Puzzle

There are lots of small places in the world where bad history combined with a mixed population - either by religion, language, race or by some combination of same - has caused plenty of trouble over the years. Ireland and Palestine to name but two. And here we have President Putin stirring up a mess of that sort just over his own border, a mess which might have simmered down unstirred, a mess which looks set to be a running sore for decades to come, a running sore which will be a drain on cash and on management resources for decades to come. Not to mention all the misery for those caught up in it. What on earth is he playing at? What on earth does he hope to achieve - particularly given that he has already done a good job of consolidating his access to the Black Sea.

I wonder whether he has studied the well known work of his predecessor J. Stalin 'On the National Question'? English versions available at Abebooks. I wonder also if the Kerch Strait (gmaps 45.270852, 36.534994) was important in connection with the Black Sea? In any event, all rather depressing.

Botanic problem 3

Exhibit 3.

Passing exhibit 1 (see almost immediately below) on the Horton Clockwise on a regular basis, I have often wondered how the pipe work works at junctions. A wonder which was sharpened during the winter storms by exhibit 2 (see immediately below), showing a junction which has ripped apart.

All of which moves me today to prepare exhibit 3.

Diagram IV is a tree in the ground. We suppose for simplicity that water and other stuff from the ground enters by the roots, travels up through the tree, into the branches and out through the leaves.

Diagram I shows a portion of trunk, with the vertical lines being the water pipes. I remember their being arranged around the outside of the trunk, more or less immediately under the bark, from O-level biology (after the examinations for which I remember collecting a small prize); roughly speaking the interior takes the weight while the exterior takes the traffic. The evidence for this includes the dampness of the newly exposed meat of a young trunk when you strip the skin off. We suppose that the water pipes are so organised that they can only carry water up and we leave aside the other set of pipes which brings some of the products of photosynthesis down. We further suppose that pipes cannot branch as that only pushes our problem down a level.

But trees do have a branching instinct, my first stab at which is diagram II, it being rather as if one had stuck one's thumb into the casing of the tree from the inside, pushing a growth out, taking the nearby pipes with it. Which leads is to diagram III, which has not only generated an awkward singularity at A, but also has pipes which are useless, running down the let hand side of the new branch and then on up the right side of the old trunk, pipes which are not connected to anything useful. So evolution discarded that line of development.

A second line of attack is shown at diagram V, where at the right we have new loops of pipe growing from the base. These push out into the growth at diagram VI and on into the completed branch at VII, this time with the awkward singularity pushed up a bit to B. But at least the pipes work in this arrangement. But not all that well or we would not getting the odd scarring in exhibit 1 and the breach at exhibit 2.

One day I will find a botanist who will be able explain what actually goes on. My bet is that whatever wheeze one comes up with there is going to be a singularity in the AB region, a singularity which is a weakness.

Botanic problem 2

Exhibit 2.

PS: note static chip wagon, in orange livery, behind. One day I will try their bacon sandwiches, although I don't imagine their bread will be in the same league as that from 'Los Amigos' (see 4th September).

Botanic problem 1

Exhibit 1.

Tunnel

Coming through the tunnel behind Screwfix (gmaps 51.339636, -0.263143) the other day, I was impressed to find that all the lights were fully glazed and working.

Last time, most of the glass was cracked or worse and few of the lights were on. See 21st April.

This time, the new glass is not of the wire mesh kind, although it is presumably some kind of toughened glass. We shall see how it does.

Trolley 4

Another Marks & Spencer trolley in Manor Green Road this morning, a bit nearer the pond than the last one (see 26th July). But finding two in a similar spot argues to me that the perpetrator lives in one of the big houses nearby, rather than a small house person bothering to wheel the thing to a big house road.

On return from M&S, I learn that BH has been taking bets with ladies who lunch about how long it would be before I found this particular trolley and took it in charge.

Thoughts for the day

It seems that back in 2009 the sign left was posted on the front of a store in Houston, and it seems that at least some people got rather cross because they thought it a celebration of the terrorist attacks on that day. As far as one can make out, there was no such intention on the part of the store, who were actually celebrating the martydom of a very important Muslim some 1,500 years ago. The sort of thing that Catholics do in respect of their martyrs.

Nevertheless, I do think it a bit dim of the store not to have made this a bit clearer for the benefit of infidels. The good news is that I think the date is something lunar and rotates, so will not have caused this particular problem since and will not do so for a while.

Looking to another minority, I have been pondering on the wisdom of allowing the Scots to escape their English servitude on the basis of a simple majority vote. I have not checked the small print, but that is the impression given by media coverage of the impending vote, and assuming that that is the story, we have another example of tyranny by a majority The tyranny which means that a possibly small majority can coerce a possible a large minority; the sort of thing that happened with fox hunters and smokers. That a possibly small majority can interfere in an unreasonable way with the affairs of a large minority.

In some places one cannot make important moves of this sort without, say, a two thirds majority. In most places there are all kinds of procedural hurdles to precipitate action - like needing to get the chairman to put the item in question on the agenda for it to be discussable. Or needing to make time in the busy schedule of our Members of Parliament.

Which led me back to yesterday. Suppose we were all wired up so that we could take instant votes on things. Someone could make a proposition like 'any person found to have knowingly boarded a cross channel ferry without proper papers and convicted of same by the captain of the ferry after summary trial, may be chucked over the side'. It would be put to the vote and on getting an instant majority would become an instant law. A sort of speeded up version of the referendums which I had thought wreaked havoc in California, with all kinds of unworkable or unpleasant wheezes making it to the statute book, but which http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-measures/referenda.htm suggests do not do much at all.

But the point remains. Giving the people instant and direct access to the statute book is not a good plan, while indirect, slowed-down democracy, of the sort practiced in respectable western countries, presumed by some quirk of geography to include Japan but not China, is. The trick being to get a system which works, in which the people do feel that what they think and what they want is getting a fair hearing by their politicians.