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New Razors – Old Razors

Sunday, August 29th, 2010

I have been spending the last week  and a bit shaving with two new razors that I bought on Ebay.  They are Gillette Razors from the late 1950s – a Red Tip and a Blue Tip Super-Speed Razors.  Why, you might rightfully ask; well, with razors, Gillette is like your mother’s cooking in bakery comparisons, everyone always say “X is great but not like an old Gillette”.  So I reckoned that you needed to try an old Gillette to discover the truth in the statement.

Gillette Red Tip Razor From 1950s

Gillette Red Tip Razor From 1950s

They both look very stylish in a futuristic 1950s way like a Chevrolet El Camino, with sleek handles and decent designs on their handles that definitely improve the grip.  The handles are short at just over 7cm long, while the weights are a light 46g for the Blue Tip and a weighty 66g for the Red Tip.  I find the handles a tad on the small size for me, preferring the 9½cm handle of the Mühle razors, but that is a small price to pay for the really excellent balance on the Gillette Red Tip.  The Gillette Blue Tip, being much lighter but with the same razor head, is less well balanced. 

Gillette Superspeed Red Tip

Gillette Superspeed Red Tip

Gillette Superspeed Blue Tip Razor

Gillette Superspeed Blue Tip Razor

The beauty of these classic razors is in the engineering of the head.  Both razors have the same smooth finished, compact and well-organised and built butterfly razor system.  By twisting the tip, the razor mechanism starts moving through its complex set of synchronised moves, opening up elegantly, ready to take the blade.  It really is a dream to watch rather than the functional and clunky butterfly mechanism on the modern Parker razors (you can watch a quick video on Youtube of the mechamism by me following this link – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqt–_P19YU).

Butterfly Mechanism On Gillette Red Tip Razor

Butterfly Mechanism On Gillette Red Tip Razor

I was mildy apprehensive when actually shaving with these two little beauties, as the Ebay seller had dubbed the Red Tip “the most aggressive razor ever”, but it was as deadly as a cute, little tabby cat.  The angle of the Wilkinson Sword double blades was just right, flowing smoothly over the face and handling well over the edge of the face down to the neck.  While a little large, the razor head worked decently around the nose.  Overall, I rated the Red Tip a really good shave, while the Blue Tip was too light in the hand so, even though the actual razor head was the same, I did not enjoy that shave so much.

So the crucial question, will I be changing my shave?  No, not yet but I will try and track down a Gillette Fatboy; for me the Mühle R89 still gives a closer, neater overall shave, but the Red Tip is a close second.  As for the blade mechanism, that is a true joy and is much more robust and better engineered than the Parker razors.  It really is a pity that Gillette has switched from being a razor maker to a blade manufacturer, changing from a creator of long-lasting icons to becoming the billboard of our throw-away, use-your-blade-a-few-times modern culture.

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School Reports And Memories Of Mowden Hall School

Saturday, August 28th, 2010

I went to small, all-boys prep school in Northumberland called Mowden Hall School, which still exists and is now a mixed prep school.  In fact, my father went there the first year it moved to Northumberland after the Second World War.  It seems so old fashioned and long ago, as we learnt maths from log books and were taught how to use slide rules, and there were no computers and Wales were great at rugby.

I cannot remember much about it really as it was all a blur, except for:

  1. Learning how to make a bed properly with sharp edges.  We would need to stand in silence to attention beside our beds after we had made them to allow Matron to say that we could go down after breakfast.  We slept on hard, wooden beds, with thin mattresses and only a sheet and thin rug for heat, which (with no dormitory heating) was freezing in the winter.  It taught you never to move in your sleep as this would wake you up when you moved to a cold patch, and also to run sideways in your bed when you got in, so that the friction heated up the sheets.
  2. The forced marches, two-by-two in our brown boiler suits,  in the morning before breakfast in silence to the teachers’ houses and back when we were juniors, then when we were older (oh the privilege you might think) a forced run for a mile down the South Drive before breakfast to keep you fit, but we already did 2 – 3 hours of games every day (rugby in Christmas and Easter terms and cricket & athletics in the Summer term).
  3. Having to wear shorts all year round, until you became a prefect aged 12/13 when you could wear long trousers, and freezing cold Airtex T-Shirts in the Summer (these were basically a material with holes in it to keep you cool in the heat, but we were at school in Northumberland, which is not renowned for its heatwaves).
  4. Some strange culinary delights: rumours that catfood tins had been seen out the back of the kitchens on the day we ate bright red meat in our shepherds’ pie; plates piled high with butter beans that we were forced to eat down, however vile they tasted – I still cannot eat them; gloopy, bright pink Angel Delight with lumps in it still as it had never been mixed thoroughly; or (for breakfast) fried eggs with a thick plasticky coating congealed onto the top, Marmite on Toast or Kojak’s Heads On Toast (baked beans in toast); but then there was custard and the choice of sweet tea or normal tea from 2 large urns that we drank in plastic mugs, and tuck on Sundays after Church.  I think my love of tea started at school as I would never have survived without its basic nutrients of water, milk and sugar and heat.
  5. At meal times, after grace was said, you had to eat in silence until the pudding course, when a bell was rung and the seniors would clear the tables and bring out the pudding and bowls.  The pudding was served, then a bell was rung and you could talk.
  6. There were also loads of positives: the slipper and pillow fights were great and involved loads of people; it taught you to survive in lean, mean conditions – I have never wanted for much luxury ever since and will eat anything that’s thrown at me, except for lasagne and butter beans; it gave me a love of books, science, nature and the outdoors.

Here are some extracts from the school reports that paint a picture that are strangely different from how I remember it.  I had thought I had tried quite hard most of the time, but my teachers obviously saw me as a lazy and middling pupil.  Except for where they did not appear to know who you were with those unhelpful reports that read “Satisfactory” or “Good progress”, they did not hold back their punches in the reports.

Faint praise – about the best it got

“Good: he has the ability to do really well, eventually.” [Latin, Trinity 1978, Age 10.8 - MRi]

“Without showing any natural ability, he appears capable of coping with any new difficulty as it arises.” [French, Trinity 1978, Age 10.8 - MRi]

“He is young & lacking in experience but, I feel, has latent ability, which has yet to come to light.” [Mathematics, Christmas 1979, Age 12.0 - S1] 

“He is cheerful and works with interest…” [Art, Christmas 1979, Age 12.0 - S1]

“His standard of work has generally improved, though his attitude remains rather immature.” [History, Easter 1980, Age 12.4 - S1]

Lazy, or just bored with the teaching?

“He works very well within himself and continues to make good progress without any fear of strain.” [French, Michaelmas 1977, Age 10.0 - MRi]

“A high mark, but in comparison to the rest of the form this is an appalling state of affairs.  He has given the minimum amount of work this term to attain respectable marks.  His marks are fair – his position is unsatisfactory.” [Geography, Lent 1978, Age 10.4 - MRi]

“He has a good brain and an eye (and even a word!) for imaginative detail, but he is ever chary of over-taxing either.” [English, Trinity 1978, Age 10.8 - MRi]

“I sometimes feel that he needs a “swift kick” to galvanise him into action.” [Academic Report, Christmas 1978, Age 11.0 - S2]

“Competent, but unexciting: he works at great length when, as in the case of his project, self-motivated, but more usually exceedingly difficult to prod him out of somnolence.” [English, Easter 1979, Age 11.4 - S2]

“I am beginning to think that the detonation of a bomb beneath him at regular intervals might well be beneficial.  Is he really producing – ever – the best standard of which he is capable? I very much doubt it?” [Latin, Easter 1979, Age 11.4 - S2]

Not a classicist

“His knowledge of grammar is fair, but his use or application of it in the exam was depressingly bad.  I have the impression (I hope that I am wrong) that his somewhat sardonic sense of humour is coupled with an unwillingness to lower himself to the nitty-gritty of hard work and learning.” [Latin, Christmas 1978, Age 11.0 - S2]

“At the moment he is a grammar-mangler of the first water.” [Latin, Summer 1979, Age 11.0 - S2]

“…and I do wish he would not appear quite so saturninely pessimistic in class.” [Latin, Christmas 1979, Age 12.0 - S1] 

“He often knows what is the right answer, and yet fails to achieve accuracy – “Meliora probo, sed deteriora sequor“* – which I need not translate.  It is particularly disappointing to see his English-Latin work continually marred by elementary grammar mistakes.  He must get a grip on himself; he seems to have developed a maturity of person which has not carried over to his written work.” [Latin, Easter 1980, Age 12.4 - S1]

Note *A misquote of Ovid who wrote “Video meliora, proboque; deteriora sequor” which means “I see the better course, and approve; I follow the worse.”

Not a natural sportsman, or perhaps did not enjoy rugby

“He is not slow and he has glimmerings of a natural jinking action…” [Games, Lent 1978, Age 10.4 - MRi]

“He has played quite well, but always at arm’s length.  Unless he is prepared to commit himself fully, his promising ball skills will seldom be exercised.” [Games, Easter 1979, Age 11.4 - S2]

“…he tends to avoid the more violent physical aspects of the former [as a forward], while playing in the latter capacity [as a back] affords him too much opportunity to immerse himself in conversation and thus forget about the game!” [Games, Michaelmas 1977, Age 10.0 - MRi]

“…his performance throughout the term has been disappointing.  I appreciate his lack of enthusiasm for the game [rugby] off the field but he is now old enough to realise the urgency expected of him on the field – particularly during a match.” [Games, Michaelmas 1979, Age 12.0 - S1]

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Recipe For Business Success Cake

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

I am a fan of those little self-published recipe books as within them you often get real recipe gems that have been handed down from generation to generation within families.  You also get a lot of rubbish, as well, but a recipe book with even only one good recipe is a decent book. 

Within a small Cook Book prepared for the St Clare Hospice in West Essex, they not only have some interesting recipes, but two of those quaint, sentimental recipes for life – one for marriage and another for motherhood.  To these, I have created my own, slightly jejeune version – a Recipe For Business Success.

Recipe For Business Cake

For the base:

6oz Good idea
3oz Some starting capital
1tsp Good luck

For the filling:

11oz Hard work and grind
3oz Busy sales & marketing
5oz Plain cost control
4oz Credit control
1tsp Some good fortune
1tsp Understanding bank manager
Juice of common sense

For the sauce:

12oz Youthful enthusiasm
1oz Good humour

Crush the Good Idea, melt the Capital, add Good Luck and stir togther.  Press over the base of a loose bottomed cake tin.

Mix together all the ingredients for the filling in a large mixing bowl and blend thoroughly together until light and creamy.  Pour over base in the cake tin.  Place in oven and cook on a high heat for 2 – 3 years, then reduce heat and bake at medium heat for another 7 years, then test for taste and to see how well it has come together.  Cook for longer if required.

Prepare the sauce by melting together the Youthful Enthusiasm and Good Humour in a small sauce pan.

Take the Business Cake out of the oven and serve immediately with the sauce poured over it.

If it does not work the first time, try it again but alter the recipe based on previous experiences.

The classic recipes

Here are the classic recipes that you sometimes find printed in these sort of booklets:

A Good Wedding Cake

4lb love
½lb good looks
1lb blindness of faults
1lb pounded wit
2tbsp sweet argument
1 wine glass of common sense
1lb butter of youth
1lb sweet temper
1lb self forgetfulness
1lb good humour
1 pint rippling laughter
1oz modesty

Put the love, good looks and sweet temper into a well furnished house.  Beat the butter of youth to a cream and mix well together with the blindness of faults.  Stir the pounded wit and good humour into the sweet argument, then add the rippling laughter and common sense.  Work the whole together until everything is well mixed, and bake gently for ever.

[This was found in a church booklet of recipes printed in the early 1900s]

Recipe for Motherhood

Mix an abundance of patience laced with an ample amount of understanding.  Add daily two armfuls of tenderness.  Season with a sense of humour.  Blend the above with enough love to last from yesterday until tomorrow.

[Origin unknown - Came in a mothering sunday gift from a playgroup in the 1970s]

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Life Really Does Begin At Forty

Sunday, August 22nd, 2010

I am 42 now and I have finally worked out what the phrase “life begins at forty” means.  It came as a Pauline moment as I was driving home the other day.  It really means that you only ever plan your life until you get to about 40 years old*, so now that you have reached that point you can reflect on what you have done so far – for better or worse – and then decide what you are going to do for the future.  It’s an acceptance of where you are and what you haven’t achieved, and that perhaps that’s okay and even a good place to be.

I am not Prime Minister, or even Deputy Prime Minister, I have not won Wimbledon, nor am a hedge fund manager earning bazzillions, nor a multi-squillionnaire Internet entrepreneur and I have still not written that book or painted a beautiful picture, and I will never play for England (at any sport) and so on.  But who really would want to be those in any case; let’s leave all that to those with the tunnel vision to succeed in shaping our world.  I just enjoy life, living and become randomly interested in things that will never make money, nor help you rule the world, but nevertheless keep me pottering on. 

Anyway, at the same time, I started trying to piece together my LinkedIn Profile, which was in a sorry state as I have never touched it nor accepted anyone onto my page, hence I look a lonely, unloved individual.  So while struggling to cobble together my disjointed career path (still a work in progress so anyone who remembers what I have done over the years please fill in the blanks), I became reflective on what I had actually achieved since university and where it is going.

In the end, this is what I came up with:

Massive Positives: love of a good woman (Sophie), 2 fantastic children, wonderful parents, siblings, lovely mother-in-law (yes really) and a lovely little cottage in a beautiful part of the world (North Yorkshire).

Achievements: setting up Steenbergs with Sophie and starting that on its tortuous path.  It’s like being on a small bicycle rickshaw in Mumbai that’s slowly, gathering its pace while manoeuvering around the gas guzzling juggernauts that speed past us trying to knock us out of the way.  But it’s a good ride and we’ll get their in our own time, on our own path and without damaging anyone on the way.

Regrets: only one surprisingly, being I wish that I had continued with Microbiology/Molecular Biology for longer than the degree at Edinburgh University.  I was quite good at it and actually enjoyed the nerdy science.  At the time, all I wanted to do was get out of education and conquer the world, but I did not let that path run for long enough.  In fact, I realised this about a year ago and is most of the reason that I have started doing a degree at The Open University in Environmental Studies/Science, so perhaps I will be able to overcome this one.

Mistakes: loads and loads of them, and still going on collecting more.  They say you learn from your mistakes – well, I have got a PhD’s worth already.  In fact, there is only one that I would count as truly bad and that was leaving investment banking to join Teamtalk.  The mistake was not Teamtalk itself, even though the experience still runs shivers down my spine and wiped the smile from my face and laughter from my body for many years afterwards.  It was more that I was too young and “wet behind the ears” for the tough corporate situation that it became, so while leaving investment banking was right I should perhaps have waited until I was older, stronger and more experienced or moved into a bigger corporate where I could have matured in a more protected environment.

What have I learnt? to be good and tolerant, to persevere with those things you believe in whatever the obstacles and to carry on smiling, laughing and dreaming.

Where’s that leave me: content in the most important family part of life and where I live, plus a lifetime still left to enjoy all of them, while nudging Steenbergs ever onwards and time to complete an Environmental Studies degree, and research my family history.  Sounds good enough to me.

* As an aside, I reckon we can only think in chunks of about 7 years maximum in normal living and about 41 years for life planning (or 29, 31, 37).  These are purposefully prime numbers as this is how humans have become hardwired through evolution.  So for relationships, investors and politicians, 7 years is long term and 41 years forever.  That random idea is perhaps for another day.

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Exercised About Barclays Settlement With US Authorities On Sanction Busting

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

I have become increasingly bemused by the story about Barclays agreeing a settlement with the US authorities regarding violations of US sanctions against Cuba, Iran, Libya, Myanmar and Sudan.  The amount of the settlement was about $300 million (£192 million), which seems remarkably low, even though a lawyer from the Justice department stated that the settlement was “beyond what they [Barclays] earned” from the business transacted.

However, it is not the piddling amount that is exercising me, rather the fact that the story is a complete non-story.  Barclays broke the law in the US, yet we all just shrug our shoulders and regard it as a non-story, but if your neighbour broke sanctions or was involved in money laundering, I am sure that firstly, we would be thrown into gaol, but also treated with scorn by friends and family.

Where are the politicians nowadays who would stand up like Edward Heath when he denounced Tiny Rowland, the mining baron, as the “unacceptable face of capitalism” in part for breaking sanctions against Rhodesia.  Our economies and political systems are now so inextricably linked with the big mega-banks for financing governmental projects and deficits that they dare not complain or criticise.  What a damp squib it has been so far with the post-financial crisis review of banking across the Western world, and so (I guess) it will remain.

Have business and corporate morality really fallen so low that we just accept corrupt behaviour as an expected corporate norm?  Is business all about money and nothing else whatever the underlying basis of the transactions?  Perhaps it is and I am just a naive fool, but I hope there are some out there in the ether who try and conduct their lives – personal and business – with some basic ethics.

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Recipe For Milk Shake

Sunday, August 15th, 2010
You spend hours and hours creating delicious home cooked food from scratch, buying the best ingredients you can find, then you hear you kids discussing the best type of chocolate or sweet and flavour of crisps (chips) in the back of the car*.  You feel deflated and slightly aggrieved that all that hard work is for nought.

Then, Jay, our eldest, says that he hates school chips (french fries) and much prefers Daddy’s home made fried potatoes, while Emily, our youngest, cannot eat enough of home-made roast chicken with all the trimmings made yesterday, and they both love home-made Yorkshire puddings.  Emily enjoys making a salad for us all today for lunch, while Jay even helped to mix the batter for baking cheesecake yesterday, which they both wolfed down greedily.

You justify yourself that it is all the fault of strong advertising that they see on the TV, plus the treat factor of eating what they rightfully call “bad food”.

Actually, I think it is only fair that you let your children have the choice and experience of eating all the manufactured foods as well, although strictly only once in a while.  You do not want them becoming cranky like you are yourself. 

So today, in the miraculous heat that appeared on this mid August day, after weeks and weeks of cold, rainy weather, and after the Premier League football season has recommenced, I decided that we should trial recipes for milkshakes for Emily’s birthday that’s coming up in October.  This was with some trepidation as it would open the floodgates to some seriously evil food groups, and lo and behold, I was dead right.  The chosen flavours were banana (me), strawberry (Soph), Snickers and separately Skittles (Jay) and for Emily Curly-Wurly and Rolos, respectively.

We played around with combinations of the basic ingredients and the recipe below is what we came up with; you can ignore the banana but we felt that it needed something to add some body to the milkshake, and a small amount of banana seemed to do the trick - too much and the banana flavour started coming through in the other flavours.  By the way, Jay could not finish the Skittles as they were too sweet and revolting, but they did enjoy the other flavours (“the horror, the horror, the horror” to paraphrase Kurtz in Apocalypse Now).

The Milk Shake Base

2 good sized scoops of vanilla ice cream, relatively soft scoop (we use Brymoor or Cream Of Yorkshire)
225ml / 1 cup full fat milk (don’t go all skinny and healthy here, as it’s pointless)
3cm / 1 inch of ripe banana

Your Flavours

This is really up to you, but it should be about 3 tablespoons in volume, so:

1 Curly-Wurly, 1 Pack of Rolos, 1 Snickers Bar
10 strawberries, ½ a banana

Or whatever you want, but some things really are just too sickly sweet, e.g. Skittles and Starburst.

Put all the ingredients into the bowl of a food processor or juicing machine and mix up thoroughly.

Ingredients For Milk Shake

Ingredients For Milk Shake

Preparing The Milk Shake Base

Preparing The Milk Shake Base

Jay Chopping Snickers Bar

Jay Chopping Snickers Bar

Milk Shake Ready For Whizzing

Milk Shake Ready For Whizzing

Mixing It Up

Mixing It Up

Sophie Enjoying Strawberry Milk Shake

Sophie Enjoying Strawberry Milk Shake

* For those intrigued, the answer for sweets/chocolate was Curly-Wurly, Snickers and Starburst and (for the crisps/chips) BBQ Beef Hula Hoops and Ready Salted and Cheese & Onion Walkers Crisps.  And they both love Green & Black’s Milk Chocolate and Dark Chocolate slabs of chocolate.

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Electoral Systems For The UK (Part 2)

Sunday, August 15th, 2010

…This follows on from last week’s blog

Are these systems used in the UK?

First-past-the-post (“FPTP”) is the system that has been central to British voting in elections for many years and remains the status quo method for General Elections in the UK and local elections in England.  Alternative Vote (“AV”) is the main system used in Australia and for by-elections in the Northern Ireland Assembly, and is the proposed alternative to FPTP being proposed for UK General Elections.  Party Lists (“PL”) is used in Britain for European Elections, i.e. to elect MEPs.  Single Transferrable Vote (“STV”) is used for most elections in Northern Ireland and has been used for local elections in Scotland since 2007, as well as being the main system used in the Republic of Ireland.  STV is also the preferred system of the Electoral Reform Society.

Is it easy to understand?

Complexity is one of the arguments used to argue for the status quo.  However, I feel that it is an intellectually arrogant position to hold and which effectively says most of the electorate is too dumb to understand some of these alternative systems, so we must not use them; football league tables, betting odds, the rules of cricket, Strictly Come Dancing and how to use a mobile phone are all mysteries to me, but no-one has ever said that they should be stopped. 

From my point of view, the FPTP is undoubtedly the simplest system, but it is also a result the crudest – a truly blunt instrument.  However, I understand the rationale for AV, PL and STV and what these electoral processes are aiming for, and I can work out simple scenarios for how individual constituencies could play out, even if I would not want to work out the detailed algorithms.  Therefore, while the detail can get a bit complex, I do not think that the concepts are that difficult, and isn’t a bit of sophistication in order for such an important influence on our day-to-day lives?

Linkage from representative back to constituency

For me, this is an important one, and even though many MPs have no genuine affinity back to their constituents, it remains for me one of the crucial strengths of FPTP, and so would be of AV.  However, while I originally felt this was a make-or-break point, I now feel that it is really a matter of balance, so I would not want to see vast multi-member constituencies as in Israel where there is one constituency for the whole country nor would I want to see a closed party list where voters cannot make a choice for a particular individual, albeit we don’t really ever know that much about them in the UK anyway.  Whereas I am no longer averse to having two or three member constituencies that better reflect the political views of most of the people within a geographic area.

Are votes valued?

This question covers a number of issues, but at its heart is a very important problem – while we are all told it is important to vote, most members of the electorate believe that their vote has no real influence on which party wins the election.  This is because under FPTP the winner takes all, even if the winner gets less than 50% of the votes (in fact almost all MPs are elected on less than 40% of the vote); therefore, the views relating to the “losing votes” are discarded and their votes “wasted”.  Therefore, even if a party consistently wins 20% of the electoral votes across the country, it may get no MPs into parliament if it comes second or third in every seat.  This results in general dissatisfaction with the whole political system, but also creates many of the undesirable side effects of FPTP:

  • Small amounts of votes can have big impacts on election results, so many policies are targeted towards capturing these marginal “floating” voters rather than the greater body of public opinion, while boundary changes take on special political poignancy and can encourage “gerrymandering”;
  • Tactical voting can become the order of the day, whereby voters vote against who they dislike rather than for whom they actually want, i.e. voting becomes negative rather than being a positive choice.

Therefore, if voting is so important, it then must follow that everyone’s vote should be valued.  As a result, FPTP cannot be advocated as the most desirable system, because it ignores the majority of votes in almost all constituencies.  The questions then move on to which system best balances the need to give value to each vote, and so most voters political viewpoints, while keeping some physical link back to a geographic place.

There are many detailed points for and against individual systems, but the above are the key criteria for me, and I feel that the debate boils down to the following key questions:

  • Do the various proposed systems work? Yes
  • Can the logic of the systems be explained in relatively simple terms? Yes
  • Are most votes valued? No for FPTP, but yes for the other three
  • Is there a link from a geographic location to representative? Yes for FPTP and AV, and can be for PL and STV
  • Should we have a single member constituency or multi-member? Now this is the real question and this is where the political debate should really be, rather than on which system is best.  My own view is that we should have multi-member constituencies of three MPs which would give all parties the potential to get a seat in each constituency, so each part of the country would be worth fighting for.  More than this and you start to lose the linkage back to constituency.  But in the end it becomes a matter of individual judgment.

The big negative against PL and STV seems to be the argument about unstable governments and that you do not get a definitive result for one party.  However, my counter-arguments would be that surely it is more important to have votes that have value and are not wasted than governments that are voted in on low percentage votes of the electorate, and that the coalition in Britain at present happened under the FPTP system and it seems an eminently mature and sensible bunch of politicians.  My biggest issue with the STV and AV system is that I personally do not think that your second or third preference votes should have as big a weighting as your 1st preference, but then there follows a hair-splitting debate about by how much?

So let’s look at a practical example.  For my own benefit, I have assumed that you merge my three local constituencies and I have used the 2010 results:

2010 results for Thirsk, Skipton/Ripon and Harrogate/Knaresborough

  Thirsk/Malton Skipton/Ripon Harrogate Total
                 
Conservative     20,167 53%     27,685 51%     24,305 46%     72,157 49%
Liberal Democrat       8,886 23%     17,735 32%     23,266 44%     49,887 34%
Labour       5,169 14%       5,498 10%       3,413 6%     14,080 10%
UKIP       2,502 7%       1,909 3%       1,056 2%       5,467 4%
Liberal Democrat       1,418 4% - 0% - 0%       1,418 1%
BNP - 0%       1,403 3%       1,094 2%       2,497 2%
Independent - 0%          315 1% - 0%          315 0%
Youth - 0%            95 0% - 0%            95 0%
Currency - 0%            84 0% - 0%            84 0%
      38,142 100%     54,724 100%     53,134 100%   146,000 100%

The first thing you notice are the variations in number of voters, however Thirsk & Malton was a quirk in that this constituency was more like a by-election in that voting was one month later, and so after the result of the General Election in 2010.

The second point is that while it is strongly Tory in this rural area, the Liberal Democrats do get a very good section of the electorate and are especially strong in Harrogate & Knaresborough.  So if you were to divide the enlarged constituency up to give 3 MPs, you would definitely give 1 to a Conservative and another to a Liberal Democrat, giving each one-third an MP to voice their political views, whereas currently you have 3 Conservative MPs.

The final point is what do you do about the third MP.  Now that’s where you need to get a mechanic that is fair in the distribution of the final chunk of votes.  Under STV, the balance of Conservative votes over the threshold (36,500) would be transferred to other candidates, which would go where?  There’s the rub, as they might actually all go to UKIP rather than Labour.  Under the PL system, I would have thought that you would get 2 Conservative MPs and 1 Liberal Democrat MP, but please correct me if I am wrong there.

Overall, I am pleased that I have looked in more detail at these different electoral systems as my point of view has changed.  Whereas I was an advocate of FPTP, I now feel that it is a broken system that must be changed.  However, I also think that this referendum is a waste of time, because while the sop is that this is potentially the start of changes to the electoral system, I feel that the questions being asked are wrong and do not really address the core issues.  Furthermore, I do not think that the detailed mechanics of the electoral system is actually something that should go to a referendum, rather it should be hammered out, debated and equations worked out by a committee of experts.

I think a referendum is needed, but that the question should be different, but absolutely fundamental to how Britain is governed.

All the major electoral systems have been devised and work, plus many of them are practised in the UK and other parts of the world.  Similarly, all systems have their issues, but none of them insurmountable, and while they are interesting for politicos, they are pretty boring for most people and (I believe) not crucial to the debate.  Therefore, whichever system is chosen can probably do a good job, so long as fair and sensible criteria are set for determining which system to chose.  So the electorate should not debate the intricacies of each system, but they should be asked to set the agenda for the bureaucrats.

So the question comes down to what should be the brief.  I feel that some of this has already been debated by the 1998 Jenkins Committee, which was set the following eminently sensible criteria:

  • The maintenance of a geographic link between MP and constituency
  • The need for stable government
  • The desire for broad proportionality
  • An extension of voter choice

I am not convinced by the last point as I feel that voter choice is pretty wide already, rather the issue is that, because of lack of proportionality and wasted votes, minority views do not get representation.  So I would change extension of voter choice to “minimisation of wasted votes”.

So you might ask what is there left to debate by the electorate.  Well there is one fundamental question and I feel this is the key question: 

  • “Does the electorate want multi-member constituencies, or not?”

We all want fair elections.  We all want our votes to mean something.  But the key systemic debate is should we have single or multi-member constituencies.  And while I believe multi-member constituencies would help fairness and proportionality, it would be a big change, from which would flow how best to run an election. 

A vote for single member constituencies would mean a debate between FPTP or AV, while for a multi-member system, the debate would be PL or STV.  Once you have decided on this key point, therefore, it becomes simply a matter of mechanics, so while the Electoral Reform Society prefers STV over the PL system, both work, are fair and provide proportionality, so would be better than the status quo.

My own view is for three member larger constituencies, but thereafter I am not especially concerned about whether we vote via the PL or STV system, so long as these work, which they do.  I find PL easier to understand, but am really fairly ambivalent between PL and STV.

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Recipe For Coronation Chicken

Saturday, August 14th, 2010

I had been looking for an excuse to try a recipe that I had pulled out of The Daily Telegraph from Xanthe Clay’s hunt for the Best British Recipes.  It is that classic of British fusion cooking and sentimentality for bygone Imperialism (rightly or wrongly) – Coronation Chicken.  Like many I have been brought up on the quickly put together using up of left over roast chicken – chop the meat into cubes, add some mayonnaise, some mango chutney and a few sultanas plus some curry powder or paste.  Great quick home food, but not particularly accomplished cuisine.

I claim no input into this other than to make it, but it really was worth the hassle as the delicate roasting and marinading create a wonderfully aromatic and sensual flavour, then the crème fraîche – mayonnaise mix was much nicer than mayonnaise on its own.  This recipe is from a reader of the Daily Telegaph called Simon Scutt and is simply brilliant, and while I made a few tweaks they were more out of having the wrong ingredients than anything else.

Recipe – Coronation Chicken
Serves 8 – 10 ( we were 12 including kids)

2 free range chickens
2 large oranges
2 organic bay leaves
2 Fairtrade organic cinnamon sticks
Olive oil
Salt & pepper (I used Steenbergs Perfect Salt)

For the stock:
1 large onion, chopped coarsely
2 cloves of garlic, chopped coarsely
1 glass of medium dry white wine
1 tsp fenugreek seeds
1 tsp ground cumin
4 green cardamom pods, crushed lightly
1tsp Steenbergs Organic Madras Curry Powder
1 finely chopped, small dried red chilli (not the seeds – I actually used a Hungarian mild chilli as there were 6 kids ranging in age from 2 to 11 years old, but a Bird’s Eye Chilli would give it more heat)

For the marinade:
½ tsp saffron filaments
1tsp Fairtrade turmeric
115ml / 4 fl oz milk
115ml / 4 fl oz white wine (as above)
1tbsp finely chopped fresh coriander
2tbsp dried mango (or per actual Daily Telegraph recipe, use mango chutney)
2tbsp organic sultanas
2tbsp chopped dried apricot

For the dressing:
2tsp Steenbergs Organic Madras curry powder
2tsp ground coriander
400ml /14fl oz crème fraîche
200ml / 7fl oz mayonnaise

To garnish:
Chopped fresh coriander
Paprika
Salad leaves

Chicken Stuffed With Orange, Bay And Cinnamon

Chicken Stuffed With Orange, Bay And Cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 400C / 200F.  Quarter the oranges, scrunch up the bay leaf and crush the cinnamon quills and mix these up roughly.  Stuff them inside the chickens, then season the outside of the chickens with a little bit of the olive oil to moisten and some salt & pepper rubbed all over (I actually used some Steenbergs Perfect Salt Seasoning as it was to hand, but salt and pepper is all it needs).  Roast the chickens in the oven for 20 minutes per lb/500g.  Leave to cool then strip the carcasses of the chicken meat.  Chop the chicken into decently sized bite-sized pieces, i.e. not too small, and put into big dish and keep in fridge.

Now take a large pot and put in the dry stock seasonings and dry fry for a couple of minutes to bring out the volatile oils, then take off the heat.  Put into this pan the chicken carcasses and skin.  Then pour the white wine over it all and add enough water to cover the chicken caracasses fully.  Put the lid onto the pot, bring to the boil, then leave to hubble away for 2 hours.  Strain the stock and skim off the fat and boiling the stock vigorously reduce it down to about 500ml/ 1 pint.  Leave to cool.

Dry Roasting Spices

Dry Roasting Spices

Chicken Carcass Ready To Make Stock

Chicken Carcass Ready To Make Stock

Dried Fruits Being Stewed Gently

Dried Fruits Being Stewed Gently

Now, start making the marinade.  Heat the saffron and turmeric gently in a dry saucepan for a few seconds, then add the milk and bring to the boil.  Stir in the wine, coriander, mango, sultanas and apricots.  Simmer gently for 10 minutes until the dried fruits all plump up.  Leave this mixture to cool and then add to the cooled stock.  I actually blended this into a smooth sauce first, which is more like the original Coronation Chicken recipe from Constance Spry, but this version by Simon Scutt kept the fruit in nice small chunks.

Stir in the stock – marinade mixture into the chicken pieces.  Cover and leave overnight in the fridge.  This is the magic stage which pulls out as much flavour from the chicken as possible and gives a subtly luxuriant, Eastern flavour to the chicken pieces.

Next morning, heat the curry powder and coriander in a dry pan for a few minutes to become fragrant.  Add the crème fraîche and mayonnaise in a bowl and stir in the spices.  Fold this dressing into chicken and marinade, which has set into a light jelly overnight.  This takes a few minutes of gentle stirring.

Bring the Coronation Chicken to room temperature and serve with green salads and a cool rice-based salad.  You can use new potatoes as well, which is what we did, and served it along with cold poached salmon as well, for a classic English summer buffet spread.

Daily Telegraph's Coronation Chicken

Daily Telegraph's Coronation Chicken

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Where’s The Economy Really At?

Friday, August 13th, 2010

I have been intrigued by comments by Mervyn King and others about the state of the economy, as I am not sure whether they ever take into account the real situation for small companies.  So I thought I would briefly blog some notes about Steenbergs at present.

Employment – Unemployment : one of our members of staff has just left to another business on site and we are advertising to fill that post at the Jobcentre Online (our favourite way of advertising), which is just the best service.  In the past, when we have sought to recruit for this same role, we would get maybe 3 or 4 applicants, but this time we have 20+ applicants and they are still coming in. 

Firstly, it’s a warehouse role, so where are the ladies who would like to do this, as while it is being offered as part-time and for anyone, we are only getting men applying and of all ages, but not a single woman.  Secondly, there appear to be a lot of local people who have been made redundant recently.  Thirdly, I am not sure whether there are really more people available, or whether because of the gloominess in the air, people have set are prepared to look at a part-time role where in the past they would only have looked for full-time.

Finally, we are changing a full-time role into a part-time role, or perhaps no role if we do not find the right person. Are we simply part of a general caution in the economy that has become fearful about recruiting, because of the fixed costs of financing such a role and the structural rigidity of hiring someone (and the emotional desire to keep that person employed once taken on) rather than bringing in temporary staff as and when we need them.

Credit quality: We have noticed a real fall off in the credit quality of businesses we deal with over the last 6 – 9 months.  Now my dad always says that “only businesses with no business have no bad debts”, but still people who do not pay their debts frustrate and waste a lot of time and energy.  I know that some of you will say use credit checking agencies and that will mitigate your risk, but most of the people we deal with have no credit history as they are small, start-ups or have no real debt history, hence we need to make our own judgment calls.  So while we have not had such a big bad debt as we had 3 years ago (I am crossing my fingers and touching as much wood as I can find as I write that spookily self-prophesying line), we certainly have had more in volume.  Most have been small debts of less than £100 each, but they add up and are truly infuriating. 

Many people this year just seem to be disappearing or telling us that they are closing down without paying out their debts, or the administrators get called in to protect the creditors – has anyone ever been paid out by the administrators as it is mysterious how the banks and the administrators themselves seem to take any available cash and leave the small creditors out to hang and dry?  It’s that eternal thing of the big being protected and the weak being screwed. 

Our worst recent experience was The Natural Kitchen that went down last year after they had ordered lots of kit from us just before going into administration – the annoyance was they only bought from us because as Northerners we did not know they were in dire straits (I am sure everyone in London knew!) and when we asked for the stuff back they said they would pay for half of the invoice as they knew they did not really own it, but they never did – rightly assessing that we would never drive from Yorkshire to London to take back the remaining stuff from the shelves; serves me right, I guess.  And Natural Kitchen are backed by millionaires from the property world and investment banking, who quaff their premier cru wines without a care for the hard earned cash of others - disgraceful, but completely legal – aaaargh, it still makes me grumpy!

Sales: actually, they are doing surprisingly well, but we continue to innovate, tweaking our designs, range and recipes.  A few buyers of bulk ingredients are trying to switch to non-organic from organic, but some of the less active ones from last year like Spicemanns/Kerry Ingredients and Elgar Foods and Walkers Shortbread are buying again, while new ones are coming on stream, such as Northumbrian Fine Foods and John Morley; we seem to do well with small batches of blended spices for organic Fairtrade mixed spice and organic sausage seasonings (e.g. for Northumbrian Quality Meats and Riverford Organic) that no-one else will or can do, including exports of our organic curry powders to the Continent.  Prices are stabilising with less currency turmoil, even though commodity pressure is still upwards, which gives better pricing forecasts overall; everyone was nervous in 2009 as costs were all over the place, and contracts from previous years had became onerous. 

General retail is only slightly up, but that’s partly our fault as we have chosen not to embrace with the big bears of the retailing world as we are not ready to lose control of who we are and what we stand for, even if it means sales will not go into the stratosphere; we are seeing good sales of Steenbergs organic bakery ingredients via distributors like Hider, Queenswood, Suma and Tree of Life and continued good sales into some of our bigger stores like Fenwicks, Selfridges and Wholefoods on High Street Kensington, as well as really exciting enquiries from overseas, such as Whole Foods Market in the US. 

Then the web store is going a storm, but that’s more to do with increased tinkering by Sophie and me on search engine optimisation and playing with social marketing (the challenges of Facebook, Flickr, Linkedin, Twitter and we are even looking at how to use Youtube), allied to a massive increase in the range of products that we sell.  We genuinely think we do www.steenbergs.co.uk differently from anyone else’s way of retailing (whether www.tesco.com or www.ethicalsuperstore.com), and will continue to do it in our own eccentric way, for better or worse, chosing products that fit with Steenbergs image as ethical, green and different. 

It’s tough trying to change the world, but every small step forward is a step in the right direction – we will not give in to the temptations of a quick, easy buck, however nice that would be.

Given that ramble, where are we then? Cautiously optimistic about Steenbergs, but gloomy about the state of the economy.

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Electoral Systems For The UK (Part 1)

Sunday, August 8th, 2010

I was roundly castigated for being a political ignoramus with my first look at electoral reform, which was probably sound.  However, far from being deterred, I still want to continue to try and understand the debate in spite of the heckling, and see if I can get to grips with the issues, arguments, and general blah! blah! blah! about this crucial issue. 

I am not sure that I have progressed much further, but here is how I see it; I ask for some patience as you read it as it will be posted over a few blogs rather than just one, with the first being about the main types of voting, then the next a general discussion and my conclusion.

Nuts And Bolts Of The Voting Systems

First-Past-The-Post

First-Past-The-Post (“FPTP”) is the current system in the United Kingdom.  With FPTP, you divide the country up into as many constituencies as you want representatives (i.e. one representative per constituency), then get voters to make their choices and the elected representative in each constituency is the one that gets the most votes, however small the margin between first place and second place.

Alternative Vote

The Alternative Vote (“AV”) system is used in Australia for its House of Representatives and most of the Legislative Assemblies of it States and Territories.  AV is an extension of FPTP in that you still divide the country up into as many constituencies as you want representatives, so AV still results in one representative per voting region, but it enables voters to express their preferences for alternative representatives if their own initial choice cannot win.  So when voting, you rank the candidates in order of preference until you can no longer express an opinion, ranking them 1, 2 etc.  When the votes get counted, if one of the candidates gets a clear majority, i.e. someone has been ranked 1st by more than all the other 1st preferences combined, then they are elected.  However, if no-one has a clear majority, the count starts analysing the preferences of the weaker candidates: in reverse order, you take the candidate that came last and then determine the 2nd preference, i.e. alternative vote, for those who voted for the bottom candidate and allocate those to the remaining candidates and recount, continuing this process until one candidate has over 50% of the votes, and so becoming the elected representative.

Party Lists

Proportional Representation is what I always called the Party List system per the Electoral Reform Society.  PL is, also, the system already used in England, Scotland and Wales for electing MEPs, taking an open party list approach.  The basics of PL are simple: starting with a multi-member constituency, the voters vote, then you work down the list of votes cast to elect representatives in proportion to how many votes each gets until all the representatives’ positions have been filled. 

The complexities in this relatively natural system relate to how you actually construct the system:

(i)                  Voting lists – these can be open or closed, i.e. you vote for candidates who are named on the ballot paper (“open party list”), or you vote for a political party without knowing who the candidates are (“closed party list”), then after the election the political parties work out which candidates they want to represent you in their order of preference;

(ii)                Shape of the constituency – in PL, all constituencies are multi-member, and the larger the constituency and so the greater the number of potential representatives, the more proportional the end result, i.e. the more representative the MPs are of the voters’ actual voting preferences;

(iii)               Minimum voting percentage – most countries (except for example the Republic of South Africa) set a minimum threshold that the minority parties need to exceed before they can get any representation, which seems to be predominantly in the range of 1.5% – 5%. 

(iv)              The final wrinkle is how you actually calculate the number of seats to give each party, which (while fundamental to the actual system) is largely irrelevant to the discussion of the best voting system as the detail can be decided afterwards through an analysis of the various mathematical calculations together with a bit of political horse trading.

Single Transferrable Vote

Single Transferable Vote (“STV”) is used in Northern Ireland for Assembly, European and local elections, most elections in the Republic of Ireland and local elections in Scotland.  In 1917, STV was, also, chosen by the House of Commons for roughly half of constituencies with the remainder to use AV, but this never passed through the House of Lords and was dropped.  It is, also, the preferred choice of the Electoral Reform Society.

STV works on the basis of multi-member constituencies with representatives found via a quota system; representatives are determined by calculating a quota that successful candidates must reach to be elected for each constituency and then working out those candidates that get over that threshold in the constituency. 

Under STV, voters put a number “1” against their first choice, a “2” against their second choice and so on until they no longer have any views.  They can stop at any point, so do not need even to make a second choice.  All the valid ballot papers are then counted up and the threshold calculated as the number of valid ballot papers divided by the number of people to be elected plus one.  So per Electoral Reform Society, “with 100 ballot papers and 3 places to be filled, the quota would be 25”, i.e. 100 ÷ 4 (3+1).

Next, the votes have to be allocated to candidates and to available places to be filled.  This is done by sorting the ballot papers firstly into first preferences.  If any candidate has more first preferences than the quota they are immediately elected.  The next stage is to transfer any surplus votes for those elected candidates, being the difference between a candidate’s actual vote and the threshold, i.e. if I got 33 votes, then 8 of my votes could be transferred to other candidates.  But to prevent the argument as to which votes to transfer, all my votes are transferred but with a reduced value per vote and then allocated to second preference candidates.

After allocating all second preferences, the votes are counted up again and you see who has passed the threshold and then allocate them to places.  If they have not, then the candidate with the fewest votes is excluded and their votes transferred to voters’ second preferences.  This process of reallocating surpluses and excluded candidates’ votes, plus re-counting continues until all the places have been filled in descending order.

Interestingly, the Electoral Reform Society suggests reallocating the whole of any surplus from the first round, but only the last batch of surpluses from later rounds.  It views this as a matter of expediency, which seems bizarre as it inconsistently claims that taking a bit more time and using a computer programme is a small price to pay for the increased fairness and complexity of STV in the first place.  Also, I am not sure why this is called Single Transferrable Vote as while an elector does have a single vote, it is not really that single vote that actually counts as it can be reallocated after being counted once (albeit at a reduced value), while it may, also, be your second or third preference that is chosen.

Hybrid Systems

There are various hybrid systems ranging from AV+ to Total Representation, however these seem to be overly complex and do not really improve on the systems as above.  I have not considered them further, but you can find out more about all the systems at the Electoral Reform Society.

Constituencies

It is interesting that the Coalition is including a question about constituency sizes in the referendum questions for 2011, and that the Labour Party is getting itself into a tizz about this second question.  Also, being in an area that has been boundary-changed twice in the last 15 years, I feel particularly sensitive about this issue.

Having thought a bit about electoral reform now, the nature of your constituency is vital.  To make it fair, each elected representative must relate to almost equal numbers of constituents, so (taking into account movement of people) the shape and size of constituencies should be checked every 2 elections or 10 years.  Secondly, the size of the constituency must not get so large that constituents become so diverse that their very specific local issues get lost in the bigger picture.  So it is a balance between number of constituents, equality and overall size.

That is easy in principle, however you then need to make sure that there is some geographic logic to it as people (or at least me) feel a regional kinship to certain places and geographic regions and you must pay heed to these.  For example, you could create a huge constituency of Yorkshire, but I feel no linkage to South Yorkshire and the issues for Sheffield are not the same as for little old Ripon.  On a more micro scale, we are now part of the Harrogate constituency having been part of the Vale of York, yet my issues are rural, small town rather than those of Harrogate which are more suburban and looking towards Leeds, so for me Vale of York was better.

Also, and I will come to this towards the Summary & Conclusion stage, the referendum question should perhaps be simplified to one of single member or multi-member constituencies, rather than what the voting system is itself.

Voting Itself

This is another key issue.  In the end, not enough people are engaged in the political system often enough, which then causes questions of legitimacy of elections.  Which is the most popular political party when most people do not vote, even though politicians impact all our lives hugely?  Is a government’s mandate legitimate if turn out is low?

It would be possible to make it a legal obligation for people to vote, however this has implications on personal freedom.  The only way I can see that us, the people, will become more engaged in politics and care about voting is if politicians engage with the electorate more, respect them more and make the political system smaller, less bureaucratic and recreate it on a more human scale rather than being a huge, amorphous beast that has no master and no heart.

Discussion follows in next blog…

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