Survey lies

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Many people are under-reporting how much alcohol they are drinking. 

But what else are we fibbing to researchers about and why do we do it?

I have the occasional sweet sherry. 

Purely medicinal.

It is a classic British sitcom scene. 

An inveterate boozer telling a little white lie about how much they drink to a doctor or other authority figure.

But the tendency to paint a less-than-honest picture about your unhealthy habits and lifestyle is not just restricted to alcohol. 

People also tend to kid themselves about how much exercise they are doing.

It is understandable that people want to present a positive image of themselves to friends, family and colleagues. 

But why fib to researchers?

After all, the man or woman from the Office for National Statistics or Ipsos Mori can't order you to go on a diet or lay off the wine.

It is a question that has been puzzling social scientists for decades.

They even have a name for it - The Social Desirability Bias.

People respond to surveys in the way they think they ought to. 

It is otherwise known as lying," says Kate Fox, an alcohol and drinking culture expert who has done research for both the government and the drinks industry.

The recycling never lies

People also kid themselves about how much they drink, but it applies to most surveys, which is why one has to use other methods to really find out what is going on.

It is a particular problem when it comes to "sins" such as alcohol and food.

Britain is one of a handful of nations - including the US - that has an "ambivalent drinking culture", says Fox. 

It is particularly prevalent in countries that have had a strong temperance movement.

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“Start Quote 

We have a morally charged relationship with alcohol, a love/hate relationship. 

It is a bit of a forbidden fruit.

In countries with an "integrated drinking culture", such as more Latin nations, drinking is a "morally neutral issue, only marginally more controversial than coffee and tea".

It is easy to see why people would want to make themselves look good - even to a clipboard-wielding researcher they have just met.

But what about when the researcher leaves the room? 

Or hands them a separate questionnaire to be filled in privately? 

They're all tactics used by researchers to try and iron out the Social Desirability Bias.

You still want to project a positive image of yourself even if the survey is anonymous," says Bobby Duffy, managing director of Ipsos Mori's Social Research Institute.

The gap between the amount of alcohol being sold in the UK and the amount people said they were drinking, was first observed in the 1980s, he says.

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People have unrealistic expectations about what other people are doing and that does affect how they how they respond.

They think other people are drinking a lot less alcohol, doing more exercise and having a lot more sex and that changes their view of their own behaviour.

The gap between perception and reality might be particularly acute in the UK, he suggests.

Awareness of healthy eating in the UK is among the highest in Europe, yet the country also has the highest obesity rates.

The key, says Duffy, is to view survey results as part of a bigger picture - and, he stresses, it is still possible to track overall social trends from self-reported surveys.

But if people underestimate how much they drink, do they overestimate how often they have sex?

The sex survey has been a surefire way to boost the circulation of a newspaper or magazine for decades.

Yet there is anxiety among sexual researchers that they are not as accurate as they should be.

Surveys can overestimate how often couples have sex

In a large number of these surveys people inflate how often they have sex. 

They are buying into this idea that great sex is measured by how often you have it," says Petra Boynton, senior lecturer in International Health Care Research at University College London.

We do have an anxiety about trusting sex research generally, partly because of worries over talking about sex but recently more because of the misuse of the survey tool as an advertising device.

It is hardly surprising, she says, that journalists and the public don't trust sex research:

What they see shared in mainstream media is not the careful and more balanced work undertaken in social and health research.

As sex stories on relationships advice in media are pinned on 'statistics', then this allows the dodgy PR polls to be used to tell us how we should be having sex and set up ideas about what is normal.

Life changes

Are often about events such as divorce, new job, marriage, children and the like

Sometimes about disasters and we have had plenty of these globally recently

In fact we continue to do so

The one that intrigues me at the moment though is the internet and what it means to our lives.

People sitting on benches head down in their phones, tablets or electronic devices.

Oblivious of the nature or world around them.

People in buses cars, planes, trains heads down again

Wherever humans are people are using their devices.

Such a change was unforeseeable only a short time ago.

No one saw the degree to which these devices have changed human behaviour.

Across the planet human behaviour is and has changed.

From young to old

Maybe less so with the old but certainly the young have embraced the internet and these new devices with great enthusiasm.

A couple of thoughts occur.

These devices are literally changing our young

They are device literate before they are five years old.

Their brains are being used differently.

Creativity is changing because they are occupied with their internet world.

They are not learning creativity in the way previous generations have.

They have not learnt to go from boredom to creativity

They are immersed in facebook, twitter and the like which in themselves are changing behaviour.

Many are cut off from the world around them by their music and other audio devices.

Not hearing or relating to that world

Yes one can argue that there are many pluses

What cannot be denied is that this new use of the internet is changing us and our understanding of lilfe

Changing our young

They do not get their information from parents in the same way

Parents are not the same authority figures

Good or bad?

Probably both

A fact our young know more than we did at the same age

Their exposure to information is vastly greater than ours was

The type of information is also different

Global information is the norm today

Bad news every day from somewhere

Fact is we are all seeing the same information wherever we are

Granted some is filtered and manipulated

Problem is we do not know which is manipulated

The great fashion horror show gives us a clue though

Few if any magazine pictures of young women are not photo shopped.

Young women are given such a false idea of the ideal

Young emaciated women presented as the ideal

Millions of young women being manipulated to believe that this is beauty

Society apparently powerless to change this situation

Then again there are other aspects of this change that so far is going without comment

Most of us are living under a high frequency net above our heads

A net that makes most feel tired

A tiredness that people put down to any number of reasons but never this one

When will we notice?

Maybe never as it is not in the interests of many people that we become aware of this.

There are of course many other aspects of this change in our lives that are as yet not observable

We can only watch as the genie is now well and truly out of the bottle

New education tables

The UK's education system is ranked sixth best in the developed world, according to a global league table published by education firm Pearson.

The first and second places are taken by Finland and South Korea.

The rankings combine international test results and data such as graduation rates between 2006 and 2010.

Sir Michael Barber, Pearson's chief education adviser, says successful countries give teachers a high status and have a "culture" of education.

International comparisons in education have become increasingly significant - and this latest league table is based upon a series of global test results combined with measures of education systems, such as how many people go on to university.

This composite picture puts the UK in a stronger position than the influential Pisa tests from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) - which is also one of the tests included in this ranking.

The weightings for the rankings have been produced for Pearson by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Global competition

The two education superpowers - Finland and South Korea - are followed by three other high-performing Asian education systems - Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore.

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EDUCATION TOP 20

• Finland
• South Korea
• Hong Kong
• Japan
• Singapore
• UK
• Netherlands
• New Zealand
• Switzerland
• Canada
• Ireland
• Denmark
• Australia
• Poland
• Germany
• Belgium
• USA
• Hungary
• Slovakia
• Russia

The UK - which is considered as a single system, rather than four devolved administrations - is then ranked at the head of an above-average group including the Netherlands, New Zealand, Canada and Ireland.

These are ahead of a middle-ranking group including the United States, Germany and France.

At the lowest end are Mexico, Brazil and Indonesia.

These comparisons draw upon tests that are taken every three or four years, in areas such as maths, science and literacy - and so present a picture lagging by several years.

But the intention is to provide a more multi-dimensional view of educational achievement - and create a databank which will be updated, in a project that Pearson is calling the Learning Curve.

Looking at education systems that succeed, the study concludes that spending is important, but not as much as having a culture that is supportive of learning.

It says that spending is easier to measure, but the more complex impact of a society's attitude to education can make a big difference.

The success of Asian countries in these rankings reflects the high value attached to education and the expectations of parents. 

This can continue to be a factor when families migrate to other countries, says the report accompanying the rankings.

Looking at the two top countries - Finland and South Korea - the report says that there are many big differences, but the common factor is a shared social belief in the importance of education and its "underlying moral purpose".

Teacher quality

The report also emphasises the importance of high-quality teachers and the need to find ways to recruit the best staff. 

This might be about status and professional respect as well as levels of pay.

The rankings show that there is no clear link between higher relative pay and higher performance.

And there are direct economic consequences of high and low performing education systems, the study says, particularly in a globalised, skill-based economy.

But there are less straightforward and conflicting messages about how schools are organised.

The ranking for levels of school choice shows that Finland and South Korea have among the lowest levels of school choice

But Singapore, another high performer, has the highest level. 

The UK is among the upper levels in terms of school choice.

'Significant' data

Higher levels of school autonomy are a characteristic of many higher performing systems - headed by China, the Netherlands, the UK and Hong Kong (which is considered as a separate school system in such education rankings).

But Finland, the most successful system, has a relatively low level of school autonomy.

Sir Michael Barber, a former adviser to Tony Blair, said that the gathering of this information was the "start of something significant" - providing a practical resource for policy makers wanting to learn from other countries.

In terms of the UK's performance, he said it fitted into the view that education standards had risen at the end of the 1990s and into the early 2000s and had then levelled off.

Labour's education spokesman Stephen Twigg said the findings reflected the achievements of the previous government.

This report shows that after 13 years of investment and reform with Labour, schools in the UK are amongst the best in the world."

And he said the findings did not provide evidence for the current government's support for free schools.

This shows there is much more to school performance than structures, said Mr Twigg.

A Department for Education spokeswoman said: 

We are driving up standards right across the board by bringing the best graduates into teaching, developing a world-class curriculum, and restoring order to our classrooms.

We are driving forward the academies and free schools programmes with more than half of secondary schools now enjoying academy status.

We have introduced the EBacc so more pupils are encouraged to study the core academic subjects that universities and employers demand and we will be introducing a new, far more rigorous examination system.

Economist

That little perfection app

The tongue-in-cheek app has become very popular. 

The secret of its success is our relentless pursuit of perfection, bound up in a culture geared towards achievement and goal attainment.

Beginning with our predilection for a child’s grades over their learning, and continuing with a keener interest in salary than employment. 

Our visual culture, too, is focused on images of Olympian beauty where women and, increasingly, men are morphed and perfected into a narrow construct of beauty, 

So that the notion of perfection has become a symptom of a society unable to deal with variety and one frightened of imperfection, uniqueness and difference.

Failing to meet our impossibly high standards of perfection is easy and once we recognize our shortcomings, we transfer this pursuit of perfection onto our partner. 

What better way to compensate for our inadequacy than by dating the perfect man? 

As Alain de Botton points out, We locate inside another a perfection that eludes us within ourselves, and through our union with the beloved hope to maintain (against the evidence of all self-knowledge) a precarious faith in our species.

Let’s say we were able to create the perfect man. 

With newfound genetic knowledge, the ability for us to manipulate nature is no longer the property of science fiction. 

In years to come we may be able to make man more perfectly suited to our desires and needs, to enhance them physically, mentally and emotionally with Promethean aspiration. 

Forget receding hairlines, growing beer guts, feigned interest in conversation, and late nights with the boys. 

If we were able to make them less prone to lying, more caring and loving, which woman could say no? 

Would a world of Stepford Husbands be so very bad?

The sad reality is that even if we were to create our perfect man on paper, we’d ultimately find fault with his human manifestation. 

As the role of enhancement increases (genetic conditioning to faithfulness, say), our admiration for the achievement (not straying) fades. 

There would be something fundamentally depressing about a man who remains loyal because he has been programmed to do so.

Just as there is something fundamentally uplifting about a gift of flowers from a decidedly unromantic suitor. 

When perfection isn’t inbuilt and doesn’t come naturally, a partner’s willingness to strive for it requires real agency.

Even worse, if our men did reach the dizzying heights of perfection, we’d be left to suffer a lifetime of reflecting upon our own shortcomings. 

And though they wouldn’t be able to remind us of our failings (they’d be perfect, remember), we’d have to endure a niggling voice at the back of our minds telling us to try harder, to change, to keep striving for an unattainable state of perfection.

So let’s embrace a new outlook and vow to make our relationships stronger.

Not by despairing of their lack of perfection, but instead by resolving to make things better, incrementally.

One toilet seat at a time. 

Once in a while.............

We have a journalist writing some honest truths 

Without playing politics

Here is one such example

What a shame that so little is written today without it's inevitable spin and lies.

An excellent article

Convulsions of grief were still being felt across north London last night in the wake of David Miliband’s resignation. The BBC, which has long felt special reverence for the great man, reported the event in hushed tones. The Guardian hosted feverish and wistful discussions about whether Mr Miliband might condescend to return one day to public life.

Tony Blair regretted “a massive loss to UK politics”. A near tearful Tessa Jowell said “it’s very sad”. Lord Adonis mourned an “inspirational leader”. A tremulous Yvette Cooper praised a “powerful speaker” and a “great minister”.

Across the Atlantic, former president Bill Clinton called him “one of the ablest, most creative public servants of our time”. Lord Mandelson, whose protégé Mr Miliband was, almost begged him to reconsider.

The rest of us, however, can contemplate the situation with equanimity. We are, after all, talking about someone who was at best a minor politician, no towering colossus. Mr Miliband has left only one lasting legacy, and that was destructive. As foreign secretary he closed down the Foreign and Commonwealth Office library. It had been there since before the days of Palmerston, and   its absence has done permanent damage to the corporate memory of the FCO – now that its contents have been dispersed, it will never be restored.

Apart from this one moment of breathtaking bibliographical barbarism, which only a politician who cared nothing for British tradition and history would have contemplated, Mr Miliband achieved nothing.

However, before he fades into obscurity, it is important to ask what the fuss is all about. Why is the BBC, which would scarcely have noticed if a former Conservative foreign secretary stood down from Parliament, unable to contain itself? Why is the Blairite wing of Labour in such a state of desolation and hysteria? Why the agonised Guardian inquest? Any detached judge has always been able to see that David Miliband was not front-rank. 

He is a hopeless public speaker (whatever Yvette Cooper’s protestations), and has never once expressed an original thought.

Yet after Labour’s 1997 election victory he was the poster boy of a new ruling elite which seized control of the commanding heights of British politics. Anti-democratic, financially greedy and morally corrupt, this new political class has done the most enormous damage. 

Since David Miliband was its standard-bearer, his political career explains a great deal about what has gone wrong with British public life, about why politicians are no longer liked or trusted, and about how political parties have come to be viewed with contempt.

Mr Miliband – and this is the essential point – set the pattern that so many others, including his brother Ed, have followed. Obsessed by politics at university (like Ed and David Cameron, he read PPE at Oxford), he has never had even the faintest connection with the real world. From life in think tanks he became a Labour Party researcher and special adviser, before being parachuted into the north-eastern constituency of South Shields as an MP.

He rose up on the inside track, getting in with the right people and making sure he stayed there. This meant not rocking the boat. He wrote Labour’s 1997 and 2001 election manifestos, which even Labour people now admit were content-free. 

He was at the heart of the Labour machine when it spewed out its now notorious falsehoods over immigration and Iraq (there is a savage irony to the fact that Mr Miliband is going to head a humanitarian organisation when the government of which he was such a loyal member created so many of the world’s disasters).

When promoted to education minister, he was personally responsible for issuing false claims that exam marks were getting better because of higher standards rather than (as we now know) grade inflation.

I used to speak to Mr Miliband fairly often during this period, and it is important to make clear that he was personally not an especially bad man. It was simply that he was completely inexperienced and had no idea how the world (which he famously defined as a “scary place” during a Labour conference speech) worked.

This meant that he was out of his depth when promoted to the Foreign Office, where he quickly became an apologist for British government involvement with torture. I once counted six lies emerge from his lips on the subject of our complicity over “extraordinary rendition” during the course of a nine-minute interview with Andrew Neil on The Politics Show.

It is a great pity that Mr Miliband, who is only 47, is not entering politics now, after learning the ropes elsewhere. If so, this well-meaning man would surely have a serious contribution to make. As things stand, however, we can learn lessons from his failure, and the most important of these is that MPs need more ballast when they come into Parliament.

There was a time when politicians picked themselves up and got on with it after a setback. When Denis Healey, much the more serious candidate, was defeated by Michael Foot in the 1980 Labour leadership election, he did not go into some cosmic sulk. He dusted himself down, joined the front bench, and served Foot loyally. Willie Whitelaw probably felt hard done by when he lost the Tory leadership to Margaret Thatcher in 1975. But he was her bulwark and support ever after.

But the Whitelaws and Healeys had enjoyed a deep knowledge of the world, which told them that a personal setback such as losing the party leadership was a trivial matter indeed, and other things mattered far more.

Nobody expects this kind of wise judgment today. When, yesterday, the BBC sent its political editor, Nick Robinson, into Mr Miliband’s home to ask reverentially about the great decision, he did not ask why Mr Miliband was leaving his South Shields constituents in the lurch. Nor did Mr Robinson ask any questions about Mr Miliband’s finances.

Yet these are extremely pertinent to his decision to resign. The House of Commons register reveals that he has earned an incredible sum – nearly £1 million – from outside interests since losing the party leadership to his brother, including £125,000 for 15 days’ work as a director of Sunderland, a constituency-based football club owned by a super-rich businessman with interests in private equity. 

Approximately £60,000 has come his way from the UAE, a gulf state with an unappetising human rights record, and another hefty chunk from St James’s Place, a company that advises very rich people how to invest their money.

Like his mentors Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson, Mr Miliband is one of that unappetising breed of modern politician that has chosen to profiteer out of public service. It is a pity that the BBC did not ask him whether his sudden decision to abandon his constituents was not informed by a desire to keep his huge earnings out of the public eye.

During his short, undistinguished career, Mr Miliband has done grave damage to British politics. He is part of the new governing elite which is sucking the heart out of our representative democracy while enriching itself in the process. He may be mourned in the BBC and in north London, but the rest of us are entitled to form a more realistic view. David Miliband has belittled our politics and he will not be missed.

Peter Osbourne

Husband banned from Target

After I retired, my wife insisted that I accompany her on her trips to Target. 

Unfortunately, like most men, I found shopping boring and preferred to get in and get out. 

Equally unfortunate, my wife is like most women - she loves to browse.

Yesterday my dear wife received the following letter from our local Target.

Dear Mrs. Samsel,

Over the past six months, your husband has caused quite a commotion in our store.. 

We cannot tolerate this behavior and have been forced to ban both of you from the store. 

Our complaints against your husband, Mr. Samsel, are listed below and are documented by our video surveillance cameras.

1. June 15:  Took 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in other people's carts when they weren't looking.

2. July 2:   Set all the alarm clocks in House wares to go off at 5-minute intervals.

3. July 7:   He made a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the women's restroom.

4. July 19:   Walked up to an employee and told her in an official voice, 'Code 3 in House wares. Get on it right away'. 

This caused the employee to leave her assigned station and receive a reprimand from her Supervisor that in turn resulted with a union grievance, causing management to lose time and costing the company money.

5. August 4:   Went to the Service Desk and tried to put a bag of M&Ms on layaway.

6. August 14:   Moved a 'CAUTION - WET FLOOR' sign to a carpeted area.

7. August 15:   Set up a tent in the camping department and told the children shoppers he would invite them in if they would bring pillows and blankets from the bedding department to which twenty children obliged.

8. August 23:   When a clerk asked if they could help him he began crying and screamed, 'Why can't you people just leave me alone?' 

Paramedics were called..

9. September 4:   Looked right into the security camera and used it as a mirror while he picked his nose.

10. September 10:   While handling guns in the hunting department, he asked the clerk where the antidepressants were.

11. October 3:   Darted around the store suspiciously while loudly humming the 'Mission Impossible' theme.

12. October 6:    In the auto department, he practiced his 'Madonna look' by using different sizes of funnels.

13. October 18:   Hid in a clothing rack and when people browsed through, yelled 'PICK ME! PICK ME!'

14. October 21:   When an announcement came over the loud speaker, he assumed a fetal position and screamed 'OH NO! IT'S THOSE VOICES AGAIN!'

And last, but not least:

15. October 23:   Went into a fitting room, shut the door, waited awhile, and then yelled very loudly, 'Hey! There's no toilet paper in here.' 

One of the clerks passed out.

Hope this made you smile as it did me.

Faster than light

Many scientists claim that if anything were to travel faster than light it would travel backwards in time.

If an object were to travel from point A to point B faster than the speed of light.

It’s certainly true that observers at B would see it arrive at B before they see it leave A;

In fact, it would appear to travel backwards from B to A.

This is because their observations are dependent on light

Light which can’t keep pace with the object in question.

But if they could make observations by means of superluminal signals travelling even faster than the object concerned, everything would appear normal again and they would see the object move from A to B.

It’s absurd to think that time can literally go into reverse.

Strictly speaking, time is not something that ‘flows’.

Or that you can go backwards ‘in’ or even forwards ‘in’.

Time is a concept we use to quantify the rate at which events occur

And can be applied wherever there is change and motion.

Which basically means a succession of cause and effect.

To reverse the direction of time, effects would have to precede their causes.

On paper, it’s actually very easy to reverse the direction of time:

All you do is replace the variable ‘t’ in certain scientific equations by ‘- t’.

Any theorists who think that this shows that time can be reversed in reality need their heads examining!

David Pratt

Streetfighterz Ride of the Century 2011

For total madness this takes some beating, have a look


Streetfighterz Ride of the Century 2011:

Karma - 2

(17) The appropriateness of an instrument for the operation of Karma consists in the exact connection and relation of the Karma with the body, mind, intellectual and psychical nature acquired for use by the Ego in any life.

(18) Every instrument used by any Ego in any life is appropriate to the Karma operating through it.

(19) Changes may occur in the instrument during one life so as to make it appropriate for a new class of Karma, and this may take place in two ways: 

(a) through intensity of thought and the power of a vow, and 

(b) through natural alterations due to complete exhaustion of old causes.

(20) As body and mind and soul have each a power of independent action, any one of these may exhaust, independently of others, some Karmic causes more remote from or nearer to the time of their inception than those operating though other channels.

(21) Karma is both merciful and just. Mercy and Justice are only opposite poles of a single whole; and Mercy without Justice is not possible in the operations of Karma. 

That which man calls Mercy and Justice is defective, errant, and impure.

(22) Karma may be of three sorts 

(a) Presently operative in this life through the appropriate instruments; 

(b) that which is being made or stored up to be exhausted in the future; 

(c) Karma held over from past life or lives and not operating yet because inhibited by inappropriateness of the instrument in use by the Ego, or by the force of Karma now operating.

(23) Three fields of operation are used in each being by Karma: 

(a) the body and the circumstances; 

(b) the mind and intellect; 

(c) the psychic and astral planes.

(24) Held-over Karma or present Karma may each, or both at once, operate in all of the three fields of Karmic operation at once, or in either of those fields a different class of Karma from that using the others may operate at the same time.

(25) Birth into any sort of body and to obtain the fruits of any sort of Karma is due to the preponderance of the line of Karmic tendency.

(26) The sway of Karmic tendency will influence the incarnation of an Ego, or any family of Egos, for three lives at least, when measures of repression, elimination, or counteraction are not adopted.

(27) Measures taken by an Ego to repress tendency, eliminate defects, and to counteract by setting up different causes, will alter the sway of Karmic tendency and shorten its influence in accordance with the strength or weakness of the efforts expended in carrying out the measures adopted.

(28) No man but a sage or true seer can judge another's Karma. 

Hence while each receives his deserts appearances may deceive, and birth into poverty or heavy trial may not be punishment for bad Karma.

For Egos continually incarnate into poor surroundings where they experience difficulties and trials which are for the discipline of the Ego and result in strength, fortitude, and sympathy.

(29) Race-Karma influences each unit in the race through the law of Distribution. 

National Karma operates on the members of the nation by the same law more concentrated. 

Family Karma governs only with a nation where families have been kept pure and distinct; for in any nation where there is a mixture of family -- as obtains in each Kali yuga period -- family Karma is in general distributed over a nation. 

But even at such periods some families remain coherent for long periods, and then the members feel the sway of family Karma. 

The word "family" may include several smaller families.

(30) Karma operates to produce cataclysms of nature by concatenation through the mental and astral planes of being. 

A cataclysm may be traced to an immediate physical cause such as internal fire and atmospheric disturbance, but these have been brought on by the disturbance created through the dynamic power of human thought.

(31) Egos who have no Karmic connection with a portion of the globe where a cataclysm is coming on are kept without the latter's operation in two ways: 

(a) by repulsion acting on their inner nature, and 

(b) by being called and warned by those who watch the progress of the world.