Paper boy

Between the ages of 12-17 I did a paper round. As my father didn't believe in pocket money this was my source of income. It was a six day a week round but when I started my mother promised that if I was away for any reason on a Saturday she would do it instead. She was as good as her word as I was away occasionally.

I delivered the Birmingham Evening Post. It must have been the first edition as it was delivered by van about 4pm. Always in a tearing hurry the van driver just threw the roll of papers on the grass outside our house. I hadn’t long arrived back from school. Mother and I would sit down and skim through the paper before I set off about 4.30 delivering about 25 papers and taking about a half hour.

I would cycle to the village about a half mile away then going from one end to the other. All the recipients were in the village so I never had to worry about the outlying houses. The biggest problem by far was a shortfall in deliveries. Somehow it happened with distressing frequency that I had one too few. Very rarely was it one too many. Because I didn’t count the papers I wouldn’t realise I was short until the last half dozen. The right thing to do would be to alternate among that last few  customers while knocking on the door and apologising. I did alternate around the customers but usually I was too shy to apologise. Naturally being missed without explanation didn’t make for happy customers. I have to say they were generally pretty patient and tolerant.

Saturdays were completely different. The papers were on the tea time Midland Red bus so I would wait for that then do the round in reverse order. In reverse as I met the bus outside the pub nearer the far end of the village. I had no trouble remembering the round which soon became second nature; where to park my bike and walk and all the little nuances.

The main natural problem was dogs. Owners are always cheerfully tolerant. “Don’t worry, she won’t bite” as a barking hound advanced menacingly. In fairness I was never bitten just nipped and badly scared a few times. I soon learned which dogs could be faced down and which to take seriously. There is a peculiar blindness amongst owners that their beloved animal can actually be rather scary.

Although I knew practically all the children in the village after recently being a fellow pupil at the village school I was regarded as something of an outsider both by virtue of living outside the village and by attending grammar school. I had to endure the occasional ambush and stone throwing. I suppose it was mainly pranks but in one case it was really rather vicious. I have realised since that this was from boy who was rather underachieving in a broken home and was probably envious of my loving stable home and academic success.

For all of this I was paid five shillings a week ( this was the fifties ) and as I returned one and six to pay for my weekly copy of Flight magazine I netted three shillings and sixpence.

Looking back it was good experience in the world of work. I was very pleased when we lived near Wilmslow Martin did an evening round for about a year. Opportunities for this kind of work have largely disappeared now and with many out of school clubs, activities and sports my grandchildren just wouldn’t have time. I never did any out of school activity until I was 16 and entering the sixth form and even then it was fairly infrequent. Because we lived in the country with no evening buses it would have been impractical anyway until I was old enough to cycle back at night.

Have just bought a new joke book entitled “ A dyslexic man walked into a bra”

Vegetarianism

It is becoming increasingly common for people to take up a vegetarian or even a vegan diet. The numbers are muddled. Far more claim to be vegetarians than actually are. Roughly 5% claim while maybe 1-2% really are. The discrepancy seems to arise with people adopting a generally vegetarian diet but occasionally eating meat. This is sometimes called a flexitarian diet.

I must say I prefer the American usage of describing vegetarian food as plant based. This is clear when choosing and avoids the tinge of “weirdness” particularly around vegans.

The evidence that plant based diets prolong life appears somewhat thin. Some studies show an effect, some don’t. It does appear that red meat particularly in quantity has a life shortening effect. Some categories such as smoked meats appear definitely harmful. On the other hand oily fish are positively recommended. One clear peripheral benefit is reduction in obesity. While this is not an integral part of plant based diets they certainly help. It  isn’t as simple to take in the excess calories which is all too easy with a normal diet.

It would appear that the main motivation for veggies is aesthetic or moral. Certainly if you stop and think eating the dead flesh of animals isn’t very nice and also objection can be made that meat production is cruel. There is some movement towards more humane animal treatment such as legislation on chicken cages.

The main objective reason for supporting the vegetarian movement is the health of the planet. This has in two aspects; the production of greenhouse gases and energy efficiency. Firstly the main red meat is beef and cows produce a lot of methane in their digestion. This methane is belched or farted into the atmosphere and is a major contributor to the greenhouse effect behind global warming. Grazing takes up a large area ( some suitable as arable land ). This links to energy efficiency. A cow is a very inefficient way of producing protein; vegetable crops produce far more per unit energy applied.

It is increasingly clear that climate change is here. Far from being a future problem it is  certainly having effects here and now. The main effect is that extremes of climate are getting worse with some organisms are struggling to adapt. The toll of extreme weather on human life and prosperity is increasing. The adaption problem is perhaps best exemplified by coral where increases in temperature can kill. It is estimated that all coral will die before the end of the century.

I have slowly come to understand the visceral rejection of climate change by some because it is seen by them as some kind of “liberal” plot to change their way of life. I see that even terminally stupid Trump is now starting to acknowledge that climate change is real. However many deniers , including Trump, see climate change as uncomfortable and inconvenient. Far too many see it as depressing the economy. This is quite untrue as it is quite possible to have economic growth and adjustments to emissions. This simply means doing things in different ways.

I wonder if many of the objections to things like wind turbines which have puzzled me are simply those who object to any change which may affect their routine or the ways they have grown accustomed to. To be quite personal I have had a solid fuel fire for over 30 years but I am coming to the realisation that is probably not very healthy and although I burn some wood it is not good to the environment. In principle growing wood takes up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere which is released back when burnt so is carbon neutral. The practical problem is that an open fire releases small particles of carbon which are unhealthy if breathed into the lungs. It is also very inefficient as much of the energy goes “up the chimney”.

This digresses somewhat from the main point that climate action and economic growth are by no means incompatible. Far too many “green” supporters also take a hair shirt approach and seem to relish throwing away much of modern living. It is a fact that the energy needed per unit of economic growth has been steadily falling.

In summary it appears that vegetarianism is marginally good for the individual and definitely good for the planet. However it may well be that the sizzling steak may have be largely replaced by an equally attractive vegetarian option.

Two lions were walking sown the aisle of a supermarket. One turned to the other and said “quiet in here today ,isn’t it”

Wartime railway

Every year the North York Moors Railway has a wartime weekend. We are attending for the third time this year. The idea is to organise a number of events and exhibitions at the stations along the NYMR route. A particularly large event is held at the Pickering terminus where the whole town is “en fete.” We feel a particularly close association as both Martin and Alex are volunteers and this year, although strictly underage ( they start at age 10 ), Ellen was allowed to join in.

Because Lindsey and Martin were away watching Dave Gorman earlier we could only go on Sunday. Unfortunately the weather was miserable as it rained heavily all day. As a result we abandoned our original plan and travelled from Whitby to Pickering and back again only briefly alighting at Pickering station. This was so crowded and miserably wet that we reboarded the train on which we had arrived for the return journey. The train wasn’t as crowded as previous years but we were still pleased to get seats all together.

We had prepared a picnic and in the event ate aboard the train. This was dry and comfortable. We also had coffee on the train as experience had shown all the station cafes would be packed. For a major part of the return journey I sat opposite a couple from Brighton. As part of the experience many dress in either wartime uniforms or forties dress. This couple certainly looked the part. When I commented they admitted they had the benefit of the ladies sister running a retro stall in Brighton. It was their first experience of such an event although in the past I have talked to people who make it their hobby to go from event to event around the country.

The NYMR is one of the larger heritage railways. They don’t just have steam but also diesel loco’s and a wide variety of rolling stock. This includes a diesel multiple unit which was running a shuttle between Pickering and Levisham the next station on the line. The NYMR actually finishes at Grosmont south of Whitby. However as a concession they run twice a day into Whitby on National Rail lines, At Grosmont the National Railway heads off to Teeside. The NYMR don’t just have ordinary rolling stock but also such curiosities as a large steam crane.

As Martin pointed out they have more loco’s than they can comfortably handle. One project is to restore the named engine “Vera Lynn” which would be so appropriate for the wartime event. At present the priority is to rebuild some bridges as obviously this is both expensive but vital. .A very ingenious idea this year was to present the program and timetable in the form of a mock ration book

On our journey we were hauled by the Black 5 “Eric Treacher”. I was an avid train spotter when I was between about 11 and 13. The Black 5 class was then probably the most common loco running on the LMS region. It is a sad commentary that although glamorous steam is both dirty and inefficient. British Rail clung onto steam for far too long. The final steam loco’s were built in the mid 60’s. There are now no loco’s built in the UK with other railways switching far sooner. Although the latest high speed trains give a wonderful consumer experience they are largely French technology certainly as used on HS1 and the planned HS2.

One technology British Rail started but abandoned was the tilting train. As a result we now ride on the Italian built Pendolino on the West coast main line. It seems almost farcical that the APT had to be dropped because it could clash with other rolling stock when tilted. This seems a rather basic design error.

Musical jest

Definition of a gentleman- someone who knows how to play the bagpipes but doesn’t

Information Science

I have talked about my first job in Information Work. I should say more precisely what Information Science is. I need to emphasise that name may be confused with Information Technology which is the omnibus name for computing and its applications. There is a wider problem of much confusion about names for branches of technology which is too large to discuss here although one needs only to think of the multiple meanings of “engineer”. The objective of Information Science was to assist development project work.

So Information Science as practiced by Unilever Research was a substantial part of the whole establishment. There were 7 graduate scientists and about the same number of other staff. This was perhaps 4% of the whole establishment.  An Information Scientist split their time approximately 40% on current awareness, 40% information recovery and 20% checking information needs. All of these need some further explanation. Current awareness involved essentially staying abreast of current publication of work. Information recovery split nicely into two types, Internal information generated within the organisation and external which was discovering relevant information outside the organisation. The 20% on establishing needs meant finding out what were relevant needs for information by discussion.

Current awareness in practice meant all information such as journals etc were subdivided among the staff who marked up work of interest. This was done by noting on a search sheet what items were of interest and then marking the keywords in the title of the item. This latter was used to computer generate a keywords-in-context index always called a KWIC index. For example suppose an interesting title was “the use of polyphosphates in fabric cleaning”. The index would show

Polyphosphates in fabric cleaning. The use of…

Also

Fabric cleaning. The use of polyphosphates in…

And

Cleaning. The use of polyphosphates in fabric…

The rotation of titles was I think 140 characters which was the maximum line length of the printer available.

My allocated journals were mainly on waste water treatment, chemical analysis, instrumentation, materials and corrosion science. I also reviewed some more general journals giving detergents industry news.

 Selected titles were sent out weekly in a current awareness bulletin containing items judged of wide interest. More specialist items were sent to groups or individuals expected to be interested.

Information recovery was done in one of two ways. If it was internal then all reports were held on a sortable punched card database. It needs to said that in those days machine readable information was held as much on punched cards or tape as on magnetic memory. Magnetic memory was expensive and required specialist handling while cards were relatively robust. In the Unilever case the cards were not only machine sortable but they had a precis of the report printed on them.

If the information needed was external then there was no single method. One common way was to search by hand through a massive publication called “Chemical Abstracts” This had abstracts of every paper in the general area of chemistry and was classified and indexed. However searches often required some imagination and craft by the searcher. It was always as well to find out why the information was sought. If it was a researcher new to the field then a good encyclopaedia such as “Kirk-Othmers Encyclopaedia of Chemical Technology” would be a good starting point.

Establishing needs necessitated going out into the laboratory to talk to the scientific staff finding out their projects and interests. Interests could be relatively specific as in an analyst specialising in chromatography who was interested in the mathematics which was closely related to telephony.

It is debateable whether such a specialist organisation is better than each individual scientist finding out for themselves. I took the view that in general with my background in information science I could find what I needed only using information specialists for particular needs.

In Unilever practice the Information Science group was separate from the Library although working closely with Library staff. It is more common in smaller organisations for the Library staff to fill part of the role of the Information Scientist. The Unilever Port Sunlight Research Lab had over 200 scientific staff so the cost was more easily justified.

Todays smile

A group of dinner party guests were discussing whether men or women were more trustworthy.
One man stated bluntly “No woman can keep a secret”
“That’s so not true” said the pretty blonde sitting opposite him ”I’ve kept my age a secret since I was twenty”
“You’ll let it slip one day” said the man
“No way” said the blonde ”When a woman has kept a secret for eighteen years she can keep