A Treacherous Percentage

I try to avoid television advertisements, devoting advertising breaks to calls of nature and minor domestic tasks, but every so often I catch something about some concoction that is supposed to 'kill 99.9% of germs'.

I once read that bacteria can reproduce every half hour. At that rate of reproduction, a colony of bacteria diminished by 99.9% would be restored to its original strength in only five hours. The statistically impressive slaughter may amount to less than naive users might hope.

Action or Inaction

In the course of a recent broadcast discussion of a new curriculum for Scottish schools, someone I took to be a representative of a teachers' union mentioned a possibility of what he called 'industrial action'. I think he meant a strike.

Schools are not industrial, and striking consists of abstaining from work, so 'non-industrial inaction' would be a much better term.

Our Versatile Post Office

Twice recently I've had letters from the Post Office asking me to let it arrange life insurance for me.

The Post Office is an organisation owned by the government, and originally set up by past governments which gave it a monopoly of postal services in the hope of making it easier for government officials to spy on our mail. The Post Office still retains a monopoly on delivering mail cheaply.

Whatever is it doing dabbling in the Insurance market? I doubt if it has any relevant expertise.

Mr. S. Hughes

As he's Vice-Chairman of the Liberal Democrat Party, I'm surprised how luke-warm he sounds when discussing the coalition.

I've long had reservations about Hughes. There is a humourless moral earnestness about him, and there is something strange about a gay man being swept into parliament on a wave of homophobia, even though he did not create it.

Mr. Blair's Generosity

I can't resist the temptation to contribute to the speculation about Mr. Blair's donation of his royalties to The British Legion.

Most commentators seem to have overlooked the possibility that he cares about the plight of disabled ex-servicemen, but there might still be other thoughts at the back of his mind.

If I were in his position I should expect my donation to set a precedent which might make it hard for other writers of memoirs to keep their royalties, and I gather that Mr. G. Brown's memoirs are on the way. How amusing if Brown wanted to keep his royalties but felt constrained to give them away.

The Unpleasantly Tribal Mr. Burnham

Mr. A Burnham, a lagging candidate for the Labour Leadership, has just denounced Mr. A. Milburn for agreeing to advise the Government on social mobility. His proffered reason seemed to be on the lines 'we are the Labour gang, so we don't talk to people in other gangs."

As the Labour party led the attack on the grammar schools which used to be one of the principal engines of social mobility, it is understandable that party members should be sensitive about social mobility, but I wish they could expiate their guilt less destructively.

A Confession from a Variably Energetic Blogger.

During the last year or so I've noticed that I seem to alternate between extreme laziness and at least moderate activity.

For a day or two, apart from a little reading which I rarely neglect, I'll do little but potter around the web, then there'll be a period when I blog, bring my web site up to date, garden and make jam. Then I lapse back into idleness.

That explains why contributions to this blog come in clusters.

David Cameron

Ever since he became Conservative leader I've felt uneasy about Cameron.

As opposition leader he seemed unnecessarily strident. When he shouted at the then prime minister in the house of commons, I sometimes felt for Gordon Brown a sympathy that I suspect Brown did not deserve. I should have liked more humour and subtlety, and less self righteous ranting.

Recently I've detected a worrying impulsiveness. His remark about Pakistan's hospitality to terrorists may have been carefully calculated as part of some cunning plan, but it sounded as if it just popped out, and I see no excuse for his recent declaration that no one should even examine the merits of free milk for nursery school children. Demanding cuts, and then objecting when people discuss the possibilities is absurd.

Surprised by a Network

Ever since I bought a new PC last year I've been plucking up courage to network it to my laptop. I even bought a special cable. Yet I held back, fearing that something I did to the IP settings would disable Internet access.

Then I recalled that people say that wireless router automatically sets up a network, so I created on each computer a folder that is shared, and discovered that each computer could see the other computer's folder.

There's only one shared folder on each computer. I use them only for transferring files from one machine to the other, so most of the time both are empty, because as soon as I put something in to the special folder on one machine, I remove it into the bowels of the other machine. Thus any miscreant who somehow penetrated the network would probably see just two empty folder, and if they did find anything it would probably just be a revised chapter of my Philosophy notes, which are available to all on my website.

No longer need I swap flash drives every time I want to move a file from one machine to the other.

I love it when an apparent problem just dissolves.

A Sign of Rising Inflation

The Government has just stopped selling Index Linked Savings Certificates. That suggests politicians may expect inflation to rise. Indeed they may plan for high inflation as a way of reducing the National Debt.

Megabyte Megalomaniacs

Twice recently I've received by email huge files, containing very little information.

Both were posters in jpeg format

Posters usually contain sufficiently few colours to permit storage in gif format, which will not corrupt text. However any picture format is poor for material containing text.

One of the emails suggested I print the poster. As it was in graphics format that would have involved a vast consumption of ink to print the background colour.

I suppose the offenders think they are being clever, but they strike me as pathetic, silly and inconsiderate.

I wish that, if people must make posters, they would just put them on a website, preferably as html files, and give people a link.

The Ill-managed Demise of Mr. Raoul Moat

Mr. Moat was armed, had already shot three people, and threatened to shoot more. After a search that lasted nearly a week, armed Police cornered him.

They then spent about six hours trying to persuade him to give himself up, providing him with food and drink to fortify him for a prolonged stalemate, thus increasing the Police overtime. Finally they shot him with a new sort of taser, not yet approved for use, and he shot himself with a more serious weapon.

Such time wasting could be avoided if, as soon as they have a fugitive surrounded, the police said 'You have 30 seconds to surrender, and then we shoot'. Feeding the offender is ridiculous, unless the food contains a sleeping drug.