Just like that?

The SNP is perhaps veering to the optimistic with regard to this timetable:

ALEX Salmond will this week announce that Scotland’s independence day will be 24 March, 2016, when he unveils his blueprint for breaking up the UK amid growing disagreement in the Yes campaign over plans to keep the pound.In the event of a Yes vote in next September’s referendum, Salmond proposes that Scotland will become a sovereign nation state some 18 months after the poll, on a day that marks the 309th anniversary of the 1707 Act of Union.

Assuming (somewhat heroically) that the referendum were to produce a "yes", eighteen months is not a long period of time, given the vast number of issues which would need to be resolved between the Scottish and UK adminstrations before any declaration of independence.  Furthermore, the UK administration would be most unlikely to take seriously any negotiations before the general election in May 1915; and, even after a new UK government had been elected, the prospect of detailed negotiations on matters such as debt repartition, oil revenues, defence responsibilities, currency unions, is unlikely to be one of its first priorities.  And should be we be proceeding to set up an independent state wihout sorting out where we would stand on membership of the EU and NATO, neither of which is renowned for speed of decision-making?

Domestically, there are even more tasks to undertake, from setting up a Scottish Treasury and Inland Revenue, a Scottish Ministry of Defence and a Foreign Office, to arranging for new elections on the basis that the present Scottish administration was not intended to form an independent government.  Do you really see yourself paying income tax to a Scottish Inland Revenue with effect from 16 March 2016?

Could all this happen within less than twelve months, as the SNP envisage?  Well maybe, but I rather doubt it ...

Knowing your onions

Not a lot of people know this.  Bloomberg reports:

Record onion prices and the soaring cost of rice and coriander are frustrating Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan’s battle to curb inflation while supporting growth in Asia’s third-largest economy.

The wholesale-price index for onions, a staple food for India’s 1.24 billion people, has climbed 155 percent this year, hitting an all-time high of 820.5 in September, according to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The index, set at 100 in 2004, has almost quadrupled in 12 months. A broader measure for food is up 19 percent in 2013, while spot prices for coriander climbed about 29 percent and basmati rice advanced 40 percent.

Yes, I know - it brings tears to your eyes.

   

Unanswerable questions of the week

From a letter to The Guardian:

What is it with George Osborne and hard hats? Not a week goes by without the chancellor appearing on the news clad in the outfit of a manual worker. Is he going through a crisis about his masculinity, or is this an attempt to divert our attention from his Bullingdon background? Perhaps the headgear is to protect him from the flak being hurled in his direction by critics who think that his Help to Buy scheme is economically misguided. Or does he just want to be in Village People?

   

The last word ...

... on Qatar's new sports stadium, whixh is somewhat inadvertently shaped:

... why not have 45,000 people crammed inside a woman's reproductive system? It's not like they haven't been there before.

   

Who's in charge?

Interesting problem, which is almost philosophical in nature, revealed by The Observer:

The government's drive to introduce more competition into the NHS is having the perverse effect of holding up the creation of world-class cancer treatment centres, the Observer can reveal.

Investigations show that individual hospitals whose roles would be downgraded under reorganisations are blocking moves to concentrate cancer services into fewer top-performing specialist centres, by claiming such mergers would be anti-competitive and would reduce patient choice.

NHS leaders, who are deeply concerned about the effect that legal disputes are having on progress, have admitted some cancer units are being allowed to carry on operating even though they do not meet the latest official guidelines on how services should best be organised.

In one case, a "rationalisation" of cancer services in and around Manchester, proposed by NHS England as a way to improve "outcomes" to world-class levels, is being challenged and held up by complaints from south Manchester NHS foundation trust and Stockport NHS foundation trust on legal grounds.

In the good old days, before the Coalition (and indeed New Labour) got their grubby mitts on it, the NHS was for most purposes a top-down, centrally controlled service where patients (customers?) were expected to take what they were given and where priorities were determined (and rationed) by Ministers and a few health bureaucrats at the centre.  This is still the case in Scotland.  This system worked more or less adequately for fifty years from its inception in the 1940s.

The attempt to introduce competition/patient choice into the system was, rightly or wrongly, a reaction against the dead hand of central control.  But of course Ministers and bureaucrats wanted to retain the option of central direction where they deemed it necessary.  Alas, once you give "the little people" a taste of freedom, they insist upon exercising it.  And as competition spreads further into the NHS, we can expect further local/central conflicts to emerge.

 

Carney's conundrum

The Governor's work is never done.  Just because the recovery has "taken hold" does not mean that he can relax.  The Guardian obliquely hints at his problem:

The Bank of England will be in no hurry to raise interest rates during the key pre-election year of 2014 despite being taken aback by the strength of the economy's recovery over the past three months.

Mark Carney, the Bank's governor, said recovery had "finally taken hold" but that Threadneedle Street believed an early end to ultra-low interest rates would threaten business and consumer confidence.

Carney stressed that the Bank could deal with the threat of a house-price bubble without the need for dearer borrowing and that there was no guarantee its nine-strong monetary policy committee would raise rates even when unemployment fell to 7%, the level at which an increase in the cost of borrowing will first be discussed under the governor's forward guidance plan.

It is all very well to be in no hurry to raise interest rates but action cannot be postponed indefinitely.  Even now, inflation remains above target.  If house prices continue to race ahead, and bubbles continue to develop on stock markets, Governor Carney will be forced to dampen that irrational exuberance and take the punchbowl away.  He will then find himself between the Scylla of letting the economy get out of control and the Charybdis of rising interest rates with all the pain that offers to middle England mortgage-holders.  Then we will see if he is worth all the money that Chancellor Osborne agreed to pay him.

 

Mine is bigger than yours

Childish argument:

One World Trade Center has been officially crowned as the tallest building in the western hemisphere after a row that threatened to embarrass the building's designers and see it demoted to second place.

The debate centred over whether the 408ft steel structure on top of the New York skyscraper was a spire or an antenna. Supporters of the Willis Tower in Chicago argued it was an antenna, and so the building was only 1,368ft, rather than its stated height of 1,776ft. 

But the 30 members of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat's "height committee", who met on Friday, ruled that One World Trade Center reaches 1,776ft and its claim to be the tallest building in the western hemisphere is legitimate. 

"We were very clear that it was a spire and not an antenna," said Timothy Johnson, chairman of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat at a press conference in New York City on Tuesday. “Spires, we feel, are part of the architecture of the building that will not only be there permanently but have a significant effect on what the building is perceived to be,” Johnson said.

Put a flag on the spire and see if anyone salutes it?

Playing the man

Are pro-union MPs motivated solely by ignoble selfish interests?  The Observer seems to think so:

The reaction of some Scottish politicians over the loss of 850 jobs on the Clyde was quite sickening. The new Lib Dem Scottish secretary, Alistair Carmichael, and the Glasgow Labour MP Ian Davidson, both of whom will lose their highly paid Westminster jobs if Scotland votes Yes, are obviously feeling the heat. Carmichael, one of the most obscure figures in the world's most obscure political party, stated that an independent Scotland would not be awarded any future UK defence contracts. The Glasgow Labour MP John Robertson said baldly: "No yard, no ships" in an independent Scotland.

All of them seemed to be inviting the UK government to kill shipbuilding on the Clyde as a punishment for Scotland exercising its democratic right to say Yes. Davidson actually stated that the loss of "only" 850 jobs on the Clyde – 20% of its workforce – was a cause for celebration.

These three wretched, wretched men have put their own soiled political careers above the needs of those whom they are supposed to represent. It is all about hanging on to their fat Westminster salaries after September 2014. Instead of putting their careers before the future of Scottish shipbuilding, they ought instead to be concerned that, two weeks after Grangemouth, another rich and powerful magnate can force governments to play dice with one of Scotland's great industries.

I would contend that it is possible to disagree with one's political opponents without imputing baser motives. It seems not unlikely that Messrs Carmichael, Davidson and Robertson genuinely believe that Scotland's best course is to remain part of the United Kingdom.  That does not make them right.  By all means, attack their views and opinions, but do so on the basis of reasoned argument rather than personal vilification.

A rather maudlin tale

The bear who had never seen Christmas?

Should I buy shares in Twitter?

CityAM reports:

SOCIAL media colossus Twitter priced its initial public offering (IPO) at $26 (£16.17) per share late last night, ready to float today on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

The pricing is a dollar higher than the upper range of the previous attempt to value the company, and suggests a total valuation for Twitter of about $18bn.

Earlier this month Twitter announced that it was planning to sell 70m shares at $17 to $20 each, but lifted the price in response to buoyant demand. The price was then boosted to $23-25 per share, implying a market valuation of about $17.4bn, before yesterday’s hike.

Grey market trading on IG Index’s market during the middle of October suggested that the company could be valued at closer to $30bn.

Leaving aside the merits (or demerits) of investing in a company which has yet to make any profits, there is a structural barrier to successful investment in US shares.  If you buy shares in a UK-listed company, you only need to worry about whether the price will rise or fall; the value of the shares need only rise by enough to cover the fixed acquisition costs (stamp duty and admin fees) in order for you to make a profit.  Buying American shares is a trickier business:  the pounds you use for share purchase need to be converted into dollars, a process which cost you up to one or two per cent of their value, and you will face a similar cost after selling the shares when converting back into sterling.  That alone adds substantially to the difficulty of securing a profit.  You also need to keep an eye on the movement in exchange rates; the value of the shares may rise but this may be obliterated if the dollar pound rate moves the wrong way.

Of course, you may choose to open a trading account in the US and deal in dollars on a longer-term basis.  But, if your home currency is essentially the pound sterling, who needs all the hassle?

Nevertheless, I did give it a try (once) and bought some shares in Amazon.  I was lucky and emerged with a small profit.  But I resolved to stick to UK-listed shares in future.

Stick or twist?

The deal on the naval shipyards poses a problem for the SNP.  The Guardian sets it out somewhat brutally:

Vote no to independence, and Scotland's shipyards can continue to get new orders from the UK Ministry of Defence, and be in pole position for the construction of the Royal Navy's new frigate later this decade. Vote yes, and the Scottish yards are likely to suffer the same fate as Portsmouth, with thousands of job losses in areas of already high unemployment.

And looming above the shipyard question is Trident.  The nationalists are apparently determined to banish the so-called nuclear deterrent from Scottish shores, whereas a London administration is equally determined on its retention.  Throw in the fact but there is nowhere else in the UK where it can be feasibly based, and there emerges an impasse which would be central to negotiations following a yes vote.

Nor can the SNP leave the issue on the shelf during the run-up to the referendum.  Can the Scottish people be expected to vote for independence under the implied threat of massive job losses at defence establishments if the SNP insists on telling London where it can stick its nuclear submarines?  On the other hand, would it be possible for the nationalists to undermine a central plank of their appeal by offering some kind of deal whereby a foreign power in the shape of the London administration could keep its nuclear bases in Scotland, even if such a deal opened up the possibility of better treatment for Scottish shipyards and other military establishments and of longer-term co-operation between Edinburgh and London on defence matters?

It’s a difficult choice ...

As others see us

Bloomberg has been reviewing the UK political scene, not unfairly, I think:

... the U.K.'s ideologically driven politics of class warfare are back after a brief respite during the booming Tony Blair years. In the space of a few weeks, Miliband has proposed a price freeze for energy companies and a cap on the interest rates that lenders can charge, as well as steps to increase the minimum wage, reduce the number of low-skilled immigrants coming to the U.K., and set up state-backed regional banks like in Germany.

...

I suspect that unless living standards start to rise substantially in the next year (the current increase in economic growth rates won't cut it), Miliband's back-to-the-future case for change will be hard to defeat at the next election in 2015.

The honest answer to most of Miliband's proposals is that they address only the symptoms of a wider problem: productivity in the U.K. is falling, business investment is anemic, and the high value industry in which the U.K. excels -- finance -- is still tangled in the debt crisis it helped to create. The answer to these problems is to invest more, raise productivity, fix the banks and diversify the economy. Yet these things are hard to do and don't make a good election manifesto.

...

The bottom line is that real wages are falling and a growing number of people can't afford basic utilities that are taken for granted in a developed economy. Prime Minister David Cameron and his government haven't done enough to speed the recovery, and Miliband has some of the right answers, such as his focus on vocational training. Yet many of his proposals, such as making it harder for companies to fire employees, betray old interventionist reflexes that will turn a cost-of-living crisis into a jobless one.

What?

Oh yes, Beowulf, the great Anglo-Saxon epic (strictly speaking, it is written in the Anglian dialect).  All this over the meaning of the first word:

It is perhaps the most important word in one of the greatest and most famous sentences in the history of the English language.

Yet for more than two centuries “hwæt” has been misrepresented as an attention-grabbing latter-day “yo!” designed to capture the interest of its intended Anglo-Saxon audience urging them to sit down and listen up to the exploits of the heroic monster-slayer Beowulf.

According to an academic at the University of Manchester, however, the accepted definition of the opening line of the epic poem – including the most recent translation by the late Seamus Heaney - has been subtly wide of the mark.

In a new paper due to be published this month Dr George Walkden argues that the use of the interrogative pronoun  “hwæt” (rhymes with cat) means the first line is not a standalone command but informs the wider exclamatory nature of the sentence which was written by an unknown poet between 1,200 and 1,300 years ago.

According to the historical linguist, rather than reading: “Listen! We have heard of the might of the kings” the Old English of “Hwæt! We Gar-Dena in gear-dagum, þeod-cyninga,  þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas  ellen fremedon!” should instead be understood as: “How we have heard of the might of the kings.”

My dear old Anglo-Saxon lecturer used to argue that, as the poem was meant to said aloud, “hwæt” was nothing more than the bard clearing his throat before starting the poem proper.

     

The goalkeeper's head and shoulders

I blame those shampoo ads. He has never been the same since. The Guardian reports:

Joe Hart has been dropped by Manchester City for Premier League game against Norwich City but the goalkeeper is determined to win his place back and is not considering his future with the club, despite the decision potentially having consequences for the Englishman's World Cup hopes next summer.

 

Quote of the day

Their flabber was utterly gasted (here):

The government's agreement to underwrite the £16bn Hinkley Point nuclear power station could prove to be "economically insane" and hugely costly to consumers, City analysts have warned.

Analysts at stockbroker Liberum Capital said the tie-up with France's EDF will make Hinkley Point the most expensive power station in the world.

"Having considered the known terms of the deal, we are flabbergasted that the UK government has committed future generations of consumers to the costs that will flow from this deal," the analysts said.

    

PC or not pc

Who would be a royalist if you have tolerate this sort of flummery?  The Guardian reports (to the brief extent possible) on the deliberations (hah!) of Her Maj's Privy Council:

Accompanied by Richard Tilbrook, clerk of the council, the four counsellors – according to ancient, immutable and, as so often with the privy council, unwritten convention, there are always four – filed into the room, joining the Queen and Geidt.

The 1844 Room, the customary venue for council meetings at Buckingham Palace, is so called because it was decorated for a state visit that year by Tsar Nicholas I. It contains a number of ornate if spectacularly uncomfortable Regency armchairs and sofas on which no one sat: councils have been held standing ever since the day in 1861 when Queen Victoria discovered it helped get them over with sooner.

Clutching his sheaf of Orders, Clegg took up his position to the Queen's right, the other privy counsellors lining up opposite. As lord president, fourth of the great officers of state, Clegg is a fixture; the rest are not.

...

Each, we now know (but only since 1998, before when it was a crime to reveal it), has sworn a solemn oath "to be true and faithful servants unto the Queen's Majesty" as one of her privy council. Also, naturally, "to keep secret all Matters ... treated of secretly in Council". And – rather touchingly – to "assist and defend all Jurisdictions, Pre-Eminences and Authorities granted to Her Majesty against all Foreign Princes, Persons, Prelates, States or Potentates". For this, they get to be Rt Hons, and to assemble once every half-century or so when the reigning sovereign announces his or her engagement (which last happened in 1839), or dies.

Transparency?  Accountability?  Democracy?  Should this anachronistic nonsense have any place in a modern system of government?

Choo-choos a-gogo

Do you believe them?  The Independent reports:

Scrapping the proposed High Speed 2 rail line and building a cheaper alternative would condemn passengers to 14 years of “hellish delays”, the Government will argue this week as it launches a fresh attempt to make the case for the troubled scheme.

Ministers will try to get back on the front foot amid growing cross-party criticism of the £50bn project to connect London and Birmingham by 2026, with links to the North of England seven years later. The Coalition is braced for a Conservative rebellion against the scheme in a Commons vote on Thursday, while Labour hostility is hardening.

The Opposition is considering cheaper options for a new north-south connection, including boosting capacity on existing lines or even reopening a route closed nearly 50 years ago.

But a Government report, due to be published tomorrow, will claim that work to upgrade existing lines would lead to 14 years of weekend closures on the East Coast, West Coast and Midland Mainlines, crippling all three routes between London and the North. It will also say that the disruption could virtually double the time it takes to travel from London to Leeds at the weekend to four and a half hours.

Some might argue that the upgrading of existing lines would have to go ahead anyway, regardless of what happens with HS2.  Nor is it necessarily the case that weekend rail travel in recent years has been free of extensive delays.

   

The elevation of The Fink

The Guardian celebrates, somewhat waspishly, the newly acquired nobility of Danny Finkelstein, Tory speechwriter and chum of those that matter:

The London suburb of Pinner has been a hamlet since at least 1231, even longer than chancellor Osborne's Irish baronetcy, whereas Daniel William Finkelstein Esquire OBE was just a smart jobbing hack (politics and football) until Thursday, albeit one with form as a party apparatchik and speech-writer. Danny to the rough trade, a Tory columnist on the oligarch-owned Times, appeared in a red, ermine-trimmed cloak. Magic! No longer bald and slightly podgy, he was transformed into a cross between Sir Gawain and Ron Weasley.

A soberly-dressed official called the Silver Cocktail Olive in Waiting (I made that one up) preceded Baron Weasley. As one of his sponsors, Lord Seb Coe, brought up the rear along with the Garter King of Arms (I didn't make that up), dressed in a quartered gold coat which would have looked wonderful emerging from a pop tent at Glastonbury. Silver Cocktail Twizzler did most of the talking.

It seems that some of Baron Danny's football columns (surely not the ones which were hyper-loyal to the party?) impressed the Queen because she called him "right trusty and well-beloved" before offering him a berth in the best care home in Europe and, a novel twist on the Dilnot Report on social care, up to £300 a day just for turning up, no questions asked by Atos.

What's more Silver went on to promise Dan "all the rights, privileges, pre-eminences, immunities and advantages" which go with becoming Baron Dan. These are not what they were when Pinner was young and free beer and cudgels, plus the pick of the local peasant girls, were standard practice, but they are still worth signing on for. In a firm and ringing Pinner-ish voice the new Lord Finko duly swore, just in case Cocktail Olive changed his mind.

Alas, where to find the Danton and Robespierre de nos jours ...

Conversation of the week

The reason I admire these extracts is that they frequently and neatly encapsulate what I perceive to be the underlying truth about political developments.  For example:

Osborne: I am pleased to announce that a new nuclear power station will be built, and bring enormous economic benefits to …

China: Us.

France: And us. We can't believe you've agreed to subsidise such a high price for our electricity. Contents jours!

Cameron: This deal will guarantee that no old people will die of hypothermia and malnutrition, so long as they wear those nice sweaters that Sarah Lund had and don't mind eating limbs that drop off with frostbite.

John Major: I don't say this to undermine the PM, but a windfall tax on energy companies might be an idea.

Cameron: Bastard.

Major: That was my line.

   

Heat and kitchens

It is not a television programme I watch (too much sex and violence), but it seems to arouse strong passions. Here is Ms Ruby Tandoh, demonstrating that - as well as being a dab hand with the oven - she can also write:

Ten weeks of frenzied baking culminated in a great pastel-coloured explosion of flour, bunting and puns. Within the confines of our little picket-fenced tent, we threw ourselves into the challenges of picnic pies and pretzels, shaking, terrified, dosed up on adrenaline and Rescue Remedy.

Of course it is the hyperbolic silliness – the make-or-break trifle sponge, custard thefts, and prolonged ruminations over "The Crumb" – that makes The Great British Bake Off so lovable. It is your nan's biscuit tin, a village fete and picnic in the park. It converts banality – the efforts of a gaggle of amateur bakers in a tent in Somerset – into a national spectacle.

That's why I am surprised at just how much nastiness was generated from the show. Despite the saccharin sweetness of the Bake Off, an extraordinary amount of bitterness and bile has spewed forth every week from angry commentators, both on social media and in the press. Many took to Twitter decrying the demise of the show, voicing their hatred for certain bakers, and asserting (week after week!) that they would "never watch it again" if X or Y got through that episode. Online hordes massed, brandishing rolling pins and placards, ready to tear down the bunting and upturn the ovens. How did a programme about cake become so divisive?

         

Time passes

Less said about losing hair, the better. I may be on the downward slope but wasting away is not on the agenda. Sixty-four - the new middle age!

I gave them £750 ...

... and they gave me £1,130.

Let them eat cake

Nice to know that the Prime Minister cares enough about us petty mortals to offer advice on what to do when faced with big increases in energy bills:

British Gas is to increase prices for domestic customers, with a dual-fuel bill going up by 9.2% from 23 November.

The increase, which will affect nearly eight million households in the UK, includes an 8.4% rise in gas prices and a 10.4% increase in electricity prices.

The company said it "understands the frustration" of prices rising faster than incomes. The average annual household bill will go up by £123.

PM David Cameron has urged consumers to switch suppliers for the best deal.

Not being troubled by such mundane matters as gas bills, Mr Cameron cannot be expected to understand that the energy providers are all in it together: when one of them puts up its charges, the others follow suit.

Come on, you red devils!

Belgium must be doing something right.  Despite its population of a mere 11 million, the Red Devils have just qualified for the World Cup finals (and from Scofland's group).  It's not surprising really, when they can call upon players of the quality of Mignolet (Liverpool), Vertonghen (Spurs), Vermaelen (Arsenal), De Bruyne (Chelsea), Fellaini (Man Utd), Hazard (Chelsea), Dembele (Spurs), Lukaku (Everton), Benteke (Villa), plus of course Man Utd's new wunderkind, Januzaj.  What wouldn't Scotland give for two or three such players?

Explanation of the week

From The Observer (here):

How privatisation works

Britain used to have lots of state-owned companies that were inefficient and wasted taxpayers' money while delivering rubbish service. Now we have privatised companies that are inefficient and rip off customers, while delivering rubbish service. This is a great transformation because privatised companies are more likely to make a profit and that is a great comfort to their shareholders.

Privatised companies are still allowed to receive state subsidies as long as the money isn't used to cut prices for consumers. This way, they can be a drain on taxpayers, rip off consumers, deliver rubbish service and make a profit all at the same time. This is called a mixed economy.

   

What we have learned so far

I told you three weeks ago that they were flogging off Royal Mail on the cheap. Given the levels of over-subscription to buy the shares, both on the part of the retail investor and on the part of the institutional investor, that now seems obvious.  So the taxpayer will have been seriously short-changed.  We will find out later this morning by just how much, but it is likely to be well over 20%.  Will anyone resign?  Will any of the financial advisers be denied their fees?

Why was so much (70%, now reduced to 67%) reserved for institutional investors?  How can the government possibly defend itself from accusations that they were filling the pockets of their chums in the City?  And at the expense of, first, the taxpayer and, second, the retail investor who sees his allocation cut to less than £750 or in some cases eliminated altogether.

What an utter shambles.

Disclosure: I applied for £3000 of shares and will receive shares at a cost of £749.10.


   

Quote of the day

On the government being accused of moving the goalposts in relation to the shambles of the badger cull (here):

The environment secretary, Owen Paterson, who argues the cull is an essential part of stemming the rise of tuberculosis in cattle, said: "I am not moving anything – the badgers are moving the goalposts. You are dealing with a wild animal, subject to the vagaries of weather, disease and breeding patterns."

So there you go - it's all the fault of the badgers.  The damn animals simply won't sit still while waiting to be slaughtered.

   

What is the world coming to? (part 358)

Not sure that I'd feel comfortable with one of these in the house.  Bloomberg reports:

Lego fans no longer need to fret about the cat or dog knocking over their constructions. When bothersome housepets or other pests come too close, they can ward off the intruder with one of their plastic-brick creations.

The R3PTAR, a robotic snake from Lego A/S, can be programmed from a smartphone app to attack felines, canines, and siblings -- or simply scuttle along the floor and give them something to chase. Equipped with a snapping mechanical jaw and fangs, the serpent might just send even courageous hounds, pusses and pesky kid brothers packing.

...

The R3PTAR is part of a 601-piece set introduced last month that includes a programmable brick, sensors, software and motors. Known as EV3, the $350 set is the third incarnation of the Mindstorms series, introduced in 1998. It includes plans for five walking, talking and thinking robots including the snake, the scorpion-like SPIK3R and the Mohawk-sporting EV3RSTORM.

“These robots have attitude,” said product designer Lars Joe Hyldig, who spent about three years developing them. “They can surprise you” by taking on a mind of their own.

The uncivil servant

Vulgarity is everywhere.  The Guardian reports:

Hundreds of thousands of families losing child benefit payments this year need to "get off their backsides" and fill in extra forms to avoid being fined by the taxman, the head of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs has said.

Lin Homer, chief executive of HMRC, said more than 200,000 families still needed to register for the self-assessment tax forms as part of the government's plans to take away child benefit for higher earners.

...Homer told BBC Radio Five on Friday that many families due to lose their benefit were simply being "inactive".

"We think there are still 200,000 people who still need to get off their backsides," she said. "If anyone's in doubt about whether they are in this category, if they go to our website, they'll find a calculator, they can put in details and it will give them a very clear indication of whether they are caught or not.

Ms Homer's hitherto stellar career appears to have overcome all obstacles, despite her successive failures as a returning officer, as the chief executive of the Border Agency and as the head of the Department of Transport.  She might nevertheless wish to bear in mind that many of those she is now urging to get off their backsides might be Tory voters.

Whatever happened to the Big Society?

You remember, Dave Cameron's Big Society, centrepiece of the Tories' political strategy for so long, but unmentioned yesterday in the PM's conference speech.

Fraser Nelson, Spectator editor, knows what happened.  . "It lies in a shallow grave somewhere," says Nelson, "but I rather liked it."

   

Cameron in the kitchen

So, he owns a breadmaker.  Regardless of his protestations, it probably sits in a cupboard, neglected, like all the other breadmakers, no doubt bought with the best intentions.

 

He didn't?

Oh yes, he did.  The Guardian reports:

The cabinet minister responsible for fighting the effects of climate change claimed there would be advantages to an increase in temperature predicted by the United Nations including fewer people dying of cold in winter ...

The Rt Hon Owen Paterson MP - what's not to excoriate?


   

Will they ever learn?

Doomed to repeat the folly?  One would have thought that they might have learned the lesson from last time.  The Independent reports:

Fears have been raised over the Prime Minister’s decision to hurry forward the second phase of the controversial Help to Buy scheme with warnings that it would backfire and prevent people getting on the property ladder whilst threatening to create a new housing bubble.

...Under the plan banks and building societies will be encouraged to lend up to £130bn to potential buyers seeking 95 per cent loans.

Some £12bn of taxpayers’ money has been earmarked to insure deposits of up to 15 per cent on properties worth £600,000.

Does it really make sense to encourage people to borrow 95% of the cost of house purchase, putting down only a 5% deposit?  When interest rates rise, many such people will find themselves in serious trouble.  While the government will be committed to (partly) bailing them out, the effects on individual families may be long-lasting.

And, in the absence of a significant increase in housing supply, the net effect may simply be a further increase in house prices.

    

Totally unnecessary review

The Observer decided to review the performance of the new reader of the football results:

Green is the first female announcer to read the classified football scores, but in the build-up to her debut the respected broadcaster has tried to brush the issue aside. Green stated in the buildup that her gender was not relevant – all that mattered was that she carried out her task professionally. She appeared to achieve that goal comfortably in an effortless first outing.

Green's debut, heard by millions on Radio 5 Live and the World Service, went without a hitch on a day of remarkable results – from Manchester United 1 West Bromwich Albion 2 to Rangers 8 Stenhousemuir 0. The radio veteran cruised through the classified scores with plenty of poise and little fuss, adding only "and finally" ahead of the last result – The New Saints 6, Carmarthen Town 0. Aside from a Tottenham win, things could hardly have gone more smoothly.

This was the wonderful Charlotte - it was never going to be anything less than perfect.

Flogging it on the cheap

Is the coalition government so desperate to have a successful privatisation?  Obviously yes (with the added bonus that it will make millions for their chums in the City).  The Guardian reports:

The government is racing to push through the £3.3bn privatisation of Royal Mailbefore postmen and women have the chance to walkout on strike against the "great British flog off".

...

Formally kicking off the sale, Cable said the government will sell the shares at between 260p and 330p, valuing the business at £2.6bn-£3.3bn. The sale could swell Treasury coffers by more than £2bn.

Cable said he had been "encouraged by the interest shown by potential investors so far", which is why the government has increased the amount of shares it may sell from at least 50% to up to 70%.

...

Members of the public will be able to apply for a minimum of £750 worth of stock online, at the Post Office or through brokers until 8 October. The shares will pay a 7.7% dividend before April.

Guess how many companies in the FTSE 100 pay a dividend that high?  Not a single one.

Are we, the taxpayers, being screwed?  Damn right we are.

Edinburgh grub

The Guardian has a rundown of the best cheap eats in my dear old home town.  I cannot say that I have tried the food in any of them, although I've had a pint or two in Thomson's.  But I rather fancy the square venison sausage.

Anyway, back to Spain this afternoon, so I will have to delay any tastings until my next visit.

All very confusing

I am having difficulty in keeping up.  It seems that the Labour Party wants to penalise those poor, misunderstood creatures, the energy companies, whose corporate profits are desperately needed in order to keep their shareholders in the style to which they have become accustomed.  Meanwhile, Slasher Osborne and his Treasury are valiantly defending the rights of bankers to continue securing massive bonuses despite the proposed cap emanating from the villainous meddlers from Brussels.  Oh, and when is a housing bubble not a housing bubble?  When the Bank of England says so, apparently ...

Has the world gone crazy or what?

 

Conversation of the week

From here:

Cameron: What's all this about women not finding me very attractive?

Osborne: It's hard to imagine, isn't it?

Cameron: I always rather thought women rather fancied a Boden-catalogue man.

Hague: Maybe it's your personality they don't like.

Osborne: You're not helping. Dave's really sensitive about this. He really thought the party had made a breakthrough with the laydeez.

Tim Loughton: That Sarah Teather bird. Good job she's leaving at the next election. She's totally bloody useless. She called herself a families minister and she couldn't even be bothered to have a family. What a hypocrite.

Hague: Quite …

Loughton: I mean, it's like you being foreign secretary when you're not a bloody foreigner.

Osborne: You're not helping, either.

   

It could happen to any vehicle

Bloomberg reports:

Tires that wear out too soon are adding to the troubles facing Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT)’s F-35, the Pentagon’s costliest weapons system.

Landing-gear tires made by Dunlop Aircraft Tyres Ltd. for the Marine Corps version of the fighter have “been experiencing an unacceptable wear rate when operating as a conventional aircraft,” according to Joe DellaVedova, spokesman for the Defense Department’s F-35 program office.

Yes, I used to have that problem with my old Nissan Micra.

The fx pros and cons

While we are on the subject of financial matters, if you are thinking of a winter holiday in the Florida sun or of a skiing holiday in Europe, now may be the time to consider buying foreign currency.  The pound is now worth over 1.59 dollars or over 1.19 euros (see here), in both cases higher than it has been since last winter.

Unless, of course, you think that the pound sterling may rise further ...

 

Low finance

Well, what would you have done?  The Government chose to sell part of Lloyds when the share price kicked up over 77 pence, compared with the 73.6 pence they cost, resulting in a profit of about 5%.  Here is the Lloyds share price movement over the past year:

You might have been tempted to hold on a bit longer, waiting for the price to rise further.  Me?  Well I sold my Lloyds shares last month, when the price hit 74.5 pence, compared with the 70 pence I paid for them.

But that's me with buying and selling shares:  don't be greedy, take your 5% profit, be thankful and move on.


 

No real choice

So it has become easier to switch your current account from bank to bank.  The Guardian reports:

Britain's 46 million current account holders will be bombarded from Monday with offers to switch banks thanks to the formal introduction of "seven-day switching", after a £750m systems overhaul to ensure direct debits and payments can be transferred between providers in the space of a week.

Three-quarters of current accounts are still held by the "big four" high-street banks, with the typical customer staying with a bank for 17 years – six years longer than the average length of a marriage. Fears of payments going awry has discouraged most customers from moving, even if they have endured poor service. A recent survey found that one in five people would rather go to the dentist than try to switch their current account....Martin Lewis, creator of MoneySavingExpert.com, said: "Far too many people whinge that their bank is a bastard, but then do nothing about it. A whole swath of the country still has the same bank account they set up as a child on the back of being given a piggy bank. Don't whinge, ditch and switch."

But what if your new bank is just as bad as your old bank?  Why would it be any better?  As Ms Kylie Minogue once said, better the devil you know.


   
 

Headline of the day

Incomprehensible from Bloomberg (here):

Aussie Drops on Jobless as Won to Kiwi Climb on Rate View

Mean anything?  Here is the explanation:

The Australian dollar fell for the first time in a week and the nation’s bonds rallied after unemployment rose, while New Zealand’s dollar and South Korean won gained after central bank decisions. Japan’s stocks dropped as Sharp Corp. and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. (7211)planned share sales.

The Aussie weakened 0.8 percent to 92.58 U.S. cents as of 12:42 p.m. in Singapore and the yield on 10-year Australian government bonds slid 12 basis points, the most in a month, to 4.05 percent. The kiwi jumped 0.5 percent, while the won headed for a six-month high. The Topix Index (TPX) lost 0.5 percent as the yen climbed against the dollar. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index slid 0.2 percent while Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures fell 0.1 percent. Gold dropped to a three-week low,

All clear now?  No?  Well, me neither.

I don't know why I read this stuff.

 

Questions, questions

I confess to some confusion on the matter of Syria.  Why are the Americans so trusting of Russia and the Syrian government?  The Guardian notes:

The US has welcomed what it called "very specific" Russian proposals to secure the handover of Syria's chemical weapons before key talks in Geneva on Thursday.

Placing its faith in Moscow's leverage over its Syrian ally, the White House urged patience and said it was increasingly confident that its Kremlin partners were acting in good faith by "putting their prestige on the line".

"We have seen more co-operation from Russia in the last two days than we have heard in the last two years," said White House spokesman Jay Carney.

"The proposal they have put forward is very specific and the Syrian reaction is a total about-face. This is significant."

Are we really going to see Syria admit to the ownership of chemical weapons and provide details of their locations?  Then permit UN arms inspectors to verify the position and supervise their destruction?  Is this even possible in the middle of a civil war?  And how long will it take to discover that the proposals are just another delaying tactic, allowing Assad to continue the assault on the rebels?  And how does any of this help the poor damned Syrian people?

Furthermore, Obama and Kerry are not fools.  They must know that they are being taken for a ride.  So is their complaisant attitude a reflection of the fact that they have now decided that military intervention is no longer advisable or feasible?  If so, it is cynicism at its most extreme.

 

Trampling upon the green shoots

By George, he thinks he's cracked it!  The Independent reports:

George Osborne claimed a decisive victory for his economic policy by telling Labour it had “lost the argument” and predicting that Britain was now finally “turning a corner”.

Speaking at a building site in the City of London the Chancellor said Britain’s return to growth over the first half of the year, after two years of stagnation, vindicated his bitterly-contested deficit reduction programme and demonstrated that only he could be trusted with the economy.

“We held our nerve when many told us to abandon our plan” he said. “The evidence increasingly suggests that our macroeconomic plan was the right one and is working.”

Accordingly, we can now expect "the decisive victory" to turn to ashes within weeks.  Georgie boy is turning a corner in order to be run over by an oncoming juggernaut.

Memo to politicians:  Beware of announcing success; it always ends in tears ...

Things I didn't know (part 343)

... on average each person on Earth is estimated to own around 86 Lego bricks.

Source: here

 

Who says that the Germans have no sense of humour?

Missing the point?

Much wailing and gnashing of teeth on the part of economists, with fingers pointing ominously at the governor of the Bank of England.  This in CityAM is not untypical:

COULD Mark Carney’s luck have already run out? Given that he has only been governor of the Bank of England since July, it may sound churlish even to ask such a question. But the timing of his revolutionary announcement that interest rates would stay on hold for three years – barring a spike in inflation or a bubble – is starting to look terrible. It was a signal that the economy remained weak, that it needed historically low interest rates for years to come and that normalisation could wait.

That might have made sense had the economy continued to flatline or grow by a few tenths of a per cent a quarter. But instead we have seen a flood of strong data over the past few months, culminating in yesterday’s astonishingly good services sector purchasing managers index, the best since 2006, taking the composite index for the entire economy to its highest reading since 1998. The economy remains riddled with structural problems but activity is bouncing back dramatically.

The real point, dear friends, is that the UK economy appears to be recovering.  It started when Mr Carney took up his post and has ever since intensified.  Rejoicing would seem to be a more appropriate reaction.  And, by the way, give the man a bonus ...

Hey, I'm rich!

Amazon sent me a credit note for 1 penny:

CREDIT NOTE
Credit Note Date: 03/09/13
Credit Note Number: EUVINS1-VCN-GB-9286733
Original Order Number: 203-8901334-6791512
Supplier Name: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.
Supplier Address: 5 rue Plaetis, L-2338, Luxembourg
Supplier VAT number: GB727255821
Customer Name:[ XXX]
Customer Ship To Address:[XXX]
Customer Bill To Address:[XXX}

Qty	Item	Unit Price (VAT Exclusive)	VAT Rate	VAT	Total Price (VAT Inclusive)
1	[XXX] - Season 1 [DVD] [2013]	-£0.01	20.00%	£0.00	-£0.01

TOTAL: -£0.01

Now, what should I spend it on?

Fred the Shred

It's easy to put the boot in after the event.  But they never dare make their instant judgements at the time.  But still they cluster round the corpse.  The Independent reports:

... what role did the obsessive streak in Goodwin’s character play in RBS’ eventual downfall?

Professor Malcolm Higgs, a leading occupational psychologist at the University of Southampton, toldThe Independent it certainly can’t have helped matters.

“You occasionally find this narcissistic tendency in CEOs,” he said. “They want to control everything, they don’t want to know that they’re not perfect. It’s not conducive to successful leadership of a company.”

Lehman Brothers boss Dick Fuld had similar tendencies, Professor Higgs said.“The big question is: how do these ‘corporate psychopaths’ get to the top? They’re actually quite engaging people, they can appear very visionary. But they can’t take any negative feedback, so they lose contact with reality.”

For some of us, the professional vultures are just as loathsome as their subjects.

The best days of your life

I do not usually have much sympathy for teachers but I do not have a heart of stone.  This piece in The Guardian made me think:

Teenagers will be forced to continue studying English and maths if they fail to get good enough marks in the two subjects at GCSEs under government changes.

Under the rules that come into force this week, 16-year-olds will be required to get at least a C grade in the two subjects or face carrying on until they do. Ministers are keen to improve the performance of British schoolchildren in what were called the "most important [subjects] in the world".

The education secretary, Michael Gove, said: "Good qualifications in English and maths are what employers demand before all others. They are, quite simply, the most important vocational skills a young person can have. Young people must be able to demonstrate their understanding of these subjects."

Aye, well, Mr Gove.  But you're not the poor sod of a teacher who has the unenviable task of teaching English or mathematics to a bunch of bolshie 16 and 17 year-olds who have already demonstrated a fairly convincing inability to deal with the subject matter.