains are running and what the average interval between them is. Having an internet app on the smartphone that reads and displays the departure info is a godsend, but even that packed it in for a while when I arrived in the evening at Baker Street. Once it came back it was clear that the intervals were not a problem and the delays not that severe at all.
The current very cold (but very dry) weather focuses the mind when there is a choice of trains. Standing around at Harrow is fine on a balmy Autumn evening with a rosy sunset glow adding lustre to the warm air [Keats? Tennyson? Give us a clue :Ed] but a pain when it is a few degrees below zero and the icy winds are whipping across the North Sea direct from Novosibirsk. However it was minus 20, or something similar, in Munich today and two of my work colleagues are off there. There's always someone worse off isn't there?
The current very cold (but very dry) weather focuses the mind when there is a choice of trains. Standing around at Harrow is fine on a balmy Autumn evening with a rosy sunset glow adding lustre to the warm air [Keats? Tennyson? Give us a clue :Ed] but a pain when it is a few degrees below zero and the icy winds are whipping across the North Sea direct from Novosibirsk. However it was minus 20, or something similar, in Munich today and two of my work colleagues are off there. There's always someone worse off isn't there?
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Sunset over Ruislip
Mrs. Commuter drew my attention to this lovely sunset - the photo doesn't reproduce all the vibrant colours but I think it marks a nice end to the day. Especially as I wasn't working today.
The People and the Union
Let us leave matters commuterial alone for a moment and consider the fascinating constitutional crisis that is threatening the continuance of the United Kingdom. Though united through the person of James VI of Scotland (and I of England) in 1603, the two kingdoms were separate states until the Act of Union in 1707. During the hundred years of shared monarchy there was open warfare in the Bishops' Wars 1637-40 and the vicious internecine strife of the Civil Wars. The union in 1707 did not prevent the Jacobite rebellions of 1715 and 1745 but rapidly afterwards the two kingdoms did indeed seem to become a truly united kingdom. Now, with the Scottish National Party threatening a referendum on independence and the intervention of the Prime Minister, and others, to force their hands, we may be in living in times that will see a reversal of 1707.
There is much to draw on from history, though it seems unlikely Mr. Cameron is aware of it. The Scots have always reacted instinctively against anything seeming to emanate from England. They remain convinced that any policy drawn up in Westminster must be a conspiracy to do them down. It was certainly thus in 1637 when Charles I tried to force his particular brand of religion on to his mainly Calvinist subjects north of the border. The resulting struggle kicked off the "English" Civil Wars and Charles lost his throne and his head, ironically at a time when the Scots were more or less fighting on his side, having decided that the King they knew was preferable to the Cromwell that they were scared of. So the lesson for Cameron is to keep schtum and leave it to the many Scots who oppose independence.
As to the referendum itself, we will watch with some interest the machinations of Mr Salmond, leader of the SNP and one of the most arrogant politicians this blog has had the pleasure to follow. He is currently declaiming that the decision is for the "Scottish people" alone. I would love to be able to propose a referendum on whether Scotland should be permitted to remain in the union that would be put to the voters in England, Wales and Northern Ireland - but not in Scotland - and see what Mr Salmond would say to that. I fail to see why he can choose whether to be in a club but the other members have no say on his membership.
In addition, the word "people" may trip him up. Just who are the Scottish People? Those who live in Scotland or those of Scottish birth? Many Scots live abroad (some even in England, believe it or not). Do they get to vote? How, if they are on the English electoral roll? And if they do, where is the line to be drawn? And why should, for example, a rich film actor or racing driver who chooses not to live in Scotland so he can avoid paying taxes to the Scottish treasury, be entitled to vote? If you have a Scottish father and an English mother and you live in England, are you part of the Scottish people? Huge numbers of Scots emigrated to the USA and Canada in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Are their descendants Scottish? And if you live in Scotland and are registered to vote but were born elsewhere and retain the nationality of your birthplace, as do many migrants from the EU, then do you get to vote about the future of Scotland? What about emigrants from Hong Kong, or from the Commonwealth? If they have become citizens, then they are citizens of the United Kingdom, not of Scotland.
There is so much here to trip up the SNP that I have no doubt they will duck the question altogether, wrap themselves in a tartan banner and a subtext of "We hate the English bastards" and wait for the anniversary of Bannockburn.
There is much to draw on from history, though it seems unlikely Mr. Cameron is aware of it. The Scots have always reacted instinctively against anything seeming to emanate from England. They remain convinced that any policy drawn up in Westminster must be a conspiracy to do them down. It was certainly thus in 1637 when Charles I tried to force his particular brand of religion on to his mainly Calvinist subjects north of the border. The resulting struggle kicked off the "English" Civil Wars and Charles lost his throne and his head, ironically at a time when the Scots were more or less fighting on his side, having decided that the King they knew was preferable to the Cromwell that they were scared of. So the lesson for Cameron is to keep schtum and leave it to the many Scots who oppose independence.
As to the referendum itself, we will watch with some interest the machinations of Mr Salmond, leader of the SNP and one of the most arrogant politicians this blog has had the pleasure to follow. He is currently declaiming that the decision is for the "Scottish people" alone. I would love to be able to propose a referendum on whether Scotland should be permitted to remain in the union that would be put to the voters in England, Wales and Northern Ireland - but not in Scotland - and see what Mr Salmond would say to that. I fail to see why he can choose whether to be in a club but the other members have no say on his membership.
In addition, the word "people" may trip him up. Just who are the Scottish People? Those who live in Scotland or those of Scottish birth? Many Scots live abroad (some even in England, believe it or not). Do they get to vote? How, if they are on the English electoral roll? And if they do, where is the line to be drawn? And why should, for example, a rich film actor or racing driver who chooses not to live in Scotland so he can avoid paying taxes to the Scottish treasury, be entitled to vote? If you have a Scottish father and an English mother and you live in England, are you part of the Scottish people? Huge numbers of Scots emigrated to the USA and Canada in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Are their descendants Scottish? And if you live in Scotland and are registered to vote but were born elsewhere and retain the nationality of your birthplace, as do many migrants from the EU, then do you get to vote about the future of Scotland? What about emigrants from Hong Kong, or from the Commonwealth? If they have become citizens, then they are citizens of the United Kingdom, not of Scotland.
There is so much here to trip up the SNP that I have no doubt they will duck the question altogether, wrap themselves in a tartan banner and a subtext of "We hate the English bastards" and wait for the anniversary of Bannockburn.
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