Stooshe create a stooshie!!

The other day I heard a girl from 'Sarf London' from the band Stooshe explaining that their chosen name derives from the word 'Stoosh'; apparently urban slang for something expensive (amongst other definitions which are still disturbing me). Now I feel compelled to expound on this (oh no, not again they cried).

Having lived in Scotland most of my life, I should point out to visitors that if they are talking to locals about a ‘stooshie’ (stushie) in the context of "a girl who thinks she's nicer than she is", they will almost certainly be faced with a blank stare as the word has quite a different meaning North of the Border. Here a ‘stooshie’ is a “commotion”, typically used in the context ‘create a stooshie’, ‘cause a bit of a stooshie’ or ‘make a wee stooshie’.

‘Stramash’, which has a similar meaning (officially described as “a disturbance, a noisy racket”) is possibly a little better known beyond Caledonia’s fair shores and has its origins on the football field, but has now passed into the vernacular. ‘Stramash’ would typically be contextualised as ‘quite a stramash’ and carry more weight than a ‘stooshie’.

An example by way of illumination. If you steal a Scotsman’s pitch in a London shop doorway with your own ‘Hungry and Homeless’ sign, you are likely to ‘create a bit of a ‘stooshie’ – don’t believe me, try it for yourself! If you then press on and steal his bottle of Buckie there will be ‘quite a Stramash’ – don’t ever try this without a large adult and an ambulance standing by!

A Startling Glimpse of the Bleedin' Obvious

I am either becoming significantly brighter as I age (which contradicts all the counsel my dear wife provides) or experts and pundits in the media are increasingly expounding the bleedin’ obvious as if it were startling insight.

The other day the latest census figures were released which showed that the combined population of England and Wales has increased by 3.7 million during the last decade.

I then listened to an expert on the radio invited to analyse the results and he pronounced that the increase was due to a combination of three factors; nett migration, people living longer and the birth rate. I considered this expert’s testimony for an instant and mused about other factors which could influence the total population and only came up with abduction (by aliens and slavers). I dissmissed illeagal immigrants as self-evidently they would not ask to be included in a census (Oh!!, "Hoised with his own petard").
So I concluded that this was yet another example of an expert stating the bleedin’ obvious presumably for the enlightenment of the ‘hard of thinking’.

Now that’s what I call music! - of a sorts.

In the 60’s and 70’s I bought lots of vinyl LPs and recall exchanging many of them because of flaws. Typically I would check the disc for scratches then listen for pressing faults. Most often this was evident from periodic hiss on the first track and high frequency distortion on the last track. If this was okay then I’d look at how far off-centre the hole was or how warped the disc was to judge how much ‘wow’ this would cause. (Wow is the pitch variation created by the stylus moving from side-to-side or up-and-down as it follows the groove). Altogether I was a pretty disappointed by the product quality and rarely got a perfect copy but had to accept the least worst. But now I hear music pundits talking fondly about vinyl records, waxing on about the ‘warmth’ and ‘depth’ of the tone compared with ‘cold, flat’ CDs. I find this somewhat difficult to comprehend; listening to a piece of music with clicks, hiss, wow and flutter, poor high and low frequency definition, does not make me feel warm or deep but just makes me feel irritable. I have thought there must be a market for some expensively priced electronic circuitry which emulates the effects of vinyl and introduces clicks, hiss, wow and flutter for those souls who insist on a true pre-HiFi experience.

All this got me thinking and I have a decided to hold onto our last remaining Cathode Ray Tube television as I’m guessing in a few years’ time video pundits will be wistfully recalling the days of analogue television and use terms such as ‘warm’ and ‘deep’ to describe the picture quality. There could be some cash in it people!   

On Yer Bike Sunshine

You may recall my observations about cyclists last year. My particular gripe is that many of them seem to believe that they are some sort of hybrid, enjoying the benefits of being both a pedestrian and a motorist. With that belief they can progress the wrong way down a one way streets, use the pavement as cycle tracks, pedal across pelican crossings, ignore traffic lights and weave across traffic flows at will.

Last week returning home from an evening in Edinburgh, a cyclist was hit by the bus we were on. Now it’s not for me to apportion blame as I didn’t see the incident as we were on the top deck but the comments passed by the cyclist give an insight into the attitude of these urban menaces. He had no lights on his bike which, when I pointed this out, prompted the cyclist to retort that he had a 'HiVis' jacket and that his lights had been stolen days earlier so ‘what was he supposed to do?’ My friend (a cyclist of some endurance himself) then continued the dialogue by saying “You should have got some more lights then Sunshine”. It may have been the shock of being challenged but he then became very abusive, threatened to larrup my 75 year old friend and let it be known, loudly and in no uncertain terms, that he did not wish to be called ‘Sunshine’. (Regrettably I was giving my details to the bus driver so missed the once in a lifetime opportunity to say "Leave it alone Dave, he's not worth it"). I must say that I thought the name "Sunshine" particularly apposite given that he clearly imagined that it radiated from his 'HiVis' jacket.

In our final conversation he claimed the bus driver had deliberately swerved to knock him off his bike and that he had nearly been killed earlier that week in a similar incident. Now I’m no expert in cyclist psychology but I would have thought that following that previous incident he might have redoubled his efforts to be visible at night.

We decanted from the bus and a posse of investigators arrived to sort things out. Normally I apply the Darwin Principle to this sort of incident – anyone so willfully stupid as to cycle around a busy city centre, in the dark without any lights deserves whatever he gets. My problem is that as a society we can't be certain that he won't breed and pass his selfish, stupid genes onto another generation.     

Lies, damn lies and averages

I have a pet gripe (well quite a few actually but I’ll stick to one at a time) about people using and misunderstanding ‘average’. I often hear talk about ‘average wage’ and concerns about ‘below average GCSE results’. Generally when people talk about ‘average’ they are referring to the ‘mean’ but as this is not usually explicit, the conclusions drawn from the data can be misleading as by definition 50% of the values are below the mean and 50% are above it!

There are three types of average measure; the ‘mean’ the ‘median’ and the ‘mode’. 

• The Mean

To find the mean, you add up all the data, and then divide this total by the number of values in the data.

• The Median

To find the median, you put the values in order, then find the middle value. If there are
two values in the middle then you find the mean of these two values.

• The Mode

The mode is the value which appears the most often in the data. It is possible to have more than one mode if there is more than one value which appears the most.

The best illustration of how misleading averages can be is to calculate the average number of legs people have.

If you calculate the ‘mean’ then on average people have fewer than two legs! This is because some people have one leg,

some have no legs but apart from ‘Jake the Peg’ the famed tri-dexter revealed by the incomparable Rolf Harris, none has more than two. 

A better result is obtained by using either the mode or median which will then deliver the result we’d expect, that on average people have two legs.

So the next time someone bandies about ‘averages’ ask them which one they are using!    

Look, I'm lying again!

The other day I heard George Osborne talking about the tragic state of the UK economy. He said “we are in a period of negative growth”. Now I’m no expert on grammar useage but isn’t negative economic growth, economic contraction? You don’t have to be a rocket surgeon to realise why he said it; ‘negative growth’ clearly sounds a lot better than the alternatives.

I also hear politicians say “look” quite a bit; normally to preface a prepared piece of propaganda. I suspect it's supposed to act as call to attention, a shorthand for ‘if you don’t hear anything else I’ve said, hear this’.

This got me thinking about how I can put a better spin on things, so in that spirit  ..............“Look, I’m in a period of negative slimming and negative alcohol abstinence”.

NHS Patient Care - Are You Lying Comfortably?

The PM has launched another 'five-day wonder' initiative on NHS patient care which involves asking parients if they are comfortable.

This reminded me of a Fife story .....

(It works best when said with a Scottish accent)

Mornin'

Over the festive period we enjoyed a number of walks along the river bank and canal towpath. It struck me that there is an etiquette associated with acknowledging fellow walkers which I don’t believe has ever been codified. I thought I’d consider some of the principles which seem to underpin this ‘perambulating politeness’.

First I should deal with relatively straightforward ‘campsite acknowledgment’. Campsite acknowledgement is only essential first thing in the morning when walking to and from the toilet block carrying you ablution bag and towel. The required acknowledgement is "Mornin' " and the response is the same, “Mornin’ ”. Never upgrade to “Good morning” or improvise by saying “What a lovely day” as this borders on chatty and will be viewed with the suspicion that you are a pervert or paedophile.

Moving on to the ‘riverside, canal side, hill path acknowledgement’ – this is a little trickier and includes interacting variables. At its simplest the level of acknowledgement can be expressed as a function of both the remoteness of the path and the quality of the track. So by way of illustration there is absolutely no need to acknowledge someone walking on a tarmac track in a city park (in fact so to do will at best be ignored while at worst will cause the other party to quietly reach for the security of their mobile phone). However, meeting someone on a muddy track on the hills demands an enthusiastic “Hello” with lingering look to recognise that you know you share a common bond and, if time wasn’t so pressing, you might well end up friends for life. Tracks in-between (gravel towpath by a canal, muddy riverbank tracks through a village require a “Hi” with an almost instantaneous aversion of eyes following the acknowledgment.

Now I appreciated I have merely scratched the surface of this subject and have not fully described the ‘acknowledgement gradient’ between the extremes illustrated; the 'nod' accompanied or not by a hint of a smile fits into this gradation. Additionally, I have only reflected the British ‘perambulating politeness’ code. I feel there is a least one PhD project here and fully expect a student to pick this up as field of study; fully supported by hard-pressed taxpayers of course.