An Extraordinary Theatrical Experience
There has been a lot of publicity in London about the Railway Children, which is playing until January at the old Waterloo International Station. It sounds as if it will be worth seeing, especially as one of the stars is a Stirling Single.
It is a superb example of how to reuse a redundant building.
You also wonder if the various railway museums and perhaps disused stations around the world will also stage the experience!
Solving the Roadkill Problem
It is being reported that roadkills cost a Norfolk council about £1,500 a month to send them to a crematorium.
But there is a more elegant and dramatic solution.
Why not release a few more red kites? These birds would love all those roadkills.
Benefit Fraud and Daisy
My software, Daisy, has been used several times to combat mass fraud.
It was used to check winter fuel payments by the DSS. They drew a chart based on Surname and Post Code. In some cases they found severalclaimants at the same place. Some were genuine as they were old peoples’ homes, but others were fraud.
The software was also used to check student loan applications. I’m not saying how, but there was a large amount of multiple applications from people, who were never seen again.
It is possible to set up a system, where a large database of claimants for benefits or grants is analysed and then split down into groups, say based on town, post code or street. These can then be e-mailed as individual Excel spreadsheets to the fraud investigators responsible for that area.
Pakistani Sensitivities
Since David Cameron made his comments about Pakistan in India last week, there has been a lot of criticism for the Prime Minister, from both the Pakistani government and people of Pakistani origin in the UK.
Having read extensively on the country, I feel very much that David Cameron was right.
This was then published in The Times in a letter from Shaun Gregory at the University of Bradford.
David Cameron has now seen the UK and US intelligence available on Pakistani army and ISI links to the different Afghan Taleban groups and to Punjabi terrorist organisations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba. He has also been able to reflect on eight years of Labour’s softly-softly approach to Pakistan since 9/11, which has led precisely nowhere in terms of the resurgence of the Afghan Taleban from bases in Pakistan. The Prime Minister is right therefore to seek to increase the pressure on Pakistan in this critical year for Isaf and to reassure India that Britain stands beside the world’s largest democracy in the face of terrorism exported from Pakistan.
Surely though with the flood problems in his country at the moment, the place for the President of Pakistan is at home supporting the unfortunate citizens of his country. Obviously, he is following Dubya’s thinking, when he refused to go to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
It was reported in the Sunday Times at the weekend, that Pakistan has received billions of dollars of US aid. Perhaps some of it should have been used for disaster planning? According to Newsweek, it has not been spent well. Here’s a paragraph from the hardhitting article.
But how effective will this round of money be? Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad have alleged that Pakistan misspent some 70 percent of the U.S. funds that paid the Pakistani military to run missions in the unwieldy provinces along the Afghan border. U.S. officials accuse Pakistan of running a double game with the money, keeping the Taliban at bay just enough to persuade American benefactors to keep their wallets open, thereby ensuring a lifeline for the country’s mangled economy. All of which raises the question: will any amount of money produce results?
I doubt it! So we must kep the pressure on the corrupt and dangerous regime that is Pakistan, but continue to support the people with humanitarian aid and the rebuilding of the flood-damaged areas. But all funds should be funnelled through agencies and people we can trust, both to do the job and not to divert it for other purposes.
A Good Idea from South Dakota?
South Dakota operates a 24/7 sobriety progam for drink-driving and domestic violence, where offenders have to be tested twice a day. You should read this piece in The Guardian, where Kit Malthouse, London’s Deputy Mayor, expands his ideas, based on the South Dakota experience, in detail.
I think that the idea is worth trying.
I also think that it could be applied to some drink-driving cases. I have only been breatherlysed once and I was well under the limit and as at the present time, I can’t drive, it would be no benefit to me personally at the moment. But supposing now, someone is just over the limit and was perhaps caught say because they were stopped because a brake-light was out, would it not be a good idea to fine the driver and put them on a 24/7 sobriety program. It would not mean they lost their job and had problems ferrying children and elderly relatives. They would just have a bit of inconvenience about going to be tested twice a day.
There is also the point, that routine often brings people round and improves their lives. I have mentored people in the past, who’ve asked me how they can get and keep a job. Often it depends on a lot of small things, like being on time, being smart and polite. I’ve told them this and often a few months later, I’ve got a thanks.
What is a kilowatt-Hour?
I have just been watching BBC Breakfast as people were trying to understand their electricity statements, which have been braqnded as confusing, by Consumer Focus.
A couple of those interviewed asked what a kilowatt-Hour was? Where were they at school? Or is such basic information not taught any more?
It’s very simple really! It’s the amount of electricity that a one bar or one kilowatt fire would use in an hour, or the amount a hundred watt light bulb would use in ten hours.
We really must teach these basic facts of life better. Perhaps then, that waste of our taxes, Consumer Focus, could be dismantled or just deal with genuine complaints, safety and health issues.
Here is their Annual Report for Consumer Focus for 2009/10. They spent £11,676,000 on staff costs for a start and they only had 226 employees. So that’s £51, 663 per employee.
The Shambles of the Regional Fire Control Centres
NuLabor wanted to bring in a set of nine reginal control centres for the fire services across the country to replace 46 control rooms. That was the theory, but read this article in The Daily Telegraph, which details the shambles. The buildings are ready, but the software is not, so they are just standing idle and costing about £1.5 million a month.
I was alerted to this by an article on the BBC local news about the unused centre at Waterbeach. The new government is now saying that councils can opt out of the new centres. In a way, that is compounding the problem.
Surely, one of the main reasons for having a network of identical centres, is that this woulds mean that if say an operator had to move say to another part of the country, they could then be reemployed if necessary at another centre without retraining. I once met a doctor, whose wife was an ambulance controller. When he had moved to Cambridge, she had taken a year to be retrained because all the systems were different. That is rediculous, as we need standard systems for fire, police and ambulance all over the UK. I have heard reliable reports of Chief Constables, who want the best system money can buy, as long as no other force has it.
It should be one size that fits all! As an aside here, when we designed Artemis, there was essentially one system, that could manage projects ofd all sizes. You just specified it with bigger discs and more terminals for larger projects. But then we knew how to design systems properly so they worked. When I see the words government and computer system, because of my bad eyesight, I always read it as a gravy train to disaster.
So these fire control centres should be got up and running as soon as possible and if they are late then the contractors should be liable for the losses. I suspect though, that that is impossible, as the idiot who specified the system and wrote the contract forgot to put in a penalty clause. He or she should be fired! But they won’t be!
A Bad Move by the BBC?
It has now been confirmed that the BBC is moving its flagship BBC Breakfast program to Salford Quays in Manchester.
It has also been reported that some of the presenters and broadcasting staff are not that happy.
I don’t think I am either, as will some of the more interesting guests bother to go up to Manchester, when they can get as much publicity by sitting on the sofa at GMTV in London? I will still probably watch the BBC, as I’m allergic to adverts.
To illustrate this problem this morning, where the Pakistan floods are dominating the news, they called in a representative of the charity, World Vision, which is based in Milton Keynes, who talked with great knowledge about the problem. Would they get the same quality of expert in Manchester, especially as most charities seem to be south-east based? It is also the day when many of the major banks are reporting. This would have to be an outside broadcast no doubt.
It is a bad move, especially as the guy in charge of it won’t be moving.
I actually think that if the BBC Breakfast program suffers badly in quality because of the move North, then there would be a gap for a high-quality, serious news program based in London, probably paid for by some means like a subscription.
The Paradox that is Pakistan
There is a long article in The Sunday Times today by Christina Lamb, that should be read by everyone who worries for the future of that part of Asia. I do,as I was born, when two nations; India and Pakistan, were created out of violence.
She details how the ISI, the Pakistan Security Service has pursued its own policies over the country, the Taliban and Afghanistan. She more or less accuses the ISI of being involved in the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the attacks on Mumbai. One also wonders where the $18billion that the United States has given Pakistan in aid has gone?
After reading Lanb’s article, I feel very much that David Cameron got it about right, when he spoke in India last week!
We also today have the appalling performance of the Pakistan cricket team at Nottingham, where they collapsed badly and were beaten by 354 runs. They had the nucleus of a team, but it self-destructed in Australia and some players endeed up being banned for life. If you can’t organise your national sport, when you have so much history in the game, you are in a bad state.
Added to this is the fact, that I know from some of my friends, that it is still possible to do serious business with Pakistan. So it’s not all bad news!
But what worries me about Pakistan is that if they should support another terrorist attack on India. Would India show the same restraint she did after the Mumbai attacks? I think not this time, as those attacks weren’t the first and they must be losing patience!
Would the various communities from the sub-continent show restraint in the UK? Most probably would, but I doubt that we could keep out of it.
Pakistan must get its act together, reinforce democracy and curb the power of the ISI.
UAE to Ban Some Blackberry Services
I’ve never used a Blackberry, but I can understand why people do! I also didn’t know that they use their own method of encription for e-mail, which I would asume makes it fairly secure. Now according to the BBC, the UAE wants to ban these sort of services, because they can’t read e-mail sent between the devices.
It strikes me that if the UAE wants to be a business and holiday centre of choice, that this would not appeal to those, who they would wish to attract.
The Anonymous Widower 