Lies, damned lies, and statistics

I wish I could give an undisputed credit to the person who coined this phrase but, to my regret, there is no agreement about the author although it seems probable that it was the British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. Actually, it matters not who said it originally, at least, it matters not as far as this particular post is concerned. The phrase is merely a useful title providing an introduction to what I am about to say.

(Pause for a triviality concerning the word "actually". Before the adjoining towns of Brighton and Hove were merged into one - known by the very unoriginal name of Brighton & Hove, which doesn't exactly slip off the tongue very easily - people who lived in Hove, the smaller and lesser-known of the two towns, would often say, when asked where they lived, "Brighton. Well, Hove, actually". Hove therefore became known not as plain Hove but as the double-barrelled Hove-Actually.)

But to get back to reality. I have been glancing, as one does from time to time when one has an idle moment or three or when one is vain enough to do so, at the statistics so kindly provided by Blogger. I don't place a great deal of faith in the absolute accuracy of those statistics, which quite often seem to differ from the stats provided by Flag Counter (and Flag Counter does provide those pretty little graphics in my side bar). All the same, according to Blogger, my post with the most views is the one from nearly two years ago, St David's Day. This post has received over seven times as many visits as the next most popular. I was left puzzling when I discovered this fact until I looked at the statistics page showing traffic sources. This revealed that many of the visitors to the St David's Day post had searched for pictures of daffodils - and my post had one. So all those people didn't really want to read my purple prose about the patron saint of Wales - they just wanted a picture of daffodils! Put me in my place good and proper.

And like others, I'm puzzled by the traffic coming from a weird Russian site.

I probably shouldn't write this

But I'm going to do so anyway. It is possible that what I am about to write will cause offence in some quarters or to some people. I don't see why it should, but these days it seems ridiculously easy for people to take offence just because somebody disagrees with their religious views or convictions and says what they think. That is what I am about to do. If my words cause offence, I apologise. No offence is intended and I fully respect your right to hold views different from mine and to express your opinions both verbally and in written form.

I will start with a hypothetical situation. There is a very old building in town, possibly dating from Tudor times, a building which you admire greatly, a building you would wish to see preserved. Unfortunately, this building is owned and occupied by a right wing political organisation, a very right wing organisation. So far to the right that its policies are repugnant to you and most other people. This organisation doesn't have the funds to maintain the old building which is falling into disrepair. An appeal is made for funds to effect essential repairs to the building. You would be happy to contribute towards the cost of those repairs but are not happy that some of any money you donate might be used for political purposes and, in any case, you have no wish to provide this repugnant organisation with a headquarters building. What do you do? Do you make a donation so that the building can be preserved, hoping that it will become the property of somebody else or a different organisation in the near future? Or do you accept the risk of the building falling down because you don't want to risk giving a penny to that political party?

There is, of course, no wrong answer to those questions, just as there is no right one either. Nor is there a right or a wrong answer to the particular problem with which I have been wrestling over the past few days. All the same, I will be interested to hear what my readers have to say about it.

My family moved to Hove almost 55 years ago and almost immediately started worshipping at St Helen's church in Hangleton. This is the oldest building in the city of Brighton & Hove, parts of it being more than 900 years old. It is a beautiful example of an old church which, thankfully, escaped restoration in Victorian times. But the congregation is too small to be able to maintain the building and the diocese can no longer contribute towards the shortfall of some £600 a week. The church is faced with closure unless more money can be found.

My parents attended St Helen's until the end of their lives and my mother's ashes are buried in the churchyard. I am loathe to see the church closed. But I became aware that St Helen's, like so many other C of E churches, was lurching to the right and becoming more and more Roman. the 'Hail, Mary' was a feature of Sunday services and pilgrimages were organised to Walsingham. This is where my problem arises - and where I may cause offence. I do not hold with the Roman Catholic version of Christianity and would not want to contribute towards the salary of the clergy at the church because of the Catholic leanings. Any contribution I would make would be intended solely for the upkeep of the church building. But that is not possible as any donation would go into the general fund of the parish.

Another factor in the problem is that the church is a listed building, Grade II*. This, presumably, means that the owner is obliged to maintain it in status quo, so there is no danger of it being left to rot. But what if the owner can't afford to maintain the building?

I think I will probably end up by making a regular contribution just to ensure the church stays open. It is a beautiful building as you can see from these photographs.

The Travel List Challenge

I have registered on Facebook although quite honestly I can't think why. I suppose it is of some slight interest to see what other people I know are up to, but frankly so many of them seem to post pointless things like,"On the train - at last" that I really start to worry about their sanity.

The apps are things that I usually steer clear of. Things like Farmville (is that right?) bother me as I worry that they could lead to somebody stealing (or maybe just borrowing) my identity. Yes, I know - I'm being a boring old worryguts and there really is nothing to get all worked up about.

Having said that, I recently took the Travel List Challenge. Have you seen it? The hook is that you are told the originators think that most people will have visited no more than 9 of the places on a list of 100 before they die. (I don't suppose they will get to visit many more after they die. . . ) So I was quite chuffed to discover that I had visited no fewer than 23 of the places. Then I saw that the average is actually 22, so that statement about people visiting no more than 9 is a tad misleading. Still and all, my 23 was just a few more than most people I know so I must be quite well-travelled. Don't suppose I will get the chance to cross off many more of those 100 places, though. Indeed, I don't actually want to visit several of them anyway.

French frolics

For all the love the French have of bureaucracy, I always find it surprising that they manage to ignore so many rules, regulations and, especially, dictats from the Big Brother in Brussels, otherwise known as the European Parliament (or Commission, which is rather like an unelected parliament with the power to make its own laws). Take, by way of one example, the average French tractor. Yes, I know that many French farmers, courtesy of the European Common Agricultural Policy and the French government, which seems to think that farmers and fishermen have more rights than anyone else, there are many rich French farmers. But there are just as many who simply scratch a living. Certainly they are better off than peasant farmers in, say, Bosnia, but rich they are not. Their tractors are often twenty or more years old, which means they don't possess some of the modern safety features which are required by law in England - and probably in France as well. Many is the tractor one sees in the fields or lanes where there is no roll bar to protect the driver in the event of the tractor overturning.

Sometimes, however, the French seem to delight in going to the other extreme. When one sells a house in France, there are several reports the seller has to have prepared - at his expense. This is possibly because the French rarely have a survey done when buying a house; they rely heavily, it would seem, on these reports. Until quite recently there were three of them, covering lead paint, asbestos and termites. It doesn't matter if there are no termites withing a couple of hundred miles of the house you are selling, you still have to have the survey and report done. Now there is a fourth report if the house you are selling is not on mains drainage.

Our holiday home in France is not on mains drainage. I think our house and the one next door are the only ones in the village that don't enjoy this amenity. Sewers were installed along our road when two small developments were built, one each side of the road, way back, but for some reason the drains didn't get as far as our house. Maybe the elderly occupiers of the two houses decided they couldn't afford - or didn't want to pay for - the extension of the sewer to our house. It means, of course, that we have a fosse septique, a cess pit. It works quite adequately, but. . .

Back in 2004 new rules were introduced. All houses not on mains drainage were to be surveyed and, where necessary, the drainage systems had to be brought into line with the new requirements by the end of 2005. I am not aware that our house has ever been surveyed and we have certainly never been told officially that our drainage system is not up to standard - but I know it isn't. I also know that we have insufficient land for us to bring the system up to the required standard, which states that the whole system must be a minimum distance from passing traffic. We - the Old Bat and I - just assumed that, as in so many things, the French were being pragmatic and just shrugging their shoulders in a Gallic way. We should have known better. There is now a fourth survey and report required when selling a house, a report confirming that the drainage system is up to standard.

Quite how we shall overcome this problem I have no idea. Oh yes I do - we don't sell but leave the house to our children and they can have the problem!

On the subject of hotels

I consider Skip a very good friend despite him being a Californian

My very good friend Skip posted pictures of the oldest hotel in California here and I made a cheeky comment. To rub even more salt in his wound, here is a picture of the White Hart Hotel in nearby Lewes.


You may be able to spot a blue plaque just to the left of the door. This is a close up shot of the plaque.

Thank you, Blogger - I don't think

I suppose if I were to adopt an infuriatingly positive approach I would say Blogger is looking after my interests. On the other hand, I could accuse Blogger of being an infuriating Big Nanny. But the truth of the matter is that Blogger has developed in infuriating glitch. I wondered at first whether it was Blogger or my computer, although I think I should have realised from my usually futile efforts to correct matters that the problem lay with Blogger. The number of blogs I follow has been increasing almost alarmingly over the phttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifast few weeks and has reached a stage where it can take me half an hour or more just to catch up with them all. So, in an attempt to save me from myself, Blogger has very kindly developed a thingummy which blocks some of the blogs I follow from my dashboard. This, of course, means that I am completely unaware of any new posts on all such blocked blogs and it is not until I suddenly think, "why isn't so-and-so blogging these days?" and go to the blog that I discover what has happened.

(If you are another one of those who have been affected by this glitch, which has apparently featured quite strongly on Blogger's own forum without a remedy being made available, you might like to read the solution suggested by Perpetua on her blog here.)

(Another little Blogger glitch is to insert a piece of code - http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif - at a random place in the blog whenever I post a link, thereby producing the little bull's head you can see further up. And why, I wonder, did the insertion of that code by me not produce a graphic?)

(Which reminds me of an infuriating habit of one of the most senior - indeed, the most senior - TV newsreader who, when warning of horrific pictures to come, would announce, 'The following report contains graphic images'. Aren't all images graphic?)

So, Blogger is obviously aware that my life was in danger of shrinking to a screen 12" x 9" and took steps to rescue me. After all, it is important to connect with the real world, to feel the dampness of rain, the coolness of wind, the warmth of the sun, to hear robins sing, to see the buds swell on the trees in spring. . .

I was getting carried away there. Sorry about that.

But there is more to life than reading the minutiae of the daily life of other people. Although, when all is said and done, all blogging is, is the modern, electronic equivalent of two housewives gossiping over the garden fence while hanging out the washing or two old boys putting the world to rights over a couple of pints and a game of dominoes in the village pub.

So what have you been up to today?

Thanks, Nina

Not really a claim to fame, but my cousin's son's wife is a BBC weather girl. She was on duty on Monday and can be seen here warning us of some pretty foul weather to come. And it has. Monday was bright and sunny - a gorgeous day, as you can see from the photo on my Stanmer blog today. (The photo was taken on Monday.) Yesterday I had difficulty in walking from the car to the side door with the shopping as the wind down the drive was gusting at about 60mph. Granted, it's not exactly hurricane weather, but neither is it quite what we are used to.

My cousin's son's wife. That makes him my first cousin once removed, so is Nina my first cousin-in-law once removed? Or just my cousin's daughter-in-law?

And does it matter?

But to get back to the weather. The wind and rain lasted all morning then, around about lunch time, some blue sky appeared. The wind eased off a little, the skies cleared, and I was able to take the dog for a walk across the Downs without getting soaking wet. I drove to the Clayton windmills and walked up from there, knowing that this is a stony track so Fern should not get too muddy. She enjoyed a paddle, though, as there was a substantial stream flowing down the edge of the track - and sometimes right across it.

It rained again later.

And there is a complete dearth of anything that piques my interest on the goggle box these days. Even the channel that shows repeats is repeating repeats it repeated only a few weeks ago.

I wonder if I used the correct word in that last sentence. Should I have written "the channel which" or was I right to use the word "that"? But since I assume everybody who reads that sentence will know exactly what I meant, does it really matter? Will the earth stop spinning if I used the wrong word?

Now I must get on the phone and chase up the company which (or that) owes me money - £370 no less.