Political Correctness Runs Amok
Not my words but a headline in the Daily Mail for this article. It’s all about New York City banning the use of a list of fifty words in tests. One was dinosaur because it might upset creationists.
Who cares upsetting them, as they are a ragbag collection of religious idiots who deny the truth and logic of science.
Read David Attenborough on the subject of creationism here.
The Quality of Some A-Levels
It would appear that nothing changes here in some subjects. The main news story is that Michael Gove wants to reform A levels and give the universities more control. He states that some A levels don’t prepare some students for their University courses.
Was it ever any different?
When I went to Liverpool University in the 1960s, my maths was good, especially as I had done a Further Maths exam after my normal Pure and Applied Maths. The latter incidentally was dropped soon after I took it, despite it being the most useful to engineers.
Others though, did not have my maths skill, despite having got an A level. So a lot of my first year was spent relearning maths, so I could be a good engineer.
In fact, the problem was even worse. Until the year before me, the Engineering Department at Liverpool, got the Maths Department to teach maths. But they had found it was taught so badly, that they took to teaching it themselves.
That was sixty years ago!
I’d love to see a current Maths A level paper and see how much is within my knowledge.
Could Fracking Be The Saviour of the North?
I can remember a documentary on the BBC in probably the 1960s about how a Scottish company extracted oil from shale rock. I don’t know whether they still do. I have just found this museum to the industry and it says it closed in 1962.
According to today’s Sunday Times, there is enough shale gas in the shale deposits mostly in the north of England to last 70 years.
Now I know extracting shale gas is controversial, especially, where the process of fracking is used. There was controversy in the Blackpool are, as fracking was blamed for a couple of small earthquakes. Read about it here.
But then there was controversy, when horseless carriages first arrived on British roads and they had to be preceded by a man with a red flag.
I’m not saying there is no risk from fracking, but I do think, that with proper research fracking will be safe to use in many places in the world.
And eventually, it will be used in many places in the UK, when the problems are sorted out. After all, we mined coal for years, despite the subsidence risk nearby.
And remember that for the same amount of energy coal produces forty-percent more CO2! This is because coal is pure carbon, whereas natural gas is a mixture of Hydrogen H2 and Methane, CH4, so it produces a large proportion of water when it burns.
Hopefully, I’ll know more later in the week, when I have gone to the Geological Society of London to hear a lecture.
The other thing about shale gas in the UK, is that it is located where we need jobs; in the north of England. So it becomes a vote winner for whoever wants to play the shale gas card.
Any extraction of shale gas, should be linked to two measures.
1. A local extraction tax, that goes directly to the local authorities over the extraction. This was proposed in the seventies, by someone I knew, as a means of pursuing oil extraction in places like Surrey, which in his knowledgeable view was one of the most likely places to find oil in the UK. Imagine the fuss it would create if large quantities of oil were found under say Epsom. But if Surrey got enough money to build everything they needed, the reaction of some might be different.
2. Full insurance for any buildings damaged by extraction process.
Politicians and the press will see it as a simple black and white issue. Most will be against! I see it as a multi-coloured jigsaw, that must be based on sound technology.
I would start by setting up an well–funded Institute of Fracking, at a university that has the reputation to recruit some of the best researchers in the world. It may prove that fracking is a dead end but if it showed that it was economically viable in the UK, we would reap the benefit in spades.
I have just found this article from the American Consumer Institute. It makes a lot of interesting points. Note that the United States has a local extraction tax in some or all states and this seems to push opinion in various directions.
I think the worst thing we could do is ban fracking, with the second worst being to ignore it.
Whatever we do, because we have so much of this gas, we should set up some form of research institute.
There is also a page of expert opinion to the Qradilla report on the links between fracking and earthquakes at Blackpool.
A Good Spelling Mistake
I read this on CityWire‘s web site.
Newspapers and stationary retailer WH Smith (SMWH.L) is to release a Christmas trading statement on Wednesday.
Those who were at school with me, might remember a notice pinned to the door of the Stationery Office, which said something like.
Stationery Office
Hasn’t Moved in Years.
I hope we got the spelling right, as we were pupils at a Grammar School.
Oxford Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up To Be
I had to smile at this article.
At least she decided to follow in C’s footsteps and go to UCL to read law.
I’ve always believed that you shouldn’t go to a university, that is in a place, that is very similar to where you were brought up, as it doesn’t widen your mind.
A Very Stupid Question
Richard Bacon on BBC Radio 5 Live, has just asked the comedian, Paul Foot , if after his degree in Mathemetics at Oxford, he was planning to be an accountant. Mathematicians would never lower themselves so much to do something as boring as accountancy.
Does this just show how narrow the average interviewer on the media is?
An Old Cinema in Liverpool
Liverpool is a city, where I can walk about the city centre and find loads of memories from my time in the 1960s, there both post and after the time I met C.
An Old Cinema in Liverpool
This cinema in Lime Street, was a bit smaller than most of the others and generally showed less mainstream films. I’m trying to remember what I saw there with C, although I can remember seeing The Collector there with another girl.
One memory of the cinema was that in 1968 or so, a film called Sixteen or something like that was released. It was a feature length film made with sex education in mind. You had the strange site of nuns herding school-girls into the cinema to see it.
I wonder if it had any positive effects. No-one knew what the nuns thought of it.
The Unbelievable Story of Cec Thompson
I’d never heard of Cec Thompson, who was one of the first black players to play rugby league for Great Britain, until I found this story on the BBC’s web site. He has just sadly died at 85, after an incredibly full life, which to say the least started very badly.
He is the sort of person, who is an inspiration to everybody. His obituary in the Telegraph tells more.
Is This How To Educate Teachers About Gluten-Free?
Adam’s Gluten-Free Surprise is a book written about a coeliac child by a teacher.
I hadn’t been diagnosed as a coeliac when I was at school, so it couldn’t have helped me, but it might help all of those gluten-free children, who suffer in an unsympathetic school.
Now Is The Time For All The Good To Come To The Aid of Universities
A friend and I recently gave some money to Liverpool University for pancreatic cancer research.
What we hadn’t realised was that as Liverpool University is in tier three of the government’s Matched Funding Scheme, this means that they add one pound for every three pounds raised. So if you say give £100, which with Gift Aid is actually £125 to the University, another £42 will be added. There are conditions and not all universities get a one to three topup.
Full details of the scheme are detailed here.
The scheme ends in July 2011, so if you are thinking about giving some money to a University, perhaps now is the time to do it!
The Anonymous Widower 