A long, long time ago, when I was a mere speccy geek of an eleven year old, we had a teacher whose real name is now long forgotten but who went, for reasons I never did fathom, by the nickname of Mud. He was, I recall, a geography teacher. Possibly with a bit of RE* on the side. One day he had a brainwave. He took all of us speccy geeks and sat us at the front of the class, and all of those who didn't have to wear glasses and sat them at the back of the class. When asked why he had done this he explained his rationale thus: the ones with glasses have defective vision and need to sit closer than the ones without glasses who don't have defective vision. A single moment's thought picks up the essential flaw of the argument. And if you can't see it try substituting the word "corrected" for "defective".
The result was a lot of kids whose lives had so far been gloriously optician-free sitting at the back of the class and squinting, and a different lot of bespectacled kids whose mothers had taken them to have their eyes tested sitting at the front saying, "but sir, I can see from the back."
This is the kind of logic we don't see enough of, completely and utterly specious but making perfect sense to the person suggesting it.
But what does any of this have to do with the current cold weather? Quite a lot actually. We are barely tiptoeing into the beginnings of Autumn but the weather is also throwing some rather cold mornings at us. And what do we do on cold mornings? Correct! We wrap up warm. I, for example, wear a fleece under my coat and, should it be raining as well as cold, a waterproof over my coat. This protects me adequately on my twenty minute walk to the Metro station. There I get onto the Metro. Now, for those who have never travelled by Metro, it is a fine and wonderful service and for ninety per cent of the day it is moderately comfortable and you can get a seat. For the other ten per cent - during the rush hour - it isn't and you can't. More than that it is frequently overcrowded to a quite remarkable degree.
Last week they were showing "Return From The River Kwai" on TV and there is a scene where the fiendish Japanese guards are cramming the prisoners of war onto a cattle train. They are overseen by George Takei, who in between being a helmsman on Star Trek and Hiro Nakamura's Dad on Heroes, must have moonlighted as a camp commondant in a Japanese POW camp. Anyway they were wedged in and the doors forced shut and barred and it still looked more comfortable than the Metro on a bad day.
So, I get onto the Metro and, because it's such a cold day everybody on there is wearing overcoats or anoraks or multiply layers of coats and jumpers. Some of them probably have thermal underwear. And that's where the leap of logic comes in. They have the Metro heaters turned on full because it's cold. No matter that people are collapsing from heat stroke - or would be if there was room to fall down - it's autumn, it's cold outside, put the heaters on. At the moment it's merely unbearable but as the days get colder and people wrap up even warmer it will become positively satanic, I know I've been there before. I wonder if it ever occurs to anyone to turn the heaters off during the rush hour. Probably not. That would be like putting the kids with corrected vision at the back of the class.
(*In case you don't know RE=Religious Education, a topic which may or may not still be in the school curriculum in these more multicultural times.)
The result was a lot of kids whose lives had so far been gloriously optician-free sitting at the back of the class and squinting, and a different lot of bespectacled kids whose mothers had taken them to have their eyes tested sitting at the front saying, "but sir, I can see from the back."
This is the kind of logic we don't see enough of, completely and utterly specious but making perfect sense to the person suggesting it.
But what does any of this have to do with the current cold weather? Quite a lot actually. We are barely tiptoeing into the beginnings of Autumn but the weather is also throwing some rather cold mornings at us. And what do we do on cold mornings? Correct! We wrap up warm. I, for example, wear a fleece under my coat and, should it be raining as well as cold, a waterproof over my coat. This protects me adequately on my twenty minute walk to the Metro station. There I get onto the Metro. Now, for those who have never travelled by Metro, it is a fine and wonderful service and for ninety per cent of the day it is moderately comfortable and you can get a seat. For the other ten per cent - during the rush hour - it isn't and you can't. More than that it is frequently overcrowded to a quite remarkable degree.
Last week they were showing "Return From The River Kwai" on TV and there is a scene where the fiendish Japanese guards are cramming the prisoners of war onto a cattle train. They are overseen by George Takei, who in between being a helmsman on Star Trek and Hiro Nakamura's Dad on Heroes, must have moonlighted as a camp commondant in a Japanese POW camp. Anyway they were wedged in and the doors forced shut and barred and it still looked more comfortable than the Metro on a bad day.
So, I get onto the Metro and, because it's such a cold day everybody on there is wearing overcoats or anoraks or multiply layers of coats and jumpers. Some of them probably have thermal underwear. And that's where the leap of logic comes in. They have the Metro heaters turned on full because it's cold. No matter that people are collapsing from heat stroke - or would be if there was room to fall down - it's autumn, it's cold outside, put the heaters on. At the moment it's merely unbearable but as the days get colder and people wrap up even warmer it will become positively satanic, I know I've been there before. I wonder if it ever occurs to anyone to turn the heaters off during the rush hour. Probably not. That would be like putting the kids with corrected vision at the back of the class.
(*In case you don't know RE=Religious Education, a topic which may or may not still be in the school curriculum in these more multicultural times.)
2 comments:
Ha, exactly what's happening over here, too. Every year. I think it goes something like this.
Public transport committee guys in shirts and suits (you have to care for your public image, you know) first hold press conference in freezing depot and then proceed to briefly test the heating in passenger cabins.
-- John, don't you think they should rise the heating up just a notch? My hands are still kinda blue.
-- G-g-gee, t-t-that's a jolly g-g-good idea, Jeremy. Strongest setting is there for a reason. Mrs. Bailey, please note that down for supervisors.
I think you may have something there. :)
And its nice to get a comment from someone I don't know personally and have never spent time with in the pub.
Hope you enjoy the rest of the blog - though I can't promise to always have such cutting edge insights.
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