Manchester is a Top Place to Go
Who says this crap? It’s apparently in the New York Times list at number 20 of 41 places to go in 2011 ahead of Miami and Zanzibar.
Manchester is a poor city and is very much second class compared to Liverpool, Glasgow, Newcastle, Leeds and of course London. You could argue it does have two good football teams, but London has three. It’s got no iconic buildings and it is not a World Heritage Site like Liverpool. I suppose you could argue, that Manchester has a couple of good hotels and is well connected by train to Liverpool and Leeds for days out. It also has a real tennis club.
The Mother of Statistics
After last night’s program, The Joy of Stats, it was good to see one of Florence Nightingale‘s coxcomb charts in the business pages of The Times in an article headed, Bloodied but largely unbowed, things are looking up for Toyota. The chart has been missed off the web edition.
She was so much more than the Lady with the Lamp.
She also had a massive input into Brunel’s design for the prefabricated hospital at Renkioi in the Crimea. Here’s an extract from Wikipedia.
Brunel was working on the Great Eastern amongst other projects, but accepted the task in February 1855 of designing and building the War Office requirement of a temporary, pre-fabricated hospital that could be shipped to Crimea and erected there. In 5 months he designed, built, and shipped pre-fabricated wood and canvas buildings, providing them complete with advice on transportation and positioning of the facilities. They were subsequently erected near Scutari Hospital, where Nightingale was based, in the malaria-free area of Renkioi.
His designs incorporated the necessities of hygiene: access to sanitation, ventilation, drainage, and even rudimentary temperature controls. They were feted as a great success, with some sources stating that of the approximately 1,300 patients treated in the Renkioi temporary hospital, there were only 50 deaths. In the Scutari hospital it replaced, deaths were said to be as many as 10 times this number. Nightingale referred to them as “those magnificent huts”. The practice of building hospitals from pre-fabricated modules survives today, with hospitals such as the Bristol Royal Infirmary being created in this manner.
Sad to say, we don’t solve problems in that way anymore. Today’s civil servants would never let two people like Nightingale and Brunel even talk to each other, as they would come up with something that made the civil servants all look to be the dunderheads they inevitably are.
Remember that it takes twelve civil servants to change a light bulb. One to actually change the bulb and eleven to do the paperwork.
Boris Talks Sense
The unions are incensed that Boris Johnson has talked of introducing driverless trains on the London Underground.
But we’ve effectively had driverless trains on the Underground ever since 1967 on the Victoria Line. The so-called driver sits in the cab and when he’s satisfied that the doors on the train are shut, he effectively pushes a button and the train automation moves the train to the next station.
So as Boris said, everybody could drive an Underground train. Well not exactly, but any sane person, with a strong sense of responsibility and a degree of proper training could do it. I suspect that any bus driver could do it very well, especially as now, the average London bus, is probably almost as complicated as an Underground train. Remember, I’ve seen at first hand, what it takes to drive a train. But that was on a much more complicated line, at twice the speed and without the same degree of automation.
The unions are only delaying the inevitable day, when drivers on Underground trains, are only there for the rare times, when something goes seriously wrong. Even the announcements, when there is a problem could be done remotely from a control centre.
A Reply for Kazakh Jock
Kazakh Jock of the Bacon Sandwich episode has asked me a question about Ipswich Town.
What is going on as you get absolutely thumped one week and then come round and beat the second best team in the country !!!! and all within a week.
The words about monkeys and backs come to mind. But also on Wednesday, Ipswich got the tactics right, even if Fabregas throught Ipswich were playing rugby.
Priskin’s goal was the result of one of numerous balls lofted over Arsenal’s vulnerable backline, a tactic of which Fábregas was dismissive. “I don’t know if it is long ball or it is a rugby kick but it worked for them,” he said. “In England a lot of teams play like that and it works for them, they create chances like that and it is their football. I can only remember two opportunities for them but it was from a long, long ball because, playing football, they could not really get behind us or [get] attacking.
“We just have to put the ball on the floor and try to play football – that is what we do. I still think we played well. We were good enough but just did not put the ball in the back of the net. The result is a bit disappointing because I think we were the much better team. Credit to them because they played well but Arsenal made the football. The other team refused to play football. They were lucky to score in a long ball. But it was one of those nights and now we have to make it at the Emirates in two weeks’ time.”
Or should I quote Corporal Jones about not liking it up ’em? Or rather Arsenal’s rather suspect defence didn’t!
As I was at both matches, I can also say that one big difference between the two matches was the performance of the diminutive Jaime Peters, who is even shorter than me. Against Chelski his pace was employed up front and he was probably bullied out of the match, by players almost twice his size. But against Arsenal, he was at right-back and his quick tackling, interceptions and fast breaks completely subdued Arsenal’s left flank. Andrey Arshavin was made to look a very ordinary player.
The Anonymous Widower 