A Delightful Ambiguity

In a BBC news broadcast this afternoon, there was a reference to a football team with the nickname 'The Cottagers'.

I didn't spot what team it is, but one doesn't need to know who they are to enjoy a snigger.

Since I wrote this blog, one of my readers has given me a link to an explanatory list of football club nick-names.

His attempt to put it in a comment to this message was defeated by his inability to prove he isn't a robot by deciphering some particularly illegible text, so here it is

Thank you Mark.

In Defence of Strip Billiards

The game might encourage embarrassing double entendres involving the word 'balls', but the opportunities it would offer outweigh that small disadvantage many times over.

Had I a body as glorious as Prince Harry's, and access to a secluded billiard table, I should seriously consider playing strip billiards myself.

The delectable prince has nothing to reproach himself with, except perhaps his injudicious choice of friends.

On the other hand I find the false friend who put the pictures in the public domain contemptible. His or her name, address, place of work, photograph, mobile number, home telephone number, email addresses and full medical history should be publicised as widely as possible.

The remarkable Correspondence of Railtrack Limited.

I strongly recommend this link

It contains some of the correspondence that followed a sentimental railway enthusiast registering Railtrack Limited as a company, following the demise of the old Railtrack PLC. Many solicitors and public servants were confused, with amusing consequences.

The Ruler as Impotent Deity: a Strange View of the Cosmos

In a recent BBC news broadcast a correspondent described a conversation with a Russian farm worker. Asked if he blamed President Putin for the hard conditions of rural life, he said no, Putin was like God, too far away to help someone like him.

I suspect that many who would be classed as religious believers are similarly eccentric in their theology.

I must think of a questionnaire to apply to religious folk I encounter. Suggestions of promising questions woukld be very welcome. Please include them in comments to this blog.

Safeguarding State Secrets

Now Ecuador has give Julian Assange diplomatic immunity, I assume that that state's secrets will be safe from exposure by Wiki-leaks.

The Extraordinary cost of Corned beef

130g packets of corned beef cost £3-00 in the local Sainsbury. In my youth corned beef was a cheap substitute for 'proper' meat; now it's about the same price as fillet steak!!!

A Puzzle for the Economists

While browsing through the kitchen gadgets in a local department store, I spotted empty jam jars for sale, presumably for people who make their own jam.They cost £1-59 each.

For less than that one can buy similar jars already filled with jam.

Perhaps there is scope for arbitrage - buying jars of jam from a supermarket, eating the jam, and then re-selling the jars at a profit.

I wonder what the economists would say about it.

Using Three Words in Place of One

I recently heard the phrase 'piece of data'.

The single word 'datum' would suffice'.

Temperatures and Colours

The cover of this month's copy of The Garden has a picture of some orange flowers with the caption Hot Heleniums

Reds and oranges are often referred to as 'warm' or 'hot' colours, while blues are commonly considered 'cool'.

The opposite is the case. Within the visible spectrum, blue light is the most energetic, and red the least.

The 'warmth of reds' is a cliché copied by people who don't pause to consider what they are saying.

More fumbling with numbers

This morning's Radio 4 news broadcast mentioned the discovery of about 48 tons of silver near the Irish coast, and claimed it was worth nearly a billion pounds.

That sum seemed implausibly large, so I checked current silver prices (about 17 pounds per ounce) and calculated a value in the region of 29 million pounds. Some people seem unable to tell whether or not numbers make sense.

Incidentally there are three different 'tons' in use; fortunately they differ by only a few percent.

The metric ton (or tonne) = 1000 kg

The imperial ton (long ton) = 20 hundred weight = 2240 pounds, roughly 1016 kg

The short ton = 20 short hundred weight = 2000 pounds, roughly 907 kg

Americans use the short ton

I used the imperial ton in my calculation

Fear of Precision

I've often noticed that news media prefer vague terms like 'large, 'tiny', to numbers. I may have blogged about this before.

A couple of days ago the BBC television news reported early results of an election in Libya, saying that one group had achieved a 'landslide victory'

I checked on the BBC website and found that the 'landslide' in question amounted only to winning 39 of 80 seats filled from party lists.

Taking Footballers too Seriously

Towards the end of last year, two footballers were rude to each other in the course of a game. One of them complained that the other used especially rude words, so there was a prosecution leading to a prolonged court case, extensively reported on air.

It  amazes me that people could be so solemn about something so silly.