The annual Deep & Meaningless pub crawl took place on Saturday 15 June 2024. I was out of the house for 14 hours. I walked 14km and drank 14 alcoholic drinks (13 pints and a whisky) averaging 1km and one drink per hour.
The Deep & Meaningless pub crawl stems from Niall Hunt’s book. Pubs and drinking feature heavily (the hero is a journalist). In the early years we visited mainly pubs mentioned in the book. Sadly several have since closed. Now we have a new agenda each crawl. Continue reading
This is a lovely little walk (about nine miles) linking several delightful green spaces near my home in Lewisham, south-east London.
The first stop is our local park, called Hilly Fields. Continue reading
Given today’s European elections counted on mainland UK using the D’Hondt system (in Northern Ireland using STV), I thought I’d better update my earlier post on how democracy works.
And the winner is: Guinness (but only proportionately, using the D’Hondt system)
If you remember, a rugby team (15 blokes) walk into a bar. The player holding the whip asks what everyone wants to drink. Five of them want be in the pub down the road drinking real ale, so don’t care what they’re going to drink in this bar and take no part (abstain).
Of those voting three want Guinness, two lager, two cider, two want rum and coke and one wants a glass of red wine.
Under the D’Hondt system, the round needs to have 15 drinks. Each time a drink is added to the round its votes are reduced by the number of times it has already been added, plus one.
Guinness gets added to the round. The initial total for Guinness is now divided by two (one drink elected to the round, plus one).
Lager, cider and rum and coke get added to the round (four drinks decided all one each). The totals of all those on the round are now divided by two (one on the round, plus one).
Another Guinness gets on the round (five drinks decided, two Guinness, one of the others). The totals votes for Guinness (3) is now divided by three (two on the round plus one).
Because there are enough spaces available, in the event of this kind of tie, all get added to the round (10 drinks, three Guinness, others all with two except red wine on one). Had there been only one space available the tied votes would have been listed based on the initial weight of votes, so Guinness would have been at the top and would have been the only one getting through.
The Guinness total vote is now divided by four (three on the round plus one). The initial votes for lager, cider and rum and coke are divided by three (two on the round plus one) and the initial vote for red wine is divided by two (one on the round plus one).
Another Guinness gets added to the round (11 drinks, Guinness with four, red wine one, rest two). The initial total vote for Guinness (3) is now divided by five (four elected to the round, plus one)
Lager, cider and rum and coke are added to the round (14 drinks, four Guinness, all others have three except red wine with one). Lager , cider and rum and coke’s initial votes are now divided by four (three on the round , plus one).
Another Guinness is added (15 drinks, five Guinness, three lagers, ciders and rum and cokes, plus one red wine).
The rugby players still need to decide who drinks what. The five who wanted real ale will take the Guinness. One of those who wanted Guinness takes the red wine and the other two take a lager and cider each. The red wine voter takes a rum and coke. Eight of the team (53%) get the drink they actually wanted.
Obviously this is not realistic. In EU elections the turnout is normally about 40% not the 66% in this scenario, so usually an even small number of people disproportionately impose their will on everyone else.
Democracy is:
Balls!
Many thanks to Christina Pagel, Professor of operational research at UCL, who wrote about the D’Hondt system much more sensibly on website The UK in a Changing Europe and allowed me to bounce back stupid questions by email this afternoon.
If you keep clicking on clickbait, sharing without checking and liking stories that match your own prejudices and pre-conceived ideas then you are responsible for fake news.
I get asked for advice on journalism courses, so I thought it easiest to post it here. There are three journalism accreditation bodies in the UK (alphabetically):
All three now validate and accredit courses that are multimedia to some extent. Continue reading
David Sheppard, executive head of the Leathersellers’ Federation of Schools, covering Prendergast, is a liar. He lied to parents, then to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and, finally, in open court to the judge in a first tier tribunal, Fiona Henderson.
Liar: David Sheppard, executive headteacher, Prendergast
Journalists rarely get to write this kind of thing because UK libel law requires such a high burden of proof that it is often safer to leave out uncomfortable facts. But in this case I have a legal ruling as evidence. It follows a Freedom of Information (F0I) request I made back in May 2015. It has taken this long to get a ruling.
48 i a) We are satisfied that further information was held that was in scope and was not disclosed to the Commissioner, this now forms part of the closed bundle.
b) The document attached to Mr Wheal’s email of 29.7.16 fell within the scope of request 5 and should have been disclosed to Mr Wheal.
Basically the school repeatedly said information did not exist. For example it said it sought advice from lawyers verbally and therefore had no written record of the request and no written response from the lawyers. They were later forced to admit the emails did exist and show the judge.
Everyone knows you get that sort of thing in writing. He lied to them the ICO and the judge.
That’s the motto of Prendergast school, the original school in the federation.
I have said before that I felt he, and the governors, were not fit to lead an educational establishment. I have now written to the Secretary of State for Education, Justine Greening. It’s up to her what she does.
Justine Greening,
I attach a recent legal ruling in a first tier tribunal that clearly shows that David Sheppard, Executive Headteacher of Prendergast schools in Lewisham (the Leathersellers’ Federation), repeatedly lied to conceal documents and emails. He lied to parents, then to the Information Commissioner’s Office than then in court during direct questioning by the judge, Ms Fiona Henderson.
In my view such a liar is not fit to hold the office of headteacher. It is gross misconduct and he should be summarily dismissed without notice, without pay, and without compensation or pension.
I leave it for you to deal with as you see fit.
I have copied in my MP, the mayor of Lewisham and the clerk of the Leathersellers livery company.
A rugby team (15 blokes) walk into a bar…
The player holding the whip asks what everyone wants to drink.
Five of them don’t want to be there because it’s a loud, annoying bar with no real ale and they’d rather be in the pub down the road where they could hear each other speak and drink proper beer. Those five really don’t care what they’re going to drink in this bar because none of it is what they want. Some of them say this loudly, others just shrug. Continue reading
Sunday’s 12-mile walk prompted me to write the details down in case anyone else wants to follow some or all of the path.
Walk from the start of time to the mother of parliaments
The walk took in:
Journalism has got harder. Journalists have to contact more people, more often, using email, phone and sometimes social media, such as Twitter or LinkedIn, just to get an answer. And this is all for the same money, or often less.
More PRs are barriers to information rather than enablers. It takes longer and more effort to get fewer, less interesting answers. And then you get hassled for writing the truth. Continue reading
Spamarrest – a bunch of fraudsters and thieves – have been taking money from me after I signed up for a free trial. They hid how to cancel. It’s a scam. Be warned. I have contacted the police and my bank.
The cheating liars at Spamarrest cleverly make the cancel option not visible on any normally accessed webpage. They have now sent a link to a page where the cancel option is available. But it is hidden on all normal web pages. And the company fails to respond to normal communication. Continue reading
