Shouting At The Fashion Police

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Sep 252013
 

Tonight I caught a bit of a TV programme about the fashion choices of a celebrity (Kate Winslet); not my normal kind of TV which is why I very quickly turned over to something more interesting (to me) like the test card!

But before I did, I was treated to some self-important fashion gurus flaming some of the fashion choices of a younger version of the celebrity in question. In particular a 20-year old celebrity.

My initial reaction was: Of course a 20-year old celebrity makes some fashion mistakes. At that age we all make stupid choices; in fact without those stupid choices we don’t learn what is sensible and what is not.

But then I thought: Actually they weren’t mistakes at all. Young people should be experimenting, and sometimes experiments don’t work out. But they are not mistakes.

If we discourage young people from experimenting – especially with something as harmless as fashion experiments – we risk ruining what makes young people young. Not their age, but their sense of adventure and willingness to experiment.

Don’t Write Off British Manufacturing and Engineering …

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Jul 212013
 

It sometimes seems fashionable to put down British manufacturing and engineering such as when the well known idiot Jeremy Clarkson announced: “We don’t manufacture anything any more”.

Whilst it is true that Britain no longer makes more goods than the rest of the world combined, if you take the trouble to look you will find a surprisingly big industry. The trouble is that we all too often look backwards and compare today with the 19th century. Time to stop doing that, and actually look at today’s industry.

To quote the Wikipedia article (which has some other quite dated figures): “manufacturing output has increased in 35 of the 50 years between 1958 and 2007” and “output in 2007 was at record levels, approximately double that in 1958”. And: “In 2008, the UK was the sixth-largest manufacturer in the world measured by value of output.”

We may not make as much stuff as we used to, but what we do make is a lot more valuable.

A few points that illustrate just how well Britain is doing :-

  1. Of 11 constructors within Formula-1, 8 are based in the UK. Including teams such as Mercedes which you would quite reasonably assume were based in another country.
  2. Despite a series of governments that believe that spending money on space is a waste of time, the UK space industry is still worth £9 billion a year.
  3. BAE Systems is the third largest defence company in the world.
  4. GlaxoSmithKline is the fourth largest pharmaceutical company in the world.
  5. Of the 100 companies in the FTSE-100, around 33 can be regarded as manufacturing companies of one kind or another.
  6. A lesser known company (ARM) designs what is probably the most successful family of computer processors ever – ARM-based processors are found in 95% of all smartphones.

 

Should We Allow Ian Brady To Commit Suicide?

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Jun 292013
 

To ordinary people, the odious Ian Brady is as mad as a hatter. Nobody who commits the kind of crimes he is responsible for can be “all there”. Whether he is mentally ill, or legally insane is only relevant as far as deciding whether he should be kept in prison or in a secure hospital.

According to the reports on his mental health hearing, he wanted to be declared sane so he could return to prison where he would not face enforced feeding. He claims to be on hunger strike as he no longer wishes to live. For whatever reason, secure mental hospitals will force someone refusing to eat whereas prisons will not.

In terms of deciding whether he was well enough to be returned to prison, it is probable that the right decision was made. Whilst we should not blindly trust mental health care professionals, when they say he is too ill to be returned to prison, we need a very good reason to disagree.

However if Ian Brady had asked a different question; to be allowed to starve himself to death without being force fed, we would have a very different question to answer.

Normally there are very good reasons to force feed someone who is mentally ill and attempting to starve themselves. Some mental illnesses result in depression so severe that suicide seems like the only way out. But after appropriate treatment, the patient can be quite different.

Is Ian Brady suffering from this sort of mental illness? Apparently he is diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, so the answer without additional information is perhaps. If he is not subject to episodes of clinical depression then there may be grounds for stopping the force feeding.

Now of course there is another question to answer here: Should we allow him to commit suicide before he has owned up to his crimes and detailed where the last undiscovered body of known victims is buried?

If we decide that Ian Brady should not be allowed to starve himself to death, it seems reasonable that we let him know the reason why and how he can work towards changing our minds.

Are Modern Houses Too Small?

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May 202013
 

Are modern houses too small?

The Daily Mail is always a good bet to get the blood pressure up but the one that took my eye today dovetails nicely with some thoughts I’ve been having about modern houses.

The first thing that comes to mind when reading the story, is why didn’t it occur to them that the garage was too small when looking at the house? I mean, I’m no garage expert – I don’t have one, nor anything to park in one – but even a quick look at the photo caused me to think: “Cool. A garage door to the garden shed … making it easy to park the lawn mower. But why is it pointed in the wrong direction? And where’s the garage?”.

But anyone moving house knows that you get swamped with details, and anyone without OCD is likely to miss a detail or two.

But why were the developers building garages too small for cars? It’s not as if garages are difficult to size sensibly. Just walk down the street someday measuring a random selection of cars, and you’ll soon have an idea of how wide a car is. And it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that you need a bit of added space on both sides to let people out. Hell, I thought of it, and I’ve never used a garage.

The developer has responded to the house buyers with the standard advice: Why didn’t you use a tape measure? But you have to ask why the developer chose to build a garage so small that anyone using a tape measure would run a mile rather than stump up the cash. Probably there’s an element of stupidity and lack of oversight in the design department. Plus pressure to make houses as cheap as possible – a big garage takes more bricks, and more bricks cost more money.

And if you look at modern homes, you see that the inclination to make homes cheaper has resulted in smaller homes.

Average Home Sizes

At least it does in the UK. Why are our homes so small?

But instead of pure floor area, there are other aspects to home sizes. Why are modern ceilings so low ? In an age when very few people are shrunken by childhood malnutrition, we are far taller on average than we were in the 19th century. Yet to get a decent ceiling height, I have to choose a Victorian era maisonette to live in. Low ceilings make modern houses feel cramped to me.

And why are doorways still too narrow for wheelchairs? Adjusting doorways and hallways for a wheelchair user – either on a full-time or part-time basis – must be a complete nightmare. So why not size them sensibly for new builds ?

Reducing housing costs is sensible in itself, but being mean in terms of size is the wrong answer. The real answer is to be smarter but perhaps property development companies are too busy making money to be smart.

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