I've been waiting almost ten weeks for a refund from an airline, which had originally promised to do it in six weeks (which I thought was bad enough).
So what do we think the reason is? Cashflow crisis, incompetence or cynicism bordering on banditry?
I hesitate to name them as I'm sure there are probably laws against accusing companies of being insolvent but one really does wonder how difficult it is to process a refund.
I flew back to London City Airport from Dublin yesterday.
I didn't have to go through passport control.
Is that normal?
The platforms at Limehouse DLR Station were narrowed rather severely a few weeks ago by having scaffolding and wooden planks positioned along the length. I would say that the depth has been reduced by at least 50cm - possibly more.
The work appears to be temporary and, as both platforms have been similarly mutilated, I'm guessing it's something to do with the three-car project rather than the bridge to the c2c station but the narrowing is noticeable and borders on dangerous at peak periods.
Surely this isn't just being done to create storage space? Anybody know?
Walking back from the cinema at West India Quay last night, I looked up at the DLR viaduct and something didn't seem right. There were huge numbers of workers in high-visibility vests scurrying around, pulling ropes and driving machinery.
There was still about ten hours left until the system had to be open again but something didn't seem right... I said something like: "looks like we'll be walking tomorrow".
And so it has turned out...
http://londonconnections.blogspot.com/2008/05/engineers-break-dlr.html
I thought they would over-run because of the weather (it was pouring down) but, if the first comment above is to be believed, the problem was actually with one of the bridges.
If so, why didn't they bother to email those on their mailing list once they realised so we could make alternative plans?
If I understand this correctly, one of the major ratings agencies incorrectly rated some instruments in 2006. This is surely an open goal for anybody wanting to blame any subsequent losses on someone else.
I really wouldn't want to be Moody's or their insurers right now...
(Question: who can say they knew what a CPDO was before they heard about this story?)
I don't know why I insist on listening to the Today programme. It's not healthy to get so stressed so early in the morning by their one-sided reports, determination to follow their own agenda and insistence on persisting with the "socialist homily of the day" slot at 7:45.
This morning's show was a classic, though.
Evan Davies's failure to understand the difference between "volume" and "mass" during a discussion on alcohol (8mg vs 10ml in a unit) was minor enough but still amusing.
But the best part was James Naughtie's embarrassment of an invterview with the boss of Glaxo SmithKline.
He was determined to throw some mud about Seroxat, seemingly thinking that vague questions, unsupported assertions and sheer aggression could substitute actually having a clue about the topic or having been briefed.
I thought Jean-Pierre Garnier humoured him more than was necessary before tearing him apart. You could sense Naughtie floundering at the end and it made for a most satisfying experience.
Being reminded that even the most "respected" members of the press are really just a bunch of cowboys is still somewhat disconcerting, however.
My brother was down this weekend (primarily to attend a party being held by a theatre company who had recently performed a play he wrote).
Rather than go into town or stay local, as usual, I thought his arrival would be a good excuse to go somewhere different for a change.
So we went to Old Street. Now, I know this area has passed through "scary", "fashionable" and "mainstream" on its journey to "unremarkable" but I have managed to avoid going out there until now so it was new to me.
We went to an enjoyably idiosyncratic bar and had a great night. Perhaps we'll go there again sometime. Probably in 2011 or something, knowing how long it takes me to change my habits.
I was too trusting.
Virgin decided that a seven hour delay was insufficient. So they cancelled... sorry, "renamed" VS15 to VS115 and "rescheduled" it to tomorrow afternoon. Nice.
There's a minor problem. I am only supposed to be there until Wednesday lunchtime.
When I looked ahead to another day in transit, I realised it made no sense to continue.... I just wouldn't get any value from the conference now. I'd be a zombie all day on Tuesday and then it would be time to go home again on Wednesday.
What a complete waste of time (and money) and a big disappointment.... the conference I'm missing out on is one of IBM's best.
I am not happy.
I think this extract from Virgin's "Flight Tracker" page says it all:
Flight number:
VS 015 Departure date: 06 Apr 2008 Route: London (LGW) to Orlando (MCO) Scheduled departure time: 06 Apr 12:45 Estimated departure time: 06 Apr 19:45 Scheduled arrival time: 06 Apr 16:55 Estimated arrival time: 06 Apr 23:37
Were it not for the fact that I am committed to present at this conference, I think I'd probably cancel my reservation and go home.
[UPDATE 17:09.... A small crumb of comfort. I queued up at the information desk and begged to be upgraded. 10,000 miles lighter, I'm now in one of the best seats in Premium Economy (75H). Not Upper Class but better than nothing!]
I returned home from Vienna this evening and amongst my mail was a bag with a TfL roundel on the franking strip. What could it be?!
Imagine my delight when I opened it to find:
Fantastic!
Many thanks to David Sanders at DLR and The Londonist for tipping me off.
So, those wacky pranksters at TfL have decided that getting from the DLR to the District Line at Bank is an unnecessary luxury in these times of austerity. Which is, presumably, why they've decided to ban such things for a year.
The proposed alternatives are laughable:
Travel from Limehouse to Canning Town to pick up the Jubilee? Go to Mile End to get the District? Quite apart from how far I'd have to go out of my way, are they really suggesting I pay to enter zone 3 in order to get from zone 2 to zone 1?
The most obvious route for me would be simply to leave Bank and walk down to Cannon Street.
Except... that would be two journeys.
So I wrote to them.
It turns out that they're going to make an exception and charge people who leave at Bank and re-enter at Cannon Street within thirty minutes as if they'd only done one journey.
I'm almost tempted deliberately walk really slowly and get a coffee to make the most of my hard-fought-for new rights.
Here's the answer they sent:
Dear Mr Brown
Thanks for your email about pay as you go charges during the current interchange arrangements at Bank.I'm sorry for the inconvenience these arrangements will cause.
I can confirm that you will be able to touch out at Bank and touch in at Cannon Street without being charged for two journeys. This will be considered as a continuous journey providing you do so within a period of 30 minutes.
I hope this clarifies the position for you and please contact me again if I can be of any help in the future.
Kind regards
[Name removed]
Customer Service Advisor
Central Line
Of course, "London Connections" have a nice diagram that suggests some routes might be open.... (don;t tell anyone though...)
I'm on my way to Vienna for training. I had really wanted to fly from London City Airport but there were no flights that worked.
So, instead, I'm flying out from Heathrow :-(
I considered flying BA but, because Austrian Airlines can at least bring me back to City Airport, I decided to fly out with them as well.
An unintentionally inspired decision!
I am in Terminal 2. No queues at check-in and minimal queue at security. And at least the possibility that my bags will arrive.
It wasn't all good, however. I've just had the most strange "fish pie" from the air-side Wetherspoon's. I'm not sure why I went there as I didn't have a drink.
Either way, I'd love to know if anybody could identify the fish I ate. There were two main fish-like elements to the pie: red cubes and orange cubes.
I'm guessing the red pieces were Salmon but I have absolutely no idea what the orange pieces were. They didn't taste smoked (well, they didn't taste of anything, really) so what on earth could they have been?
I thought I'd visit scary South East London on Tuesday so took the DLR to King George IV so I could take the Woolwich Ferry over the river... I'd never done it before.
Before I got on the ferry, I had a walk around the riverfront.
I stumbled upon what I can only describe as a factory farm where they grow satellite dishes.
There were big ones, small ones, baby ones, portable ones, oddly shaped freakish ones. Most bizarre.
The name of the site was particularly funny. Apparently it's a "Teleport". One shudders to think what goes on there.
There's a small glimpse of it in this photo... but the real thing is much scarier....
Ian linked to the website of "New London Architecture" the other week.
I was in the area the afternoon so popped around.
What a fantastic place!
The centrepiece of the venue is a massive map of Central London with 3-D models of the buildings. There is a small photograph of it here. One could spend hours looking at it.
I spent some time in the book shop and stumbled upon the reference section. They have a collection of periodicals from organisations such as the Institution of Civil Engineers.
One of the magazines I flipped through was a special edition about the building of the high-speed link between St. Pancras and the Channel Tunnel. More technical detail than you could ever wish for (if that sort of thing rocks your boat...). They're not available to purchase, sadly.
Naturally, the first thing I did when I arrived home was try to find the issue on the web instead.
The individual articles are provided as separate PDFs but it's well worth browsing through.
If you've ever wanted to know about ventilation shafts, the building of the new Thameslink Station under St. Pancras or the cost of the project then look no further!
It's official! The US Department of Homeland Security doesn't think I'm a criminal.
My last two trips to the United States have been marred by delays when passing through Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
On both occasions, the agent spent a long time studying his computer screen and my passport before calling for an "escort" and having me taken to a room for further screening.
This screening consisted of my being forced to wait for nearly an hour until my name was called and I was told I was free to go - with no explanation for why I was kept.
Speaking to some colleagues on a discussion forum at work, it transpired I was not the only person this had happened to. There were various theories on why it happened and how to stop it from happening again. The most obvious approach - stop going to America - had simplicity on its side but was likely to be somewhat career limiting for somebody who works in the IT industry.
The next best alternative was to try reasoning with the system. But how?
After much digging, I stumbled upon the "Traveler Redress Inquiry Program" (TRIP).
I filled out an online form, printed it out, attached photocopies of the documents they asked for and sent it off. And promptly forgot all about it.
I don't even recall when I sent it - it was many months ago, though.
I returned home from work today to find a letter from the Department of Homeland Security. It appears that they have investigated my case and, although they cannot guarantee I'll never be stopped again (the stopping appears to be a result of their matching algorithms), I will be permitted to show this letter to the agent and ask that they read it. No guarantees, of course... but at least it's something.
I'll be in Orlando with work at the start of April so I guess I'll soon get a chance to try it out!
The ongoing Northern Rock disaster and a note from a colleague reminded me that very few people have any idea what is behind a lot of this mess.
One of the best descriptions I've seen was on a mathematics blog (one with an enjoyably low opinion of engineers who opine on matters economic).
However, my colleague has gone one better. He discovered a presentation that explains it all. Well, not quite everything. And it's not quite accurate in all respects. Or, indeed, in many. Still quite fun though.
I can't decide if the dessert I enjoyed last night was the best in ages or a candidate for "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares"
I was staying at the De Vere St. David's Park near Chester with colleagues and had the strangest dessert I've had in ages.
The crème brûlée had the customary caramelised sugar on top. On top of that, however, was an extra coating: crystals of the exploding candy that used to be so popular when I was a kid (imagine a sensation of your teeth exploding).
On the side was a lump of purple ice-cream that tasted exactly like Hubba Bubba - sitting on a sticky brown square of goo that had almost exactly the consistency of a chunk of chewing gum.
The whole dessert was monumentally childish and I can't decide if it was horrific or a work of utter genius.
I'm inclined to think the latter...!
Tim Worstall makes an interesting point today about Caroline Lucas's failure to understand that the whole purpose of tradeable emissions permits is that it allows those who find it difficult to reduce their emissions to pay those who find it easier to do it on their behalf.
That is: if it's going to cost me £100 to reduce my emissions by some amount but somebody else can do it for a tenner (and they wouldn't otherwise have done it), then surely it's better for me to pay them instead? We get the same reduction and I'm left with some money to invest back into my business or whatever!
The problem is that the environmentalists just see this as me shirking my responsibility and getting away without paying the "full cost" of my evil behaviour.
This is, of course, ludicrous nonsense but the argument seems to appeal to some people.
So why not turn the argument around to help them understand?
Rather than focus on the cost of a unit emission reduction, why not focus on how far emissions can be reduced for a unit cost?
Going back to my example: for £100, I could reduce my emissions by some amount if I do it myself. Or, I could pay my cleverer friend £100 and they could reduce their emissions by ten times as much - for the same price!
Now, I'm clearly not suggesting people should be forced to buy permits for emissions they're not making (which would be the consequence of forcing me to actually pay that £100 to my friend) but surely it's obvious that the system that allows more to be done with less is the preferable one.
... hmmm.... I don't know what they mean.
Surely I can't have been the only person who thought the only part of "Grandstand" worth enduring was the theme tune?
It would seem not :-)
(courtesy of b3ta, of course).
I have been increasingly interested in the topic of Complex Event Processing of late so was delighted to see the news that we have just bought AptSoft.
Can't wait to get my hands on it and to have a play.
Like half the world, I popped over to the Inns of Court and the Royal Courts of Justice on Saturday afternoon to see what all of the fuss was about.
I can't believe I hadn't been there before. If I'd known I could continue an Oxbridge-esque existence, in London, as a grown-up, I'd have forgotten about messing arount in IT and become a lawyer. What wonderfully pleasant places the Inner and Middle Temples are.
I actually spent most of the afternoon in the Royal Courts of Justice. I've long said that I'd like to watch a trial one day (but never got round to doing it) so sitting through a mock assault trial in one of the real courtrooms sounded like a good idea.
Sitting at the back of court four for two hours made me realise several things
I enjoyed the experience, however, and thought the event was excellent.
One observation jumped out at me: cross-examination is actually rather difficult. Formulating a list of questions designed to draw useful details out of a potentially unwilling witness, in front of an audience, whilst never being completely sure where the conversation will lead is not an easy skill to master.
In many ways, it is rather similar to the skills required of a successful salesperson when meeting a new prospect for the first time. Questioning models designed to draw information out of clients, assimilate the learned information, use this information to influence future questioning, whilst avoiding going round in circles is really hard and I had missed the parallels until now.
I met up with a friend for drinks after work this evening.
We managed to stumble upon a remarkably pleasant street a short stroll from Bank Station; a most unexpected event. Nice places near Bank? Impossible!
I think I'll be wandering along Watling Street and drinking at Williamson's Tavern again. Most pleasant.
Have you ever wondered how they make Liquid Crystal Displays? How they manage to control each pixel separately? How they do this without the millions of separate circuits somehow being visible and ruining the image?
Wonder no more.
It turns out that Indium-Tin Oxide is both electrically conductive and transparent - and so ideal for making LCD screens.
Who knew?!
(Well, not me, obviously).
I arrived home last night to a cold flat. Which was odd, because the super-timer-thermostat (official name) is remote-controlled, battery-powered and rather wonderful... power cuts are not a reason for it to mess up. And I'm not sure there had been a power cut anyway.
So I opened the wardrobe (for this is where the boiler is - don't ask). A red light was flashing. This is not usually a good sign.
The display was also blinking: "0.6".
Now, I happen to know that, when the boiler is idle, the display reports the pressure in the heating circuit. I know this because I am boring and read the manual when the boiler (Glow Worm 30CXi) was installed earlier this year.
Normally, it reads about 1.5 - and the instructions on the front say it should be at least 1.0 in normal operation.
I suspected a leak but could see nothing obvious (in other words, the floor wasn't wet and there was nothing oozing out of any of the radiator valves).
So, I used the blue plastic knob to top up the heating circuit and the pressure rapidly rose to 1.1.
The boiler worked for the rest of the night and the flat was warm. At bed time, the pressure had dropped to 0.9, which I thought odd. The water in the heating circuit was now warm, so I would have expected the pressure to be higher than 1.1, since the 1.1 reading was taken when cold.
I didn't top it up but fell asleep with a sense of foreboding.
Sure enough, I woke up feeling cold this morning. I jumped out of bed (something I never do unless I have an important problem to solve!) and checked the boiler.
Back to 0.6 and a flashing red light. Arghhhh.
There must be a leak. But where? Under the bathroom tiles? Under the new stone floor in the kitchen? I hope not. Under the laminate floor? None would be particularly desirable.
Regardless, I topped it up again and called the plumber at 9. He shared my suspicion of a leak and is coming out later.
In the meantime, I pulled some boxes out of the airing cupboard and noticed that carpet was damp.
Hurrah!
The leak is in the airing cupboard.
I'm not sure where in the airing cupboard. But in there somewhere. So it's not as bad as it could have been.
I left work a little early today as I had some calls to make, which could be done from home.
I knew that today was the last day of Eurostar at Waterloo so I changed my route so that I could cross the main concourse before heading down to the drain.
None of the press reports have picked up on it yet but I could swear that the singer on their make-shift stage (with at least five TV cameras trained on it) was Lily Allen, attempting to sing "Waterloo Sunset".
Most odd.
IBM snaps up Cognos. No, not IBM buying Cognos... I know when that happened.
Look at the first line of the report:
"IBM, the software and consulting giant..."
Now, I must admit I don't make a habit of reading news reports about my employer but that is the first time I can recall anybody describing IBM as a "software and consulting" company. Perhaps the message is starting to get through :-)
John Redwood (yes, him) blogged today about the A13. This is the main road from the East End to the M25 and is one that, whenever I hire a StreetCar, I seem to use more than any other.
As he says, it has the potential to be a very useful road but the planners have decided that, for large stretches of this modern dual carriageway, the speed limit should be 40mph.
As I am paranoid about getting points on my licence, I tend to obey speed limits in urban areas and so have tried various techniques to regulate my speed, which is harder than one would expect - primarily due to the fact that the road could clearly safely support speeds much higher.
The technique that works best is simply to drive in a far lower gear than necessary. The increasing engine noise works very well as an alert if one's speed begins to creep up.
As Mr Redwood pointed out in his article, this has the perverse effect of causing more fuel to be burned than is necessary, and probably results in lower air quality for nearby residents I imagine.
There is definitely scope here for the creation of a truly unholy alliance between motorists and environmentalists to campaign for a rule change of mutual benefit. Bring it on!
Apparently, I use "normative" language to promote a "positive" agenda.
The country's best talk show host, Alan Partridge, once suffered from a similar problem:
"Philip Parsons in the Times called the show moribund. Well I looked up moribund in my dictionary..."
In these more modern times, I asked google to help me understand what "normative" and "positive" meant...
And Richard Murphy, my accuser, was completely correct.
Taking the second definition, we get a sense of what he was driving at:
"Refers to value judgments as to 'what ought to be,' in contrast to positive which is about "what is."
He believes that positive language is the preserve of economists and those "on the right who buy the conventional economic model"
Again, he may well be right.
So, the question is: how are those who believe that economics does have valid points to make on political matters - and who believe that outcomes matter more than intentions - to communicate effectively with those who don't?
If the "normative" folk aren't going to switch into "positive" language, the only option is for the "positives" to move in the other direction.
So, readers, what would a sane economic argument look like if it were presented in a normative manner? Anybody know? Anybody want to take a stab?!
All nine of them. The mind boggles. How on earth can I have nine of them?!
FOR THE ATTENTION OF:
Claude Moraes MEP
Charles Tannock MEP [REPLIED]
Robert Evans MEP
John Bowis OBE MEP [REPLIED]
Gerard Batten MEP [REPLIED]
Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP
Syed Kamall MEP
Mary Honeyball MEP
Jean Lambert MEPLondon
Saturday 10 November 2007
Dear Syed Kamall, Robert Evans, Baroness Sarah Ludford, Charles Tannock, Mary Honeyball, Jean Lambert, Gerard Batten, John Bowis OBE and Claude Moraes,
I read with astonishment today that the EU's accounts have not been signed off by its auditor for the last twelve years - and look likely to suffer the same fate again this year. This is a disgrace, and borders on the corrupt.
Please can you let me know what you are doing to ensure the EU sorts out its accounts?
Furthermore, please can you confirm that you have supported, and will continue to support, those EU workers, such as Marta Andreasen, who speak out on these matters, at great risk to their livelihood?Yours sincerely,
Richard G Brown
Thanks to "Write To Them" for the technology and "Burning our Money" for the idea.
[UPDATE 2007-11-11 12:38: I've already had three replies! Will update the names as more replies come in. Have also updated affiliations. Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem, Green, UKIP]So, we've announced WebSphere MQ Low Latency Messaging...
I've been following the development of this product inside IBM with interest. Many of my clients are in the financial markets and, hard as it may be to believe, data volumes of this magnitude are not in the world of fantasy for them.
I'm looking forward to talking to them about it!
The scary thing is that this story is completely plausible:
"A LOTTERY scratchcard has been withdrawn from sale by Camelot - because players couldn't understand it.
The Cool Cash game - launched on Monday - was taken out of shops yesterday after some players failed to grasp whether or not they had won.
To qualify for a prize, users had to scratch away a window to reveal a temperature lower than the figure displayed on each card. As the game had a winter theme, the temperature was usually below freezing.But the concept of comparing negative numbers proved too difficult for some Camelot received dozens of complaints on the first day from players who could not understand how, for example, -5 is higher than -6."
If some people are so numerically challenged that even a scratchcard proves beyond them, then that has to be an opportunity here... I just don't know what it is.
via Chicken Yoghurt
The BBC's Newsnight had a lighthearted piece on "Stella Artois" last night.
I stopped drinking Stella several years ago as it would reliably leave me with the most terrible headaches the next morning. They felt different to the muzziness one might ordinarily suffer from after drinking too much and I didn't like it.
However, that wasn't really the point of this posting...
One of the interviewees in the piece was an anthropologist and she made a remarkable claim. She suggested that, when offered a drink that somebody thinks contains alcohol, they will subsequently act as if it did, even if it didn't. That doesn't sound credible. Is it?
Apparently a Docklands Light Railway train escaped from a station without a "Passenger Service Agent" onboard.
The Londonist asked what Serco could do to stop it happening again and so remove the possibility of a stranded trainload of passengers on a viaduct somewhere if a train broke down.
They needn't worry. Serco should launch a "Citizen Reserve Driver" programme and sign up thousands of Docklanders.... just think of the sheer number of geeky train passengers who would pay to be allowed to drive a DLR from time to time :-p
The fantastic "Overcoming Bias" blog has a piece on how we really shouldn't try to solve a problem until we've done as much as we can to understand the problem.
It is astonishing how difficult it is to follow this advice, even when one tries to.
I consciously try to spend most of my initial meetings with clients asking questions, developing my model of their problem and establishing what properties any solution should have. However, it's really hard... one cannot help mentally considering solutions (or solution fragments) and using them to drive the questioning.
Part of this is healthy: many clients have multiple problems or multiple priorities and so driving questioning in a direction where you have a chance of being helpful is clearly useful. However, considering potential solutions gets in the way of developing a deeper understanding of the client's problems because, as the article suggests, the human brain has a very strong tendency to hold onto a solution once it has been conceived.
I found a language to articulate this on a course a few months ago. It was based on Huthwaite's "SPIN Selling" methodology. The course was one of the most useful (and challenging) ones I've been on and was focussed pretty much exclusively on addressing the problem identified in the Overcoming Bias piece. Specifically, a structured model for questioning that allowed one to arrive naturally at the fullest possible statement of the client's problem and needs prior to moving on to solutioning.
This article was timely; it has reminded me I need to make a renewed effort to implement it!
I am on training at our Staines location. It is second only to Bedfont in its difficulty to visit if you live in East London. As the education was a two-day affair, I elected to stay in a hotel overnight.
It was quite an entertaining experience:
Fortunately, the queue wasn't too long and it gave me time to peruse the bill. It seems that Sheraton believe it is acceptable to add items to your bill that you haven't agreed to. This is called attempted theft anywhere else, isn't it? They had added a £1 charge for "UNICEF". As charities go, I suspect UNICEF are one of the good ones. They're almost certainly less corrupt and do more good for the world than the average UN organisation.
However, I prefer to choose where to donate my money and I like to ensure they can claim back the tax on my contribution.
Sadly, asking for a charity donation to be removed from one's bill - especially one for a quid - makes you look mean. Well, I hate being emotionally blackmailed more than I hate being frowned upon so I asked the receptionist if UNICEF would be able to claim back tax (knowing that the answer would be no). She didn't know so I asked for it to be taken off.
So, yes... I'm a coward. I couldn't bring myself to complain about the principle so I let her believe I upset that they wouldn't get enough money from this little act of involuntary altruism. Not my finest hour... but then outcomes do, after all, matter more than intentions.
However, I'm not an ogre and I've been meaning to reassess my charitable giving for some time now (I keep meaning to cancel my Amnesty membership). So does anybody have any ideas of a charity that I should divert my Amnesty donations to (with an uplift to account for my miserly behaviour this morning...)?
[EDIT 2007-10-30 13:56 - mino typos corrected]
Roo (many, many weeks ago) asked what I thought of Tim Harford's "The Undercover Economist".
Short answer: I loved it.
I first heard about it on a "Radio Economics" PodCast, where he read the introduction and the first chapter
The rest of the book was equally enjoyable.
The introduction sticks in my mind, however, because it was really a modern reworking of "I, Pencil". That is: not one person in the world knows how to start with raw materials and end up with pencil.
Milton Friedman explained it well:
Attentive readers (all three of them...) may have noticed my blogging has been intermittent to non-existent of late. I've been busy.
Busy learning about ants.
Well, busy working and decorating and stuff. But I did also happen to listen to a fascinating PodCast about ants. And I suppose I could have blogged during that hour had I not been listening to the recording. The pOdcASt (how do you capitalise it?) was about ant colonies and how order emerges even though there is no leader to direct things. It made me think back to my holiday in Provence in July. On holiday, I spent many, many hours on the sun lounger (under the umbrella) reading and watching the ants carry away the various crumbs we had dropped. My ant fascination was such that no fewer than two friends who were on that holiday bought me ant-related products for my recent birthday.
Anyway, the podcast was very interesting and I recommend it.
