Virtuality

I have always felt sorry for those who worship celebrities. Would they not have a greater chance of happiness if they paid more attention to their own lives and shunned prurient curiosity in those of others? The lives of many celebrities are surely artefacts of their publicity agents. So why do these agents not concentrate on virtual celebrities, who must be a lot cheaper and less troublesome?
Oh. They already do?
What about politicians, another group for whom privacy contends with popularity? Our notions of democracy are flawed, because voters are given no information about whom they vote for. I am not so much interested in party affiliations. I want to know what candidates read, whether they beat their wives, or if they are innumerate. My own local MP has a column in a local magazine, in which he writes rather well, and I feel that I know something about him. In the EU elections there was zero information, so I was unable to vote.
So why do we not have virtual politicians? Cheaper, no problems about privacy, and their lives can be as sobre or as debauched as the public demands. It would be only a small step along the road that we have already travelled.

Hi Gavin. This was out of left field. Reads like something I’d put on my blog. (^_^)

I have always felt sorry for those who worship celebrities.

I have always felt sorry for those who worship brand names. Like all those who queue up for a new release of an Apple phone. I figure it means more as a status symbol, showing that not only can you afford to pee money, but you can take the time to queue up to get it on the day of release. Those of use with a modicum of brain would wait. Not just for reviews of the hardware, but also for the OS to go through a few revisions. As of late it seems Apple’s Q&A has gone awol in order to make a self-imposed release schedule. A year ago iOS7 was released, and critical flaws required patching. Just recently iOS8 was released and it had omissions, but the update made things worse (a phone that can’t call isn’t so useful).
I am happy with iOS7 (well, not entirely but I have zero confidence that the issues I have would be resolved) so I don’t plan on upgrading any time soon.

Would they not have a greater chance of happiness if they paid more attention to their own lives and shunned prurient curiosity in those of others?

I tend to believe that they perceive their lives as so pathetic and pointless that they would rather get involved in some way in the artificial lives of others.

The lives of many celebrities are surely artefacts of their publicity agents.

Well, that’s exactly the thing, isn’t it? So little of it is real that when a celebrity does something that isn’t scripted, all hell breaks loose.

So why do these agents not concentrate on virtual celebrities, who must be a lot cheaper and less troublesome?

Miku Hatsune?

Our notions of democracy are flawed, because voters are given no information about whom they vote for.

Indeed. A de facto part of entering into the political arena should be the sacrificing of privacy. If I am supposed to vote for a guy making decisions on my behalf that can affect the world around me, I really don’t care what colour ribbon he wears. I care more “are these opinions something you believe, or just the result of whichever lobby group ponied up the most coin?”.

In the EU elections there was zero information, so I was unable to vote.

You’re British. You’re supposed to hate the EU.
I noticed Milliband’s speech on how to fix Broken Britain. We’ll do this, and this, and this, and this, and we’ll leave the EU.

Thus, the Tories want to hold a referendum in 2017, and Labour look to want to just leave. Looks like you’re screwed either way.

So why do we not have virtual politicians?

Because then we can’t even pretend to delude ourselves that they care or are even remotely interested, as public sector pay remains as frozen as a night in Siberia yet MPs are just not paid enough for the “important” work that they do.

It would be only a small step along the road that we have already travelled.

Maybe we should get rid of them entirely and decisions on things can be handled by a televote. Oh, wait, that would never work as generations of politicians have been dumbing down the populace so people generally fail to realise the surge of effluent that spews forth every time any of them are on TV. Our “democracy” would be decided by whatever presenter has the biggest boobs. Mmm, I wonder if the eventual result would be any different?

So why do we not have virtual politicians?

We do! That’s why what they say is so vacuous and lacking in any real insight beyond the ability to spout rhetoric. But then honest sense or rational evidence-based policies aren’t likely to get them good write-ups in the newspapers. To get that they have to say what suits the rich owners of the papers.

If you want better politicians, the first problem to deal with is the awful behaviour of UK journalists. Shallow spin fogs out any sense and the real causes of the problems are ‘off limits’.

Jim

the first problem to deal with is the awful behaviour of UK journalists

I am no expert on journalism round the globe, but my impression is that the UK fares better than most other countries in this respect. There is a handful of very good journalists. On the other hand, the generality, as in the entertainment and advertising industries, is complicit in promoting infantility in the population. For a long time now (since the French Revolution?) Englishmen have prided themselves on being pragmatists rather than over-the-channel intellectuals. What this means in practice is that Englishmen prefer to think about a problem after it raises its head rather than before. To theorize, to speculate, to plan; isn’t that too European for us?

I believe that the philistine anti-intellectual mindset which pervades every class is a very dangerous weakness in our country.

Englishmen have prided themselves on being pragmatists rather than over-the-channel intellectuals. What this means in practice is that Englishmen prefer to think about a problem after it raises its head rather than before.

I know I tend not to fit the mould, but I’ve always insisted on planning to have more than one viable plan so I can skip from plan A to one of many other letters should anyone succeed in not doing what I wanted them to do. Politicians tend to be relatively easy to manipulate if you can hook onto the two prime weaknesses: Publicity seeking and money. People with real principles are very difficult.

To theorize, to speculate, to plan; isn’t that too European for us?

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

I think my place of work could save shed loads of cash, time, and resources if they did things proactively instead of reactively.

I’ll give you an example. Part of my job involves tidying up the cloakrooms and toilets (and anybody that tells you that girls have better toilet habits is lying!). From time to time the pipes clog up. Anybody with half a brain can tell this is imminent because you flush one toilet, another goes “glug glug glug”. I tell the maintenance men, they just aren’t interested.
When the bowl overflows and yellow liquid rises up from the shower drain (nobody ever uses the shower, I think H&S said there had to be one) and icky stuff is flooding across the floor? That is when maintenance considers that it might be something that needs fixing.
So instead of unclogging the known place where stuff gets stuck from time to time, that might be a five minute job, they will wait until it is an epic mess and who-knows-how-much stuck in the pipes (last time they needed to call in a guy with a special machine to suck it out).

If I couple this experience with the woefully bad JIT ordering at our local supermarket (everything is in stock except the things you want), I would suggest that the evidence points to the French (or maybe just the Bretons?) being somewhat incapable of “thinking outside the box” and planning ahead.
But, then, France is a country in love with beaurocracy. Imagine the damage that could be wreaked upon an entire country if you consider how The Peter Principle must apply. In spades.

I believe that the philistine anti-intellectual mindset which pervades every class is a very dangerous weakness in our country.

Yeah. I like to read. That made me a nerd, a swot, a clod, and some perjoratives that I don’t remember. This was the late 80s, and even back then it was “cool” to curse the teachers, smoke, and fail tests.

I get the whole teen angst society rebel thing, but when did it become acceptable the actually try to fail? Couple this with the GCSEs where you must surely be a bit of a numbskull to get the lower grades, and if you don’t manage that, you are “ungraded”. It is almost as if “fail” is a forbidden word. Why?

To get an education you need leisure to study. Education, therefore, implied status. In the nineteenth century labour movements tried to improve the lot of the underclasses by promoting education; for its own sake, not simply for learning skills to increase income. These ideals were subverted, mostly by the insinuation that education was only for the nobs – don’t betray your class, laddie! Thus were stolen the birthrights of a whole generation. Education became a social weapon in Britain – not to promote the happiness of individuals but to keep them down. When Blair said education, education, education I knew it was a chilling threat.

Virtue, the ancient philosophers concluded, could not be taught. Teaching a subject to a student is not like stuffing a sausage with forcemeat. The only thing a teacher can do is offer his pupils an opportunity for them to learn for themselves. Sadly he has almost no control over the circumstances in which this opportunity can arise. It is a mysterious and personal business, and no mission statements or outcomes or managerial jargon are going to make it otherwise.

I took carpentry lessons at school. I made a toast-rack and a bed-table for my mother. Our teacher was an old man who said nothing. Occasionally he would come and show you how to use a spokeshave, or something. Years afterwards I realised that he had been teaching all sorts of things that he never, probably could not have, put into words (let alone on paper). How to measure things, how to organise yourself, how to respect, maintain and enjoy the tools, … . Learning is not just memorising things. It is certainly not just passing exams. I was told at school to treat exams as I treated brushing my teeth – a good habit but hardly one worthy of getting stressed about. Exams are the coin you must pay to Caesar. Inside your own head Caesar counted for nothing. Teaching is allowing a student to put something inside his head without stealing his pride in that achievement.

I’ve always understood that education is what you’re left with when you’ve forgotten everything you were taught. Since I retired, I’ve become quite well educated.

Learning is not just memorising things. It is certainly not just passing exams.

I’ve long considered learning to be knowing how and why, the what sort of drops into the slot you provide.

I can memorise if I need to, but I have to know why. People should at least know why.

There is a handful of very good journalists. On the other hand, the generality, as in the entertainment and advertising industries, is complicit in promoting infantility in the population.

Yes, that encapsulates it fairly well, alas. The problem is that people then take it as the norm for ‘political’ news/interviews to be all heat and ‘trick questions’ rather that shedding light on the facts of the matter or probing the real causes of problems.

The downside is that politicians have to respond in snappy slogans and avoid trying to explain any policy if doing so requires more than about ten words. If they try they’ll be interrupted.

There was a classic example of this in the ‘Scots independence’ debate. A politician was pointing out that the SNP scare wrt the NHS was nonsense because control of the NHS is already devolved and the situation here is now very different to England.

The interviewer asked if the politician who said this was “saying people in Scotland were stupid” and assuming they didn’t know this. Thus trying to start a barny. Want a heated shouting match, not a considered analysis.

The reality is that the vote was looking to be close to 50:50. And that in any population there will be bound to be some people who don’t know the reality, so can be swayed by daft assertions like the SNP ones about the NHS in Scotland. The honest answer would have been “Yes, some people are stupid, and some are ignorant. Ask the SNP if that’s who’s votes they are trying to get using this scare story. And if that isn’t their aim, why are they talking nonsense?”

But of course that would simply generate heat and headlines that “Politician says Scots are stupid.”

Thus meaningful debate is clouded by argy-bargy.

Yes, there are good journalists and excellent output. Contrast many of the single-issue documentary investigations on Radio 4 with the shallow garbage often on ‘Today’.

Jim

I’ve always understood that education is what you’re left with when you’ve forgotten everything you were taught. Since I retired, I’ve become quite well educated.

An interesting assertion I encountered a while ago is that “most of what we know is wrong!” :-)

There’s a kernel of truth in it (he said, trying to ignore the risk that this assertion also matches the one above. :-) ) The point being that in academic work and in business work the money and kudos is for ‘new things’ and ‘what you know’. Not for checking what someone else has reported.

So many experiments and measurements are done and the results published. But which may simply contain errors, or not really be a basis for the conclusions drawn. But no-one else checks because they don’t get any money or reputation from it.

I encountered this years ago when spotting that a given publication’s report must be wrong. I found the probable mistakes and wrote up an explanation. A journal in the relevant field decided not to publish it. Not really ‘original work’ in their terms. Or possibly embarrassing to have to publish something that showed a well-known ‘expert’ had made a daft mistake in his eagerness to make a ‘discovery’. :-)

To have something published in a journal/magazine/newspaper or via broadcasting it has to fit with what the owners want to see appear.

Jim

Or possibly embarrassing to have to publish something that showed a well-known ‘expert’ had made a daft mistake

There’s this thing in projects where the project manager calls a lessons learned meeting after the dust has settled.
You can waste many hours listening to people offer specious reasons why something went wrong or a delay happened while actually try to cover up their daft mistake or plain inadequacy for the task.
Or, you can tell them that the mistake was doing the same thing that they did the previous half dozen times that caused a problem despite it being raised in previous “lessons learned” sessions and that clearly the lesson to be learned was that they didn’t learn¹.
Then you don’t get invited to those meetings anymore.

This I count as a minor success since it removes at least one waste of my time.

¹ As commented earlier, to learn you have to be both capable AND willing. When people are neither there is little chance.

I can memorise if I need to, but I have to know why. People should at least know why.

I tend to think that we store everything. The problem is not that it isn’t in your head but that you can’t retrieve it. A bit like the internet easy to put things on it, not so easy to find information. The reason ‘Wanting to know why’ helps you to remember is because you use it to cross reference. The more links to a piece of information the more likely you are to remember so remembering becomes a probabilty related to the number of links.

To add to what Jim has posted re: academic work being published. It can be very hard for work with a negative outcome to be published. By this I am thinking of a “good idea” that was researched, tested etc but the outcome did not lead where expected. So either the researcher does not attempt to publish, or the journal rejects. Thus when someone else has the same “good idea” a few years later, the information that this has been tried aand found wanting is not available.

This was illustrated to me as a young postgrad and an at a conference an eminent German professor replying to a student presentation with the immortoal words “Ve tried zees in 1962 – it did not vork zen and it vill not vork now” Hard on the student but true.

By this I am thinking of a “good idea” that was researched, tested etc but the outcome did not lead where expected.

I’ve worked within the NHS for decades. During the time I’ve met people in health research projects like the one that researched the health effects of drinking.
They had a graph with a “J-curve” which showed mortality probability against increasing units of alcohol. There was a lessening of mortality up to 3 units per day.
ALL causes of death in drinkers were taken into account in the graph. I pointed out that lung cancer was unlikely to be alcohol drinking related and probably due to regular drinkers sitting in smoke filled pubs so what did the graph look like when those were eliminated? i.e. drinkers that didn’t smoke or associate regularly with smokers.
They commented that this was a good point and they would re-examine the research.

The next time I saw the same person they were quick to tell me that the revised graph showed 10 units a day to be beneficial¹

The next time I saw them they were working on a different project as the other had been closed and the research unpublished. Apparently the research was funded by an anti-alcohol group.
Some people use “prove” to mean “demonstrate what I already said” rather than the more correct in scientific terms “test for accuracy/veracity”

¹ I doubt anyone could hold down a technical job and do 5 pints every day. I also doubt the health benefit of that much beer, much as I like Real Ale.

It can be very hard for work with a negative outcome to be published.

Yes, in general, that’s my experience. It matters for the reason you exampled. I always told my research students to include tests that showed something “didn’t work” in their thesis because the thesis should be a full report of their work. So they needed to show that they’d spent time and effort on things to avoid making it look like they did nothing for ages. And for the reason exampled. It saves others repeating the work.

It also avoids academics from focussing on trivial ‘one step forwards’ research whose outcome is easily predictable because they don’t want to seem to have ‘done nothing and published nothing’ for some time. Looks bad.

That’s all bad enough somewhere like in engineering. But it is a very serious systematic problem in the medical fields. It is very, very useful for commercial drugs companies to keep confidential all the tests they’ve done that some various things “don’t work”. It means their competitors have to waste money and time repeating the same tests. Over and over again, company by company. Its a fundamental inefficiency that then jacks up the price of medications.

That then shades into even worse behaviour. Read “Bad Pharma” by Ben Goldacre for many examples. Perveresely, this sometimes means nasty exceptions to the rule that “negative” work isn’t published.

e.g. A study that shows a drug is poor (or has adverse effects) may be done and released because the drug is soon to go out of patent and the company have a nice new one they want people to switch to. In this case the result is published because it suits the company.

Its very hard to nail down this is the real reason in many cases. But sometimes when you look at the details it smells strongly of this going on. Again see “Bad Pharma” although I can give details of another case not in the book that I looked at. And in Ben’s book you can read of cases where academics were removed for rocking the boat.

This again illustrates the journalism problem. General journalists won’t have a clue about the scientific and academic methods or how to run experiments, etc. They just want a barny. The specialist scientific journalists run into a wall of secrecy and can’t easily extract the facts. They get no help from general journalists or newspaper owners who just want stories that suit them and are cheap to obtain. Indeed, in some cases the newspaper owners may have investments in, or get income from, the drugs company. Mustn’t upset these companies as they ‘bring in money’.

Jim

The discussions regarding scientific research and the clouding of results to meet predetermined aims brings to mind the case of Haruka Obokata. This somewhat eccentric scientist (maid dress instead of a lab coat?) may or may not have discovered “STAP” cells, something to do with stem cell research. After an announcement, it was discovered that there appeared to be irregularities and others were unable to reproduce the results. An internal investigation concluded that “In manipulating the image data of two different gels and using data from two different experiments, Dr. Obokata acted in a manner that can by no means be permitted. This cannot be explained solely by her immaturity as a researcher. Given the poor quality of her laboratory notes it has become clearly evident that it will be extremely difficult for anyone else to accurately trace or understand her experiments, and this, too, is considered a serious obstacle to healthy information exchange. Dr. Obokata’s actions and sloppy data management lead us to the conclusion that she sorely lacks, not only a sense of research ethics, but also integrity and humility as a scientific researcher.” [copied from wiki article on her].

A Nobel laureate was caught up in the mess and has apologised for being unable to find his lab notes from the time.

More tragically, her mentor and co-author took his life in August due to the fallout of this.

While there is the real possibility that “she made the whole thing up”, and this is the easy explanation that everybody is buying into, I have to wonder if she isn’t actually mentally afflicted if this is the case? Surely as a scientist she would have realised that peer examination would follow and others would pore over her research to reproduce and refine it. After all, a one off might make good copy for the gutter press but it isn’t so useful for science at large. Therefore, her fifteen minutes of fame would quickly be followed by a public kicking and a lifetime of regret. She cannot have been that stupid, surely?

Which leads to consider alternative options. Perhaps the reporting was indeed sloppy and because of this, some tiny part of the process thought not to be important was omitted from the write up? Maybe it is something obscure like a sample was left on a windowsill for a couple of minutes?
Or, maybe, this experiment wasn’t supposed to have been released to the world, somebody wants it buried for now and the oddball scientist is the scapegoat. After all, isn’t the world just so eagerly willing to accept she faked it than ask a simple question like “wouldn’t she have realised what would happen next?”.

Some people use “prove” to mean “demonstrate what I already said” rather than the more correct in scientific terms “test for accuracy/veracity”

Given the amount of commercial sponsorship of scientific research, I tend to think that this is becoming the norm.

If you want a lively example, just start talking about “climate change” (formerly known as “global warming”). An article in the paper just today suggested that France’s temperature could rise by 3-5 degrees by the end of this century. As usual, no citations or sources. The smart people don’t talk about “global warming” any more, as they realise now that there will be side effects. It may be possible for a rise of around 4-5 degrees to alter the wind patterns, change the Arctic ice, and drop Northern Europe into a mini ice age, while the deserts become inhospitable. One place warms, the other freezes. End result? Not much overall change, just more extremes and less in between. No doubt next year it will be a conclusively proven story that is yet again different,
Me? I’m still waiting for a model that, when run in reverse, can accurately predict the weather patterns fifty years ago. And while we can track hurricanes and such, in calmer weather we still can’t predict the weather more than three days in advance (sometimes we can’t manage it three hours in advance), so how do we know we can have faith in a prediction some eighty years in the future? Especially when media reporting either wants to start an argument and enjoy the results, or scream about doom and gloom with a religious fervour?

It is such that when environmental issues turn up on the news, I think it’s only so somebody somewhere can invent a new tax that we’ll all have to pay. Remember this when you see flooded houses on the news this winter. Ask yourself why that is happening if we are now paying various ecological taxes… Is the money being used to dredge rivers, improve flood defences, and such? Or…

don’t betray your class, laddie! Thus were stolen the birthrights of a whole generation.

We have some union types at work. Nicely militant, always on the lookout for new reasons why they should be paid more. Problem is, they are unable to see consequences and consider future events. I know management lies to the staff about company planning, but I suspect this is more to do with stopping “but you said” type discussions than anything else. Our workload depends upon contracts taken, time of year, new products, etc. It is “a fluid situation”, plans change. Not all the workers seem to get this.

If you want to deal with management, you need to be able to think on their level, preferably outthink them. Not a one of the union guys is capable of that, which is why they’ll always be on the weaker side in any bargain, and antagonising the people who write the paycheques? Dumb. Really really dumb.

On topic. Gotta go into standby mode now. Workday tomorrow. I wish there was a virtual me that I could send in my place…

Surely as a scientist she would have realised that peer examination would follow and others would pore over her research to reproduce and refine it.

Afraid I’m not much of a fan of ‘peer review’. I’ve experienced too many daft examples where nonsense gets cash/publication and good ideas get dumped.

For some years one of my favourite ‘professional hobbies’ was spotting journal papers and publications and research project reports that – one way or another – claimed to have found FTL effects. (Faster Than Light.)

It was usually trivially easy to find errors in the experimental method or analysis that turned the claims into horsefeathers. Although in one case they’d got and used a grants for about 200,000 pounds and I was reading the project’s ‘final report’ because a colleague showed it to me. It took a while to spot the fatal error in their maths/physics. But the claimed data ‘showing the effect’ was pretty much a plot of scatterred data points though which they could have plotted almost any line. So they’d plotted the one they were arguing was so.

Needless to say no further work was done on what they claimed…

OTOH I’ve seen more than one proposal turned down as ‘impossible’… which we then did successfully. In once case I’d actually asked for money to improve an existing system that worked OK. The request was refused because what I proposed ’wouldn’t work’. Erm. What I hadn’t sai in the grant request was that the method already was in daily use. I actually wanted the cash to make a better one and get back some of the money for related kit. 8-]

I took the refusal letter down to the lab. Held it up to the instrument, and said, “Stop working! This expert says you can’t be doing anything!” But it didn’t seem to care. ;→

I’ve also been contacted more than once by struggling experimentors who’ve got the cash, only to find that their idea doesn’t work. This is why so many research grants over the years have a final report that boils down to “We decided to do this, instead, as it was more interesting.” :-)

So, no, I’m not a fan of peer review. Much of it is a desk exercise by people who assume they know things that they don’t. Mixed with giving money or positions to pals. It also tends to pigeonhole ideas into pre-defined boxes. As a result people steer away from really novel ideas and go for ‘safe’ ideas that just make a small step forwards on what the existing ‘peers’ have done. Easier to get money and build a career that way. Helps you join the club.

So much for academia being purer, etc, than commerce. 8-]

Jim

Afraid I’m not much of a fan of ‘peer review’

It has been purposely subverted. Try googling Mohamed El Naschie or sock puppet. Mistrust always favours the operators and con-artists. So even the exposure of one scoundrel succours the rest. Decision-makers have to trust somebody, and without having qualifications themselves are left open to exploitation by self-proclaimed gurus.

In the case of bodies like ‘research councils’ or ‘journal review panels’ it tends to become a set of self-selecting clubs whose views agree. Nice if you happen to be one of a ‘club’. But can really mess up real progress, openness, etc.

Example: Many years ago when young an innocent I was co-oped onto a panel that decided how new ‘common user’ kit would be made for various UK facilities. This was because I’d been involved in developing and installing examples of such.

I tried for a few meetings to get others to agree that commissioning entire and complete new instrument systems was:

A) wasteful as the same basics had to keep on being re-made. Never to any standard in terms of compatability.

B) excluded people who could make a specific part very well but lacked the resources to do the entire system.

I was suggesting agreeing a set of simple standards for interfaces, then let people and places bid to make parts. Thus allowing systems to be upgraded far more cheaply and flexibly and make the process more open to newcomers with novel ideas.

No-one was interested. IMHO The reason being that all the people sitting around the table were already members of consortia of uni groups who already worked together to make complete systems. Keeping things as they were let them go on doing this minimising competition.

So after some months I quit the panel and left them to it.

I’m sure they all felt they were doing the best thing and in their own minds were the best people to do this work and for choosing new members for the club. ¹ But I had my doubts and would have welcomed the process being a bit more open to challenges. As it was, really novel ideas from outside the club wouldn’t get funded. Self-fulfilling prophecy that the ideas wouldn’t produce results…

FWIW After a few years I focussed most of my work on going to ‘commercial’ sources of funding. People who wanted a coconut, on time, on budget, and working to spec. Not on what club you were in. But maybe I was a lousy academic. If so, far enough. We’re not all the same.

Jim

¹ I also well understand the feeling that “I have X postdocs and research students who I want to keep paid and employed. So I want us to keep attached to a nice source of funding for the things we can do.”

Decision-makers have to trust somebody, and without having qualifications themselves are left open to exploitation by self-proclaimed gurus.

Alas even when the decision makers are qualified in an area, they can be concerned that the people they trust/work with go on being supported. Understandable, but not ideal by a long chalk. Particularly when you end up with committees and clubs that define what topics will be funded, and – by default – what new topics won’t because they don’t fit any committee’s remit.

To form a funding committee you need some people already with a track record in the topic. Not easy if the topic is a totally new and untested idea.

The equivalent in journalism, politics, etc, is people who assume they know things because they can write and argue. But that just may mean they learned about writing and rhetoric and gained self-confidence and ‘good contacts’. Hence we get witless goverments scrutinesed by a witless press – often with an agenda of their own.

The good news is the bad news. Using the internet anyone can spout what they think inc what they think are the ‘facts’. Alas that means that sense can become lost in a sea of twaddle.

Jim