It’s Wednesday evening and we’re on the Victoria Line. A young man strums a guitar and sings while his friend harmonises. Their refrain is “You mean the world to me” and I don’t know whether that’s a popular song in the charts that I have never heard, or of it is their own composition. I hope the latter.
The train pulls into Stockwell Station, where Jean Charles De Menezes was shot dead by CO5 officers. It is also the interchange with the Northern Line, so we get up to leave.
In quick succession, two images drift into my eye-line and draw my attention for the same reason. First, there is a photograph in the Evening Standard of an athlete in Team GB colours, her surname pinned to her chest. It is Lynsey Sharp, the Scot who has qualified for the final of the 800 metres.
Then, as I step off the train and walk towards the tunnel to the other platforms, I double-take at a crude A4 photocopy taped to the tiles. It announces the disappearance of 12 year old Tia Sharp. She is a Londoner and has been missing for six days, but these facts have not penetrated my consciousness until now.
Continue reading “The Fate of My Namesakes”
A Few Photographs of the Olympic Park
I’ve uploaded a few images to Flickr of the Basketball arena and the Olympic Park locale. All fairly generic – I am sure millions of other people have taken exactly the same images.
The Irrationality of EuroMillions
Away from the Olympics, there has been a massive rush for lottery tickets ahead of tonight’s £105 Million Euromillions Draw.
Its not really new or interesting to point out how irrational playing the lottery is. Playing the lottery is often called “a tax on stupid people”. It is not only irrational in the sense that people pin their hopes on something extremely unlikely to happen, but also economically irrational. The ‘expected return’ (a function of the probability and the amount invested) is much less than other types of gambling too. The odds of winning the UK lottery jackpot are 13,913,816 to one, which suggests thatyou should win at least £13,913,816 on a £1 stake, should your six numbers come up. Instead, the lottery jackpots are usually much lower (typically about £2 million). That’s like getting only £15 winnings after putting a quid on a 100/1 horse at the Grand National!
However, playing the UK lottery does become economically rational if the rollover jackpot goes over £14 million, because then you’re actually taking a bet with a better return than the odds would suggest. This happened frequently in the past, though less so in recent years as the popularity of the Lotto decreases.
There’s no such benefit with EuroMillions however. The odds are one in 95,344,200, and the price of a ticket is £2 in the UK. That means it is only economically rational to play EuroMillions when the jackpot is £190 million or more. This has not happened yet. the biggest win so far was £161 million. In fact, rules for that lottery cap the jackpot at €185 million.
Cycling to Work on the Eve of the Games
The smug designer with the skinny t-shirt and a fixed gear bike.
The mother in blue track suit with an empty child seat fixed to the pannier.
The ill-prepared lad in the baggy jeans on mountain bike with the seat set way too low.
The hobbyist with orange glasses and Lycra that matches his titanium frame.
The dreadlocked courier with a thick chain wrapped around his chest.
The woman with frayed ginger hair crawling out of her helmet.
The two Japanese tourists, inexplicably on Boris Bikes (miles from a docking station, surely?)
Could I discern
The same eager twitching as the red lights wane,
The same grit of the teeth as clear road opens up ahead
The same extra power on the pedals as the bike overtakes a bus
The same glance over the shoulders, to check the gap between the person behind,
The same confident gait of the one who imagines himself to be wearing a yellow jersey,
As I perceived in myself?
At the four way pedestrian crossing at Ludgate Hill,
When the red lights rudely put the brakes on our makeshift peloton,
Did I perceive in the tall old man in a linen suit,
In the girl in a flowing white dress and flat sandals
In the woman in the business skirt and trainers,
In the sweaty man in shorts, now carrying his fold up bicycle,
A quicker step
A longer stride
A firmer tread
As if the noise that heralded the green man
Was no longer a high-pitched beep
But a starters’ gun?
Disestablishmentarianism
Let’s have a think about this report by the Church of England, warning that gay marriage will ruin its ability to perform marriage.
First, the church says that marriage has/will become a “hollowed out” shell of its former glory. Personally, I do not think that allowing people who love each other to have access to the stability and security that marriage brings is a “hollowing out”. As I have argued before, in refusing to countenance gay marriage, religions forget their core mission. Instead of fostering community, inclusion and family stability as they claim, they instead promote ostracism, division and exclusion.
The Church also says that new proposals will mean that they will end up not performing any marriages. Campaigners dismiss this will actually happen, but I wonder whether principle says that it should. The conundrum arises because Churches are technically state institutions… And our modern principles of equality demand that everyone be allowed access to them. If priests are adamant that they will not marry some (gay) people, the only way to achieve that consistently is to not marry anyone in a Church.
The Church raise this point because they think the logic points to the absurdity of gay marriage. It does not. Instead, it points to the absurdity of an established Church. In this multi-faith era, how can any particular faith have the backing of the state? Issues of equality and conscience and tradition are bound to collide, with people compelled to take part in situations they would rather not, due to their personal faith. The answer is disestablishment. An unfettered Church of England would be free to persue its conscience into the same marginalised corner of society as the Catholic Church. Of course, that would mean renouncing the Bishop’s seats in the House of Lords, and presumably a lot of the power, property and prestige that comes with being Established. But I think it would be for the best.