Longrider

Mark Easton discusses charitable giving and suggests that donors are not always rational  – worse, do not give according to worthiness.

Martin Brookes, chief executive of New Philanthropy Capital, gave a provocative speech [168KB PDF] in which he argued that donors to “good causes” are often “fickle, casual and lazy”. They give money to organisations without rationale or proper thought.

“Some charitable causes are just ‘better’, and more deserving, than others”, he argued. “But donors in the main don’t behave rationally or morally. Donors give to feel good, rather than to have an impact.”

I guess it’s true that some charities are less deserving than others. I suspect, though, that my denfinition might not coincide with that of the righteous. Firstly, any charity that takes the taxpayer shilling is undeserving and gets nothing from me. Not as sous.

As for as the list of ‘deserving’ charities go – none of my preferred options is listed.

I wondered what this hierarchy of charitable needs might look like and asked Mr Brookes to rank this range of causes:

1. Learning
2. Planet Earth
3. Human suffering
4. The arts
5. Endangered donkeys

The only one that I’d consider giving to is the donkeys. In general, though, small independents based upon what I feel at the time is my criteria. What other people think I should do doesn’t get a look in. If I want to give to a kittens charity, that’s what I’ll do and anyone who disapproves can put their disapproval where the sun don’t shine. It’s my money and I’ll give it to whoever I wish – not what others think I should.

What is it with these people who think they should tell others where to give their money?

…but there is an issue around the freedom of people to give money impulsively without criticism for being “fickle, casual and lazy”. Isn’t there?

But there shouldn’t be, Should there?

A story in the Beeb asks the question; should sports stars be setting an example regarding smoking?

When footballer Wayne Rooney was spotted having a cigarette on several occasions during his break between the World Cup and the start of the Premier League season, there was outrage.

Outrage. My word. Outrage, I tell you. Outrage!!!!!!!

I wasn’t aware of it, so didn’t have the opportunity to be outraged. Still, now I am aware of it. Let me see… Nope, not even slightly miffed, let alone outraged. What Rooney sucks into his lungs is his business as far as I am concerned. And, if I was a follower of football, would it make me want to take it up? Look at it this way, one of my TT heroes was Joey Dunlop and he liked a fag and a pint yet I indulge in neither. I make my own decisions and they are not influenced by sports stars. Which as an aside means that all those sponsors are wasting their time with me.

As a top-flight footballer, he is expected to treat his body with respect at all times, even during the close season.

Again, shouldn’t that be a matter for him? It being his body and all that. If he does something that affects his performance on the field, it will affect his career. But, then, it is his career and that is a matter for him, isn’t it? George Best paid a heavy price for his alcohol consumption. Again, it was up to him. These people are not obliged to ‘treat their bodies with respect’ if they choose not to.

But should they be setting a better example?

No. Next question.

Around 6% of 11-to-15 year-old pupils admit to being regular smokers, and statistics show those who start smoking before 16 find the habit hardest to break.

Pretty much the same when I was that age. But what has this to do with anything? Ah, yeah, of course… They do it because Rooney does… This is a classic post hoc ergo propter hoc. So, what we have here is a logical fallacy dressed up as news.

Jean King, director of tobacco control at Cancer Research UK, said athletes, particularly footballers, are seen as heroes and that this status means they also need to be positive role models.

No, they don’t. They are paid to kick a ball around. In general, I have seen little evidence that they are positive role models and don’t expect them to be. They are fallible as are the rest of us. If they choose to smoke, drink and womanise, well, so be it. It does not follow that their adoring fans will do likewise. Some will, some won’t.

“Some young people will start smoking because they have seen their hero smoking.”

Evidence for this assertion?

We know that children are greatly influenced by the people around them – children growing up with parents or siblings who smoke are 90% more likely to become smokers.

Really? My father’s parents both smoked heavily. He didn’t. I suspect that that 90% figure has been borrowed from the ministry of made up statistics. “We all know…” is code for “we are making it up based upon our prejudices”. Vague generalisms do not make a case.

“We also know that tobacco sponsorship of sport influences children’s smoking. So any negative role modelling, including that by sports stars, could have a detrimental effect.”

Do we? Or are we just making another unfounded assertion?

When I was growing up, smoking was a regular feature in television programmes and films. Indeed, there were adverts for ciggies and cigars on the television. A number of my contemporaries took up smoking in their teenage years. Others of us didn’t. This will always be the case. Any attempt to blame footballers or any other celebrity is blaming someone else for what is a personal decision – like blaming violent films and video games when someone goes out and commits a murder. One is not necessarily a consequence of the other.

And, finally:

However, positive images of smoking celebrities are still widespread in the media.

Can’t have that, now, can we?

Max Davidson opines on Emma Thompson’s comments regarding the use of slang among the young.

I have to say, I spent much of the time reading his article nodding in agreement. Slang – good slang, juicy, rich, roll-off-the-tongue slang, filled with dark humour deftly stirred with ribald insult, is the grenade launcher in the verbal arsenal. Generally, Thompson’s complaint holds up – the use of “like” as a filler is tedious and lazy, whereas the usual filler sounds we make such as “um” and “er” are invisible to us as we filter them out and they cause no confusion in the listener. However, I suspect that Davidson is correct in his assessment that she is likely being over pedantic.

What I did like about Davidson’s article though was the inclusion of the Australian slang he picked up from his partner. This, for instance:

I came across the word “fizgig”, which you won’t hear in London or Birmingham but which in Sydney or Melbourne denotes a police informer. Brilliant.

Fizgig – it effervesces, aches to be used in a sentence, desperate for wider exposure. What a lovely word. I just can’t wait to use it…

Yes, really…

Brooker is on form with this polemic on team sports at school. His experiences and reactions were pretty much the same as mine, so I empathise.

Ministers are concerned that Britain’s schoolkids aren’t doing enough team sports. Good for them. The kids, that is. Not the ministers. I’ll dumbly and instinctively side with anyone trying to bunk off games. Apart from preventing obesity and heart attacks and diabetes and high blood pressure and premature death, what exactly is school sport good for?

Bugger all, frankly. The excuse was that it taught us to be part of a team, but you don’t need to strip half naked and spend an hour and a half running about on permafrost chasing a useless bag of wind to do that. Using football, rugby or cricket to instill team playing and competitiveness in a group of schoolboys displays a lack of imagination on the one hand and a complete failure of psychological understanding on the other. Some people don’t like team sports and never will. That does not mean that they cannot learn to be part of a team, though. So, frankly, back to my first response to Charlie’s question; bugger all. And as for the fitness angle, folk like me who used all sorts of whiles to avoid it, fitness was something achieved out of school on long cycle rides. I neither needed nor wanted school sports to keep me fit.

The benefits aren’t merely physical, grunt the experts, through their thick, sport-liking mouths. Team games build character. I can’t argue with that. They certainly helped strengthen the more cunning and resentful elements of my personality.

Yup, been there, done that. Like Brooker, I found ways around it. If I could get myself sent out on a cross country run, then I’d be delighted. I and a few other dissenters would run out of sight then spend the rest of the lesson just ambling about before running back to the changing rooms. If I was unfortunate enough to have to go onto the football pitch I just made sure that the ball and I never came in contact. If it did come my way, I’d move so that it was no longer coming my way. Sure, the Jocks didn’t like it, although they didn’t treat me as badly as some of Brooker’s classmates. Perhaps because I was defiant in my refusal to participate rather than terrified. Perhaps because it was no secret that my extra-curricular sporting activities included Judo and I was a junior green belt.

On the flipside, apparently more kids are doing weird non-team sports such as archery and golf. Yes, golf. 66% of boys get to play golf at school these days. Striding around the wilderness wielding a club? On school time? Never played it myself, but God I envy them.

Indeed. There was one rare occasion when I was allowed to take my bow into school as the PE teachers wanted to demonstrate other sports. They discovered that far from being a lost cause who had no interest in the usual stuff, I could shoot. And, unlike the teacher, hit the target…

Team sports are overrated, frankly. If people like them, fine, but forcing unwilling participants to take part is self defeating. Like Brooker, I have harboured a lifelong hatred of ball games as a direct outcome of being forced to play them at school.

Sure, I was also forced to do maths, science, geography and English, but these were at least of use to me in later life and I was sufficiently aware of that at the time. Football has been of no use to me whatsoever and never will be.

I’ve been away for the past few days. I took the opportunity to visit the Tamar Otter sanctuary. Here, then, are some of the images.

Firstly, the British otter:

The Asian Short Clawed Otter

And not only otters; Owls, too. This is the Bengal Eagle Owl.

And last, but not least, the Snowy Owl.

Following on from yesterday’s nonsense about older drivers we have another call from the righteous to restrict drivers.

Newly qualified young drivers should be banned from night-time motoring and carrying passengers of a similar age, Cardiff University researchers say.

They said such “graduated driver licensing” for those aged 17-24 could save more than 200 lives and result in 1,700 fewer serious injuries each year.

Really? And how, exactly will they learn to drive at night if they don’t do it? And if they cannot carry passengers, when exactly will we allow them to do it? The day after I passed my test, I took my father’s MGB out with my mother and sister. It wasn’t at night, thank God or there might have been carnage. It seems that once more we have an example of rent seeking going on.

How precisely will drivers graduate? Will it be a further test or will it merely be the passage of time? Some drivers pass a test and drive very little thereafter, so what makes them suddenly capable of driving at night or driving with passengers of their own age after, say, two years if they haven’t driven in that period? What about those who drive a lot in that period? Why should they wait? If it’s another test, will examiners be doing night shifts now?

Now, there might be a case for graduating licensing in sensible steps. We already have something in place for motorcycles. Okay, so it’s a botched attempt, but the logic behind it had some merit – i.e. that a novice rider starts with something of moderate power and performance and graduates to larger, more powerful machines as experience and confidence increases. Unfortunately this started with a ban on learners using 250cc machines back in the early nineteen eighties. The government of the day clearly didn’t think about unintended consequences. Once learners were restricted to 125cc machines, the manufacturers promptly produced faster 125s. So, ideal learner bikes with good mid-range performance and softly tuned engines such as the Honda CB250 RS were illegal and the bike equivalent of the hot hatch was okay. What did they do? They then brought in horsepower restrictions making the bikes under perform for their capacity. So what seemed a sensible idea on the surface was, in fact, cockwaffle of the highest order.

All of that said, new drivers should graduate steadily from moderately performing vehicles to the more powerful ones as they gain experience. By and large insurance companies already effectively enforce this. Try getting fully comp insurance for a young male driver for even a low performance bottom of the range hatch-back such as a Ford Fiesta and you will get the idea.

They also want a total ban on alcohol for young drivers. Ahem… There is already a restriction on alcohol. If they cannot effectively enforce this, how will they enforce total abstinence on young drivers?

But motoring organisations say the limits – which could last up to two years – would be difficult to enforce.

Well, quite. And who will do the enforcing? And how will they justify stopping drivers and checking?

And…

While road deaths have now fallen to an all-time low, 2,222 people still died on the roads last year.

Ah, so despite road deaths falling, we get a knee jerk reaction that is yet another example of policy based evidence generation.

The AA point out some perfectly sensible reasons why this is a bad idea:

But the head of road safety at the AA, Andrew Howard, suggested while there would be benefits to graduated driver licensing, they could be outweighed by the disadvantages.

He said it could penalise those who work at night and need to drive, while police may struggle to crack down on those who flout the rules.

Again, quite. And again, will we see police stopping young drivers at random to check?

A spokeswoman for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents also cast doubt over whether the scheme could be properly enforced.

She said she wanted to see more evidence about how it would work in the UK, adding that improving education and awareness with further training for new drivers might be more beneficial.

Evidence? You’ve some hope. The righteous don’t worry about evidence.

And, as is usual with these stories, they wheel out a bereaved relative to give a bit of “balance” to the story.

Terry Jones’ daughter, Louise, 16, was killed with three of her teenage friends in Powys in 2006, in a car driven by an 18-year-old man who had just passed his test.

“They should abolish the driving test completely.

These children are not being taught how to drive at all, they are being taught how to pass a test.

Instead, there should be a driving log – similar to aircraft – where learners have to log 200 hours with an experienced motorist.

They should drive at night, in the sunshine, in rain, snow, ice, on the motorway – under instruction at all time.

There should also be limitations on the number of passengers.

And parents have got a big part to play… some of these 17-year-olds are driving brand new cars.

Personally I think if these children go out and kill, and parents have bought the car, the parents should be charged with accessory to manslaughter, just the same as the driver.”

Oh, my… Look, no policy should be based on the opinions of the recently bereaved. They are not thinking rationally and Terry Jones is no exception. The current testing regime is pretty poor, but there should still be a final test of competence following whatever period of training is imposed. The French system of conduite accompagnée works well. While it is similar to Jones’ idea of accompanied driving, it still involves a formal assessment of competence before a license is issued – and if Jones thinks pilots are let loose without formal training and assessment he is not living on the same planet as the rest of us.

As for the risible idea of charging parents who bought a car as accessories to manslaughter, for fuck’s sake! It is because of this unthinking stupidity driven by grief that we should not be taking notice of the opinions of the bereaved relatives when discussing these issues.

Still, if you listen to the “experts” at the University of London, we should be driving at 20mph in “deprived zones”.

University of London experts will also put the case for more 20mph zones, arguing it could help reduce injuries – particularly in deprived areas.

Their research will show that those in deprived areas are twice as likely to be killed or injured than those in affluent areas.

These folk won’t be happy until all vehicles are restricted to walking pace with a man walking in front with a red flag. People will still get killed, though.

Good driving involves the driver making an accurate assessment of the hazards and adjusting the vehicle’s speed as appropriate. This obsession with speed now means that drivers spend more time worrying about their speed and not enough on the road ahead. You only have to observe the Mexican wave effect if they think they are likely to get flashed for speeding. Speed should be appropriate for the conditions and sometimes those conditions require 20mph. Sometimes it is safe to travel at three-figure speeds. The driver is best placed to make that decision at the time, not the University of London.

Meanwhile, the Tune into Traffic campaign group will stress the dangers of listening to music while driving and walking.

Oh, my word… Today a campaign. Tomorrow we will have someone, somewhere calling for legislation, won’t we?

The BBC Breakfast programme has been discussing elderly drivers (no link, unfortunately). The usual stuff came out of the discussion; older drivers have slower reactions, failing eyesight and get confused over the controls.

Yes, sure, our reactions do slow down as we grow older. And, yes, if you passed a test fifty years ago, road situations have changed. What never fails to surprise me is the tired clichés that are trotted out as a solution.

In some cases, elderly drivers may have to relinquish their licence due to failing faculties. There is an argument for regular health checks for drivers irrespective of age. I have my eyes tested on a regular basis, but beyond that I am unaware if I have an underlying health problem that may affect my driving capability. Well, not strictly true, as recent visits to the doctor for minor ailments involved some basic medical checks, so everything is working pretty much as it should.

The usual mantra was regurgitated – drivers should be compulsory tested at seventy. Why seventy? Why not any other arbitrary age before that? I see plenty of bad driving and it doesn’t always involve graybeards. I see younger drivers behaving like arseholes on the roads. Why not subject them to a compulsory test?

There is an argument for ongoing re-testing throughout our driving careers and Quentin Wilson put it forward. However, I have qualms. One of those qualms is based upon my mistrust of the DSA. I have been through the DSA’s testing regime for driving instructors and one thing it taught me is that the DSA does not understand what competence is, let alone accurately measure it.

Emma Soames from Saga interviewed on the programme suggested refresher courses. Well, yes, but what if you don’t need a refresher course? Such an approach will be self-defeating. Better to have a system of ongoing assessment – by people who are not employed by the DSA. If government agencies must be involved, then only as an umbrella organisation to set standards to ensure consistency nationwide, not to deliver testing to candidates.

Assessment is not quite the same thing as testing, there are subtle differences – which is partly why I believe the DSA should have nothing to do with delivery of the service. It is not a pass or fail test. It is what it says, an assessment of someone’s performance against a standard. At the end of which, the candidate is given feedback on that performance. Either they managed to achieve the standard or they did not. The assessment will determine what refresher training is needed if any. It may be that all the candidate needs is some feedback from the assessor. However, any refresher courses will be based upon individual needs. We can all learn something – the last time my driving was assessed it was identified that my use of gears was outdated and that I could improve in this area – I was changing sequentially rather than block changing. Therefore a blanket refresher was not appropriate.

Any scheme should be about improving standards of driving, not a five year deadline where people lose their licenses if they don’t satisfy the examiner. Bear in mind here the trauma of the driving test that most drivers recall with horror. This should be a positive experience welcomed by drivers as a means to demonstrate and improve their skills, not something they dread. And, frankly, it should not be used to penalise drivers of a certain age.

Another day, another veggie article on CiF. The title is a bit of a misnomer to the main thrust of the piece.

Veggies have a duty to say meat is still murder

And every time they do it, they piss off the rest of us. Way to win an argument, eh? That said, the article itself is not all that bad – Ellen acknowledges the point that all that eco-nonsense hasn’t been over good for the veggie cause. If someone is a veggie because they object to the slaughter of animals, that isn’t the same thing as cows belching methane and therefore, if the stuff about cows belching methane is undermined, then the core reason for being veggie remains; the slaughter of animals.

What always fascinates me is the usual predictable veggie – or vegan – whine in the comments to these articles about aggressive meat eaters. They do this without any sense of irony. Meat eaters do not write repeated articles for the Guardian hectoring everyone that they should adopt a meat eating lifestyle – for the planet, man. When was the last time a butcher penned an article for the Groan telling us we must all eat meat?

If meat eaters are aggressive to the veggies and vegans, it is a direct response to their self-righteous lecturing attempting to guilt trip us into adopting their preferred choices. Having done this, and not recognising how irritating it is, they then get offended when they are quite reasonably and predictably told to fuck off.

How odd…

Via Al Jahom, this nasty bit of new policing.

Thousands of drivers have been reported by fellow motorists after being spotted speeding, drink driving or talking on mobile phones.

Anyone reported twice in a year could face police action under the scheme, named Operation Crackdown. The culprits could receive a home visit or a warning letter.

Sussex Police is trialling the campaign and has already received 20,488 reports from the public. Warning letters have been sent to 2,695, while a further 1,047 have been sanctioned for offences such as having an out-of-date tax disc.

The scheme, under which reports are submitted anonymously online, could be rolled out nationally if it is deemed a success.

Oh my… Where to start? So Sussex police will take action against motorists on the basis of an unfounded anonymous allegation? Two such unfounded anonymous allegations will result in a home visit or a letter. Never mind that these unfounded anonymous allegations may be entirely malicious, the police will believe them and follow them up? My ghast should be flabbered. If we had not had thirteen years of a deeply nasty, vicious, authoritarian government that actively encouraged this Stasi-like behaviour, perhaps it would. As it is, nothing surprises me anymore. Nice to see that the Cleggerons are carrying on where Brown and Blair left off and allowing this to happen.

But privacy campaigners have likened it to the tactics of the Stasi in East Germany, which encouraged residents to inform on one another.

Dylan Sharpe, of the campaign group Big Brother Watch, warned that Operation Crackdown is “based on unfounded accusations by untrained and possibly prejudiced members of the public”.

Well, yes, but given all those new laws on the statute book, we are probably all guilty of something…

Al Jahom mentions another aspect – one that affects me as much as it affects him; the high mileage driver who drives assertively.

There is a further problem though. I drive getting on for 30,000 miles a year. On a mile for mile basis, that makes me 2-3 times more likely than the average 10k a year driver, to be reported by some embittered numpty. And yet the bar for police action is set at 2 reports over a given period, not per 30000 miles driven. Of course it’s obvious that they can’t realistically judge it on miles driven, but the result is a creation that is manifestly unfair to those of us who drive a lot, in the course of generating revenue for the tax man to steal from us, to play for police.

My mileage is similar and I drive according to the Roadcraft manual, too. I also ride a motorcycle and there are plenty of small-minded, mean-spirited pecksniffers who would report me for merely going past them when they are stuck in traffic – because bikes are dangerous innit. I’d run up these reports by the dozen given the way that new Britain has adopted this illiberal, petty and downright anti-social hectoring, self-righteous, finger-wagging, intolerant do as I say attitude.

A newsletter promoting the scheme reads: “Are you fed up with anti-social drivers? People who still use their mobile phones while driving, not wearing seat belts or those who insist on getting right up your bumper and are really annoying and dangerous to others.”

Yes, tailgaters and people who drive without due care and attention do annoy me. The rest of it I couldn’t give a damn about. Driving without a seat-belt is not antisocial driving. And I will not become a police informer if I see it. Indeed any feeling that I might have towards helping them with their work disappears when I see such wicked behaviour on their part. Let them do their own dirty work – they’ll get no assistance from me.

Arsehole.

On identity cards – a controversy which he had a hand in developing during his time as a Home Office minister – he is utterly unrepentant. Suddenly, he launches on to the offensive. “I’m disappointed when I hear Ed Miliband… saying this illustrated our disconnection,” he says. “I really don’t agree with that at all, in fact.”

What’s interesting is the way he positions himself on the issue. “I speak for mainstream Labour. Not mainstream Labour members, necessarily, but the average Labour voter.” A curious distinction, but one he sticks to. “I still think if you asked the average mainstream Labour voter today if they supported ID cards they’d say ‘yes they do’.”

What a vile, loathsome, disgusting little creep.