More Random Thoughts
Last night I was watching Channel 4 and a programme with Ian Hislop about the first world war. Ian Hislop sounds quite educated and as if he knows what he is talking about. But a couple of weeks earlier in another programme a news quiz programme the pannelist were asked about Simon Singh. None of the panellists had heard of him!
He has written two successful popular books on sceince, and two televison series two accompany them. He has also done rdaio programmes about numbers & science. How come that not on of four television personalities had heard of him? C P Snow's two cultures is alive and well. For some obscure reason Ian Hislop is a sadly diminished personality, shown up as ignorant and rather ill-educated. Is it surprising that Physics is an unpopular subject, pace Lord Adonis. It is demanding and clearly neither understood nor appreciated by the lesser lights who appear on television programmes. Uneducated and biased thinking is not the preserve of entertainers, Mr Digby Jones of the CBI is also capable of such thinking.
In an interview in the Observer, and assuming he was quoted correctly, he expressed concern about the government's decision to keep the exisiting contracts of civil service employees at 60. I wonder how he, or his members, were to feel if their contracts were changed to be made worse without their agreement. Those who have loined the civil service and accepted contracts did so on the understanding that the retirement age was 60. Why is it so terrible of the governement to honour the contract it has with employees. I have heard managers complaining about their employees lack of loyalty to the company. But this is a two-way process, if the company has no loyalty to its workers why should they show any loyalty in return.
When the CBI gets to grips with Britain's terrible productivity then I might have some sympathy for their whining. But Britain has been consistently let down by corrupt and incompetent managers and directors. Whilst whinging about workers pay and pensions, they pay themselves over the top increases and ridiculous pensions. I know of one senior director in a large British compnay who complained that his pension was only £160,000 per year. That was after having been given the push because he wasn't considered up to the job. It would be curious to knwo how much the company paid out to provide him with a pension of that size,
Which in a roundabout way get me back to Ian Hislop and his programme about the first world war. He made the somewhat odd assertion that after the class system was no lomger so important in Britain. If only that were true, the aristocracy might be less important but we are still a class society. One only has to listen to the bosses and officer class in army to undertsand that. As we see there is one law about pensions for the bosses and one for the workers! Nothing has really changed in Britain since the civil war in one sense, at least it destroyed the concept of the divine right of kings! And coming round a spiral we can note that the industrial revoltion, which was scientific and technical was definitely NOT the work of the English establishment. Many of the leading palyers were non-conformist and they certainly didn't go to Oxford or Cambridge to learn any science. Scotland was the place. To learn more I reccomend Jenny Uglow's book on the Lunar Society.
He has written two successful popular books on sceince, and two televison series two accompany them. He has also done rdaio programmes about numbers & science. How come that not on of four television personalities had heard of him? C P Snow's two cultures is alive and well. For some obscure reason Ian Hislop is a sadly diminished personality, shown up as ignorant and rather ill-educated. Is it surprising that Physics is an unpopular subject, pace Lord Adonis. It is demanding and clearly neither understood nor appreciated by the lesser lights who appear on television programmes. Uneducated and biased thinking is not the preserve of entertainers, Mr Digby Jones of the CBI is also capable of such thinking.
In an interview in the Observer, and assuming he was quoted correctly, he expressed concern about the government's decision to keep the exisiting contracts of civil service employees at 60. I wonder how he, or his members, were to feel if their contracts were changed to be made worse without their agreement. Those who have loined the civil service and accepted contracts did so on the understanding that the retirement age was 60. Why is it so terrible of the governement to honour the contract it has with employees. I have heard managers complaining about their employees lack of loyalty to the company. But this is a two-way process, if the company has no loyalty to its workers why should they show any loyalty in return.
When the CBI gets to grips with Britain's terrible productivity then I might have some sympathy for their whining. But Britain has been consistently let down by corrupt and incompetent managers and directors. Whilst whinging about workers pay and pensions, they pay themselves over the top increases and ridiculous pensions. I know of one senior director in a large British compnay who complained that his pension was only £160,000 per year. That was after having been given the push because he wasn't considered up to the job. It would be curious to knwo how much the company paid out to provide him with a pension of that size,
Which in a roundabout way get me back to Ian Hislop and his programme about the first world war. He made the somewhat odd assertion that after the class system was no lomger so important in Britain. If only that were true, the aristocracy might be less important but we are still a class society. One only has to listen to the bosses and officer class in army to undertsand that. As we see there is one law about pensions for the bosses and one for the workers! Nothing has really changed in Britain since the civil war in one sense, at least it destroyed the concept of the divine right of kings! And coming round a spiral we can note that the industrial revoltion, which was scientific and technical was definitely NOT the work of the English establishment. Many of the leading palyers were non-conformist and they certainly didn't go to Oxford or Cambridge to learn any science. Scotland was the place. To learn more I reccomend Jenny Uglow's book on the Lunar Society.
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