pumpkinstrokemarrow

On 28th September, amongst other occasions, I was moaning about the failure of the Tequila bottle to bloom. However, at some point after that I fed it a good dose of sunflower seeds, which does seem to have got it going at last.

Picture not good, but the seeds are now covered in a white woolly stuff and those up against the glass are looking suitably evil. Bottle generally fairly full of the white woolly stuff and we are getting some condensation. We have lift off. I wonder how long it will all last?

While on 8th March, I was moaning about weak articles in the Guardian. Not deterred, I read another, this time about the work of the boundary commission. It seems that late last year the coalition instructed the commission to have a go at our parliamentary constituencies, observing two rules. Rule 1: the number of constituencies must be cut from 550 to 500 (say). Rule 2: the voting population of each constituency must lie within 5% of the target figure of 75,000 (say). The trouble being that in order to follow these rules the commission has  come up with some rather odd constituencies, with some of them even being in more than once piece. First thought was that the members of the coalition, while bewailing the poor mathematical skills of the graduates of bog standard comprehensives, were not exhibiting all that many themselves.

Which I demonstrate by adding some more rules. Rule 3: all constituencies must lie entirely within a county. Rule 4: constituencies should be connected and convex. That is to say in just one piece and very roughly rectangular, square or round in shape. Which might get us into the realm of tiling problems: round constituencies would not add up to the whole. Rule 5: constituencies should follow natural boundaries. That is to say respect the facts on the ground. Whatever they might be. If there are tribes, let people vote in their tribes. Rule 6: the new constituencies should preserve the existing party balance. Rule 7: the constituencies should cover the land exactly once, with no overlaps or holes. This is not an idle rule; one might otherwise think to have constituencies organised by something other than area, perhaps by race. The Ottomans used, I think, to do something of the sort. And the Germans have their lists. All very alien.

We then have a set of rules which is incoherent: one cannot do all of these things at the same time. There has to be some compromise. So I think the way forward would be to ask some forward thinking retired statistician to devise some performance measures for the commission to apply to their proposed constituencies. Perhaps to write a constituency generating computer program with which to do some simulations. Test out millions of possible constituencies to see which comes out best.

Maybe I ought to write to the editor at the Guardian.

Or maybe I ought to do a bit of research into how they do congressional district boundaries in the US, where there is, I think, a rule about population. And where in the olden days the districts gradually acquired very bizarre shapes, giving rise to the term gerrymandering from the newt (aka salamander) like shape of some of the worst.