Â鶹Éç

I'm glad you are keeping a cool head on the crunch over there at the Â鶹Éç.
There is no doubt that the effects of the financial downturn are widespread and painful for many.
But there is the risk that editors looking for a line end up lassoing any trouble under the crunch banner.
As for more complex prisms Dominic can I suggest you install the following on your desk:
A Pellin-Broca prism is a type of constant deviation dispersive prism similar to an Abbe prism. I'm sure that's complex.
Perhaps not best to look through this after a few jars mind.

Your thought processes are exactly those I have unfortunately come to expect from journalists - inventing causal links where there are none proven to be true.

Of course 95% of your readers dismiss such tosh out of hand and read the next thing, but the 5% who don't can easily be mislead and set of a chain of reactions based on the assumption that the first lazy story was correct.

Did I read somewhere last week that Â鶹Éç radio has increased listeners numbers - "due to the credit crunch"?

You mean the government scare campaign was telling lies?

No way, I can't believe that!

I'll drink to that!

Just a note on the picture used to illustrate you blog.
1. that is an awful, awful staged picture of alcohol bottles.
2. Since when did Carling pay the Â鶹Éç for advertising space? - get it down!

Dominic, sorry to sound so cynical, yet the truth is I get weary listening/reading that various crime rate have gone down, only to days later read that the opposite was true.

The Â鶹Éç should share my disappointment with this type of media manipulation, and stop announcing statistics as fact before having them throughly checked out.

During a fantastic days entertainment, courtesy of the snow, accompanied by my 3 and 5 year old daughters we endeavoured to build a snowman at my mothers bungalow.It was a bit disappointing to find that as previously commented on,it wasn't quite the right type of snow.I was quite disappointed at my own endeavours to build such a complicated structure.Non the less, my 5 year old was extremely happy with the outcome.We were able to attach the nose using a cherry, pierced by a cocktail stick and with the aid of two sprigs of holly from a nearby bush attached two ears. My mother Mary, to my dismay didn't possess a fresh carrot as she is normally quite well prepared for snowfall and ensures the freezer is well stocked with bags full of mixed vedgetables.She is a great fan of Iceland. Unfortunately the carrots are integrated well within the other veg.It is quite a while since i learned the technique involved in this type of build. I wonder if this sought of course is available as an NVQ, integrated with classroom assessment to further my maths and english to attain the necessary qualifications to continue my advancement in this trade.Due to my ignorrance of the technology available(obviously need a grammar and spellcheck course) i could perhaps interlink it with a computer course.I think i enjoyed it more than my kids.A good time had by all.Could the L.S.C contact me to let me know about course availability as i have previously been totally unaware of how i could access any of these courses to improve my skills and pass them on.Or is it a dying industry that is no longer supported due to Global Warming, and the profit and cost involved of such a course prohibitive unless you have unlimited and unrestricted access to taxpayers money. Could you please publish a contact number.

Bedtime arrives and we have our normal routine of Play time or Storytime.Choice;Story or Play.The democratic choice tonight was Bingo.A simple but fantastic way of connecting colours ,days of the week and five a day essentials nutrients;ie apples,fruit juices ,broccoli.You get the drift(bit like the snow).We have been astonished at my 5 year olds development since starting school recently.She likes to be the bingo caller.I can't keep up with her due to my inability to see colours.The three year olds attention span isn't quite as good and decided to build a house with some cushions. After much frustration she cried for help, which although temporarily diverting mine and my eldests attention away from our competitive game(she likes to win) we some how managed to engineer quite a nice little dwelling using some fantastic walking aids used to create a roof.The door collapsed ,but hey,it amused her.We found ourselves with a new announcer.My ultra competitive girlfriend.She announced herself the winner with a full house with the very last card out of the bag.Puzzled my daughter asked why mummy had won when all the cards had been used and we hadn't all won at the same time. I thought we must have lost some counters but as it happened we hadn't.Quick as a flash my daughter accused her of cheating but after a small amount of discussion she announced that mummy hadn't cheated but had continued playing while we helped her sister.She hadnt really cheated but we laughed at the idea of the corruption easily made possible when your attention is diverted whilst helping others. Anyway shes throwing me out tomorrow.Another victim of freedom of speech and ignorance.She thinks i'm mad and need to give her some space because of my obsession with what connection this might have with real life.A valium might calm me down as well as a few seroxat to deal with the impending depression.Oh and a bed in a institution if there are any left.The council might find me a flat if i agree to RETRAIN.God Bless us all.Especially the needy and homeless

A friend of mine, who is a bit of a dab hand with stocks and shares and earns herself quite a wedge dealing on her home computer, rang me late on Monday concerned about my portfolio interest in a snow-making company in Katanga. We argued long and hard. "Its the recession", she said. "No its the snow fall" I countered. "The company is not solvent" she said. "Well its got a loan from an exceedingly well know UK high street bank" I countered. "Exactly" she said.

And then I read this blog, and I was enlightened. The scales dropped from my eyes (they hadn't weighed anything for years anyway), and the Vodka had immediate impact. "Hic" I said to myself (nobody loves someone who drinks on their own), "this blog is onto to something. None of us know anything. We are all just making it up as we go along. We can say anything we like, hic, and no one will ever know whether it is true, false or just plain indifferent. " My monologue continued for several hours but I have copyrighted my findings and so I will not be publishing on this outlet, no sirree. Needless to say I have found the answer to everything, anything, or absolutely nothing at all. My findings fit every possible permutation known to this planet, indeed the whole universe and even, dare I claim, beyond it.

I just do not understand why no one else has discovered my amazing revelations before me, hic. What goes down must come up is just active imagination at work. I am on my third bottle of vodka and I am so close to discovering the minutiae of the earth that is usually beneath my feet. There are so many secrets in this threadbare lawn just waiting to be discovered and explored. Is it feeling depressed because of the recession or because I have just collapsed all over it?

And to prove my point in my previous post, I now give you this direct from the Â鶹Éç

/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2009/02/knife_crime.html

Anyone else starting to think this government are a bunch of liar's?.

"....they were marginally down...."

Isn't marginal a catch all word? In statistics speak it should mean "no significant difference" because the result is within the possible error field for the sample.

But "marginal" is one of the new media key words. Taken from the corporate finance sector where margins ARE important, however small, and applied erroneously to something totally unrelated like crime statistics, the media are profligate with its abuse.

Perhaps your bosses need to get a handle on the fact that "new crime stats" doesn't always mean a story in the offing. Even better perhaps your bosses need to get out a bit more amongst the ordinary citizens and ask them what it feels like to be at the end of a knife or a gun.