Iceland: “It’s All The Fault Of The Councils”

 General, Politics  No Responses »
Feb 182013
 

The boss of Iceland has come up with this.

To which the only appropriate response is “horseshit”.

His argument is that councils (or local authorities) award contracts based solely on price. Now I am not directly involved in the tendering process, and indeed not directly involved in the council tendering process, but I do have some familiarity with the process – sometimes I am one of the “quality gates” to get past in an area which works to many of the same rules as local authorities.

And nobody awards contracts based solely on price. At least not if they want to keep their jobs for longer than 10 minutes.

It is true that the public sector will award a contract based on price with all other things being equal. But if you want to supply burgers to all of the schools in the county of Rutland, you’ll probably have a huge pile of paperwork to complete which includes specifying the size of the burgers, and what’s in them.

Once all that paperwork had been sent back to the council, some poor unfortunate has to go through all the paperwork whittling down the responses to those who meet the criteria – strange as it may seem an invitation to tender for supplying 10,000 beef burgers will solicit responses from people willing to supply 50 chickens! Once the responses have been whittled down, the cheapest response is selected – if there’s no good reason to reject it.

Does this result in a downward pressure on price? Of course it does – and councils would be criticised if they did not exert downward pressure on prices. But it doesn’t encourage corrupt practices.

The Earth Is Pebble-Dashed …

 General, Politics, Science  1 Response »
Feb 162013
 

So today in addition to being subject to a near miss – the cosmic equivalent of being given a close shave by a Samurai with his (or her) Katana – we also had an unannounced visitation by an asteroid that crash-landed in Russia causing a considerable amount of property damage, and more seriously some injuries.

Now this doesn’t happen every day, but in the lifetime of the Earth it does happen pretty frequently. As is evident from our nearest neighbour which looks as though it has been bombarded in some sort of celestial war. And indeed, the evidence can be seen on Earth if you look close enough; and that list just includes the largest impacts – events such as Russia today simply don’t show up.

Now there is not a great deal we can do about this as individuals, so as individuals we may as well forget about it – the chances of being killed by a meteorite are pretty remote but as it turns out only slightly less likely than being killed by a terrorist!

As a species however, we have reached the point where we can start doing something about it. If that is, we want to invest the resources into doing so. Admittedly we have started looking but simply knowing we’re all going to be killed by a dinosaur-killer isn’t enough – we should be able to do something about it. Perhaps there isn’t much we can do about a dinosaur-killer.

But we should be able to do something about smaller dangers. If we want to.

If we told the military that they will have to change the kinds of really expensive toys they get, we can probably start some form of meteor defence programme without having a dramatic effect on the economy. After all, ultimately a large meteor is as dangerous as an all-out nuclear war.

Good News! Pope Benedict To Resign!

 General  No Responses »
Feb 112013
 

Given the probable circumstances (it isn’t totally clear just yet), it seems strange to claim that it is good news that the pope is to resign. After all, it is hardly good news that anyone is having trouble with their health.

Traditionally a pope stays in office for life no matter how their health might affect their ability to do their job. And whether or not you are a catholic, you have to admit it’s an important job that needs a competent person in control. Not only does the organisation suffer from having an unhealthy head, but the person in that job suffers too – who wants to work when you’re unwell?

Which means it is good news that he is resigning – leave the job for someone else to pick up. And enjoy a well earned retirement.

 

It’s All About The Horse Meat!

 General  No Responses »
Feb 082013
 

The news is swamped at the moment with the story about horse meat being found in various cheap meat products that were labelled as containing beef. Interestingly this has crowded out the news that pork has also been found in Halal meat products – which could be more of a concern to a certain segment of the British population than unexpected horses turning up.

To summarise :-

  1. If you’ve been tucking into cheap meat-based meals then you have probably had a bit of horse. That’s not good, but don’t get too excited – a horse isn’t too much cuter than a cow. Besides, did you really believe that the ultra-cheap products you were buying only contained premium quality beef? It’s a surprise that the contaminant wasn’t found to be rat!
  2. It isn’t just horse meat. Those who don’t eat it may be surprised, but horse meat is eaten quite widely in Europe. European regulation very carefully distinguishes between horse meat intended for human consumption, and horses carcases originating from pets or race horses who have received certain drugs as pain killers.
  3. Horses can be given bute (a pain killer), but only if they are not intended for human consumption. Bute was previously approved for use by people as a pain killer, but approval was withdrawn after it was shown after prolonged use to have certain adverse health effects. Europe goes a long way to avoid allowing human consumption of horse meat contaminated with bute, so it is unlikely in the extreme that any food in the UK contained any. Even if it did contain bute, it is still unlikely to have a significant adverse effect.
  4. If you’ve been eating meat products contaminated with pork, it is worth remembering that god (if he or she exists) is likely to point the blame for that squarely where it belongs – with those who labelled the product incorrectly.

There is a serious issue here. Food products should only contain what is listed on the ingredients list, and companies who cheat should be punished in some form. It’s a curious coincidence that we happen to have a government packed full of Tories who insist that government regulation is a bad thing, when government regulation is the only thing that protects us :-

  1. It’s government regulation enforcers who found this stuff out.
  2. It’s only government regulation that makes the sellers feel guilty rather than shrugging and asking “What did you expect for a pound?”.
  3. It’s only European regulation that means that the horse meat you’ve mistakenly eaten is almost certainly safe to eat.

But it isn’t necessarily Findus or Tesco at fault here. And when you come down to it, that horse meat in the freezer was pretty tasty yesterday before you knew, so shouldn’t it be just as tasty today?

And if you object to eating horses, please remember that whilst being ground up and sold as a beef burger is hardly the end we would want, being ground up, sold as a beef burger and then being thrown away is even worse!

Café Society Can Just Get The Hell Out Of My Way

 General  No Responses »
Feb 032013
 

For years people have been talking about how a European-like café society would be a good thing to change the English drinking culture.

Perhaps. But have you noticed just how many bars, coffee shops, and restaurants are already sticking tables and chairs outside ? Which is all very well, except when they don’t use their own property but start blocking the public thorough-fair.

Now I don’t object to tables and chairs outside – I’m very partial to sitting down in a shady spot outside with a good book and watching the world walk past; if that shady spot happens to have waitress service with endless refills of coffee, so much the better. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to do this.

And the wrong way is to put the tables and chairs right outside the shop door and so force pedestrians walking past to make a detour. This is annoying enough on it’s own, but gets a whole lot more annoying when you are forced into the street and dodge the traffic, or forced into the centre of a pedestrian precinct out of the shelter of the shops – and so get drenched.

Do it properly, or not at all!

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