Life, the Universe and Everything

Saw this news article today about shop closures which has a table of closures and openings by region from which they calculate a net loss. I started wondering how useful such figures are given the varying  size of the regions? So I popped the figures into Excel and had a play. Ideally, I'd know the total number of  shops in each region so I could come up with a percentage but that isn't provided. Instead, I added together the number of openings and the number of closures to come up with a proxy for the number of shops in each region and compared that total with the net change. This results in a "percentage" figure that's pretty bogus in isolation but does permit some feel for regional differences. Here's the result: First, note the "Total" figure of 13%, that's a useful "average" to compare against individual regions. Greater London with 4% looks to have continuing retail prosperity while the West Midlands and North West ...

It was dark and raining. Behind us, the brightly lit Yugoslav border post, ahead a track heading towards a faint light that we hoped was Albania. About half way, the border guards materialised out of the bushes. I could tell that's what their job was by the grey uniforms, caps with a red star, dark glasses and guns on their backs. They did smile though.  That was 1987, when communism and the "cold war" were real. In 2008, I found the photo album again….   This sign greeted us in the customs shed. We were also asked to declare any religious or pornographic literature  One of the guides told us that we may have heard that we wouldn't be able to wander around freely but assured us this was untrue. Next morning in Shkodra, I tried this out. People easily identified me as a foreigner because of me clothes and when I got out my camera they were sure. They were still very shy and very few actually came up to talk to anyone in the group. The party was e...

We were reminded of this legal concept in the recent case where Vicky Pryce deployed it in her defence to a charge of perverting the course of justice. She claimed that her former husband, Chris Huhne, a cabinet minster coerced her into falsely claiming that she had been driving a speeding car, so allowing him to avoid prosecution and keep his driving licence. We don't yet know if this defence will succeed. The jury in the case was unable to come to a verdict and there will be a retrial. But what of this "Marital coercion" defence? Men cannot use it, only women. This is curious. You could see it as a protection women have against overbearing husbands, the patriarchal society, etc. On the other hand, surely it is demeaning to women to suggest they can be pressured in a way that men cannot? And can a man never be pressured by his wife? Perhaps a more understandable aspect is that the defence is not available to a Civil Partner - they hadn't been heard of in when th...

(To enlarge any picture, just click it) Shiny cars Coffee vendor A chat

This walk was around Oldbury on Severn Nuclear Power Station. This label is not strictly correct. It ceased generating electricity about a year ago but there are plans for a new station here in years to come. It's actually in a quaint rural spot enjoyed by the local hunt. But the main attraction is the various Severn Bridges in the early evening sun: Click to enlarge

Cait Riley gets a degree in Geology and starts job hunting. Then she has a wheeze - why not volunteer to work in a local museum? Keep in touch with her industry and give her something to get in the morning for. Then, enter "Jobcentre Plus", the government department supposedly in charge of helping the unemployed into jobs. They compel her to stop doing sensible volunteering and give her mandatory unpaid work at Poundland a commercial shop. I'm please to report that the courts have backed her case although the government are determined to revers the ruling. These "workfare" programmes mess with the voluntary sector in a number of ways Fundamentally, the government doesn't understand the voluntary sector at all.

Urban sunset, Cheltenham, UK The same sunset reflected from the windows of a building