Heisenberg's Bicycle

I saw a quote from Oscar Wilde yesterday: "Only the shallow know themselves" which I thought was a nice one. I definitely can't claim to be an expert on me: in the past I have been called shallow, deep, smart-arsed, stupid, intelligent, a leader, a follower, brave, cowardly...all of this is completely subjective and depends on the relationships and circumstances. I definitely don't really know the real me, so cannot, by his definition, be shallow.

So, can shallowness be measured? Probably not, but that doesn't stop me from having a go and writing the following nonsense. Bear with me, if you have time on your hands.
The treatise of this scientific investigation is this:

"The shallowness index: Just how shallow is a person and can it be measured?"

Is everyone else as "shallow" as me? Are my thoughts on the same level as a goldfish, or did Einstein need such thoughts before he came up with E=MC2? Maybe my shallowness will lead to the realisation that Einstein was wrong and that E is actually equal to MC3, or that E stands for Elephant and not Energy.

The first thing to do is to remove the other parties - they are the ones that label you: the subjective parameters. This means that only I can measure my own shallowness and likewise for anybody else.

Have you ever heard of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle? Forget the dry explanation: it goes something like this: "the very act of measuring something changes its behaviour and therefore affects the measurement".

I cycle to and from work. It's about 7km and takes about 30 minutes. I like to think that I can use this time alone to plan my day and then, in the evening, review what actually happened and modify for the following day. However, I have noticed over recent weeks that this is not actually what happens. The truth is that, during the ride my thoughts are so banal that, written down, they seem ridiculous.

As a trained scientist (no, really?), I decided, over the course of a bicycle ride, to try to list the random thoughts and write them down in order to measure their shallowness index and come up with an aggregate score. However, as I stored them for later retrieval, I realised that Heisenberg had caught me out. By thinking about what I was thinking, my thoughts were altered. Confused? Let's see if you can work out at which point Heisenberg kicks in.

1. That truck looks like it's from Finland. I wonder what it is doing here?
2. There's a BMW with tinted windows: probably a drug dealer...
3. If I fall off now, it'll be a 10 metre drop, straight onto the motorway and instant death. Will my kids miss me?
4. I'd better cycle on the pavement here 'cos it's a bit narrow. Oh no, back on the road, there's a cyclist coming the other way on the same pavement. But wait a minute, she looks quite nice...no, wait, she's as old as me - back onto the road.
5. Is this saddle too low? I've got a sore backside
6. I wonder what we'll be eating tonight?
7. Bloody hell, it's cold enough to freeze the nuts off a brass monkey - I wonder where that expression comes from?
   
8. How am I going to get over my Snickers addiction? Why don't they call them Marathons any more? Tomorrow, I will eat only fruit. Opal Fruits? Oh no, they call them Starbursts now. I wonder why that is?
   
9. The light is red, but I can cross because there is no-one and I don't see a policeman.
10. I wonder if that hedgehog is still in the garden?
11. What can I think of next?
12. Come on, there must be one amusing thought...
13. Could I kill a tiger, armed only with a biro? No, I can't use that - it's straight out of The Office.
14. Doh. And that one comes from The Simpsons.
    

Yes, Heisenberg caught me out at #11. Up until that point, banal and trivial, yes, but spontaneous, no; afterwards, they were laboured, searching actively for banality.

So what have we learned from this exercise? What is my shallowness index? It is impossible to measure is the conclusion: objectivity doesn't come into it.

I'll have to think about the deep implications of this investigation when I'm cycling to work tomorrow and when the wine that led me to write this nonsense wears off.

Trouble down the line

There is an interesting political situation brewing in France at the moment. Let me try to explain my take on it...

The perceived impression of the French is that they like nothing better than a good strike (as in stopping work rather than in a sporting sense). There is some truth in this and they generally seem to happen around summertime (just to piss off the holidaymakers, avoid picketing in the rain, or just pure coincidence...you decide).

You probably know that France recently elected a new president (if you don't, read the newspapers and not blogs). "Sarko", the new incumbent, is a long way right of centre. His policies were described as "almost Thatcherite" during the run up to the elections - he soon distanced himself from this - that would be political suicide!

France is by generally considered to be a socialist country. Until recently, transport infrastructures, utilities etc. were nationalised and the government highly centralised. The country is crippled with debt, there is high unemployment and it is top-heavy with civil servants. I can tell you from bitter experience that waiting 1/2 a day and trailing from one person to another in the town hall just to fill in a form that could be done in 1 minute is not the most pleasant activity. I recently had a training course, "Finance for non-Financiers". It was all balance sheets and P&L. We had the Anglo-American versions of balance sheets compared to the French versions. 2 pages for the Anglo-version, 200 for the French (permit me to exaggerate).

One of the bug-bears of French employees in the private sector is that the said civil servants get to retire before them (us) at 55 years old - except, that is, for the train drivers. They have a special dispensation to retire at 50. I don't know the exact reasons for this discrepancy, but one of the factors is due to the danger associated with pointing a metal tube down a straight line at 300km/hour. Personally, I have already written about how I feel that getting into your car is a far more dangerous activity, but there you go.

The unions in France are very strong (CGT and FO notably) and they seem to have taken this situation as their opportunity to stand up to Sarko and let him know who is boss. Last week was the first of what I suspect will be many strikes - no trains ran at all last Thursday, and things are still not back to normal. The unions are currently discussing how to proceed, but it is probably with more strikes.

However, Sarko is a strong leader if nothing else. He has clearly defined a program to "trim" the civil service and I am pretty sure he will not capitulate without a fight. I also think he has the public largely on his side at the moment, although that could change.

I am reminded of two (extremely loosely-related) precedents:

1. Margaret Thatcher's fight with the miner's unions in the mid-eighties. I am afraid that my political interests were limited at the time - I was more interested in girls and football (erm, actually, not much has changed - nature 1, nurture 0)
2. The 9/11 terrorist attack. It was on this day that a British government civil servant suggested in a leaked email that because of the attack, that would be a good day to publish all the current bad news (job figures etc). Sarko also chose this day to publish the fact that he and his wife were divorcing and this took many of the headlines - OK, it's not same magnitude, but I am sure it was a spoiling tactic anyway.
   

In any case, like the TGV (arf arf) this one could go a long way...or, because I lack the courage of my convictions and full knowledge of the facts, I could be completely wrong.

40 - Love

John predicted I would write something like the following entry:

I work in a company where there are around 40 people - I am the only English person. The rest are French apart from one Dutch guy.

If you follow rugby, you will know that it is the World Cup and that England play France tomorrow in the semi-finals - I am being constantly taunted about how we will lose (I actually agree with them, but would never admit it). The Dutch guy has regressed 300 years and become a South African for the weekend (not that the Dutch or English have anything to be proud about with their colonies, but that's another story).

In the style of Kevin Keegan (see the last 3 seconds of this video), I would love it if we beat the French by 40 points tomorrow. If we lose, I have to bring 40 croissants to work; 1 for everyone.

Oh yeah, and I am 40 years old today...

Everything's gone green

I have a 9-year-old son. We just moved house to a small town just outside Lyon and he started a new school. The local council have a policy of electing schoolkids to their committees to push forward the ideas that are dear to them. In order to choose which children to elect (there are 2 from each school), they hold elections and each candidate must present a manifesto. I was immensely surprised that my son decided that he would like to stand - he's not one of these over-earnest kids and is in fact, quite shy - maybe because he was the new boy, he didn't know any better.

Anyway, his manifesto was a simple, "green manifesto":

• All street-lights to use low energy bulbs
• Larger recycling bins for all residents
  

As simple as that! Guess what?: he was elected and tomorrow gets his mayoral sash and takes part in an official ceremony. This is undoubtedly a"stunt", but I like the idea of trying to get children interested in local politics and it warms the cockles of my heart; proud father and all that.

However, I am pretty sure that I won't be seeing local council employees replacing the bulbs any time soon. But he's as pleased as hell! The trouble is that, if he is as pleased as hell, he is making my life hell. I am now required to:

• Replace all light bulbs in the house with low-energy versions.
• Stop the tap running while brushing my teeth
• Stop the shower while applying soap!
• Recycle the smallest scrap of paper.
• All leftover food to be placed on the compost heap (not sure what this achieves, but I do it anyway - I will tell you in 1 year when I have my first "harvest").

I have had to draw the line with his request that I install solar panels on the roof to heat the house (if you are reading this in the north of England, don't worry, it won't be an issue for you).

He doesn't realise that I am years ahead of him: when I was was a lad, every Friday was fish-and-chips night, and it was always wrapped in recycled newspaper. We were way ahead of our time and we didn't even know it! Funnily enough, my French friends look at me incredulously when I tell them that:

1. We eat fish and chips, smothered in animal fat.
   
2. It is wrapped in yesterday's newspaper.

Who said the British don't have a deep culinary culture? Funnily enough, my British friends look at me incredulously when I tell them that:

1. I have French friends
2. They don't eat fish and chips in France (unless it's at McD*****ds)
   

Wow, that post didn't end up where it started!

PS: Kenny, you are not the only one to use obscure song quotes in your post titles.

Lazy Teaching Leads to Lazy Blogging?

I wrote once that I try to avoid blogs that are simply diaries. However, something triggered off some memories of Junior school and it brought other memories to the surface, so thought I'd add one last one...can it be considered a diary even if it happened 30 years ago?

It relates back to Junior school again (where we had the dancing lessons). How about this for a school holiday assignment:

"Construct as many words as possible from the word, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious".

Two rules:

1. There must be more than 2 letters in each word,
2. Don't use a dictionary.

What a crappy, waste of time to ask kids to work on this during their holidays. I don't think that test would make it onto the National Curriculum today.

To cap it all, I only came second with 800 words. Darren came an easy first with 1200, but I maintain to this day that he got help from his parents...

The 3rd placed kid came in at about 50: evidently the other class members were less competitive and preferred to play, use their imagination and just be kids as you are supposed to be at that age.

We need to talk about Kevin

When I was young, a convoluted set of events led my uncle from the far north-west of England to the far south-east. My uncle was a tough guy and apparently an excellent footballer. In fact he was so good, that Manchester City invited him to go for a trial with them. Unfortunately, he was a big Manchester United fan, so decided against it (I suspect that, with hindsight, he regrets that decision).

I should say that my dad and I never really got on with my uncle. I remember it coming to a head many years later just as my parents announced proudly to him that I would be going to university. He started off on a self-righteous "Students, waste of taxpayer's money..." etc. rants. My dad's reply stopped him dead in his tracks: "We can't all be bus drivers you know". If you know my dad (and you will if you read another of my posts), you will know that this was completely out-of-character, and, as far as I am concerned, the put down of the year - I don't think they have spoken to each other since (I am assuming that you realise from this that my uncle was a bus driver).

Anyway, a couple of times before this incident, we went down to the deepest south-east to stay with him and his family for our holidays: "Drive towards Skipton, turn right at Scotch Corner and keep going south" were all the directions you needed. So off we went in my dad's mini-van, kitted out with cushions in the back for me and my sister to sit on. Seat belts, pah, who needs them? On arriving in the south, the differences for a young boy from deepest Cumbria were striking:

1. It was flat
2. The people spoke with a strange accent
3. The bricks were a different colour
4. There was sunshine!
   
5. The roads were not paved with gold; rather, they were large slabs of concrete joined by tarmac that melted in the said sun.

Like most young kids, I was a big football fan. It was during one of these holidays that I went to see the "local" team play; at the time they were one of the best teams in Europe. I saw them beat Anderlecht in a pre-season friendly and then Newcastle 3-0 on the first day of the season (I still have the pre-match programme and can remember where I stood (under the 'M' on the large "Portman Road" that was displayed on the stand roof).

The team had a player called Kevin. He was a young player breaking into the England team and was described as having the potential to become one of the best ever English players since, erm, the last one who would become the next best English player.

The most amazing thing though (for me), was that Kevin was my uncle's friend. Imagine saying that your uncle's best mate is David Beckham or Tiger Woods and you are not quite there, but you get the idea. "Why don't you come with me round to his house?" my uncle asked me one day. I was completely flabbergasted - my uncle taking me to one of the country's best footballer's house! Just like that. I grabbed my autograph book and off we went.

I imagined driving up a long drive to a huge house, indoor swimming pool etc - you get the picture...but your picture, like mine, would be wrong: this was well before the days of big, big money in sport. In fact, we didn't drive there, he lived just round the corner in a semi-detached house, not dissimilar to the one in the picture. Kevin himself answered the door and invited us in for a cup of tea after my uncle explained that I wanted his autograph (I didn't really, but it would have been churlish to say so). I was too overwhelmed to speak: I just held out my autograph book (i.e. and old exercise book) for him to sign. On the walls were pennants and his England caps - yes, they really are caps. I put one on, and had my picture taken with him (sadly, it's been lost).

Now, as far as I know, it may have been a top-of-the-range semi-detached house. However, when you see pictures of the houses of the likes of David Beckham, it doesn't really match up.

The big money came into football in the early 90's: this was the late 70's. Kevin's star shone brightly for a brief period, but too soon as far as sports super-stardom is concerned. He finally retired after injuries at 27. That's life, but I bet there are a lot of 70's and 80's footballers who rue just missing out on the Sky Sports windfall!

Unfortunately, the story doesn't seem to have ended too well (no gig as a TV football pundit unlike many others from his era for example). From what I can find out from Google, things haven't changed too much, but articles from the web can't give the full picture (this one being a perfect example), so let's hope he's happy with his lot.

Unfortunately, my dad's put-down means that I don't get to speak to my uncle too much these days, so, even if they are still friends, I'll never get the real details...