danieldwilliam | Recent Entries

I got home from a long journey last night and started watching the first episode of the latest and I think last season of Sex Education and I found it hard going. I’m not sure why. It could just be that I was over tired after being on a train for 10 hours.

But it seemed like a very cruel satire of queer culture.

I am a big believer in the rule of law and due process. Those are really important foundational rights. Democracies don't really function without them and democracy is important and the best system of government currently available(1).

A vital part of due process is the presumption of innocence in criminal matters; that if the state accuses you of a crime then the state has the job of proving you did the crime, that they must prove that you did the crime before you are punished by the state and that the standard of proof the state needs to reach should be quite high. Beyond reasonable doubt is a popular standard of criminal proof and I'm all in favour of that. I do not want people to be locked up for something they have not done.

However, the presumption of innocence and that standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt is the rule for interactions between (weak) citizens and the (mighty) state. I'm not bound by it. I can form an opinion of an individual based on evidence that has not yet met the criminal standard of proof or perhaps might not reach the criminal standard of proof. Certainly I can do so on evidence that has not yet been put to trial. I can act on that opinion (2). I can withdraw my custom or my company from someone based on what I believe to be true. I, as a private citizen, do not have to wait for the criminal standard of proof to be reached, or even the civil standard (3). I probably ought to as a general rule. If a matter is going to go to trialit is probably fair for me to reserve judgement as much as I can until the evidence has been lead in court and examined and cross-examined. It would probably be prudent to refrain from saying "X did Y and is a Y-ist" until there had been a trial of some kind. It might be ruinously imprudent to state as a fact something that is still sub-judice.

So in most matters I do try to reserve judgement and keep quiet.

I might well think to myself, "there's something to that" or "I won't be surprised if they turn out to be convicted." I might, in private conversation with someone I trust, say as much. (4)

Where I usually don't reserve judgement is where several people have accused a wealthy and well-connected individual of sexual assaults. Reporting a sexual assault is difficult. The process is uncomfortable, painful, humiliating, emotionally scouring and deeply unpleasant - at best. Accusations are hard to prove. The risk of making what turns out to be an unproven (but not untrue) accusation is grave. More so where the person accused is well resourced and the complainer is not. So I recalibrate my own personal threshold for thinking "yeah I reckon they did that, bastard."

If three, or four, or five otherwise unconnected (4) people make accusations that appear on the face of them to be internally consistent and where they point to the existence of some form of corroboration of their account of the matter, then that passes my own personal threshold for thinking that the accused has almost certainly committed serious sexual offences and that I am justified in behaving as if they had; starting now.

I'm not, in good conscience, going to go jumping about loudly shouting the odds and pointing fingers in public. I can't afford to be sued for defamation right now. But I know what I know and if several people have made credible accusations then I know they are almost certainly telling the truth and that's enough for me to think, "yeah I reckon they did that, bastard."

The test is perhaps not whether person X did this thing Y in a criminal way and is therefore in law a proven Y-ist, but whether I would be comfortable leaving someone I cared about alone with them or being alone with them myself.

And that's an important part of the difference between the state's burden of criminal proof and a private citizen knowing something. The state has responsibilities not to use the legal system to oppress private citizens. As a private citizen I have responsibilities and rights not to expose myself or people in my care to danger and a right and a duty to act on the best evidence available to me. Being innocent until proven guilty is a necessary protection of the (weak) citizen from the (mighty) state. It's not there to privilege the (stronger) citizen over their (weaker) fellow citizen.

So, I've heard what I've heard and I know what I know.

And at the moment, yeah, I reckon they did that, bastard.

(1) At least so it appears to me in my liberal social democracy.

(2) within the rules of anti-discrimination laws and the civil laws on defamation

(3) For example David Goodwillie

(4) Although see the Salmond case for a cautionary tale all round.

(5) see the Moorov Doctrine on this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moorov_v_HM_Advocate

I am genuinely curious about what is actually driving the timing of the news reports about Russell Brand.

I very definitely do not mean, what Establishment Secrets or Deep Truth was Brand about to reveal that meant that he needed to be silenced.

I mean, what’s been the project plan for the investigative journalism, the investigation and research, interviews, verification, editorial and legal review. How does that all work. Why has the story broken this weekend and not a weekend last spring or next spring?

What I did on my holidays

I am recently returned from a family holiday to Germany.

We had one week in Berlin and one week on Usedom on the Baltic Coast.

I enjoyed the holiday very much.

For the week in Berlin we were staying at a friend's flat in the trendy district of Kruezberg. Lovely flat, lovely neighbourhood.

Lots of walking. The Captain was keeping track of his step count and we covered a fair distance on foot.

Berlin is a very vibrant city with all the things you'd expect from the capital city of a major European country and, of course, its own unique features.

It was very striking how much the cityscape is still affected by the Second World War and the subsequent division of the city in to East and West. It looked to me like there were still a few bombed out city blocks waiting to be built on. There were certainly many buildings in the city where repairs had been pretty minimal immediately after the war and then some combination of lack of funds and the broken logistics of a divided city meant they were never restored or rebuilt. The Memorial Church to Kaiser Willhelm the First for example which was made safe in the early 1950's and then, rather than being rebuilt had a new, different and very lovely church building built around it. It now has some relationship with Coventry Cathedral. Also noticeable that the tram system almost entirely runs in the old East Berlin, as the West, like lots of western cities, removed the trams. They are now slowly being replaced.

The other striking thing about Berlin was the attitude to the Second World War, the Nazis and the Holocaust. The Germans seemed pretty open about the mistakes they had made leading up to the Nazi government of 1932. That a combination of weakness, wishful thinking, desire for revenge, racism, a desire to solve problems with violence and nastiness from the whole country had allowed the Nazis all the opportunity they needed and Germans had nobody to blame but themselves for all the horrible hateful things they did and the consequences that flowed from it. It was pretty sobering, particularly as I can see my own state making some of the same mistakes that Germany made early in the Nazi's coming to power. (1)

The most striking example of this was the Reichstag which was only rebuilt in the 1990's and still has Russian and Ukrainian graffiti on the walls along with some bullet holes.

The rest of Berlin was pretty cool. Did the folllowing

Strolled the Unter der Linden to the Brandenburg GateWalked round the Tiergarten

The Holocaust Memorial and a section of the Berlin Wal;

Bumped in to the Pride Festival during the above.

Went to the Natural History museum and saw some T-Rex and Allosaurus fossils and a huge brachiosaurus. Very cool. Also an interesting exhibit on taxidermy for natural history museums.

Went to the Zoo, which was a lovely, but old fashioned zoo. Great for seeing the animals, perhaps not so great for the animals that needed more space. But saw some animals I'd not see before, orang utans, a Tibetan cow-moose thing, rhinos. Very lovely gardens.

The Museum of East Germany where the Germans make fun of the DDR. Sad to see the hopes of the socialist fraternity crushed and the Eastern Bloc exploited by *checks notes* their socialist brothers from Russia.

The Memorial Church of Kaiser Wilhelm, very beautiful but sad.

Saw the memorial to the War of German Independence aka the Napolianic War - which from the German point of view was an unprovoked invasion by France followed by 20 years of being oppressed, dragooned and politically re-organised. Interesting to see a different perspective on it from our own.

Food and beer lovely.

Public transport excellent.

Week on Usedom which is a seaside holiday resort for well to do Germans. As we'd saved some money on accommodation in Berlin we splashed out on a beach front hotel. Lovely seaside place. Lots of delicious fish. Made friends with the butcher in the local Aldi. I had a day's work to do so MLW and the Captain walked to Poland. We went up a treetop walk and observation tower. There was a little music festival going on so we went to listen to some music. Saw a full double rainbow over the Baltic. Weather was warm but with thundery downpours.

Did a lot of strolling up and down the promenade.

A very fine holiday.

(1) I would not personally wish to over egg this. There are elements of right-wing populism and racist nativism going on in the UK at the moment. As there is in the USA and a number of other European countries. that was also true in the 1920's and 1930's and also in other decades. The party currently getting its Poujade on in the UK is about 20 points behind in the opinion polls and looks likely to lose about 200 seats at the next election.

Walking back from dad's a few nights ago with MLW and the Captain. One of them caught sight of a small shape moving on the ground. Suggested it might be a rat. A closer look revealed it to be a bat crawling along the ground. No idea why.

Mulling over what to do with it when the Captain said "If we've learned anything over the last few years it's not to get too close to bats."

So I left it to its own devices.

I am not a great fan of superhero movies and to be honest less a fan of the superhero movies of the last 10 or 15 years. I've seen a fair few Marvel movies in recent years and not been very excited about them. Prompted by seeing a poster for the Flash film on a bus I was mulling over the reasons on the walk to work but distracted myself by wondering what a Marvel movie remake of Road to Perdition would be like.

What would Marvel movie remakes of of other films be like.

The current list I'm thinking about include

Road to Perdition

Ice Cold in Alex

His Girl Friday

Rashomon

Doctor Strangelove

Billy Liar

Notting Hill

Whisky Galore

Usual Suspects

Silent Running

Our small front garden is full of largish shrubs and so has quite dense foliage. My Lovely Wife has been putting up bird feeders for years. We have a double nesting box. It's been a little haven for small birds for a while.

In the last year or so we've noticed an increase in the number and the variety of birds in garden including this week a Greater Spotted Woodpecker which we've seen twice.

I'm not sure what is driving the increase in birdlife. Perhaps a recovery or change in population caused by different patterns of human life during the peak COVID years. Perhaps it just takes 10 years to fully establish a little wildlife sanctuary. Perhaps a few other people nearby have also made positive changes and we've accidentally created a wildlife corridor. Perhaps random chance.

Anyway it is nice and the woodpecker in particular is very fine.

I have some theories about what Boris Johnson might be up to - they are presented below for your delictation and entertainment.

Theory One; Cha-Ching! he is off to make his fortune. He knows he’s going to be suspended form Parliament and that a recall petition, a by-election and a by-election lose are likely so he’s cashing in his chips. He’s worth more to himself if he is a credible (for very, very low levels of credible) prospect as Conservative Party Leader. That potential is severely diminished if he loses a by-election after being suspended. So theory one, he’s off to cash in on being the King Over the Water. There will be a book, there will a series of lectures. Then another book. Perhaps a news paper column. Every six months or so he’ll let his name be linked with a by-election or safe Tory seat, just to keep his name in circulation.

Theory Two; Return of the Spaff, he’s planning a come back as Tory Leader after the next election. The next election is going to be a holy reckoning for the Conservative Party and the further away from that he is the better his prospects of being re-elected Tory leader to replace Sunak (or whomever replaces Sunak in 2024). So out of Parliament now. Make a bit of cash. Safe seat for the 2024 election. Elected leader in 2025. Down in history as, well something.

Theory Three; the Mid Bedfordshire Gambit. By leaving Parliament now he avoids losing a by-election in the marginal Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat and transfers to Mid Bedfordshire, which is rock solid Tory. Wins that, returns to Parliament “vindicated” by the voters and is now unimpeachable, perhaps literally. With his popularity proven he is free to run against Sunak for leader in 2024, or just make some cash.

Theory Four; Reclaim and Reform, he’s going to found his own party or team up with former husband of Billie Piper, Lawrence Fox to re-enter Parliament in Mid Bedfordshire and terrify the Conservative Party from the right flank. Endless appearances on Question Time. Appearing in support at any other by-elections in 2023 and 2024.

Theory Five; A Quiet Retirement, he knows the gig is up and he’s leaving now, with what little remains of his dignity and self-respect. The Prime Ministerial pension is probably enough to keep body and soul together, watch a bit of cricket, make a few wise and well-observed comments from the political sidelines, make things up to his wife for his infamous infidelity and hope Norma forgives him – or whatever it is that Boris Johnson does instead of being John Major.

The list above is presented in descending order of probability.

I'm inclined to take Sturgeon's resignation announcement at face value.

I find being on the senior management team of a small tech firm tiring, on occasions exhausting verging on debilitating. So I entirely believe her when she says that running Scotland is hard work and that she recognises that she's running out of spoons and needs to stop soon-ish.

I also take her point that if she's not able to commit to being FM and SNP leader for the next 2-3 years then it is probably the right time for her to step down before the SNP make a very, very big decision about the mechanism and timing of their Plan B to a Westminster sanctioned referendum. I think she's right that she would have large influence over that choice. The FM and SNP leader will have to be the front-rank salesperson of that plan to the SNP membership, the wider independence movement and the Scottish people. If she can't commit to being around to do that job then probably right for her to step down before she exercises the Chairs' vote in the SNP internal debate on Plan B. The new person can be chosen with the Plan B approach in mind - or vice versa. Nice and clean.

So I don't think her resignation is particularly tied to the GRR issue or the problems with party financing.

I thought the GRR issue might cause her some difficulty over the next 6-12 months. I never thought the mechanism of that difficulty would be the type to trigger a sudden resignation. (1) I don't think some people in grey suits have taken her aside and told her that the game is up.

Unless she has personally defrauded the SNP independence fighting fund of half a million quid - which seems very unlikely. We've had instances of independence fighting funds being stolen by SNP MSP's and it's not brought down the government. So not that (2).

Or any of the other hot button issues that are going on.

So, probably just the tiredness then.

She'll be a big loss to the country. Or the countries. She's lead Scotland very ably and with great humanity through some difficult times. She's also served as a role model of how the UK could do politics if it weren't run by e.g Johnson and Corbyn and those like them.

She's been a very, very successful politician. Perhaps the most successful in the UK in the last few decades. Perhaps the best politician in the UK.

(1) What I thought likely to happen was that the fall out of the GRR Bill would cause friction and confussion thusly - Scottish Government would appeal the Secretary of State for Scotland's veto of the GRR Bill and lose. Quite rightly lose, the law on S35 seems much, much clearer than the law on S30 or what exactly constitutes a reserved power. The SNP would have to decide whether to re-introduce the Bill or lobby for action at a UK level or leave it alone. Noting that, per both Ashcroft and Kelly polling what the GRR actually does is probably not supported by voters at large and what the GRR is truthinessly claimed to do is not at all supported by voters and they certainly don't think the issue is important to them. Voters unlikely t be delighted with more on this issue. The Scottish Green Party would favour more action and activism on this than the SNP. This would lead to tensions in the coalition, particularly as it looked likely that one of the SGP ministers was going to be in spot of bother over misleading Parliament on wind power potential in Scottish Waters. Do you push on on an issue where the public are not strongly supportive of your position or do you risk a bit of rift with your coalition partners? Messy choice. And you and your government start to look a bit less awesome and you dip a few points in the polls just at the time you need to not dip in the polls and it becomes hard.

(2) Glenn Campbell you bell-end.

I was thinking the other day about how people interact with their gods. This thought may or may not have been spurred by the series of Test Matches now taking place between Australia and India, or it may be completely unrelated (1). I'll leave that to the reader.

Now I am not a religious man, nor a pious one, nor a spiritual one in particular. I am I suppose a Protestant atheist. I live in what I think is still probably a broadly Christian country - in outlook, if not in faith - but one which is pretty secular and multi-faith. However, I am not close friends with very many people who practice a religion that is not Christianity. I have a couple of close friends who are Jewish but either atheists or agnostics or the like or not particularly devout. I think I have a friend who is a practising Buddhist but she might just be Buddhist curious.

But all the people I've ever had a serious conversation about how they experience their god have been monotheists and almost all Christian.

So my model for how people who are devoutly religious is very Christian centric. That there is a single God, who is personally interested in you as an individual and with whom you can be in communion. This God is likely to have some instruction for you personally on how to live your life. That instruction might be best accessed through a personal process of meditation or through communal worship. It might best be supported by ritual and ceremony or not. It might be delivered to you directly from God or by the intermediaries in a priesthood but you are engaged in some dialogue with God.

I think, based on very limited knowledge, and mostly by looking at the outward appearance of Jewish religious organisations that Judaism has a similar approach and similar divisions.

I've no idea on Islam and beyond the monotheistic faiths I'm not even sure I have the tool kit to think about the question. How do Hindus view their relationships with their pantheon of gods? Is a relationship with those gods that important to the? How do the practitioners of Shinto or Australian Aboriginal Peoples experience their religion.

No idea.

I'm not burning with a desire to know. I'm not about to go an seek out this knowledge. I merely that my world model is narrow here. Hey ho.

(1) actually it was prompted by reading the Twitter feed of a Scottish rugby player and noticing his public declarations of faith.

I am both a spectator and a participant in politics. I'm a political activist (less so now than in past years) but watching politics is also a hobby.

When ever a political controversy* emerges I tend to look at in the following dimensions as a first pass to get a feel for the likely direction of the campaign.

Thinking about the voters

Heat - how much do voters agree or disagree with you

Salience - how important do the voters think this issue is

Valence - how likely is this issue to change the voters voting behaviour

Calefaction - how likely is this issue to change voters engagement or activism

This is the psephology area.

If voters agree with you and will change their vote because of that agreement you are on to a political winner. If they agree with you but don't think the issue is important and everyone has similar policies then that's nice, but not important.

Thinking about the policy

Aim - are the aims of the policy useful

Fitness - does the policy actually achieve the policy aims

Side Effects - what other impacts does the policy have

Winners - who benefits from the policy, who suffers from the policy

This is the wonk area - what does the policy do, for whom, does it work and what else happens if you implement the policy.

Thinking about the party and the polity

Truthiness - does the policy sound like it will achieve the policy aims

Constituency - does the policy have a large "natural constituency**" of people who are directly affected

Like Us - does the policy sound like us, can it make us sound like we don't want to sound

Factional Blocker - is there a faction with power who feel strongly about this policy being put forward

This is around the presentation and messaging of policy and values.

There are lots of policies that are technically good policies and in policy areas people think are important that don't get carried out because they don't sound right.

Decriminalising drugs and focusing prison policy on rehabilitation and re-training would work, but it makes you sound soft on criminals. Dredging rivers sounds like it ought to solve problems of flooding but it actually only moves water downstream quicker causing a worse flood down river.

Thatcher's presentation of the public finances as best run like a prudent housewife would run her home keeps tripping the Labour Party in to the Geddes Axe because no matter how sound your Keynesian macro-economics is voters think frugality in public spending is the sign of a political party managing the economy well.

If you think about the front page of the Sun newspaper and all the upstream and downstream processes from that - that's this bit.

So that's the framework I'm using when I look at a policy or legislative initiative.

*Not a scandal, a disagreement about policy or values

** this is very specifically not people who are interested in the issue or think it is important but people directly impacted or those people in close relationships with them. I think business rates for local shops is probably an important policy area if you want vibrant cities that serve their citizens well - I am not the owner of a corner shop. The classic example of how this plays is the contrast in the USA between the rapid shift on policy for gay and lesbian people compared to the slower shift on policy for African American civil rights. It turns out that when gay and lesbian people are able to be open about themselves every family or friendship group includes one or two homosexuals. Everyone is directly affected. This is not true for African Americans.

I’m going to try and run a Dungeons and Dragons project in 2023; namely #Dungeon23.

The idea is to create a mega-dungeon; 1 room per day, 1 area a week 1 level per month and end up with a 365 room mega-dungeon made up of 52 small areas and 12 levels.

Here are some links to some blogs explaining the pretty straight-forward concept.

https://seanmccoy.substack.com/p/dungeon23
https://followmeanddie.com/2022/12/09/dungeon-23-challenge/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dungeon-23-challenge
https://followmeanddie.com/2022/12/11/dungeon-23-challenge-narrowing-the-scope/

I’m going to have a go but with a few changes to the procedure.
Firstly up I think dungeons are better if they are Jacquayed – having several routes through the dungeon with meaningful choices.

Factionalised – having many, active factions with their own agenda experience in media res in their own story

Encounter Area driven – rather than having static rooms experienced in sequence, group the rooms as clusters of rooms in which a multi-room rolling encounter can take place. Encounters should be based on faction rosters with probabilities of specific encounters and which react to stimulus rather than a monster plonked in a room waiting for the player characters to arrive.

Dynamic – firstly the status quo of the dungeon should be one of change as the existing factions interact, secondly player and characters should be able to interact with this dynamic status quo and influence and thirdly, dungeon areas should restock in response to stimulus.

I think this requires a little more holistic an approach than producing 1 room a day.

Secondly, I am working on a procedural generator for another project so I’d like to use largely procedural generation as a content prompt.

Thirdly, I have been having some fun with the ChatGPT tool with some Dungeons and Dragons.

So what I’m going to do is to do one cluster of 7 rooms a week. I’ll use some procedural tools to generate content and to act as prompts for content generation and I’ll describe the rooms in a weekly cluster.

For the cluster I’m going to use the 6-Room-Bite-Sized Dungeon in
https://traversefantasy.blogspot.com/2022/11/bite-sized-dungeons.html this blog. I’ll pick a layout of 6 rooms, pick some general features and content, such as the faction or factions inhabiting the cluster and some themes in the cluster. Room 7 will be a room that links to another cluster. I may need to go back and revise previous clusters if they get an additional link to them.

Once a month I’ll refine the existing levels with some Jacquaying of the current dungeon and some holistic faction management.

I’m on holiday tomorrow so I’ll have a go at a couple of clusters as a starter.

I am more interested in the impact of ground vehicle autonomy on public transport than is strictly speaking good for me, or, if you are reading this, you.

However, I've been mulling over the impact on Edinburgh's bus services of shifting to an autonomous fleet (which will happen any day now - they will be fusion powered).

Lothian buses are the main bus operator in Edinburgh with some other services being offered by another operator. Mostly those other services are routes coming in from the commuter belt not urban routes.

Lothian buses look to have about 60 routes.

Assume average frequency of every 20 minutes. 3 buses an hour. 4 hour round trip on each route is 12 buses per route. 720 buses operating each day. The Lothian buses web site says they have more than 700b buses so this seems like a reasonable set of assumptions in the round.

If you get a 1/3rd cost reduction you can increase the number of buses by 50%. If you assume an additional increase in revenue from ridership increase due to service frequency and additional routes you can add another 50% on top (maybe). So your 720 buses goes up by 150% times 150% to 1,620 (that seems pretty generous, but lets roll with it).

You could double the average frequency on all existing routes. Taking you from buses on average every 20 minutes to every 10 minutes. That's a nicer improvement than it sounds because the increase in service frequency disproportionately improves services on less frequent services. There are already some services at 10 minute frequency and more at 15 minute frequency. You do potentially start to have problems with congestion on the main routes in very centre of town. Lothian Road is already pretty close to being full of buses during rush hour. A model that fits these assumptions sees Lothian buses move from the majority of routes at 15 or 20 minute frequency to the majority at 10 minute frequency with a few at 5 minute frequency.

That is going to cost you another 720 buses - taking you to a total buses in use of 1,440 . That leaves you with about 180 buses spare to put on to new routes. With 6 buses per hour and a 4 hour round trip each new route would take 24 buses. So you get 7 maybe 8 new bus routes at a 10 minute frequency or 11 new routes at a 15 minute frequency.

Those buses could be running in theory 24 hours a day. Would you actually want to run a bus service with 5 minute frequency at 3am? Not sure you would but you certainly don't have a drop off in frequency in the evening and Sunday.

That is a pretty decent improvement in service but not quite enough to move to a fully metropolitan service which I define as one where buses are so frequent that you do not issue a timetable and travellers do not need to optimise their journey by picking alternative routes based on the exact time they are travelling. It's not far off though for small city like Edinburgh, especially if you consider that many journeys will have overlapping routes.

My mum, Sally Sutton, died in the early hours of Friday morning.

She was a remarkable woman. In some meaningful way she still is.

She practised and taught medicine in four continents. During the four decades of her career she lead excellent clinical teams, taught, published papers, participated in ground-breaking research and worked to re-establish the rudiments of radiology in war-torn Mozambique. She was I think the first woman to qualify for a Fellowship whilst working part-time, opening up opportunities for woman to advance their professional careers whilst also raising a family.

A life-long socialist she was committed to the common-weal. What was described as her practical socialism defined her. Following her retirement, she spent some time working at the Jungle Camp in Calais. Public service medicine was perhaps the second or third great love of her life.

She loved to travel from an early age. Hitch-hiking around Europe, building fire breaks with ex-Republican fighters in Catalonia, fishing for lobster off the coast of Israel. Long drives around France and Yugoslavia with my father. She roamed Australia, living in three states, two territories and rightly shunning Victoria. After she retired from practice she took up travelling again. Who goes to Kazakhstan? My mum. She made a habit of coming with Milda, and our family on our holidays to Spain. I will never forget the mock seriousness with which she responded to a waitress in Cartagena after she was asked if she was sure about her order of a double cortado, a hot chocolate and some churros, "Oh yes, we have a lot of archaeology to get round today, and it's too early for beer."

She lived longest in Cornwall, a place she called Paradise. No amount of cajoling or reasoned discussion would persuade her to consider for a moment leaving her little cottage overlooking the valley in her village. She loved it here, tending her garden, colour co-ordinated with her home just so, sitting on her terrace, beer in one hand, book in the other watching the sunset over Stithians. Cornwall suited her, the Cornish even more and her home here was perhaps the second or third great love of her life.

She read voraciously. On her bookshelf I found a copy of Rawls' Theory of Justice and Dworkins' Justice for Hedgehogs next to biographies of Sherman and the complete works of Patrick O'Brian and Hilary Mantel. She liked Sherman, Jack Aubrey and Thomas Cromwell. She was less certain about Rawls. After she retired from medicine she was stunned to discover that the rest of the world knew things that were interesting despite not being medics and she studied economics, jurisprudence, history, film theory, architecture, archaeology and almost any other subject that concerned humanity. She loved television too. "Had I," she would ask "watched Breaking Bad?" I had not. I fear the moment has passed.

She was a passionate supporter of Manchester United. She picked her university so she could watch them play. Her most told story was how she saved the life of a United coach and met the entire team one after another as they came in to visit him, being paged each time a new player visited, and arriving each time, running breathless in case the coach had taken ill again. She would hear no word of other sports until she watched the last 25 minutes of Wales vs France on the 18th March 2017, a story steeped in heroism, rank villainy, questionable medical ethics and a subtle understanding of how to bend, not break the rules. She connected with at least one of her grandchildren through a common interest in Man U and rugby and would come with us to Murrayfield and cheer for the opposition.

She was funny, witty, charming, acerbic, generous, wise and clever. Hard working beyond comprehension. She set high standards and simply expected you to meet them. And she loved people in her funny broken way. People in the abstract. People as flawed individuals. So long as they weren’t too close or too often.

I am sure that her greatest love was her children. I remember sitting beside her in the front seat of her car as we drove the endless miles through the Outback and she reached over, squeezed my knee and smiled at me and I felt loved.

I have always felt loved by her.

Here follows some early thoughts, not very deep or well researched on Strictly 2022.

Judges, Craig Revel Horwood, Motsi Mabuse, Shirley Ballas and Anton Du Beke.

Three out of the four judges are adding some sort of value above replacement to my mind. I'm not sorry to see Bruno permanently replaced. I think he'd become a bit of a distraction from the judging.

I've not kept up to date on the current pool of pro-dancers. Other than Katya Jones I don't think any of the current team have shown the ability to transform someone's prospects. That's not to say that there are not good dancers, good trainers, good coaches but none but Katya with the Midas touch.

Run down of the contestants

Helen Skelton - Television Presenter, ex-Blue Peter

Ex Blue Peter sex symbol and sports journalist Helen Skelton joins Strictly straight from a separation from her husband. She's an ultra-marathon runner and the first person to reach the South Pole on a bike. Likely to start the programme in excellent physical condition she also scored very well in the 2012 Strictly Christmas special and has won other dance competitions. Likely finalist in my view.

Twitter 134k Instagram 322k

Current odds 3-1

James Bye - Actor from Eastenders. That appears to be mostly it. I'm no judge of the popularity of EastEnders actors.

Twitter 45k Instagram 143k

Current odds 12-1

Hamza Yassin - wildlife photographer with Sudanese Scottish heritage. Too obscure for me. With an outdoors background and only 35 he's probably just about fit enough to make a decent run at the early stages when being physically able to keep up is very helpful.

Twitter 6k Instagram 12k

Current odds 20-1 (out as far as 33-1)

Fleur East - radio presenter and performer

No stranger to reality TV Fleur East is a double veteran of the X-Factor, including a runner-up place in 2014 and a number one single and a 4th place finish on I'm a Celebrity Feed Me Some Kangaroo Penis. Currently hosting a Sunday morning radio show. Bookies favourite to win. I can see that. Along with the experience of reality TV comes a bit personal following and at least decent levels of natural and trained musicality and at 34 probably still young enough to have the physical stamina to survive the first few weeks.

Twitter 231k Instagram 790k

Current odds 5-2 (bookies favourite)

Tony Adams - former footballer with Arsenal, Wycombe Wanderers and England

The 55-year old former successful footballer and unsuccessful football manager is a footballing legend. Sportspeople tend to do okay in Strictly. The combination of physical fitness and knowing how to train for a physical task is a core competency of a the successful celebrity dancer. Not convinced that a middle-aged former defender is best placed for that particularly one with a history of heart surgery. Sadly a candidate for an early exit.

Twitter 81k Instagram 148k

Current odds 33-1 (out as far as 54-1)

Molly Rainford - singer

A multi-format performer and alumnus of the Sylvia Young Theatre School Molly stars in a popular CBBC programme and is a veteran of Britain's Got Talent

I like the fact that one of the characters in her scify television programme is a ship called Jefferson Ship.

She should be able to dance a little bit. That will help her get out the early weeks.

Twitter 18k Instagram -k

Current odds 7-1

Ellie Taylor - comedian

Hero of the Mash Report and best selling author and honorary Australian Ellie Taylor is pretty well known by people who watch BBC2 political satire. Are those the same the people who vote on Strictly Come Dancing. This correspondent says yes.

Twitter 108k Instagram -k

Current odds 10-1

Matt Goss - musician

53-year old Goss is a genuine bottle-top wearing heros of the late-80's music scene and successful Vegas singer in no way is his stint on Strictly a set up for a Bros re-union tour. I'm going with a bold prediction - a surprise early exit.

Twitter 123k Instagram -k

Current odds 7-1

Tyler West - DJ and television presenter

International handball player, DJ and utility BBC youth presenter - this guy could go anywhere or not.

Twitter 8k Instagram -k

Current odds 10-1

Ellie Simmonds - athlete and sports broadcaster

National hero Ellie Simmonds is a multi-gold medal winning Olympic swimmer who has transitioned in sports commentating. I don't think she's going to win. I think history shows that disabled contestants do pretty well until the later stages of the competition when their disability starts genuinely being the difference between them being the best or second mover on the dancer. Rose Ayling-Ellis is an exception but I think her disability was not a restriction on moving and she was very successful in the semi-final at creating a positive ideology and empathy with the viewers. So I think Ellie Simmonds is unlikely to reach the quarter finals.

Twitter 90k Instagram -k

Current odds 10-1

Jayde Adams - comedian

Jayde Adams might be the Debbie McGee of Strictly 2022 - a former competitive dancer with a family history of running a dance school. I don't think she'll win but she's where the value bet is.

Twitter 34k Instagram -k

Current odds 16-1 (out as far as 25-1)

Kaye Adams - broadcaster and Loose Woman presenter

The oldest contestant in the competition and exactly the kind of woman who would have been paired with Anton du Beke until his elevation to the judging panel. Possibly the only holder of an economics degree in Strictly history. Do Loose Women watchers vote on Strictly?

Twitter 86k Instagram -k

Current odds 25-1 (out as far as 100-1)

Richie Anderson - radio presenter

I am probably doing Richie a dis-service when I describe him as the person who tells you about travel delays on Radio 2 but that seems to be his current job. Being the travel reporter didn't harm Denise van Outen's career. Far from it, so perhaps Richie will be okay. He himself is delighted having been a fan for years but is also sceptical about his own abilities. He's an openly gay black man so it's all to play for. I'll see him dance before I write him off but based on his own scepticism I'm not hopeful for him.

Twitter 27k Instagram 33k

Current odds 14-1 (out as far as 35-1)

Kym Marsh - former Hear'Say singer and Coronation Street 's actor

I had hopes for this year when Kym Marsh was announced as a contestant as I'd then heard of several of the contestants without having to think too much about it. A former singer she should have the musical chops to do okay.

Twitter 761k Instagram -k

Current odds 9-1

Will Mellor - actor

Probably best known for his role in Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps and now acting in Coronation Street Mellor is married to a dancer. Does this help him. I don't know but it probably can't hurt his preparation.

Twitter 134k Instagram 322k

Current odds 8-1

I think we'll see Fleur East, Mollie Rainford, Helen Skelton, Will Mellor and Jayde Adams and whomever gets Katya in the semi-final.

I was thinking over the weekend about the sort of technologies that will be useful in a world with significant climate change. I’ve come up with a tentative list of technologies that I think will do one of the following 1) reduce the chance of climate change occurring (or push it back in time) 2) reduce the direct impacts on human civilisation and prosperity of climate change 3) help us adapt and change more easily. This list is below. I’ve stuck a very short note on why I think they are important. Do feel free to comment with your own suggestions. Or to disagree with my selections. Or add other reasons why my selections are helpful.
I’ll be revisiting the list later so will update with additions, deletions and changes and then my plan is to spend a little time over the coming year doing a bit of a survey of the state of the art and the state of the ordinary for each technology. Some of them I’m very familiar with and some I know next to nothing about.
1. Energy – Renewable Electricity Availability

Being able to actually run the world’s energy requirements in a zero-CO2 way at approximately the same cost as today.

2. Energy – Renewable Energy is Very Cheap

Cheap (and I mean very, very cheap) energy makes a lot of currently existing technology able to be deployed at large scale. For example, desalinating water and pumping it long distances is prohibitively energy intensive when energy is expensive. Pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere and converting it to fertiliser is also prohibitively expensive when energy is expensive.

3. Energy – Electrictification of Everything

The more things are electrified the easier it is to decarbonise their energy use.

4. Food – Vat Grown Meat

Meat production uses a lot of land and water. Not eating meat from live animals is a good way to avoid that resource use.

5. Food – Alternatives to animal protein

Meat production uses a lot of land and water. Not eating meat is a good way to avoid that resource use.

6. Food – drought resistant crops

In a world with more drought more drought resistant crops will help with food security.

7. Food – alternatives to palm oil and corn syrup

Both of these products are responsible for a lot of deforestation and we’ll need lots of trees.

8. Food – alternatives to agriculturally grown food

If we could grow all our food in wareshouses on the outskirts of our cities those cities could be anywhere and not reliant on any actual climate situation.

9. Tunnel Boring

Useful for mass transit systems and for building pumped hydro energy storage systems – which would be helpful if they were cheap to build and able to be built in more places.

10. Mass and Public Transport

Reducing fuel consumption and making dense cities more livable in.

11. Battery Tech

Energy density by mass and by volume. Life expectancy by time and cycles. Alternatives to lithium in production and alternatives to Lithium-Ion batteries in general, including ones more suited to bulk energy storage.

12. Lithium Seawater Extraction

The current best battery tech uses lithium. Lithium needs to be in plentiful supply. Being able to extract it from seawater cheaply would put a cap on lithium pricing.

13. Desalination

Water, probably important.

14. Autonomous Vehicles

Makes cities more livable, avoids lots of the costs of production of individual vehicles, makes cities more movable about in, helps public transport directly and indirectly.
15. Housing Energy Efficiency

Running homes in an energy efficient way will help avoid using energy and also reducing fuel poverty.
16. Geo-engineering

We may have to paint ourselves white to deflect the blast or the climate change equivalent.
17. Passive Cooling

In a warming world being able to keep cool without using energy is helpful.

18. Super Conductors

Very useful for long-range energy transmission and also for energy efficiency.

19. Super Computing for Weather Prediction

If the weather is going to be more extreme than very good predictions will help avoid loss of life and infrastructure

20. CO2 sequestration (forestry, CCS, pulling raw carbon out of the air, bio-char, carbon sequestration in building materials

We may need to actually pull CO2 out of the atmosphere.

21. Low Carbon / Negative Carbon concrete

Concrete releases a lot of CO2. Having concrete alternatives that are low CO2 or even better CO2 sequestering would be very helpful.

22. Iron and Steel coking alternatives

Lots of CO2 is produced in the steel industry. It’s energy intensive and use carbon as an input.

23. Fertiliser manufacturing

Fertilisers are a major product of fossil fuels and a major input to food production and a big opportunity to balance intermittent renewable electricity production with intermittent demand.

24. Subsea cabling

25. Treatments for antibiotic resistant bacteria

We do not need to add in any more pandemics to the world. Especially ones we can’t treat.

26. Tropical Medicine

With more of the world warm and more of the warm parts of the world also rich tropical medicine will be useful.

27. Aviation fuel alternatives

CO2 released from aircraft appears to be worse for climate change than CO2 released from a car. Also the energy density needed for long range air travel is a challenge.

28. Synthetic hydrocarbons to plastics industry

Reducing demand for fossil fuels and sequestering carbon in plastics

29. Recycling

Nothing is more energy efficient than not making something from new raw materials.

30. Synthetic textiles

A move away from especially cotton would help keep land for food production.

31. Weed and pest management

Weeds and live pests are going to move around a lot and interact badly with food production which is already having a difficult time. Meanwhile we probably don’t want to be dropping large amounts of expensive chemicals all over our farmland.

32. Autonomous targeted irrigation and fertiliser

Probably a useful way of keeping food production going in areas which are becoming unsuitable for it.

33. Water management and recycling

Water stress is going to be a major problem and a source of conflict. The better we are managing and recycling water the more we can avoid those problems and conflicts.

34. Refugee management

We are going to have many people, some rich, some poor, moving around the world – managing that will be useful

35. Democracy

We are going to have to make some difficult decisions and stick to them – democracy is probably a good way of doing that.

About a month ago I made some "predictions" about the war in Ukraine

https://danieldwilliam.dreamwidth.org/221312.html

And they have mostly turned out to be wrong I think. I was expecting a fairly static front line at about the same positions as at 21st March for about a year, followed by a Ukrainian counter-attack in Spring 2023.

What appears to be going on is that the Russians have withdrawn / been chased out of most of the northerly bits of Ukraine - along the Belorussian border, around Kyiv and they are re-grouping for an offensive in the south around the Donbass.

It also looks like a key assumption of mine about Ukrainian offensive equipment was wrong. Ukraine appears to now have more tanks in theatre than the Russians, to have a flow of heavy artillery and some increased access to aircraft. They also have good access to anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons. This situation appears to be improving for them and at the same time Russia continues to lose tanks. The Ukrainian army looks like it is very, very good at using man-portable missile systems to destroy Russian heavy equipment.

Russia now appears to have fewer combat units in Ukraine than it started with. My guess is that those combat units are not in a good shape, with either reduced numbers of soldiers and equipment or hastily sourced replacements of sub-standard soldiers and equipment. They were already not great to begin with.

I think the more fundamental political elements of my earlier post remain true. It's politically difficult for Russia to just go home. Politically Ukraine would like all Russian soldiers to leave all of Ukraine and for Ukraine to have the right to forge closer relationships with the West. Ukraine would also like Russian soldiers to stop murdering their children.

So what I am current expecting is that the Russian offensive in the south goes badly. Repeating the pattern from their earlier attacks in the north, slow progress, logistical problems, heavy casualties eventually getting bogged down and then lots of artillery bombardments of civilian areas. I think we're probably looking at a month of that. I think the Ukrainian army will want the Russians to expend as much effort as possible in their offensive. So rather than trying to stop them short I think we'll see a repeat of the earlier pattern of letting the Russians advance and then getting in behind them to break their logistics effort leaving the Russian forward deployed combat units to stall and then be killed. This then followed I think by a Ukrainian counter-attack. I have no idea what the likely axis of this counter-attack would be. You can make a case for pushing east around Kharkiv to push Russians out of north-eastern Ukraine, or Luhansk or Donetsk to liberate the Donbass and split the Russian armies, or Mariupol to relieve the city and also split the Russians or east around Kherson to threaten Crimea and the naval base at Sevastapol. I don't know which would be the best and I don't know if Ukraine reckon they have the capability to launch one or two or three attacks. They seem pretty sharp the Ukrainians and also able to make some difficult, nay painful, decisions. So I expect they will do the smart thing that best leads to the fulfilment of their war aims and that may not be the same thing as liberating lots of towns.

(I myself would attack toward Mariupol, split the Russian army and then mess with logistical efforts to keep the Russian forces to the east of Kherson and to the north of Crimea supplied. I notice there is a brand spanking new bridge near Kerch that could be destroyed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Bridge )

So that's where I think we're at at the moment.

I am in no way qualified to put forward an opinion on the course of the war in Ukraine.

( But if you want some ill-informed speculation or have ideas of your own )

It looks like about 55% of the world's population are fully vaccinated. I think I found this surprisingly low until I remembered that quite a lot of rich countries have been triple vaccinating people (including mine, including me, and having just had COVID and not enjoyed it much I'm not 100% against that policy.)

The rate of vaccination globally appears to be pretty steady - in a year we've gone from 0% to 55%, so about 4.5% a month. I think vaccine protection is reasonably high for about 12 months or so after your first vaccine dose. You know, ish.) Or maybe six months if the current variant is sufficient different from the ones originally targeted by the vaccine. So looking at the UK chart for cummulative 2nd and 3rd doses we plateaued about January this year. So we're going to want to start vaccinating people again sometime between July 2022 and February 2023. I guess.

I think this is probably true of other rich countries.

And I guess we'll suck up all the available vaccines again when we re-start. So the rest of the world has between 4 and 12 months to get themselves vaccinated before they start to run short - or between another +20% or + 60%.

And today there are still a lot of places for COVID-19 to get itself passed around with lots of opportunities for unhelpful variations to emerge. And in an enviroment where there is a large and increasing vaccinated population my expectation would be that emerging variants (those that prosper enough to become noticable) are more likely than not to be the more infectious and the more (current) vaccine resistant.

Which suggests another significant outbreak in the UK early next winter as immunity decreases, we spend more time indoors because of the weather and we have some time for more vigorous variants to emerge in the quarter of the people who won't be vaccinated over the summer.

Or at least that is my current assumption.

We have all had the Covids.

Fortunately comparatively mild - comparatively for a disease which has killed millions and incapacitated tens of millions. So we've all been ill.

MLW first, followed by the Captain and then me. At least that is the order of testing positive.

Generally we have been symptomatic. Including the Captain, who at not quite 12, is still in the age group expected to have mild symptoms.

We've all had symptoms some time in advance of testing positive.

As soon as MLW tested positive we went in to the sort of isolation protocol - daily testing but the Captain and I free to go outside the house as we were younger than 12 or triple vaccinated. After an ill-judged trip to rugby training we decided to just not leave the house.

As sure as dominoes deliver pizza we went down one after the other.

I had to work through the first few days of feeling properly unwell - because, well, because of course I did. This has not helped. Then I spent a few days mostly in bed, or watching films on the sofa. MLW seems to have mostly recovered other than a cough but is being careful about over exerting herself.

I am still not 100%.

The Captain is boucing off the walls, waiting for some negative tests so he can go back to school. He is relieved that having had the disease now means that he is 100% guaranteed to be allowed to go on his school week away next month. He now does not like the taste of vinegar, previously a favourite.

Major downside I can't go to Murrayfield to watch the rugby today.

Covid, even mild Covid, was not pleasant. 3* out of 10 - would not do again (but I fear I won't get any choice in the matter).

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On the Presumption of Innocence As It Stands Between Private Citizens
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On Birds in the Garden
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On Useful Technologies for a World Experiencing Climate Change - First Draft
On My Bad and Unreliable Guesses About the War in Ukraine - Part Two
On My Bad and Unreliable Guesses About What Happens Next in Ukraine
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On Sex Education the Television Series

On the Presumption of Innocence As It Stands Between Private Citizens

On The Project Management of Investigative Journalism

On Being On Holiday In Germany

On Bats in the Neighbourhood

On Remaking Movies as Marvel Super Hero Movies

On Birds in the Garden

On Five Things that Boris Johnson Might Be Up Too

On Sturgeon - Hot Takes Part Une

On a Certain Narrowness in My Model of How People Interact With Their Gods

On My Framework For Thinking About Political Policy

On the Dungeon23 Challenge

On Autonomous Buses in Edinburgh

On My Mother

On Initial Thoughts on the Contestants in Strictly Come Dancing 2022

On Useful Technologies for a World Experiencing Climate Change - First Draft

On My Bad and Unreliable Guesses About the War in Ukraine - Part Two

On My Bad and Unreliable Guesses About What Happens Next in Ukraine

On More Covid Next Winter

On Covid