Physics at A Level
Civilisation is built on Physics (alas), not on Business Studies
You remember being at school, and looking at the timetable with a lurching horror. You’ve just been doing something cushy, like playing football or snoozing through a movie about global warming in Double Geography. Or perhaps, if you have been really cunning with your options, you have been making biscuits with lovely Mrs Sindall in Double Cookery.
And then you look at your schedule to see how your teachers propose to divert you for the last two periods of the day; and a shadow passes before your face and your hair stands on end, as though you had been plugged into a van der Graaf generator.
Omigosh, you say, it’s Double Physics, and there’s no way out. It’s an hour and a half of struggling to understand what’s watt, and who’s an amp when he’s at ohm, and frankly you’d do almost anything to skive. You’d rather be dipped in liquid helium and hit with a rubber mallet; you’d rather be locked in a cyclotron and humanely dispatched with subatomic bullets; you’d rather give a personal demonstration of the properties of potassium cyanide, because the only thing you can remember about Physics (or is it Chemistry?) is a poem to the effect that “Sir Humphrey Davey /Abominated Gravy;/ He lived in the odium/ Of having discovered sodium” – an odium you believe to be richly deserved. And as the Physics keenies take out their lavishly illustrated homework, with swotty little drawings of electric circuits, you have only three options.
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You can throw a sickie and bunk off to the local chip shop. You can sit there in a coasting daydream, looking forward to the next Double Cookery, occasionally making discreet grunts of assent and endeavouring not to catch the teacher’s eye.
Or else you can try. You can really try. You can wait for the moment, perhaps five minutes into the class, when you cease to understand what the teacher is saying; you can wait for the clouds to descend, as they will – even on the cleverest – with all the inevitability of an English August, and then, instead of giving up, you can battle on.
You can strain all your faculties until your brain feels as though it is about to give birth. You can take out your panga and hack hack hack through the dense undergrowth of your stupidity until – kazam! – you get it; for one brief, shining instant, you stumble into a clearing.
The clouds part and you can see straight up to the heavens and the fundamental facts of the universe, and, in that instant, you will look on your Physics teacher with new eyes and, instead of a torturing old pedant, you will see a prophet and a man blessed, like the first great atomist, because he was able to understand the Causes of Things.
Of course, if you are anything like me, you will find that your Physics weather forecast is still cloudy-bright, and that the fog soon envelops you again. But you would surely agree that, in that delirious moment of understanding, you have had more intellectual pleasure than in all the long, happy hours of doing the softer subjects.
In your heart, you know that grasping one hard point in Physics beats all the cake-baking and Religious Studies and making up stories for Media Studies (an excellent preparation for the real thing, by the way) and pretending to be a baked bean in Drama.
The trouble is that, in your heart, you also know that Physics means pain. It means moments of palpitating panic when you may be asked to explain something you don’t get, and above all you know that, in Physics, it is much harder to get an A at A-level.
Worse still, your teachers know that, and partly because we live in a mad world of school league tables, where an A in Drama is apparently as valuable as an A in Greek and an A in Mathematics is as good as an A in Business Studies, there has been a huge incentive to steer children away from the crunchy subjects, and towards the softer options, so that, every year, a bigger crop of A grades can be presented to the ludicrous tithe barn of the Department of Education, and every year ministers can make absurd speeches of congratulation, redolent of the 1950s Soviet Union hailing the record production of grade A* tractors in the factories of Minsk.
No one really believes in this equivalence of A-levels. Children don’t believe it; we all know that the guy who comes top in maths is smart; the guy who comes top in English is smart; and the girl who comes top in both is out of sight. We don’t have the same respect for Business Studies, nor does British business, and nor do top universities.
So thank heavens for Cambridge, which yesterday had the guts to inform applicants that they would need A-levels in at least two crunchy subjects, and that an application based on History, Business Studies and Media Studies would not do.
We must stop this flight from the crunchy subjects, not just because it is slowly denuding the country of scientists – it is hardly surprising that 30 per cent of university Physics departments have closed in the past eight years, when the number of Physics candidates at A-level has slumped from 46,606 in 1985 to 28,119 in 2005.
We must stop this disaster because we are cutting the roots of our civilisation: when I think what has happened to Latin and Greek and modern languages in the maintained sector, I alternate between rage and black depression.
We must encourage the uptake of crunchy subjects with an equitable system of financial incentives not just for those who teach them but also – why not? – for the students who excel in them; and we must do it as a simple matter of social justice.
Cambridge has revealed which subjects it really values. The tragedy is that the A grades in the sciences, advanced maths and languages are increasingly ghettoised in the grammar schools and the independent sector, and when the Blair Government is brought to the bar of history, it will be one of the single heaviest charges that, by failing to tackle the crunchy subjects in state schools, a Labour government presided over a shocking decline in social mobility.
104 Comments
to support my case that physics and maths really aren’t superior to other forms of knowledge – such as philosophy. (Auntie Flo’)
While I agree that physics and mathematics are incomplete, make mistakes, and undergo paradigm shifts, the net result over several hundred years has been an expanding and largely internally consistent body of knowledge, to which individual scientists largely anonymously add.
Can the same be said of philosophy? I think not. There are as about as many philosophies as there are philosophers. Each of them may well make some valid point, but the net result hasn’t been the growth of an edifice of philosophical knowledge to which philosophers incrementally add a brick or two.
In fact, I’d even say that there is no such thing as ‘philosophical knowledge’, but instead a disorderly heap of largely incommensurable views and systems. I’ll cheerfully agree that many of them are fascinating and thought-provoking – but really only in the same way as different works of art by different artists demonstrate different ways of seeing.
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If this is going to turn into “Objective Science vs Philosophy” can we please go back to arguing about Israel and Hezbollah?
It is not an either/or question, nor is it the question Boris was examining. He was saying that studying science is superior to studying some of these tailored-to-market bullshit programs which do nothing but keep you busy three years, train you in mindless tasks, and hand you a piece of paper and some initials upon graduation.
I think it can often be said that Boris is inconsistent, but in this particular case I don’t think it can be said that he is actually wrong.
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Having not read Boris’s latest missive until this morning, it may be that there’s lots of appropriate comments that I’ve missed.
I’m glad I did physics all those years ago ’cause it ensured that I’ve had an interesting (and moderately well paid) job as an electronics hardware designer for the past 30 years. But is it surprising that many physics teachers are unenthusiastic and somewhat bitter? Instead of getting employed in industry they chose to put their skills to use in education, and now find themselves having to teach to classes where maybe 80% of the kids have no real interest in learning. Why is it that kids have a real interest in the products of technology, but can’t be bothered to understand what goes on in their gadgets behind the shiny facade? Perhaps the fact that we real engineers get confused all to often with the guy who comes round to service your gas boiler or the oik in the garage who services your car using only a hammer and a diagnostic look-up table doesn’t help.
Why (in the UK) do teachers all have to be on the same pay scales? To encourage technically-minded people to chose the education sector for their employment rather than industry, cannot there be a free market for skilled teachers, with those needed to teach Maths, Physics or whatever getting paid higher salaries than those teaching Media Studies (just for an example)?
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I’m originally Canadian (now British) with one degree in Computer Science and three in Business. I would like to draw on this experience in my comment on this article.
To begin with, I would note that in Canada we don’t really have this issue. Our science teachers are neither better nor worse than other teachers, neither more nor less inspiring, and they do not pitch their subject to be harder or easier. Consequently, within school and university, science is not seen as more boring/difficult than other subjects. The description in the original post of it as being a particularly difficult and uninteresting subject, which one tackles out of moral fortitude, is simply not accurate within the Canadian school system. If this is an accurate desription of the British school system, they I can only say this is very sad and it is no wonder people turn away from science to the humanities.
I would also note that in Canada the employment possibilities for science students are generally better (more availability and better pay) than for the humanities. These facts are shared with students as part of career guidance in the latter years of high school (the point where subject selection starts to become important). I’ve never know a student to be actively discouraged from the humanities, but at the same time the schools make sure that they are aware the impact of course selection on future employment options. Consequently, students tend to choose humanities only if they have a particular interest or gift for these subjects. All else being equal, they go for sciences.
Having worked in Britan for many years, somewhat the opposite situation seems to be present. Employers tend to give more emphasis on the importance of humanities. When hiring someone where both type of skills are required (e.g. a technical marketing manager), they seem to prefer someone that is highly articulate than someone who is technically skilled.
This approach is visible in many ways and at many levels of British society. For example, in Canada an “engineer” is someone who has a university degree in Engineering. A “Professional Engineeer” must have completed a qualifying exam to join the society and have relevant work experience and training, on top of the degree. These titles are highly respected and anyone using them with meeting these criteria can go to jail. In Britan, almost anyone can call themselves an engineer and the title has virtually no status.
The above is of course only some aspects of the problem. However, I want to illustrate that there are base and fundamental issues in the educational system, the employment/promotion opportunities and in social perception which work together to discourage the selection of science as a career. I suggest that it is these fundamental issues that need to be solved.
I really believe that quick measures such as tax breaks or reduced tuition fees for science subjects will be ineffective and in fact counter-productive. I hate the idea that someone would take up a science or engineering degree just because the university tuition is cheaper (see the suggestion in earlier post above). This is absolutely the wrong reason and will encourage people unsuitable for this type of education. Instead we should allow people to choose freely, without financial constraints, but show those who have the aptitude for science the benefits of this type of career.
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In Britain, almost anyone can call themselves an engineer and the title has virtually no status – Dr Stewart.
Equally, almost anyone can call themselves a professional. The chimney sweep who came round recently to shove a brush up our boiler flue presented himself as a “professional” sweep. Nice chap, job well done, but isn’t “professional” egging it a bit? This trend of glamorising every job, where a “nail consultant” ranks herself alongside someone who has undergone years of hard academic study, is all part of a dumbing down process which rates a degree in sports management as equal to a degree in physics. Worse, the sports manager is likely to make pots more money than the physicist. Our priorities have gone askew and Boris is right to question them.
Going back to Raincoaster’s riveting post, it is of course despressingly true that schools turn out drones. But can anyone suggest a practical alternative in an industrialised world? The writer rails against conformity but I fear we are lurching into Pink Floyd territory (teacher, leave those kids alone). Who honestly believes that every school could be run on regimentation-free principles? Those devoted to alternative methods, like Rudolph Steiner schools, undoubtedly produce some brilliant people (using a large number of highly motivated and expert staff) but also turn out their share of weirdo’s unsuited to the modern world. I know a few.
I’m sorry, but in any place other than utopia kids do need structure, authority figures and the disciplines required to maintain order in a seething pool of teenage hormones. Which is not to say the system hasn’t gone way too far in turning out league table fodder.
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‘I hate the idea that someone would take up a science or engineering degree just because the university tuition is cheaper (see the suggestion in earlier post above). This is absolutely the wrong reason and will encourage people unsuitable for this type of education.’ (Dr Stewart)
In the real world people choose jobs and professions based on what pay they can expect to receive. Do you think we are turning out hundreds of barristers every year because these people care about justice? Besides choosing a career you care about can be a bad move; you might be disappointed when it turns out everyone else is just in it for the money.
Now we have created a ‘market’ in higher education surely it is the business of government to manipulate the forces of supply and demand within that market. When universities are closing science departments, employers cannot find the graduates they need and the UK does not have the skills it needs then what is wrong with tweaking the market once in a while? It is still the individual that makes the decision to study.
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I, too, went through the Canadian school system, and at the time I went through it, all the guidance counsellors recommended to ANYONE with a B or better in math that they become an engineer. Industry wanted engineers, you see, so the government obligingly shovelled people into that field.
I myself was actively discouraged from pursuing a career as a writer, and I wish to God I had laughed in the man’s face, because I would have saved many years and made a good bit more money if I’d gone into writing right from the word go.
What happened to all those kids who went through engineering programs? They all graduated at the same time, flooding the market and drastically lowering the value of their highly-skilled labour. I know a man who had a very good degree in civil engineering, and he was a gardener for seven years before he found a job in his field.
All to say that government “guidance” serves the market better than the populace.
While students do tend to choose things that have been recommended to them as high-paying, that doesn’t really relate to what Boris is saying here, which is that a society is better served by people who’ve spent their school years studying difficult subjects than simply whatever the market is looking for. My engineer friend, who would really rather have been a physicist, would agree.
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‘While students do tend to choose things that have been recommended to them as high-paying, that doesn’t really relate to what Boris is saying here, which is that a society is better served by people who’ve spent their school years studying difficult subjects than simply whatever the market is looking for.’ (Raincoaster)
Ok, good point, so what is a difficult subject? I flew maths and science at GCSE with A grades without revising, I found maths and phsyics easy, they were logical.
Shakespeare on the other hand was like a foreign language to me. I was bad at french and for the year I spent doing Latin I can’t remember a thing, it just didn’t sink in like maths, physics and chemistry did.
Some people I went to school with could understand Shakespeare like it was everyday banter you would hear down the pub, some people could speak good french by the time they were 16.
There was one lad I remember actually understood electronics. At the age of 13 he sucessfully hacked into the school IT network. The rest of us were still struggling with MS Excel! I never understood electronics or technology. I could do the physics side of electricity but not the technology side of electronics. I understand forces and atoms and things but this laptop I’m typing on might as well be magic to me. The lad in question who hacked the IT network struggled to get a C at GSCE maths though.
So out of the traditional subjects, which ones are ‘crunchy’ and which ones aren’t?
My ‘crunchy’ subjects were french, english literature and most of all technology/electronics.
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Never mind engineering degrees. Would someone like to suggest a cure for what happened this very morning in my local supermarket?
I wanted two packets of Parma ham on special offer – two for £5. Somehow a packet of Grand Reserve ham had found its way into the Parma pile; I unintentionally picked up one Parma and one Grand Reserve. These went through the till as two Grand Reserve, a more expensive product which was not on special offer either (presumably the girl had swiped the “wrong” packet twice).
At the customer service desk, I explained the mix-up to a girl of about 20, who agreed to replace the Grand Reserve with Parma and charge me the advertised £5. The receipt showed I had been billed £6.58 for the erroneous pair.
So, to sum up: The first lot of ham came to £6.58; I exchanged it for ham priced £5. You’re a clever bunch. How much refund was due? £1.58. Well done. Full marks.
“So you are owed £1.04″ she says.
“Eh? No I’m not. You owe me £1.58″.
“But that’s not what the till says”.
I then spent several minutes patiently trying to explain this simple calculation from every possible angle but it was wasted on her. She stood her ground. “Sorry, I don’t follow. The till says £1.04 so that’s all I can give you.”
Only when she grudgingly agreed to call the supervisor was the matter sorted out.
This worries me more than engineering degrees because it’s everywhere. So what is the answer?
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physics is hard, and that’s a good thing
While I was away in France, the annual fracas over improved A level results broke out. Now, I know where I stand on this; I know people who work and teach in Higher Education and they’re seeing a decline in the educational quality of freshers, not an …
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PaulD,
The answer is to laugh about it. ‘Computer says no’.
The problem Paul is accountants. Accountants were all well and good when they stuck to doing their sums, but now they have ‘branched out’ they think they have some god given right to be management consultants as well as accountants – ‘accountants know best’ syndrome.
I’ve had it lots of times working in call centres, here is an example:
The computer gives you 20 seconds after the customer hangs up before the next person comes through to you. This allows you to make sure the correct notes are on the account and get ready for the next call. The accountants add up all these seconds and then divide the number of seconds by 3,600 and multiply the result by the cost per hour of employing you. Then they decide to remove the 20 seconds so they can say ‘By doing this we have saved your company £x per year’. This of course doesn’t dave anyone anything because the correct notes are no longer left on the customers accounts which means it takes a minute or so longer to get to the bottom of it the next time they call back.
In the supermarket the EPOS systems give information directly to the accountants which enables them not to have to do any work. The EPOS system tells them when to restock, how much money is in each till and how much money they have taken that week. The accountants do not want the shop staff to do anything that does not involves the EPOS system because then they have to do work
(i.e. making ammendments based on little signed chitties in the customer services till)
I’ve had it before at the supermarket where there were some chicken tikka pancake thingys that I wanted to buy, they were there, they had a price on but I couldn’t buy them because they were not yet on the EPOS system. I asked if they could just use the thing they use to reduce prices to stick a bar code on or simply write the price on a sticker – no, I could only buy them tomorrow when they were on the EPOS system.
The accountants are to blame Paul, believe me on this one.
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I’d like to draw everyone here to this article, composed in response to your piece. Writen afterI publicised this epistle to a teacher friend of mine…
http://iytywnm.blogspot.com/2006/08/crunchy-psychology.html
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I think that Boris and Cambridge seem to be advocating a universal standard of crunchiness… personally I think that it’s fine for Cambridge to select appropriate subjects for entrance on their courses; I just don’t like labelling subjects as objectively ‘hard’ or ‘easy.’ (Further rantings on this at http://iytywnm.blogspot.com/2006/08/crunchy-and-smooth.html)
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idlex said:
While I agree that physics and mathematics are incomplete, make mistakes, and undergo paradigm shifts, the net result over several hundred years has been an expanding and largely internally consistent body of knowledge, to which individual scientists largely anonymously add…Can the same be said of philosophy? I think not.
I don’t think Steven Hawking would agree with you.
‘..we have made progress by finding partial theories that describe a limited range of happenings and by neglecting other effects or approximating them by certain numbers. Ultimately, however, one would hope to find a complete, consistent, unified theory that would include all these partial theories as approximations, and that did not need to be adjusted to fit the facts…’ Hawking (BHT)
Partial theories, neglected effects, inconsistencies and approximations – adjusted to fit the facts. Come on, idlex, it sounds more like Blair than a beacon of truth for our students. Yes, philosophy’s much the same, I agree, a relatively empty vessel – until science comes along and fills it. But science so needs that bottle. That’s why, as Einstein said, its so vital to put them together, because only philosophy and science together can really transform the world.
What comprises a good education? This is Einstein’s view:
‘So many people today — and even professional scientists — seem to me like somebody who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of this generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is — in my opinion — the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth.’ (Einstein to Thornton, 1944, EA 61-574)
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Pepperpot or whatever you’re calling yourself, please stop spamming. It’s even annoying me, and I’m the spammer-in-chief around these parts.
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Raincoaster,
Link’s to your website don’t deserve the title ‘spam’, they are more a ‘buy one get one free’ coupon to the value brand corned beef of the blogosphere.
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Yes, philosophy’s much the same, I agree, a relatively empty vessel – until science comes along and fills it. But science so needs that bottle. That’s why, as Einstein said, its so vital to put them together, because only philosophy and science together can really transform the world. (Auntie Flo’)
I entirely agree with that, although I’d still maintain – even in the face of Steven Hawking – that, for all its multiple defects, science remains the best knowledge we have.
The depressing thing, in many ways, is that all concerned continue to plough their own separate fields, over and over again. Philosophers do their philosophy, and physicists do their physics, and economists do their economics, and so we have this patchwork quilt of disciplines, each speaking their own private language, each with their own founding fathers and heroes, each jealously bent on their own self-perpetuation, and largely oblivious of everyone else. It’s a bit like, well, …Europe. Things will only really start happening when they start putting their heads together, to form some sort of EU (Extended University?) of knowledge, with open borders, and a free exchange of ideas.
But that requires ‘bottle’ of quite another sort, and a kind of ‘bottle’ that is seemingly largely absent from science these days.
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Well,
we’ve had the purely spiritual view of the universe, i.e. God/Allah/Yahweh created it and don’t try to understand the rules ’cause they’re God’s and you’re only human.
We’re currently going through the ‘science will conquer it all’ phase i.e. even though we don’t understand how gravity works and have lots of little theories that explain fragments of physical behaviour (like the Wien curve pre-Max Planck) but no all encompassing model of the universe.
What about the physical/spiritual phase where physics explains some aspects of the universe but only in conjunction with the mind observing it? i.e. the tree in the forest DOES fall over AND makes a sound but only if no one cares about it staying up.
It’s got to come.
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Or is that too anthropic?
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‘all its multiple defects, science remains the best knowledge we have’ (Idlex)
When we look up to the stars and ask ourselves ‘why?’ science can only go do far to answering the fundamental questions we will never know the answer to; some knowledge must surely be beyond the capabilities of the human mind.
What if instead of their being a universe there was nothing, no time, no space, no matter and no energy? It is impossible in our minds to imagine ‘nothing’.
How can time, space, matter and energy have been created? If it was created who created the creator?
How is it possible for time, space, matter and energy to have existed forever?
‘Forever’ is a concept that is also impossible to imagine. How can the the universe go onto infinity and how can it stop, if it stops what is there after the ‘end’?
This is why we have a basic human need for philosophy and for religion.
The more we look to science for answers to all of the little questions, the more we find the answers we seek. The less we look to religion for the answers the less faith we find in ancient beliefs, folklaw and established religion.
‘Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.’ (Matthew 7:7)
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“Ask you you will be told a lie; seek and you will find spin; knock and the door will be slammed shut and a ‘no-entry’ sign hastily put in place” (Labour Manifesto 9:11)
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Blair’s attraction is only ‘spin deep’
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Ahh, but through philosophy can we not see through the lies of ‘new labour’ Scoplin?
Here is an example from the dossier ‘Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction The Assessment of the British Government’ (link to original document below)
‘As a result of the intelligence we judge that Iraq has:
● continued to produce chemical and biological agents;
● military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, including against its own Shia population. Some of these weapons are deployable within 45 minutes of an order to use them;’
and
‘Iraq’s military forces are able to use chemical and biological weapons, with command, control and logistical arrangements in place. The Iraqi military are able to deploy these weapons within 45 minutes of a decision to do so’
and
‘intelligence indicates that as part of Iraq’s military planning Saddam is willing to use chemical and biological weapons, including against his own Shia population. Intelligence indicates that the Iraqi military are able to deploy chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes of an order to do so.’
From: http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Politics/documents/2002/09/24/dossier.pdf
Now let’s be philisophical for a moment.
1) We know Saddam only had short range rocket technology.
2) The government says that Saddam has weapons of ‘mass destruction’ that could wipe out entire regiments of the British Army and could be launched within 45 minutes
3) The government decide the solution is to park a large proportion of our military in Kuwait and the Persian Gulf within range of such ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ with a view to invading Iraq to get rid of them.
Anyone who can think slightly out of the box can see that this is a stupid idea, that the only possible reason we are parking our military within range of the supposed ‘WMD’ is that they do not exist. The USA and her allies had spent over 10 years carefully disarming Saddam through a combination of war, sanctions and largely unreported sorties and Iraq was now in such a weak position we could just march in and take Baghdad in a few weeks with less than a thousand casulaties.
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Scoplin said:
What about the physical/spiritual phase where physics explains some aspects of the universe but only in conjunction with the mind observing it? i.e. the tree in the forest DOES fall over AND makes a sound but only if no one cares about it staying up.
There was a young man who said “God
Must find it exceedingly odd
To note that this tree
Just ceases to be
When there’s no-one around in the quad.”
“Dear Sir, Your query is odd.
I am always about in the quad,
And therefore this tree
Will continue to be,
Since it’s observed by, Yours faithfully, God.”
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But that requires ‘bottle’ of quite another sort, and a kind of ‘bottle’ that is seemingly largely absent from science these days.
Idlex, you exceeded even yourself in that last post.
So many irritations of modern life exist only because a certain technology is possible, not because it is desirable, and there is money to be made from it. Wheelclamping, microchips in dustbins, fingerprinting of six-year-olds, universal smoking bans, they were all born of someone’s self-interest with little regard for the wider effects. In far too many cases the “inishative” came from someone desperate to impress his superiors and keep his job, which was created by someone desperate to impress his superiors and keep his job, which was created by someone…
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…universal smoking bans (PaulD)
We have become, us smokers (who include our sweet Steven), slowly at war with a medical profession which has very succssfully demonized our innocuous custom.
But yesterday, when by chance I saw my doctor, I thought she looked rather old and unwell. One always thinks of one’s own doctor as being the very embodiment of good health. It’s part of the medical mythos that the doctors are never themselves unwell. And yet this is a proposition that does not bear a single moment of scrutiny. Our medical doctors are just as unwell as we are.
And so, I think that henceforth my introductory remarks to my next docor will be along the lines of:
“Hello, Doc. You’re looking a bit pale/red/tired/bloated to me. Rest a bit. Don’t do what you you usually do and ask me how many ciggies/booze/illegal hard drugs I do each day. I only tell you lies anyway. Take a break. Breathe deeply, and try to think absolutely nothing. And this injection really won’t hurt at all. You’ll have forgotten about it all tomorrow.”
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Actually, although doctors are only human (and in contact with a great many diseases per day) they live longer than the average, in part because less than 10% of them are smokers.
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I avoid doctors like the plague Idlex.
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Actually, although doctors are only human (and in contact with a great many diseases per day) they live longer than the average, in part because less than 10% of them are smokers. (Raincoaster)
Doctors’ middle class social position, generally healthier life styles – except for boozing – and knowledge of health care are all surely additonal factors in their greater longetivity. However, the supreme factor is surely the preferential treatment given them in the NHS. Wouldn’t all citizens live longer if their pals gave them access to the best practioners and best treatments?
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Woops! I apologise to raincoster, idlex and everyone for messing up my 31 Aug 06. 2.28 pm reply. It wasn’t raincoaster but idlex who posted the section I quoted. I plead temporary insanity after reading Boris’s article about our iniquitous Government’s destruction of the English NHS. MY blood’s still boiling over that.
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That’s okay; it’s easy to get us confused, except on the smoking issue.
Smoking kills 50% of its practitioners, an average of more than five years earlier than the general population (rates vary by country). There’s no question that an upper-middle class lifestyle is healthier than a lower-class one, but smoking is one of the lower-class archetypes. In Canada, the only people who can be chain smokers are the independantly rich and the chronically unemployed, and it has become a class marker.
Let the flaming begin!
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Woops! I apologise to raincoster, idlex and everyone for messing up my 31 Aug 06. 2.28 pm reply. It wasn’t raincoaster but idlex who posted the section I quoted. I plead temporary insanity… (Auntie Flo’)
The insanity appears not to have been temporary, Flo. It was indeed raincoaster, not me, who, on August 31, 2006 09:20 am, posted the section you quoted. Unfortunately, raincoaster, by accepting your needless apology, has herself descended into the same delusional world.
In Canada, the only people who can be chain smokers are the independantly rich and the chronically unemployed, and it has become a class marker. Let the flaming begin! (raincoaster)
Was that really meant to be ‘independantly’? Must one not only be rich, but have no dependants, in order to smoke in Canada?
And I was informed this afternoon, in an online chat with a friend, that one should never precede an ‘and’ with a comma. This was news to me, and I headed off to my local pub in search of the conventional wisdom of the smoking room, armed with a copy of Lynne Truss’ Eats, Shoots & Leaves.
And there I was promptly told that one should indeed never precede an ‘and’ with a comma, because ‘and’ signified a continuation, and (There! I’ve done it myself!) so did a comma, and (Again!) therefore it was an unnecessary addition.
Reeling from this news, I retreated to a table with a pint, lit up a ciggie to calm my jangled nerves (and shorten my life by yet another ten years), and began to read Truss on Commas. Within seconds I found this in her writing:
More than any other mark, the comma draws our attention to the mixed origins of modern punctuation, and its consequent mingling of two quite distinct functions:
There! She did it too! But no doubt research will show that 50% of people who put a comma before an ‘and’ die 5 years earlier those who wisely abstain from the filthy practice.
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Thee pub was, incidentally, full of cars when I arrived. I asked what was going on.
“Funeral”, somebody said.
“What, in the car park?!” I replied.
I suppose it’s as good a place as any. It would be rather nice to be laid to rest in a pub car park, a pint in one hand, a pipe in the other. It would at least allow future archaeologists to rapidly ascertain the cause of death.
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Idlex,
My English teachers told me never to start sentences with ‘And’, and never to precede ‘and’ or ‘but’ with a comma, but everyone does is, and the Bible is full of such poor examples of English composition, but perhaps because it was written in Hebrew.
The one that gets me is the bad example set my Boris, and his journalist friends, of using ‘-’ instead of brackets, commas or better sentence structure.
If I had handed in an essay that was punctuated with ‘-’s’ it would have been thrown back at me covered in red ink. Journalist’s I can understand using ‘licence’, but Boris should surely set some sort of example as Shadow Minister for Higher Education.
Maybe it’s normal practice now, and maybe schools allow their use, but who the hell started using ‘-’s'?
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Idlex/Steven. The comma, like all punctuation marks, exists only to improve the sense. The ultimate test is reading it out loud.
This afternoon I enjoyed an outing with Peter and David, and jolly good it was too. Try that with no comma.
As for doctors, the GP says to a patient: “Hello, I haven’t seen you for a while”. Patient: “No, I haven’t been well.”
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Steven, that is quite clearly an n-dash you’re using, and that quite incorrrectly; it is an m-dash to which you refer, and only properly authorized personnel like Boris and I are allowed to use it. Just think what would happen if it fell into the wrong hands!
Steven, what if the terrorists got ahold of it?
Loose clicks sink ships, boy!
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The terrorists use all kinds of funny dashes and squiggles, some of them even read and write backwards!
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The insanity appears not to have been temporary, Flo. It was indeed raincoaster, not me, who, on August 31, 2006 09:20 am, posted the section you quoted. Unfortunately, raincoaster, by accepting your needless apology, has herself descended into the same delusional world.
‘perhaps a hail of abuse is what passes for ‘critical thought’ these days?’ (Idlex)
Pot to kettle, idlex.
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Auntie Flo’,
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again in defence of Idlex, my fellow smoker:
Raincoaster is delusional; she is a delusional anarchal communist who is trying to take over the internet.
Be warned
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Pot to kettle, idlex.
You were pleading “temporary insanity”, Flo. Your words, not mine.
I was merely pointing out that you hadn’t actually quite recovered it, and was attempting to lead you gently back towards the sunny uplands and sweet-scented forests of sweet reason.
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Steven is, finally, right about something. All except the delusional part; the delusion would be to think I can’t do it. (#2 blog on WordPress, out of 331,000)
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Just think, if you’d have invested a bit of time learning HTML and a bit of cash in your own site you could sell adverts and afford a passport!
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Steven – “Does your psychometric test book say anything about the people who answer that question with ‘follower’, ‘suit’, or ‘water’?” – no it didn’t.
Flo – thank God for the “critical thinking, Protestant Non Conformists, the nascent Bourgeoisie” ’cause I know who does the laundry in my house and it aint a bloke!
There’s only one thing better than appliances folks, and believe me I just lurve my dishwasher, mwa!, but I’ve just experienced the only thing that’s better – staff!!
raincoaster – actually Steven’s got a point there, you could make money but would you descriminate with advertising or just sell to anyone? Would you host a Boris for PM advert? A porn site ad? A gambling site ad? A BNP ad?
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Jaq,
You contract an ad agency and they worry about all that stuff.
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Steven, Ultimately it is the contracters choice. I simply wondered what that was.
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Oi, Rainwhatsit… my friend didn’t know I was advertising their insight into this subject. So hold your horses, Mr. Spammer and personally I think you owe Pepperpot an appology.
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Mr Spammer is actually a Ms Spammer and you’ll get nothing but sarcasm and abuse from her M.
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Why do we need A levels at all?
I personally study 2 sciences (physics and chemistry), 2 humanities (English and History), and the Classics (real classics – Latin and Greek – not the watered down “CLass Civ”).
I don’t want to be forced to choose any subjects at all – however crunchy they may be.
Why can’t we operate a more loose education system, where pupils have the option to attend a smaller number of lessons in a much wider range of subjects, in such a way as to allow each to work to his own level.
Universities could easily set entrance exams, which would (free from the clutches of our ridiculous government Education department) genuinely challenge pupils without wasting huge amoutns of time being “taught for exams”.
This would aid the idea of social mobility through education: people would be driven by their personal ambitions and motivations, rather than the desire of their school to move up the league tables.
Ok – perhaps this is wishful thinking!
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All right. I’ve been to pepperpot’s site (because she linked to me and I’m a sucker for googlejuice) and I agree she wasn’t spamming. But you’ve got to keep it to ONE thread, not two or more. Three identical links in two threads is two too many for comfort.
So I apologize to pepperpot, but not to the overenthusiastic pepperpotters who have been peppering the site with her links.
Such as myself.
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Would I make money from ads on my blog? Well, I have actually got this choice, because I could migrate my blog to my own host and have as many ads as I like.
But I don’t.
WordPress decided to put ads on my most popular post (a Lucy Gao entry) and I immediately sent in an outraged Dear Support People I Am Coming For You email. The ads are now gone. I chose WordPress in part because it didn’t have ads. Some of my friends have said I could make a living off ads there, particularly as I don’t live large, but it just doesn’t sit right. I guess I’ve swallowed whole the “Chinese Wall” model of writing/publishing.
And so I remain poor but proud. Although I note the rich ones don’t fall short in the pride department either…hmmmmmmm.
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