Sunday, September 02, 2007
Mawkish stakes
Interesting to see how the DT is hedging its bets in the mawkish stakes. Having spent many pages on the whole Diana business in the closing days of August - it is the silly season I suppose - they sneak in several column inches about how it is high time we drew a line under the whole business. In the meantime, perhaps the top end of media studies departments are crafting projects about Diana coverage analysis as we speak. One could have some sport in such a game. One could, for example, measure the mean distance in page inches from Diana images to various sorts of advertisement - a thought prompted by the proximity of dodgy advertisements in free papers to not so dodgy ones. One could analyse such distances by the nature of the image and the nature of the advertisement. One could even spin the whole thing out into a sketch on whatever passes for the Morecambe and Wise show these days.
Back at the allotment picked 8 apples from tree number 1 today - the tree believed to be the Laxton Superb. Weighed in at 2 pounds 1.5 ounces. The biggest was 2.88 inches wide at the widest and 2.78 inches deep at the deepest - the actual dimensions (courtesy of a pair of calipers (of that is the right name for the tool in question, not being in the form of a pair at all, rather a sort of metallic slide rule. One side of which is calibrated in inches, tenths and hundredths of an inch - it seems that engineers did not like the eighths of carpenters) from the Gosport connection) giving the lie to the heart shaped appearance. The smallest was 2.27 inches wide and 2.08 inches deep. Do the measurements change as the apple ripens on the meat dish?
I am reminded of the concrete beam illusion which I may have mentioned above - whereby a concrete beam on a flat bed wagon looks as if it is humped up in the middle - although peering through the hole running down the length of the thing makes it clear that there is no hump.
Sampled one of the smaller ones. Near to ripe now; not bad eating at all. Texture and bite remain excellent.
Yesterday's read of a heavy book about gambling law gives another example of the triumph of chaos over regulation. Gambling having become a serious evil some hundreds of years ago, the nannies of the day devised regulations to stamp it out. But as in other fields, it proved hard to cast the rules around a sensible result. The sensible result in this case being one that allowed the softer forms of gambling while getting rid of the harder. One result, for example, was a great fuss between the two world wars about whether large scale whist drives ought to be stamped out. As far as I can make out, the regulations of the day were clear - whist drives constituted gaming which was illegal. But who had the bottle to bang up all those innocent old folks who liked a flutter - and who sharpened their wills to win - over whist in the village hall? And what about the seedier end of the business where whist drives were run for profit under the cloak of charity and possibly involving professional card sharps. Perhaps they should have invented an Offwhist (aka retirement fund for committeemen and legal draughtsmen past their prime). Perhaps they will yet.
Back at the allotment picked 8 apples from tree number 1 today - the tree believed to be the Laxton Superb. Weighed in at 2 pounds 1.5 ounces. The biggest was 2.88 inches wide at the widest and 2.78 inches deep at the deepest - the actual dimensions (courtesy of a pair of calipers (of that is the right name for the tool in question, not being in the form of a pair at all, rather a sort of metallic slide rule. One side of which is calibrated in inches, tenths and hundredths of an inch - it seems that engineers did not like the eighths of carpenters) from the Gosport connection) giving the lie to the heart shaped appearance. The smallest was 2.27 inches wide and 2.08 inches deep. Do the measurements change as the apple ripens on the meat dish?
I am reminded of the concrete beam illusion which I may have mentioned above - whereby a concrete beam on a flat bed wagon looks as if it is humped up in the middle - although peering through the hole running down the length of the thing makes it clear that there is no hump.
Sampled one of the smaller ones. Near to ripe now; not bad eating at all. Texture and bite remain excellent.
Yesterday's read of a heavy book about gambling law gives another example of the triumph of chaos over regulation. Gambling having become a serious evil some hundreds of years ago, the nannies of the day devised regulations to stamp it out. But as in other fields, it proved hard to cast the rules around a sensible result. The sensible result in this case being one that allowed the softer forms of gambling while getting rid of the harder. One result, for example, was a great fuss between the two world wars about whether large scale whist drives ought to be stamped out. As far as I can make out, the regulations of the day were clear - whist drives constituted gaming which was illegal. But who had the bottle to bang up all those innocent old folks who liked a flutter - and who sharpened their wills to win - over whist in the village hall? And what about the seedier end of the business where whist drives were run for profit under the cloak of charity and possibly involving professional card sharps. Perhaps they should have invented an Offwhist (aka retirement fund for committeemen and legal draughtsmen past their prime). Perhaps they will yet.
# posted by Jim @ 11:25 AM 
