Saturday 29 December 2018

Fungus Face

When I was very small, we had a neighbour that had a beard. Most people had sidies and longish hair, and wore brown and orange clothing to match the wallpaper, but this neighbour had a beard. My Dad nicknamed him "Fungus Face"

We lived in a small village in North Wales, where everyone knew each other, and I would regularly visit other people. I was a cute little kid and no trouble.

At some point though, I visited the guy with the beard, and asked him "Is your name Fungus Face?"

Later I reported to my parents that his name wasn't Fungus Face at all. It was Percy Norward. OK It wasn't, and the guy might not still be alive, but I've changed it anyway. We met them years later at the Liverpool Garden Festival. Fungus Face, if you're still alive, and happen to read this, I'm sorry. It wasn't my fault. (I looked online. He died at some point. His ex wife died too. They had a son who shared his fathers name. He lives in North Wales and is a musician)

And now I'm old enough to shave, but beards sit uncomfortably on my face. I get so far with them, then they get itchy and full of soup, and I shave them off again. Poor old Michael Finnegan Beginnegan.

This time, I really let it grow out. Finally though, it got too much, and I de-fuzzed.

 Gandalf
 Lemmy
 Walter White or Ned Flanders
 Hitler or Ron Mael
Just plain old me

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Saturday 22 December 2018

Miles and miles.

The guy that trained me to be an instructor posts occasionally on facebook. I like him a lot, but I don't think we have a lot in common politically. He posted an article pointing out that Brexit means we can form trade agreements with anyone. I thought of replying (but didn't) that he should stop giving lessons to people near Wigan because then he'll be free to take on pupils from Basingstoke and Aberdeen.

Point being, Brexit will not be good for the environment. It's best of course, if you want to buy a cucumber, to get one that's been grown locally, but to get a cucumber, in December, it's either going to come from a heated greenhouse in the UK, or more likely, some southern European nation like Spain or Greece. If the post brexit world means we get it from New Zealand or Chile, well that's not really going to help us reduce our carbon emissions.

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Friday 21 December 2018

Quaking in their boots!

Last time Tottenham Hotspur came to Prenton Park, Tranmere Rovers held them to a 2-2 draw. OK, they fluked a 4-0 win in the replay, but their third goal was a mile offside, and it came at an important psychological moment, right before half time.

But this time round, they don't have Gascoigne.

_______________________________________________________________________

And Tranmere are going to win.

Yes, you read it right. I predict a win, for League Two play off hopefuls, Tranmere Rovers, against a team of Premier League internationals.

Every time a defender takes the ball from the toe of Harry Kane, they win. Every time James Norwood forces a save from the Spurs keeper, they win. Every time some trickery on the wing sends a Tranmere winger on a run to the by-line, they win. I'm not sure Lloris would have kept this one out either...



Oh, and the money from a packed ground, and BTSport is a win too :)

______________________________________________________________________

Seriously though, I went to both legs back in 1989. Gascoigne, whatever demons he has, was one hell of a player. Watching him dribbling through the Tranmere midfield, leaving them befuddled in his wake, you couldn't help but feel a kind of awe. I don't remember much else about it, except the atmosphere was brilliant, both home and away. I swore we outsang the Tottenham fans at White Hart Lane. The TV coverage belied my recollection.

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Monday 10 December 2018

How long would it take Voyager 2 to stop?

According to the Highway Code, stopping distances are as follows.

Thinking Distance (feet) Braking Distance (feet) Overall Stopping Distance Ratio
(Speed in MPH) (speed x ratio) (TD + BD)
10 5 15 0.5
20 20 40 1
30 45 75 1.5
40 80 120 2
50 125 175 2.5
60 180 240 3
70 245 315 3.5
80 320 400 4
90 405 495 4.5
100 500 600 5

These figures were arrived at through research carried out by the government in the 1930's. A car would be driven. A signal would be given and at that precise moment, a blob of paint was fired onto the road beneath the car. After a short interval, the driver would react, and start the process of stopping the car. As soon as the brake was pressed, another blob of paint was fired. Then finally, a third blob was fired at the point where the car finally stopped. Repeat at different speeds... It loosely fitted the pattern shown above, and was adopted as the accepted figures. Modern brakes, tyres and suspension, as well as such things as anti lock brakes mean that the braking distances are much shorter, but they've kept the original figures presumably so that it includes a safety margin. So when you hear the police say "It would have taken this vehicle the length of two football pitches to stop" they're using this formula. It's also velocity squared divided by 20 by the way.

Voyager two is travelling at around 34,000mph. This squared is 1,156,000,000. Divide that by 20 and you get 57,800,000. That's your braking distance in feet. Thinking distance, assuming the stopping would be carried out by a driver with normal capabilities would be a further 34,000 feet for a total overall stopping distance of 57,834,000 feet. That's 10,953 miles. I'm not sure what that is in football pitches.

This assumes a dry road, obviously. Braking distances can double in very wet conditions, and it can take up to ten times longer to stop when driving on ice.

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Sunday 11 November 2018

Sunday 4 November 2018

The Wall

There was a big firework display this evening. It was quite impressive. What I noticed though was that it was creating a lightshow on the wall behind me. So while everyone else was watching the fireworks, I was staring at a wall.

I video'd it. My phone's camera doesn't perform well on low light settings, and I didn't have time to start looking for anything better, but you get something of the effect. The best bits start at 0 seconds (flickers), about 45 seconds (aurora), about 1m40 (schizoid strobing rectangles), and about 4m30 (ghostly pale stuff).



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Monday 29 October 2018

Wednesday 17 October 2018

When "rear end" becomes a verb...

Yup. Rear-ended again. First one for a few years, so I suppose I was about due. This one was a at a T junction rather than a roundabout, for a change. The underlying cause is the same. Driver behind looking to see what's coming from the right before the person in front of them has gone.

Oh and this time, it looks like the woman that smacked into us was uninsured.

Marvellous.

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Saturday 6 October 2018

Losing it...

Broke 14 stone last night.

Will be getting my teeth fixed, and will be joining a gym.

I'm actually starting to give a shit about myself :)

There are reasons for this, but I don't have the time or words to go into them right at this moment.

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Monday 1 October 2018

A visualisation

If I ever want to get involved in a political discussion, I should take a whiteboard with me. That's how I explain things when I'm working, and using visuals helps both me and my pupils.

Anyway, here's what I was thinking about.

I was picturing myself at a Labour Party meeting, talking to someone with a cornucopian point of view, and wondering how I would explain why I thought their ideas were wrong. I remember talking Malthus at a Militant meeting way back in the mid or late 80's, and was assured that "We'd have reached the stars by then". I've found it to be a common view: The idea that more affluence for millions and billions of people is a noble goal to strive for. This bounteous Earth, with all it's riches should be a common treasury.

I agree, but I don't think that means the treasury is infinite. 

So here goes, with diagrams. Why it's all ended up on the right hand side of this post I have no idea.

The circle is all the resources of the earth. Some of them are finite and non renewable.






















This diagram represents how those resources are shared out.


























You could say that the blue represents the rich, the red represents the poor, and the yellow represents the resources needed to actually utilise those resources.


You might believe that the slices of the pie need to be wider or narrower depending on your worldview.

























The inner ring represents the resources we need. The pyramid of needs becomes a bullseye here. The closer to the centre you get, the more it becomes about survival.

But the outer circle, which has been expanding over the last few centuries is about to start getting smaller. Marx never saw it coming. Neither did Adam Smith. How could they? When they were writing, those limits were way over the horizon.

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Tuesday 21 August 2018

Day One...


Got on the train at new Brighton. Just before we were due to go, all the lights went out. The train went nowhere. Eventually, a guard came through the train explaining that there were children on the line near grove road, and that the power had been turned off. It took around an hour for the service to be resumed. So I got to Liverpool crown court at about 10:30, about an hour late. No problem. I had phoned the court to explain my situation, and they said that was ok.

Finding the right entrance took a bit of exploring and several wrong doors. I was scanned and someone came down and took me up to the jurors bit of the court. A big concourse filed with chairs and tables. A small cafe charged too much for food and drink. Toilets, wifi that I can't get on, and games books and magazines all available . Expenses are complicated because I am self employed.


And now I wait. There is a rooftop outdoor area where you can't smoke. It does not explicitly prohibit vaping though, so I will go outside from time to time and vape away unless someone tells me not to. You can see Birkenhead through a gap in the glass walled blocks. There is quite a lot of construction going on in Liverpool. Cranes punctuate the skyline, their jibs maneuvering girders and buckets of concrete. Window cleaners clean windows, fearless in their cradles.


It's interesting to people watch. People are sat by themselves, plugged in to some mobile thing or other, or they read. Many wear headphones. Some people have formed into groups. They talk, laugh. Occasionally there is an announcement over the speakers. Everyone goes quiet. Sometimes it's an explanation of something. Occasionally, it's to call a list of people into court. Everyone listens carefully. My name has not been called yet.

Another list of names. Mine is not among them. And again.



And then it is. Twenty five of us are led up to an empty courtroom. 18 men and 7 women. We are given pens and notepads. There are bibles with oath cards before us. An usher gives each of us a questionnaire. This tells us a little about the case, and asks us if we know any of the people involved. It informs us that the trial is expected to last for about two weeks, but with an outside chance of a further, third week. It will involve reading a lot of financial documents.

A fraud case then. No murders or rapes or anything that will require us to see pictures of mutilated babies or hear distressing accounts of screams and sudden appalling silences.

The twenty five of us are led to another court room. A bewigged judge thanks us for our attendance. We look at the defendant and he looks at us. We do not know each other. A couple of us are excused as they have some connection with the plaintiff. Another because he might have struggled to understand the complexities of the documentation .

A court official shuffles the remaining names. I am the second person to be called. After the twelve seats are filled, a further three names are called. Reserves. One of us good people and true might break a leg. Everyone but me swears to be a good juror on the bible. I am the sole affirmer. By now it's about one o'clock . We adjourn for lunch with instructions to return by 2:15.

I am back in the jury concourse , with a belly full of crisps and sandwich from tesco. More people are talking now. They've had time to break down barriers. The boredom unites them. They have something in common to talk about. It is two o'clock . Almost time.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And of the afternoons events, I can't say too much. It was taken up almost entirely by a monologue from the crown prosecutor setting out its side of the story. We had big ring binders with all sorts of documentary evidence in them, and we were directed to particular sections and pages from time to time. The prosecutor was finished by around twenty to four, and after the judge had gone through what had been said, we were free to go. 

On that basis, without hearing the defence, the bastard is guilty as hell.

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Monday 13 August 2018

Jews

Corbyn must be the problem here.

I can almost 100% guarantee that should Corbyn be forced to stand down, the issue of anti semitism in the Labour Party will instantly disappear.

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Tuesday 7 August 2018

The great soup disaster of 2018

I should perhaps have taken photographs before they got poured away.

But that would have told you nothing about the smell, the texture, the mouthfeel.

There was the one with all the onions.

Take about 8 medium onions, an entire head of celery, and some chillies. Add some spices and a bit of water. Cook in a big pan for half an hour then blend into soup. I managed to get through about a third of it before it went down the loo. My shit smelled of onions for two days.

The one with all the fibre was the worst though.

Take a load of broad beans, and some runner beans. Add some nice delicate asparagus. Cook and blend. The tough fibrous pods become tough fibrous fibres that are difficult to swallow. After extracting enough of them from my mouth to leave a sizeable pile next to my bowl, I gave up and got a tin of Heinz lentil soup from the cupboard instead. Only 186 calories. Cost less than a quid. Other soups turn out to be equally or almost equally low in calories, so instead of further culinary disasters, I shall be having three tins of soup on my 600 calorie days.

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Tuesday 31 July 2018

Like forgetting the clocks went forward, only bigger....

Well I just got myself a new car, because I though my old one was due to go back on the 6th of August.

Nope. 6/9/2018 is the 6th of September, not the 6th of August.

D'oh. Out of pocket to the tune of one months car lease, and one months extra insurance.



Also several weeks of walking a few hundred yards. Space is limited. One car per flat.
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Monday 30 July 2018

Moderation in all things

You may notice that I've changed the settings on this blog so that comments are now moderated, and anonymous replies to my post are no longer permitted.

The reason is that for the past couple of weeks, I've been getting a steady trickle of inane and childish comments. I've just deleted them but they're still happening, so for now, comments will be pre-moderated.

I have a fairly good idea of who the inane and childish poster is, but since he or she has bravely hidden behind the cloak of anonymity, I can't prove it.

I think it all stems from an incident last September. I went to Wales with someone, and we climbed a mountain together. Well actually we only climbed a bit of it together. After this trip, I severed my ties, moved on, drew a line under things, and got on with life.

Here's a series of videos I made during our trip.














And at that point, the battery on my phone died. I started walking towards Llanberis, was kindly given a lift by a passing climber, and completed my journey back to the car by taxi. Then I drove us home. Pete, if you happen to read this, I apologise for not keeping the pace you wanted to set, but I did not understand your behaviour at the time, and I still don't now. When I eventually made it back to the car park, and met you there, you talked at length about how you were planning to get to a train station so that you could make your way home. I wonder if at any point you thought about the fact that I had not come down from the mountain. If I'd chosen to behave the same way, I'd have got in my car, and left you at the car park.

If it is you that's posting abuse on my blog, perhaps as some socially fucked up way of trying to re-establish contact, you're wasting your time. There's good and bad in everyone. You've made me laugh. You've annoyed the shit out of me. The events of last year tipped the scales, and you probably still don't get why.


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Thursday 26 July 2018

The Five Two Diet

I found myself tipping the scales at around 15 stone. Before I became an instructor I was more like about 11.5 stone. That's what you get for eating crap and sitting on your arse all day. And when I got home from a long day's seat warming, I'd be too tired to do much.

But I said to myself, "When I hit 15 stone, I will do something about this."

There are other reasons too, but that's another story.

Anyway, I'm doing the five two diet. You eat normally (or better still,  sensibly) five days a week, then limit your calorific intake to around 500-600 calories two days a week. These days should not be consecutive.

So I started on Tuesday. My next "two" day is tomorrow, so I'm preparing this evening by gathering up the ingredients I will eat tomorrow.

When I try to look stuff up online, it seems mainly to tell me how many calories I would need to gain, maintain or lose weight, but doesn't really allow me to input a food and a weight and to find out how many calories that contains. I'm sure there are such sites and apps out there but I haven't come across one yet.

Instead, I am looking at what ingredients I have, asking the  internet about these specific foods, and collating the results on this post, so that I have an easy reference.

Per 100g                                            Calories

Carrot                                                     41.35
Onion                                                     40.00
Mushroom                                              22.00
Beetroot                                                  46.64
Celery                                                     16.01
Hot Chilli                                                40.00
Potato                                                      77.00
Capsicum                                                40.00

That's what I have at the moment, although I might get some more things this evening after I finish teaching. Weigh out stuff so that it adds up to 600 calories, chop it up and throw it in a pan with some water for half an hour then whizz it into soup with a whizzer. Then tomorrow whenever I feel like eating, I will have a bowl of the stuff, reheated. When it's gone it's gone.

I wonder if hot food contains more calories than cold food?

Answer: Yes, but only to a negligible degree.

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Sunday 24 June 2018

Tuesday 19 June 2018

Backgammon and the world cup (and probably lots of other things as well)

There is something called the FIBS rating.

http://www.bkgm.com/articles/McCool/ratings.html

It's a weighted ratings system. A player with a low rating will see their rating rise higher if they beat a player with a high rating than they would if they won a match against a low rated player. There are other factors too. The main one being the match length. Winning a match played over a series of games, with the winner being the first to amass 21 points would yield a bigger ratings gain for the winner than a match against the same opponent that was played over 1 or 3 points.

Backgammon is more like poker than chess. It's not about pure skill. There is an element of luck too. A good player will beat a bad one most of the time, especially over a series of games. Yet perfect play will sometimes be confounded by mediocrity combined with luck. It's all about probabilities, and making the optimal play, so that you maximise your own chances of a useful throw of the dice, while doing your best to minimise your opponents options.

Meanwhile, of course, your opponent is trying to do the same thing to you.

Once you reach a certain level, and can play the best possible move every time (which no human ever does, although computers increasingly can) if you meet an opponent that is equally skilled, it becomes a matter of luck.

The human factor dictates style. For example, if an attacking option and a defensive option both present themselves, each offering some balancing factors of risk and/or reward, one player might choose the aggressive play, while another might make more conservative choices. Each may prevail. That's the game.

Watching England play against Tunisia last night, I couldn't help feel that against a better team, (and if it had been chess, rather than backgammon, England would prabably have won 4 or 5 - 1 )given the same luck, they would have struggled.

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Thursday 7 June 2018

3 letters

One of the things I have been thinking about is "What combination of three letters has the most permutations?"

For any group of three letters, there are six different combinations. For example...

ABC
ACB
BAC
BCA
CAB
CBA

That's just an example, and it yields just one legitimate English word, CAB, unless BAC is also a word.

I've not found a group that makes words in any order.

Or five.

I've found one that makes four:

SAP - ASP - SPA - PAS (the last word is a dance step closely derived from French but it's in the dictionary)

Here are some that make three:

APT - PAT - TAP
ART - TAR - RAT
TOP - POT - OPT
ERE - REE - ERE
ERA - EAR - ARE

It would be easier if I included acronyms.

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Wednesday 23 May 2018

Your money or your life

I call this the highwayman fallacy.

"Or" is a logical signifier.

To take the highwayman's words literally, you can either give him the money, or he will kill you, but leave you with the money.

So it should really be "Your money, or your money AND your life.

Just sayin'

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Wednesday 9 May 2018

Living on an island...

When you look at Wirral, it's basically a rectangle, and that's how people tend to think of it. But it's a bit more complicated than that. Wallasey, on the top right corner, is almost cut off from the rest of it by the system of docks that run from the River Mersey through Birkenhead and up towards the Irish Sea. There are only 5 roads in and out.


Road 1. Leasowe Road, takes traffic from the North Coast of Wirral, Moreton, Leasowe, Meols, Hoylake, West Kirby into Wallasey Village.

Road 2. This takes traffic from the North of Birkenhead, with a lot of the stuff carried by road 1, and any traffic from the M53 into Wallasey.

Roads 3,4 and 5 all take traffic across bridges over the docks. 3 takes some of the M53's traffic and North Birkenhead. 4 takes stuff from the middle of Birkenhead. 5 Takes central Birkenhead, and anything coming up the A41 from Eastern Wirral - Tranmere, Bromborough, Rock Ferry, Bebington, etc.

Between 3 and 5, the docklands are being prepared for redevelopment. They have big plans for this area, which has been pretty much unused for the last couple of decades.

So they've been replacing the bridge over road 5. What should have taken a few months has now taken well over a year, and they're still not done. So all the traffic that would normally go through road 5 is being funneled through the other routes, mainly road 4. At rush hour, all of these routes become gridlocked. I'd like to humbly suggest that putting some kind of temporary structure in place, like a pontoon or something, might have been useful. When this work is finished, they will be replacing the bridge over road 4.

Over the last couple of weeks, there have been roadworks causing long delays on road 2. (They're putting traffic lights in) For the last couple of days, a burst water main caused the closure of road 3.

I shall leave it to your imagination as to the effects. Road 3 has now reopened, but not everyone knows about this, so people are still avoiding it.

The bridges themselves, taking roads 4 and 5 across the docks, are quite interesting. They're single leaf bascule bridges with a curved rack intersecting a flat stretch of pinion on the side of the roadway. The leaf is balanced by a counterweight, which means the bridge needs relatively little energy to move.


Picture credit: Rept0n1x 

The bridges date from the 1930's, and both the Tower Road (Road 5) and Duke Street (Road 4) will be replaced by something that involves hydraulics and pistons and what have you. There will be one left, spanning two unused sections of dock. I'm glad about that. This type (known as a rolling bascule) is actually quite rare. They're a part of our industrial heritage, and have allowed ships and cars (and trains) to traverse the docks for close to a century.

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Wednesday 2 May 2018

Limerick.

There was an unfortunate painter

Who's work became fainter and fainter.

He started in black, but pigments he lacked

Until he had nothing but

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Saturday 28 April 2018

"Selfish" and "Introvert" are not synonyms.

I'm thinking of asking my GP if I can be tested to see if I'm on the autistic spectrum. I think I probably am. But why bother? It's not like anything can be done about it.

Well, the thing is, I've done many stupid things over the years, and sometimes I've hurt other people around me. Not out of malice, but because I just didn't know how to do stuff, like relate to other people.

There is a psychic cost to such things. I feel a lot of guilt about some of the events that have occurred in my life. I don't know if being diagnosed as Aspergers would help, but it would certainly help explain.

In other news, My Dad is still waiting for a diagnosis/prognosis. It's probably Non Hodgkins Lymphoma by the looks of things. He's had that for a good few years now too. The medical opinion when he was first diagnosed was that he'd probably be dead before it killed him. For now we wait for more news.

Oh, and I've had a couple of people pass their tests. One particular sequence I'm pleased to see the end of.

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Thursday 12 April 2018

D day

My Dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer about seven years ago. He survived it at a cost.

Now his PSA levels are high again. He was called in to his local oncology department a few weeks ago for tests.

We find the results today.

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Tuesday 3 April 2018

Afters...?

Well, I stuck to my guns, and refused to give in , and ultimately, prevailed.

Since then, my performance has nosedived, at least using test results as an indicator.

No instructor has a 100% success rate. There are just too many variables, not all of which are directly connected with driving. So we have both passes and fails, that come more or less randomly. Sometimes I get a run of passes, sometimes a run of fails. And sometimes, a sequence of alternating passes and fails. That's just the way of it. Just numbers and statistics and stuff. Just because I have a lot of consecutive passes, doesn't mean I'm some wunderkind instructor. A lot of consecutive fails don't mean I've somehow become worse at what I do.

Still, it's hard, when things are going well, not to feel that I'm God's gift to driving instruction, and when things don't go well, it's hard not to question myself, and wonder if I could be doing things differently.

So here are my numbers from the last 6 months... X = Pass. O = fail.

October 2017: XOXOOX (50% pass rate)
November 2017: OOO (0% pass rate)
December 2017: X (100% pass rate)
January 2018: XOOOXX (50% pass rate)
February 2018: OOOO (0% pass rate)
March 2018: OOOOOO (0% pass rate)

Ten successive fails is my worst ever run by some margin. So what's happening here?

Well, partly, it's just the luck of the draw, as I explained above. The overall pass rate nationwide is just a bit under 50%. Close enough for "Heads or Tails" to be a useful metaphor. Sometimes I will flip a lot of one or the other.

Partly, the test itself changed in early December. Perhaps I've not done enough to prepare myself or my pupils for the new aspects of the test.

Yet I find myself wondering...

I haven't become a crap instructor over the last few months. Could it be that this, or at least some of this is payback? Surely not. Such a thing would be an outrageous abuse of position, and I have to say, on the 3 or 4 tests that I sat in on in 2018, the fails were marked correctly. Yet one or two of my pupils, on tests where I didn't sit in, really struggled to understand why they'd picked up serious faults.

It wouldn't be difficult to engineer a fail. Give instructions just a second or two later than usual to make people rush. Err on the side of harsh when any borderline situations arise. Be extra authoritarian in manner to crank up the nerves, etc.

Surely not.

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Saturday 17 March 2018

God loves the broken hearted

So says a billboard outside a church in Birkenhead.

But he hates fags if the placards are to be believed.

Well what about broken hearted fags?

God spinning, inches from the floor. Cat with buttered toast strapped to it's back.

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Wednesday 14 February 2018

Vindication

I've blogged a couple of times about an event that occurred last October.

One of my pupils was on her driving test. She was traveling along a road that split into two lanes before joining a roundabout. On every previous test I've observed, the examiner has given some kind of instruction to use the right hand lane at or before this divergence occurred, but this time, this did not happen. My pupil, having put herself in the correct lane anyway, asked for reassurance/clarification, and the examiners response was to ask if she had ever driven through the tunnel on a driving lesson. His tone was surprisingly aggressive. It seemed to me that he'd been caught napping, and had reacted defensively instead of  'fessing up and apologising and giving confirmation and reassurance that she had chosen correctly.

I appealed on the grounds that the examiner had failed to provide clear direction in good time.

There followed a protracted shenanigans because my pupil had given slightly incorrect personal details. It took a long time, and a lot of my time and attention to sort this out, but eventually, this was sorted out, and the DVSA investigated my complaint.

They found against me, after investigating the situation, an investigation that at no point involved speaking to my pupil. They just took the examiner's word for it, and because the examiner had given correct instructions at the roundabout, and because he had correctly marked her driving.

I sent my appeal up a level, because what I was complaining about was not the marking of the test, or the instruction given at the roundabout, but the lack of instruction given on approach to the roundabout.

This appeal too was rejected, on pretty much the same basis. No contact was made with my pupil. No reference was made to the point where the instruction should have been given. The DVSA instead concentrated on the (correct) instruction given at the roundabout.

At some point in all this, I'd also  realised that if she was in a right hand only lane, without being asked to be there, she should have had some kind of fault marked against her in regards to response to road signs and road markings, or possibly planning and awareness, but that no fault had been marked.

I appealed again, this time to the third and highest level. This involves senior executive staff at the highest level of the DVSA. Their response was the first to actually address the point at which my appeal was based, rather than at the roundabout, several hundred yards further ahead. My appeal was still rejected, and my pupil had still not been contacted for her side of the story.

I thought this was the end of the line.

Since I'd sat there and watched as something completely anomalous happened, I was resigned, but pretty disillusioned. Then I re-read the appeals procedure details, and I noticed something I'd forgotten. If after taking my appeal to the highest level, I was still unhappy, I could ask for my complaint to be submitted for independent assessment by an independent assessor.

He contacted me asking me to get my pupil to contact him, and I passed his request on but received no response. My pupil is not the most socially confident of people. I emailed back, explaining that for whatever reason, my pupil chose not to respond to my message. He then contacted me again, with a google map of the precise area this incident covered, and I was able to annotate the map, with a detailed description of events as I saw them.

This was acknowledged, along with an estimate of the timescale before a decision would be reached.

Today, this decision was emailed to me. The bold stuff is serious. It carries weight and expects to be acted upon. 

It's a long document, but here are the findings:

My view

  1. Turning first to the DVSA’s handling of your case, I agree that it took too long (eight working days) to query Jess’ details, particularly given the target to reply substantively within ten working days. In this time you seemingly had to chase to get the case moving. I also agree that the DVSA’s communications about this were confusing. I recommend that the DVSA reviews its practices and considers whether its customer service could be improved by an earlier check on new complaint correspondence to ensure that all the necessary information is available. This initial poor service, and the confusing claim that you had been asked for the correct details sooner, was an inauspicious start.

  1. You provided the correct details on 20 October and the complaint was referred to the driving test centre for investigation four working days later, deadlined for 31 October. This seems a long time to me but I must commend the local driving test manager for the clear priority he afforded to the case, returning comments based on a review of the documentation and conversation with the examiner the following day. I will consider the depth of the DVSA’s investigations shortly.

  1. The remainder of the correspondence unfolded as follows:

You DVSA
20/10/2017 3/11/2017 (day 10)
3, 6 & 13/11/2017 22/11/2017 (day 8 from most recent correspondence)
22/11/2017 7/12/2017 (day 11)
7, 8 & 13/12/2017 20/12/2017 (ICA referral on day 5 vs. target of two weeks)

  1. These intervals appear reasonable to me given the fact that further comments were obtained at every stage. The ICA referral was also timely.

  1. I have commented in the previous section that the DVSA’s responses were unconvincing. Neither of the November emails placed the examiner’s question to Jess in context. The impression given was that Jess’ query followed a timely instruction to turn right at the roundabout. Having looked carefully at your correspondence and submission to me, and the DVSA’s evidence, my view is that your account of the sequence of events is more plausible. In particular, I cannot see why a candidate already in the correct lane on the basis of an examiner’s instruction would then in effect ask whether she should embark on a different route. I therefore consider it more likely than not that the examiner’s directional instruction followed Jess’ enquiry.

  1. You have argued throughout your correspondence that the timing of the instruction represented a failure to abide by 1.27. Looking at the map in paragraph 1 along with the road views I reproduce in subsequent paragraphs I note that:

  • It is clear that the sign immediately south of Willow Close (paragraph 4) indicates that the A5027 will branch off into a right lane; it is therefore arguable that a broad instruction to follow the road ahead at all times would require the driver to branch right as the road split (and that a 1.06 infringement by Jess in following the road ahead in the right lane might have been unfair)
  • It is also noteworthy that the roundabout itself is atypical in that Gorsey Lane traffic has right of way over traffic already on the roundabout
  • I also note that the standard Highway Code advice is to stay in the left-hand lane on a dual carriageway unless overtaking or turning right [137]
  • However, the Highway Code also states: “You should follow the signs and road markings and get into the lane as directed.” [134] Arguably again, following the signs to remain on the same route in this instance would involve right lane selection.

  1. Taking all these factors into account, I think that this was an atypical scenario for a learner driver in a test to second-guess and that clear and timely instructions from the examiner were required. This drive is clearly part of an established test route, and the likelihood of the tunnel exit featuring in a test is low, but that does not obviate the examiner’s duty under 1.27 to be clear. You argue convincingly that other examiners do not allow doubt about the required exit from the roundabout and provide timely direction. On balance I think it more likely than not that the instruction to turn right arrived late on 6 October 2017 to the extent that the examiner’s compliance with section 1.27 is in doubt.

  1. You also complained about the tone in which the examiner’s query to Jess was delivered. Obviously I was not present and cannot provide an adjudication based on first-hand observation. A clear opportunity to investigate this aspect of the complaint properly was missed at each of the DVSA’s three stages. The agency focused solely on the examiner’s intention. I don’t think anyone thought that his intention was to belittle Jess or to undermine her performance. But I think that it would have represented good customer service, and investigatory practice, to have telephoned Jess to hear her account of the drive and to understand the impact on her of the examiner.

  1. The new test date was on the horizon and a call would have also reinforced the agency’s aim to ensure that avoidable stress was removed from the process. I understand that a different examiner could not be guaranteed under the DVSA’s rules. But I’m sure that a sympathetic discussion of the October drive would have been appreciated by the candidate and would have represented the high level of customer care that the DVSA aims to provide.1

  1. The record of the test did not copy well within the scanned documents referred to me but I also think it likely that the deterioration in Jess’ performance after the Gorsey Lane roundabout would have been discernible from the test record within the local investigation of the complaint. Rather than triangulating the evidence base by looking at this and talking to Jess, the same managerial assurances were trotted out in the first two DVSA responses. This was disappointing given the very serious complaint that examiner conduct had undermined a candidate’s performance.

  1. The third response did engage more directly with your arguments about lane selection but did not appear to take on board the possibility that Jess was in the right-hand lane because she had assumed that the tunnel exit would not be part of the test. This seems to me a likely scenario, particularly if parked cars in the run up to the creation of two lanes had already led her to select the right-hand lane. The DVSA’s first suggestion, that Jess may have been schooled on the route, does not to my mind give sufficient weight to the fact that she asked for directions. And I remain of the view that a call to the candidate at this stage would have clarified the impact on her of the examiner’s approach even if the DVSA remained of the view that his intervention had been acceptable.

  1. Concluding, I uphold your complaint that the examiner’s conduct of the test fell below an acceptable standard. I think that this represented unfairness to Jess that could and should have been addressed fully during the complaints process. Unfortunately I found the DVSA’s assurances complacent and unconvincing. However, I do not feel that the evidence I have reaches a sufficient threshold for me to conclude that Jess would have passed the test had the examiner’s conduct and performance been better. I therefore partially uphold the complaint and recommend that the agency apologises to Jess for the failings I’ve highlighted and makes her a consolatory payment of £65.

This concludes my involvement in your case. In the event that you remain dissatisfied it is open to you to ask an MP to refer your complaint to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, Mr Rob Behrens. His telephone helpline is 0345 015 4033.

Yours sincerely...


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Monday 12 February 2018

Nocturnal emissions

Many months ago, I had a dream.

From the fragments I remember, I was in some kind of school hall, with a lot of children, and I was playing them a song. The song had a tune, and melody, and lyrics. I awoke to find that I remembered the music quite clearly, but that I'd forgotten everything except the vaguest sense of the words.

I've recorded it. It's both the quintessence of every melodic cliché ever, and as catchy as anything.


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Wednesday 10 January 2018

Me Singing

Ah. My lovely shiny new bit of musical whizz-bangery has a built in effects unit that when applied to my vocals, turns my rather reedy and weak voice into a thing of beauty. In my humble opinion. I normally hate hearing it, but I'm hitting all the right notes (except the very highest one) and there's sweetness, sustain and power in there. This is just a fragment of "With or without you"

http://thewholedamnworld.webs.com/wowy.m4a

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Tuesday 2 January 2018

Note to self (and a couple of other bits)

Happy new year to all my reader!

I want to stay off the booze this year. I've managed it so far. I celebrated the completion of our solar orbit with a glass of fizzy fruit drink.

I also want to do more musically. I got in touch with someone I used to know, and he's just got back to me. Full of enthusiasm as ever. Wants to get me gigging with his band. I feel that I'd rather just go have a jam with him just to see how things go at first. He sent me a set list. Mainly pretty safe, mainstream stuff. If I do go on to do something with this, I'd want to add quite a few new things that they might not have thought of doing.

Anyway, just as a note to myself, here are some useful settings for the multi effects unit...

1-1-1 deep long echo
1-1-2 loud and distorted 
1-1-4 slightly different deel long echo with a bit of phase
3-2-4 reverby fast echo that might be good for vocals.

The settings are in three groups of 4. In theory, there are 64 presets. In practice, since some of the buttons and pedals on this old unit don't work except through diligent and forceful application, there are fewer available. I will try to list them all here if I can be bothered.

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