Today marks 250 years since the birth of Robert Burns, the world's best known poet.
For details of what's on to mark this occasion, please visit Homecoming Scotland.
This year's Burns night marks the 15th year of publication of the first online guide to Scotland, available at The soc.culture.scottish FAQ pages where of course you can read all about Robert Burns. See also the comprehensive information on Wikipedia regarding Robert Burns as well as the complete works of Robert Burns on Burns Country. A particular favourite of mine is the song is there for honest poverty (for a' that).
Enjoy!
Craig
25 January 2009
07 January 2009
Richard Dawkin's letter to his ten-year-old daughter about belief
The wider this letter is distributed, the better.
To my dearest daughter,
Now that you are ten, I want to write to you about something that is important to me. Have you ever wondered how we know the things that we know? How do we know, for instance, that the stars, which look like tiny pinpricks in the sky, are really huge balls of fire like the Sun and very far away? And how do we know that the Earth is a smaller ball whirling round one of those stars, the Sun?
The answer to these questions is ‘evidence’.
Sometimes evidence means actually seeing (or hearing, feeling, smelling….) that something is true. Astronauts have traveled far enough from the Earth to see with their own eyes that it is round. Sometimes our eyes need help. The ‘evening star’ looks like a bright twinkle in the sky but with a telescope you can see that it is a beautiful ball – the planet we call Venus. Something that you learn by direct seeing (or hearing or feeling…) is called an observation.
Often evidence isn’t just observation on its own, but observation always lies at the back of it. If there’s been a murder, often nobody (except the murderer and the dead person!) actually observed it. But detectives can gather together lots of other observations which may all point towards a particular suspect. If a person’s fingerprints match those found on a dagger, this is evidence that he touched it. It doesn’t prove that he did the murder, but it can help when it’s joined up with lots of other evidence. Sometimes a detective can think about a whole lot of observations and suddenly realize that they all fall into place and make sense if so-and-so did the murder.
Scientists – the specialists in discovering what is true about the world and the universe – often work like detectives. They make a guess (called a hypothesis) about what might be true. They then say to themselves: if that were really true, we ought to see so-and-so. This is called a prediction. For example, if the world is really round, we can predict that a traveler, going on and on in the same direction, should eventually find himself back where he started. When a doctor says that you have measles he doesn’t take one look at you and see measles. His first look gives him a hypothesis that you may have measles. Then he says to himself: if she really has measles, I ought to see… Then he runs through his list of predictions and tests them with his eyes (have you got spots?), his hands (is your forehead hot?), and his ears (does your chest wheeze in a measly way?). Only then does he make his decision and say, ‘I diagnose that the child has measles.’ Sometimes doctors need to do other tests like blood tests or X-rays, which help their eyes, hands and ears to make observations.
The way scientists use evidence to learn about the world is much cleverer and more complicated than I can say in a short letter. But now I want to move on from evidence, which is a good reason for believing something, and warn you against three bad reasons for believing anything. They are called ‘tradition’, ‘authority’, and ‘revelation’.
First, tradition. A few months ago, I went on television to have a discussion with about 50 children. These children were invited because they’d been brought up in lots of different religions. Some had been brought up as Christians, others as Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs. The man with the microphone went from child to child, asking them what they believed. What they said shows up exactly what I mean by ‘tradition’. Their beliefs turned out to have no connection with evidence. They just trotted out the beliefs of their parents and grandparents, which, in turn, were not based upon evidence either. They said things like, ‘We Hindus believe so and so.’ ‘We Muslims believe such and such.’ ‘We Christians believe something else.’ Of course, since they all believed different things, they couldn’t all be right. The man with the microphone seemed to think this quite proper, and he didn’t even try to get them to argue out their differences with each other. But that isn’t the point I want to make. I simply want to ask where their beliefs came from. They came from tradition. Tradition means beliefs handed down from grandparent to parent to child, and so on. Or from books handed down through the centuries. Traditional beliefs often start from almost nothing; perhaps somebody just makes them up originally, like the stories about Thor and Zeus. But after they’ve been handed down over some centuries, the mere fact that they are so old makes them seem special. People believe things simply because people have believed the same thing over centuries. That’s tradition.
The trouble with tradition is that, no matter how long ago a story was made up, it is still exactly as true or untrue as the original story was. If you make up a story that isn’t true, handing it down over any number of centuries doesn’t make it any truer!
Most people in England have been baptized into the Church of England, but this is only one of many branches of the Christian religion. There are other branches such as the Russian Orthodox, the Roman Catholic and the Methodist churches. They all believe different things. The Jewish religion and the Muslim religion are a bit more different still; and there are different kinds of Jews and of Muslims. People who believe even slightly different things from each other often go to war over their disagreements. So you might think that they must have some pretty good reasons – evidence – for believing what they believe. But actually their different beliefs are entirely due to different traditions.
Let’s talk about one particular tradition. Roman Catholics believe that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was so special that she didn’t die but was lifted bodily into Heaven. Other Christian traditions disagree, saying that Mary did die like anybody else. These other religions don’t talk about her much and, unlike Roman Catholics, they don’t call her the ‘Queen of Heaven’. The tradition that Mary’s body was lifted into Heaven is not a very old one. The Bible says nothing about how or when she died; in fact the poor woman is scarcely mentioned in the Bible at all. The belief that her body was lifted into Heaven wasn’t invented until about six centuries after Jesus’s time. At first it was just made up, in the same way as any story like Snow White was made up. But, over the centuries, it grew into a tradition and people started to take it seriously simply because the story had been handed down over so many generations. The older the tradition became, the more people took it seriously. It finally was written down as an official Roman Catholic belief only very recently, in 1950. But the story was no more true in 1950 than it was when it was first invented 600 years after Mary’s death.
I’ll come back to tradition at the end of my letter, and look at it in another way. But first I must deal with the two other bad reasons for believing in anything: authority and revelation.
Authority, as a reason for believing something, means believing it because you are told to believe it by somebody important. In the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope is the most important person, and people believe he must be right just because he is the Pope. In one branch of the Muslim religion, the important people are old men with beards called Ayatollahs. Lots of young Muslims are prepared to commit murder, purely because the Ayatollahs in a faraway country tell them to.
When I say that it was only in 1950 that Roman Catholics were finally told that they had to believe that Mary’s body shot off to Heaven, what I mean is that in 1950 the Pope told people that they had to believe it. That was it. The Pope said it was true, so it had to be true! Now, probably some of the things that Pope said in his life were true and some were not true. There is no good reason why, just because he was the Pope, you should believe everything he said, any more than you believe everything that lots of other people say. The present Pope has ordered his followers not to limit the number of babies they have. If people follow his authority as slavishly as he would wish, the results could be terrible famines, diseases and wars, caused by overcrowding.
Of course, even in science, sometimes we haven’t seen the evidence ourselves and we have to take somebody else’s word for it. I haven’t with my own eyes, seen the evidence that light travels at a speed of 186,000 miles per second. Instead, I believe books that tell me the speed of light. This looks like ‘authority’. But actually it is much better than authority because the people who wrote the books have seen the evidence and anyone is free to look carefully at the evidence whenever they want. That is very comforting. But not even the priests claim that there is any evidence for their story about Mary’s body zooming off to Heaven.
The third kind of bad reason for believing anything is called ‘revelation’. If you had asked the Pope in 1950 how he knew that Mary’s body disappeared into Heaven, he would probably have said that it had been ‘revealed’ to him. He shut himself in his room and prayed for guidance. He thought and thought, all by himself, and he became more and more sure inside himself. When religious people just have a feeling inside themselves that something must be true, even though there is no evidence that it is true, they call their feeling ‘revelation’. It isn’t only popes who claim to have revelations. Lots of religious people do. It is one of their main reasons for believing the things that they do believe. But is it a good reason?
Suppose I told you that your dog was dead. You’d be very upset, and you’d probably say, ‘Are you sure? How do you know? How did it happen?’ Now suppose I answered: ‘I don’t actually know that Pepe is dead. I have no evidence. I just have this funny feeling deep inside me that he is dead.’ You’d be pretty cross with me for scaring you, because you’d know that an inside ‘feeling’ on its own is not a good reason for believing that a whippet is dead. You need evidence. We all have inside feelings from time to time, and sometimes they turn out to be right and sometimes they don’t. Anyway, different people have opposite feelings, so how are we to decide whose feeling is right? The only way to be sure that a dog is dead is to see him dead, or hear that his heart has stopped; or be told by somebody who has seen or heard some real evidence that he is dead.
People sometimes say that you must believe in feelings deep inside, otherwise you’d never be confident of things like ‘My wife loves me’. But this is a bad argument. There can be plenty of evidence that somebody loves you. All through the day when you are with somebody who loves you, you see and hear lots of little tidbits of evidence, and they all add up. It isn’t purely inside feeling, like the feeling that priests call revelation. There are outside things to back up the inside feeling: looks in the eye, tender notes in the voice, little favors and kindnesses; this is all real evidence.
Sometimes people have a strong inside feeling that somebody loves them when it is not based upon any evidence, and then they are likely to be completely wrong. There are people with a strong inside feeling that a famous film star loves them, when really the film star hasn’t even met them. People like that are ill in their minds. Inside feelings must be backed up by evidence, otherwise you just can’t trust them.
Inside feelings are valuable in science too, but only for giving you ideas that you later test by looking for evidence. A scientist can have a ‘hunch’ about an idea that just ‘feels’ right. In itself, this is not a good reason for believing something. But it can be a good reason for spending some time doing a particular experiment, or looking in a particular way for evidence. Scientists use inside feelings all the time to get ideas. But they are not worth anything until they are supported by evidence.
I promised that I’d come back to tradition, and look at it in another way. I want to try to explain why tradition is so important to us. All animals are built (by the process called evolution) to survive in the normal place in which their kind live. Lions are built to be good at surviving on the plains of Africa. Crayfish are built to be good at surviving in fresh water, while lobsters are built to be good at surviving in the salt sea. People are animals too, and we are built to be good at surviving in a world full of … other people. Most of us don’t hunt for our own food like lions or lobsters, we buy it from other people who have bought it from yet other people. We ‘swim’ through a ‘sea of people’. Just as a fish needs gills to survive in water, people need brains that make them able to deal with other people. Just as the sea is full of salt water, the sea of people is full of difficult things to learn. Like language.
You speak English but your friend speaks German. You each speak the language that fits you to ‘swim about’ in your own separate ‘people sea’. Language is passed down by tradition. There is no other way. In England, Pepe is a dog. In Germany he is ein Hund. Neither of these words is more correct, or more truer than the other. Both are simply handed down. In order to be good at ‘swimming about in their people sea’, children have to learn the language of their own country, and lots of other things about their own people; and this means that they have to absorb, like blotting paper, an enormous amount of traditional information. (Remember that traditional information just means things that are handed down from grandparents to parents to children.) The child’s brain has to be a sucker for traditional information. And the child can’t be expected to sort out good and useful traditional information, like the words of a language, from bad or silly traditional information, like believing in witches and devils and ever-living virgins.
It’s a pity, but it can’t help being the case, that because children have to be suckers for traditional information, they are likely to believe anything the grown-ups tell them, whether true or false, right or wrong. Lots of what grown-ups tell them is true and based on evidence or at least sensible. But if some of it is false, silly or even wicked, there is nothing to stop the children believing that too. Now, when the children grow up, what do they do? Well, of course, they tell it to the next generation of children. So, once something gets itself strongly believed – even if its completely untrue and there never was any reason to believe it in the first place – it can go on forever.
Could this be what happened with religions? Belief that there is a god or gods, belief in Heaven, belief that Mary never died, belief that Jesus never had a human father, belief that prayers are answered, belief that wine turns into blood – not one of these beliefs is backed up by any good evidence. Yet millions of people believe them. Perhaps this is because they were told to believe them when they were young enough to believe anything.
Millions of other people believe quite different things, because they were told different things when they were children. Muslim children are told different things from Christian children, and both grow up utterly convinced that they are right and the others are wrong. Even within Christians, Roman Catholics believe different things from Church of England people or Episcopalians, Shakers or Quakers, Mormons or Holy Rollers, and all are utterly convinced that they are right and the others are wrong. They believe different things for exactly the same kind of reason as you speak English and someone speaks German.
Both languages are, in their own country, the right language to speak. But it can’t be true that different religions are right in their own countries, because different religions claim that opposite things are true. Mary can’t be alive in the Catholic Republic but dead in Protestant Northern Ireland.
What can we do about all this? It is not easy for you to do anything, because you are only ten. But you could try this. Next time somebody tells you something that sounds important, think to yourself: ‘Is this the kind of thing that people probably know because of evidence? Or is it the kind of thing that people only believe because of tradition, authority or revelation?’ And, next time somebody tells you that something is true, why not say to them: ‘What kind of evidence is there for that?’ And if they can’t give you a good answer, I hope you’ll think very carefully before you believe a word they say.
Your loving,
Daddy
RICHARD DAWKINS is an evolutionary biologist; reader in the Department of Zoology at Oxford University; fellow of New College. He began his research career in the 1960s as a research student with Nobel Prize-winning ethologist Nico Tinbergen, and ever since then, his work has largely been concerned with the evolution of behaviour. Since 1976, when his first book, The Selfish Gene, encapsulated both the substance and the spirit of what is now called the socio-biological revolution, he has become widely known, both for the originality of his ideas and for the clarity and elegance with which he expounds them. A subsequent book, The Extended Phenotype, and a number of television programs, have extended the notion of the gene as the unit of selection, and have applied it to biological examples as various as the relationship between hosts and parasites and the evolution of cooperation. His following book, The Blind Watchmaker, is widely read, widely quoted, and one of the truly influential intellectual works of our time. He is also author of the recently published River Out of Eden.
Craig
To my dearest daughter,
Now that you are ten, I want to write to you about something that is important to me. Have you ever wondered how we know the things that we know? How do we know, for instance, that the stars, which look like tiny pinpricks in the sky, are really huge balls of fire like the Sun and very far away? And how do we know that the Earth is a smaller ball whirling round one of those stars, the Sun?
The answer to these questions is ‘evidence’.
Sometimes evidence means actually seeing (or hearing, feeling, smelling….) that something is true. Astronauts have traveled far enough from the Earth to see with their own eyes that it is round. Sometimes our eyes need help. The ‘evening star’ looks like a bright twinkle in the sky but with a telescope you can see that it is a beautiful ball – the planet we call Venus. Something that you learn by direct seeing (or hearing or feeling…) is called an observation.
Often evidence isn’t just observation on its own, but observation always lies at the back of it. If there’s been a murder, often nobody (except the murderer and the dead person!) actually observed it. But detectives can gather together lots of other observations which may all point towards a particular suspect. If a person’s fingerprints match those found on a dagger, this is evidence that he touched it. It doesn’t prove that he did the murder, but it can help when it’s joined up with lots of other evidence. Sometimes a detective can think about a whole lot of observations and suddenly realize that they all fall into place and make sense if so-and-so did the murder.
Scientists – the specialists in discovering what is true about the world and the universe – often work like detectives. They make a guess (called a hypothesis) about what might be true. They then say to themselves: if that were really true, we ought to see so-and-so. This is called a prediction. For example, if the world is really round, we can predict that a traveler, going on and on in the same direction, should eventually find himself back where he started. When a doctor says that you have measles he doesn’t take one look at you and see measles. His first look gives him a hypothesis that you may have measles. Then he says to himself: if she really has measles, I ought to see… Then he runs through his list of predictions and tests them with his eyes (have you got spots?), his hands (is your forehead hot?), and his ears (does your chest wheeze in a measly way?). Only then does he make his decision and say, ‘I diagnose that the child has measles.’ Sometimes doctors need to do other tests like blood tests or X-rays, which help their eyes, hands and ears to make observations.
The way scientists use evidence to learn about the world is much cleverer and more complicated than I can say in a short letter. But now I want to move on from evidence, which is a good reason for believing something, and warn you against three bad reasons for believing anything. They are called ‘tradition’, ‘authority’, and ‘revelation’.
First, tradition. A few months ago, I went on television to have a discussion with about 50 children. These children were invited because they’d been brought up in lots of different religions. Some had been brought up as Christians, others as Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs. The man with the microphone went from child to child, asking them what they believed. What they said shows up exactly what I mean by ‘tradition’. Their beliefs turned out to have no connection with evidence. They just trotted out the beliefs of their parents and grandparents, which, in turn, were not based upon evidence either. They said things like, ‘We Hindus believe so and so.’ ‘We Muslims believe such and such.’ ‘We Christians believe something else.’ Of course, since they all believed different things, they couldn’t all be right. The man with the microphone seemed to think this quite proper, and he didn’t even try to get them to argue out their differences with each other. But that isn’t the point I want to make. I simply want to ask where their beliefs came from. They came from tradition. Tradition means beliefs handed down from grandparent to parent to child, and so on. Or from books handed down through the centuries. Traditional beliefs often start from almost nothing; perhaps somebody just makes them up originally, like the stories about Thor and Zeus. But after they’ve been handed down over some centuries, the mere fact that they are so old makes them seem special. People believe things simply because people have believed the same thing over centuries. That’s tradition.
The trouble with tradition is that, no matter how long ago a story was made up, it is still exactly as true or untrue as the original story was. If you make up a story that isn’t true, handing it down over any number of centuries doesn’t make it any truer!
Most people in England have been baptized into the Church of England, but this is only one of many branches of the Christian religion. There are other branches such as the Russian Orthodox, the Roman Catholic and the Methodist churches. They all believe different things. The Jewish religion and the Muslim religion are a bit more different still; and there are different kinds of Jews and of Muslims. People who believe even slightly different things from each other often go to war over their disagreements. So you might think that they must have some pretty good reasons – evidence – for believing what they believe. But actually their different beliefs are entirely due to different traditions.
Let’s talk about one particular tradition. Roman Catholics believe that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was so special that she didn’t die but was lifted bodily into Heaven. Other Christian traditions disagree, saying that Mary did die like anybody else. These other religions don’t talk about her much and, unlike Roman Catholics, they don’t call her the ‘Queen of Heaven’. The tradition that Mary’s body was lifted into Heaven is not a very old one. The Bible says nothing about how or when she died; in fact the poor woman is scarcely mentioned in the Bible at all. The belief that her body was lifted into Heaven wasn’t invented until about six centuries after Jesus’s time. At first it was just made up, in the same way as any story like Snow White was made up. But, over the centuries, it grew into a tradition and people started to take it seriously simply because the story had been handed down over so many generations. The older the tradition became, the more people took it seriously. It finally was written down as an official Roman Catholic belief only very recently, in 1950. But the story was no more true in 1950 than it was when it was first invented 600 years after Mary’s death.
I’ll come back to tradition at the end of my letter, and look at it in another way. But first I must deal with the two other bad reasons for believing in anything: authority and revelation.
Authority, as a reason for believing something, means believing it because you are told to believe it by somebody important. In the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope is the most important person, and people believe he must be right just because he is the Pope. In one branch of the Muslim religion, the important people are old men with beards called Ayatollahs. Lots of young Muslims are prepared to commit murder, purely because the Ayatollahs in a faraway country tell them to.
When I say that it was only in 1950 that Roman Catholics were finally told that they had to believe that Mary’s body shot off to Heaven, what I mean is that in 1950 the Pope told people that they had to believe it. That was it. The Pope said it was true, so it had to be true! Now, probably some of the things that Pope said in his life were true and some were not true. There is no good reason why, just because he was the Pope, you should believe everything he said, any more than you believe everything that lots of other people say. The present Pope has ordered his followers not to limit the number of babies they have. If people follow his authority as slavishly as he would wish, the results could be terrible famines, diseases and wars, caused by overcrowding.
Of course, even in science, sometimes we haven’t seen the evidence ourselves and we have to take somebody else’s word for it. I haven’t with my own eyes, seen the evidence that light travels at a speed of 186,000 miles per second. Instead, I believe books that tell me the speed of light. This looks like ‘authority’. But actually it is much better than authority because the people who wrote the books have seen the evidence and anyone is free to look carefully at the evidence whenever they want. That is very comforting. But not even the priests claim that there is any evidence for their story about Mary’s body zooming off to Heaven.
The third kind of bad reason for believing anything is called ‘revelation’. If you had asked the Pope in 1950 how he knew that Mary’s body disappeared into Heaven, he would probably have said that it had been ‘revealed’ to him. He shut himself in his room and prayed for guidance. He thought and thought, all by himself, and he became more and more sure inside himself. When religious people just have a feeling inside themselves that something must be true, even though there is no evidence that it is true, they call their feeling ‘revelation’. It isn’t only popes who claim to have revelations. Lots of religious people do. It is one of their main reasons for believing the things that they do believe. But is it a good reason?
Suppose I told you that your dog was dead. You’d be very upset, and you’d probably say, ‘Are you sure? How do you know? How did it happen?’ Now suppose I answered: ‘I don’t actually know that Pepe is dead. I have no evidence. I just have this funny feeling deep inside me that he is dead.’ You’d be pretty cross with me for scaring you, because you’d know that an inside ‘feeling’ on its own is not a good reason for believing that a whippet is dead. You need evidence. We all have inside feelings from time to time, and sometimes they turn out to be right and sometimes they don’t. Anyway, different people have opposite feelings, so how are we to decide whose feeling is right? The only way to be sure that a dog is dead is to see him dead, or hear that his heart has stopped; or be told by somebody who has seen or heard some real evidence that he is dead.
People sometimes say that you must believe in feelings deep inside, otherwise you’d never be confident of things like ‘My wife loves me’. But this is a bad argument. There can be plenty of evidence that somebody loves you. All through the day when you are with somebody who loves you, you see and hear lots of little tidbits of evidence, and they all add up. It isn’t purely inside feeling, like the feeling that priests call revelation. There are outside things to back up the inside feeling: looks in the eye, tender notes in the voice, little favors and kindnesses; this is all real evidence.
Sometimes people have a strong inside feeling that somebody loves them when it is not based upon any evidence, and then they are likely to be completely wrong. There are people with a strong inside feeling that a famous film star loves them, when really the film star hasn’t even met them. People like that are ill in their minds. Inside feelings must be backed up by evidence, otherwise you just can’t trust them.
Inside feelings are valuable in science too, but only for giving you ideas that you later test by looking for evidence. A scientist can have a ‘hunch’ about an idea that just ‘feels’ right. In itself, this is not a good reason for believing something. But it can be a good reason for spending some time doing a particular experiment, or looking in a particular way for evidence. Scientists use inside feelings all the time to get ideas. But they are not worth anything until they are supported by evidence.
I promised that I’d come back to tradition, and look at it in another way. I want to try to explain why tradition is so important to us. All animals are built (by the process called evolution) to survive in the normal place in which their kind live. Lions are built to be good at surviving on the plains of Africa. Crayfish are built to be good at surviving in fresh water, while lobsters are built to be good at surviving in the salt sea. People are animals too, and we are built to be good at surviving in a world full of … other people. Most of us don’t hunt for our own food like lions or lobsters, we buy it from other people who have bought it from yet other people. We ‘swim’ through a ‘sea of people’. Just as a fish needs gills to survive in water, people need brains that make them able to deal with other people. Just as the sea is full of salt water, the sea of people is full of difficult things to learn. Like language.
You speak English but your friend speaks German. You each speak the language that fits you to ‘swim about’ in your own separate ‘people sea’. Language is passed down by tradition. There is no other way. In England, Pepe is a dog. In Germany he is ein Hund. Neither of these words is more correct, or more truer than the other. Both are simply handed down. In order to be good at ‘swimming about in their people sea’, children have to learn the language of their own country, and lots of other things about their own people; and this means that they have to absorb, like blotting paper, an enormous amount of traditional information. (Remember that traditional information just means things that are handed down from grandparents to parents to children.) The child’s brain has to be a sucker for traditional information. And the child can’t be expected to sort out good and useful traditional information, like the words of a language, from bad or silly traditional information, like believing in witches and devils and ever-living virgins.
It’s a pity, but it can’t help being the case, that because children have to be suckers for traditional information, they are likely to believe anything the grown-ups tell them, whether true or false, right or wrong. Lots of what grown-ups tell them is true and based on evidence or at least sensible. But if some of it is false, silly or even wicked, there is nothing to stop the children believing that too. Now, when the children grow up, what do they do? Well, of course, they tell it to the next generation of children. So, once something gets itself strongly believed – even if its completely untrue and there never was any reason to believe it in the first place – it can go on forever.
Could this be what happened with religions? Belief that there is a god or gods, belief in Heaven, belief that Mary never died, belief that Jesus never had a human father, belief that prayers are answered, belief that wine turns into blood – not one of these beliefs is backed up by any good evidence. Yet millions of people believe them. Perhaps this is because they were told to believe them when they were young enough to believe anything.
Millions of other people believe quite different things, because they were told different things when they were children. Muslim children are told different things from Christian children, and both grow up utterly convinced that they are right and the others are wrong. Even within Christians, Roman Catholics believe different things from Church of England people or Episcopalians, Shakers or Quakers, Mormons or Holy Rollers, and all are utterly convinced that they are right and the others are wrong. They believe different things for exactly the same kind of reason as you speak English and someone speaks German.
Both languages are, in their own country, the right language to speak. But it can’t be true that different religions are right in their own countries, because different religions claim that opposite things are true. Mary can’t be alive in the Catholic Republic but dead in Protestant Northern Ireland.
What can we do about all this? It is not easy for you to do anything, because you are only ten. But you could try this. Next time somebody tells you something that sounds important, think to yourself: ‘Is this the kind of thing that people probably know because of evidence? Or is it the kind of thing that people only believe because of tradition, authority or revelation?’ And, next time somebody tells you that something is true, why not say to them: ‘What kind of evidence is there for that?’ And if they can’t give you a good answer, I hope you’ll think very carefully before you believe a word they say.
Your loving,
Daddy
RICHARD DAWKINS is an evolutionary biologist; reader in the Department of Zoology at Oxford University; fellow of New College. He began his research career in the 1960s as a research student with Nobel Prize-winning ethologist Nico Tinbergen, and ever since then, his work has largely been concerned with the evolution of behaviour. Since 1976, when his first book, The Selfish Gene, encapsulated both the substance and the spirit of what is now called the socio-biological revolution, he has become widely known, both for the originality of his ideas and for the clarity and elegance with which he expounds them. A subsequent book, The Extended Phenotype, and a number of television programs, have extended the notion of the gene as the unit of selection, and have applied it to biological examples as various as the relationship between hosts and parasites and the evolution of cooperation. His following book, The Blind Watchmaker, is widely read, widely quoted, and one of the truly influential intellectual works of our time. He is also author of the recently published River Out of Eden.
Craig
02 January 2009
Gaelic lyrics galore
http://www.celticlyricscorner.net/
Gaelic lyrics galore (galore = gu leòr, Gaelic for plenty!)
Includes lyrics from one of my favourite singers, Art Cormack.
Happy new year/ Bliadhna Mhath Ur everyone.
Craig
22 December 2008
Web project manager available
Senior iT project manager with extensive web, e-commerce public and private sector experience, immediately available for contract work UK wide. PRINCE2 practitioner, MSP, Agile, Security clearance.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/siliconglen
http://www.linkedin.com/in/siliconglen
Craig Cockburn
11 December 2008
Web accessibility guidelines updated - WCAG 2.0 comes into force
The de facto standard for web accessibility was updated for the first time since 1999 today. Version two of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, or WCAG 2.0, has been published following several years of development and debate.
One wonders when all the website owners who didn't think WCAG 1.0 applied to them or pretended the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (affected websites from 1999) didn't apply to them either might start paying attention.
Craig
One wonders when all the website owners who didn't think WCAG 1.0 applied to them or pretended the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (affected websites from 1999) didn't apply to them either might start paying attention.
Craig
03 December 2008
Folk music in London
Another long journey on the Internet comes to a conclusion - over 17 years ago I posted a note on the Internet (back then using a UUCP and Arpanet address in the pre-Internet days) about the English Folk Dance and Song Society at Cecil Sharp House in Camden, North London. I didn't go in those days as I was too busy with the choir I sang with in Covent Garden but last night had the chance to drop into Cecil Sharp House and a very worthwhile experience it was too - great music, atmosphere and singers and hopefully I'll be making a return trip soon - preferably long before another 17 years have passed!
Craig
Craig
30 November 2008
St Andrew's Day, Scotland
Please see the official site for information about what's on for St Andrew's day, and looking forward to HomecomingScotland2009.
We are of course the unofficial gateway, and the first - having launched an on-line guide to Scotland 14 years ago on the Internet and an on-line guide to Scotland open to 100,000+ readers back in the 1980s. That guide has been updated for St Andrews day, the 15th annual update, and is available at the soc.culture.scottish FAQ page on Silicon Glen. Additions and corrections to the FAQ always welcome.
Happy St Andrews Day to one and all, including the half million plus visitors so far this year to siliconglen.com
Craig
We are of course the unofficial gateway, and the first - having launched an on-line guide to Scotland 14 years ago on the Internet and an on-line guide to Scotland open to 100,000+ readers back in the 1980s. That guide has been updated for St Andrews day, the 15th annual update, and is available at the soc.culture.scottish FAQ page on Silicon Glen. Additions and corrections to the FAQ always welcome.
Happy St Andrews Day to one and all, including the half million plus visitors so far this year to siliconglen.com
Craig
29 November 2008
Scottish Parliament E-petition "BBC ALBA"
Subject: Scottish Parliament E-petition "BBC ALBA"
From: "John Macleod" <john@andarach.com>
Date: 29/11/2008 20:01
From: "John Macleod" <john@andarach.com>
Date: 29/11/2008 20:01
A' chairdean,
Ma tha sibh airson ur n-ainm a chur ris an athchuinge gu h-àrd, chan eil
agaibh ach gu 5 Dùbhlachd 2008 airson sin a dheanamh. Bidh an athchuinge a'
dol gu foirmeil chun Phàrlamaid air 08.12.08 agus beachdaichidh Comataidh
nan Athchuingean air a' chuspair aig a' choinneamh aca air Dimàirt 16.12.08
aig 2.00f - Seòmar Comataidh 1. Tha còrr is 1000 neach air an ainm a chur
ris an athchuinge gu ruige seo. Airson tuilleadh taic a chur ris an iomairt
seo, chan eil agaibh ach putadh air
http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/view_petition.asp?PetitionID=289
Feuch an innis sibh seo dha ur caraidean.
Moran taing.
Iain Macleòid
Dear folks,
If you would like to put your name to the above petition, the deadline for
this is 5 December 2008. The petition will formally be submitted to the
Scottish Parliament on 08.12.08 and the Public Petitions Committee will
discuss the subject at its meeting on Tuesday 16.12.08 at 2.00pm – Committee
Room 1. More than 1000 people have so far supported this petition. To add
your name. the link to the website is
http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/view_petition.asp?PetitionID=289
Please let other Gaelic supporters know about this.
Many thanks,
John Macleod
Gaelic events in London
For more information, please contact eoghannp@hotmail.com
TACHARTASAN GÀIDHLIG AN LUNNAINN
ANNS NA SEACHDAINEAN A THA A’ TIGHINN
(29mh Samhain 2008 gu crìoch na bliadhna)
GAELIC EVENTS IN LONDON IN THE COMING WEEKS
(29th November 2008 until end of the year)
FÀILTE!
Uill, a-réir coltais, mar a’s duirche is a’s fhuaire a dh’fhàsas e, ’s ann a’s beothaile a dh’fhàsas e ... a thaobh saoghal nan Gàidheal an Lunnainn co-dhiùbh! Ged a tha e fliuch is fuar taobh a-muigh, tha mìos làn ghnìomhachasan romhainn eadar seo is àm na Nollaige (faicibh gu h-ìseal). Fileantach, neach-ionnsachaidh no ‘caraid do’n chànan’ – chan eil gu diofar: bithibh ’nur pàirt dheth – is mealaibh e!
Well, as it would seem, the colder and darker it gets, the livelier it gets ... at least as regards the Gaelic scene in London! Though it may be cold and wet outside, we have a month full of activities to look forward to between now and Christmas (see below). Native-speaker, learner or ‘friend of the language’ – it doesn’t matter: be part of it – and enjoy!
Tìoraidh an-dràsd’!
Beannachdan
Eòghann P.
PS/ Ma bhios sibh a’ cur air dòigh thachartasan a tha comh-cheangailte ri Gàidhlig no ris a’ chultur Ghàidhealach an Lunnainn no an Ceann Ear-dheas Shasainn ’san àm ri teachd, cuiribh fios chugam mu’n deidhinn! – If you are organising future events relating to Gaelic or to Highland culture in London or the South-East of England, let me know about them!
PPS/ ’S e Là Féill Anndra am-màireach! – St. Andrew’s Day tomorrow!
|
Di-Sathairne, 29mh Samhain 2008, bho 7:30f Comunn na Gàidhealtachd is nan Eilean an Lunnainn (HISL), Taigh Cecil Sharpe, NW1 (Fon-talamh: Camden Town) Òrain Ghàidhlig bho Chaitlin Ghreumach (Eilean Sgitheanach), is ceòl bho Frank Reid is a chòmhlan-dannsa Albannach Inntreas: £20 / £15 (buill HISL is ‘lùghdachaidhean’) Làrach-lìn: http://www.hisl.org Post-d: info@hisl.org |
|
Saturday, 29th November 2008, from 7:30pm Highlands and Islands Society of London (HISL), Cecil Sharpe House, NW1 (Underground: Camden Town) Gaelic songs from Kathleen Graham (Isle of Skye), and music from Frank Reid and his Scottish dance band Admission: £20 / £15 (HISL members and ‘concessions’) Website: http://www.hisl.org E-mail: info@hisl.org |
|
Di-Dòmhnaich, 30mh Samhain 2008, 12:00 meadhon-latha gu 5:00f Blasad ‘Gaeilge’ (no ‘Gaedhilge’ – ’s fheàrr leinn an seann litreachadh!) ann an Ionad Culturail nan Éireannach, oisinn Black’s Road is King Street, Hammersmith, W6 (Fon-talamh: Hammersmith). Le òraidich, bùithtean-obrach is filmichean ùra ann an Gàidhlig na h-Éireann. Còmhla ri Coláiste na nGael. Inntreas: £13 (no £40 air 4 tiocaidean), le biadh Làrach-lìn: http://www.irishculturalcentre.co.uk |
|
Sunday, 30th November 2008, 12:00 noon to 5:00pm A taster of ‘Gaeilge’ (or ‘Gaedhilge’ – we prefer the old spelling!) at the Irish Cultural Centre, corner of Black’s Road and King Street, Hammersmith, W6 (Underground: Hammersmith). With guest speakers, workshops and new films in Irish Gaelic. In association with Coláiste na nGael. Admission: £13 (or £40 for 4 tickets), with lunch Website: http://www.irishculturalcentre.co.uk |
|
Di-Dòmhnaich, 7mh Dùdlachd 2008 Seirbhis eadar-eaglaiseil an Gàidhlig is ’sa Bheurla, leis an Urr. Athair Calum MacGill-Fhaolain (Eirisgeigh) is Còisir Lunnainn. Eaglais Aonaichte Ath-Leasaichte, Tavistock Place (oisinn Regent Square), WC1 Greim-neòin bho 12:30f; seirbhis bho 2.00f Làrach-lìn: www.regentsquare.urc.org.uk |
|
Inter-denominational service in Gaelic and English with Rev. Father Calum MacLellan (Eriskay) and the London Gaelic Choir (Còisir Lunnainn). United Reformed Church, Tavistock Place (corner of Regent Square), WC1 Buffet lunch from 12:30pm; service from 2.00pm Làrach-lìn: www.regentsquare.urc.org.uk |
|
Di-Sathairne, 13mh Dùdlachd 2008, bho 7:30f Comunn Gàidhlig Lunnainn, talla Eaglais Cùirt a’ Chrùin, Covent Garden, WC2 (Fon-talamh: Covent Garden no Charing Cross) Òrain Ghàidhlig bho Linn Phipps (a bhuannaich ‘Aigeallan-Airgid’ nam Ban aig a’ Mhòd Nàiseanta Rìoghail, 2008) Inntreas: £20 Làrach-lìn: www.comunnlunnainn.co.uk |
|
Saturday, 13th December 2008 from 7:30pm
Gaelic songs from Linn Phipps (winner of the Ladies’ ‘Silver Pendant’ at the Royal National Mòd, 2008) Admission: £20 Website: www.comunnlunnainn.co.uk |
|
Di-Dòmhnaich, 14mh Dùdlachd 2008 aig 3:30f Seirbhis an Gàidhlig ann an Eaglais Cùirt a’ Chrùin, Covent Garden, WC2, leis an Urr. Murchadh MacLeòid (Eaglais Rathad Chrow, Glaschu) (Fon-talamh: Covent Garden no Charing Cross) Le srùbaig ann an talla na h-eaglaise an deaghaidh làimh (an t-srùbag a’s fheàrr a th’ann an Lunnainn!). |
|
Sunday, 14th December 2008 at 3:30pm
With a ‘stroupach’ (cup of tea) in the church hall afterwards (London’s best ‘stroupach’!). |
|
And the ‘regulars’: don’t forget that these events run throughout the year! | ||
|
A’ chòisir Ghàidhlig an Lunnainn; coinneamh gach Di-Màirt ann an talla Eaglais Cùirt a’ Chrùin, Covent Garden, WC2 aig 7.00f (Fon-talamh: Covent Garden no Charing Cross) Coinneamh dheireannach na bliadhna: Di-Màirt, 16mh Dùdlachd 2008 (CBC) Làrach-lìn: www.coisirlunnainn.org.uk Post-d: coisirlunnainn@fmail.co.uk |
|
The Gaelic choir in London; meets every Tuesday in the hall of Crown Court Church, Covent Garden, WC2 at 7.00pm (Underground: Covent Garden or Charing Cross) Last meeting of the year: Tuesday, 16th December 2008 (AGM) Website: www.coisirlunnainn.org.uk E-mail: coisirlunnainn@fmail.co.uk |
|
Anns a’ CityLit, Sràid Keeley, Lunnainn WC2 (Fon-talamh: Holborn) Ìre 1: gach Di-Ciadaoin aig 6.00f Ìre 2: gach Di-Ciadaoin aig 7:30f Làrach-lìn: www.citylit.ac.uk |
|
In the CityLit, Keeley Street, London WC2 (Underground: Holborn) Level 1: every Wednesday at 6:00pm Level 2: every Wednesday at 7:30pm Website: www.citylit.ac.uk |
27 November 2008
Microsoft project rubbish
I attach a dump from the hated Microsoft Project.
This is the start of a plan, i.e. the top line is task #1. Why does project insist on taking tasks which are a round number of days or zero for a milestone and then rolling them up into fractional days? For the two rolled up tasks in the image, one is a whole number of days and the other isn't. Why is this?! All the tasks are using the same standard calendar.
thanks
Craig
21 November 2008
Seeking Senior Project Management / Web opportunities / CTO / Programme manager
If anyone reading this is hiring a web project manager/ CTO at the moment or knows anyone with this requirement then please view my details on my linkedin profile and get in touch.
I am looking for contract work UK wide, permanent work in Central Scotland but I would also look at permanent work further afield depending on the opportunity. I'm available from Mid December, happy to meet up, chat online before hand. I'm currently in London Mon-Fri working at BERR, 1 Victoria Street, Westminster.
Qualified and experienced Web Project Manager, recently qualified Programme manager, Agile experience and current security clearance.
thanks
Craig
I am looking for contract work UK wide, permanent work in Central Scotland but I would also look at permanent work further afield depending on the opportunity. I'm available from Mid December, happy to meet up, chat online before hand. I'm currently in London Mon-Fri working at BERR, 1 Victoria Street, Westminster.
Qualified and experienced Web Project Manager, recently qualified Programme manager, Agile experience and current security clearance.
thanks
Craig
09 November 2008
Barack Obama and Arnie's land of opportunity
I was pleased to read that Barack Obama is to be America's first black president (although as someone half white he is technically as much white as black). Nonetheless this is a huge leap forward in terms of equal rights. In his own words
However, one barrier remains. America still requires the President to have been born in the US. Only a land of equal opportunity if you happen to have been born there. Factors such as skin colour which is something your are born with and have no control over should not be a barrier to becoming President. Neither for the same reason should be the place of your birth, it should be up to the people of America to decide whether a candidate and US citizen is fit to lead them and not some rule which says no After all, he's already leading 12% of Americans.
I'm glad to say that some in America are taking this discrimination seriously and perhaps Arnie is the one person of charisma and ability who can lead a campaign with as much emphasis on the land of opportunity as Barack Obama, and certainly a lot more stylish than boring John McCain.
Why do countries insist on state sponsored discrimination?
PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA: If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.
However, one barrier remains. America still requires the President to have been born in the US. Only a land of equal opportunity if you happen to have been born there. Factors such as skin colour which is something your are born with and have no control over should not be a barrier to becoming President. Neither for the same reason should be the place of your birth, it should be up to the people of America to decide whether a candidate and US citizen is fit to lead them and not some rule which says no After all, he's already leading 12% of Americans.
I'm glad to say that some in America are taking this discrimination seriously and perhaps Arnie is the one person of charisma and ability who can lead a campaign with as much emphasis on the land of opportunity as Barack Obama, and certainly a lot more stylish than boring John McCain.
Why do countries insist on state sponsored discrimination?
08 November 2008
The Genevieve Arnold Quintet - Jazz in London
Had the pleasure of seeing the Genevieve Arnold Quintet perform at the blag club in Notting Hill recently. Great gig and well worth looking out for in terms of future appearances.
Craig
Craig
07 November 2008
Gordon Ramsay, give the restaurant business a kick in the (expletive deleted)
Gordon,
I have watched your TV programme where you go into an individual restaurant and go through them like a dose of salts and get them sorted out. How about doing us frequent diners a favour and getting the whole industry to clean up its act.
I have watched your TV programme where you go into an individual restaurant and go through them like a dose of salts and get them sorted out. How about doing us frequent diners a favour and getting the whole industry to clean up its act.
I go to Tesco and get a milkshake for £1
I go to Boots and get a lunch for £2.99
I go to a pub and get a decent meal for £10 including drinks.
Rarely do any of the above refuse to accept credit cards.
Rarely do any of the above expect a tip, especially for shoddy service.
Rarely do any of the above distort their prices with hidden charges.
Rarely do any of the above fail to generate a VAT receipt, legally compliant and showing the VAT paid.
Yet go into a restaurant (not a pub or in a hotel), pay £20 upwards for a meal and invariably you get a scribble for a bill, no itemised VAT and often a mandatory service charge too. Together the 10% mandatory charge and the inability to claim back VAT adds almost 30% to the expected price of the food. What other business has a service charge which is optional to charge but mandatory to pay? Why does 1 person dining get charged for service anyway? Why are pubs clear with their pricing and billing but restaurants are not?
I have no objection to tipping, but a mandatory service charge just distorts the price of the food.
I call on you to ban this 30% surcharge on food and get restaurants to issue correct bills (with the VAT total separately itemised) and to stop this nonsense of mandatory service charges for 1 person dining, indeed I would welcome them being banned for tables of 4 or less. There's no need for it and it simply annoys and confuses customers and puts them off. The bill is the last thing the restaurant serves, don't let the parting taste be a bad one.
Yours in hope
Craig (a fellow Scot working in Central London)
Black Lion, 123 Bayswater Road, Bayswater W2 3JH
Visited here on 5th November to see if their food might be of interest for a future visit. Unfortunately as I was reading the menu the rude waiter demanded to collect all the menus in so I never got to make my mind up if the food would be worth returning for. In that event, I won't be returning and will likely go somewhere with better service.
Beer range limited, food range also appeared to be limited (from what I was permitted to see)
Avoid. Well worth the lowly 2/5 rating in Fancy a pint
To all pubs and restaurant: Please don't take menus away, customers might actually want to read them. They aren't a state secret.
Beer range limited, food range also appeared to be limited (from what I was permitted to see)
Avoid. Well worth the lowly 2/5 rating in Fancy a pint
To all pubs and restaurant: Please don't take menus away, customers might actually want to read them. They aren't a state secret.
01 November 2008
DVD and Cinema features I hate
I loved this comment from Clarke Ching's blog on "Things I would do if I were president of the world". This one comes in at #2.
See also DVD forced advertising hell.
The "don't be a pirate" clips at the start of DVDs really did themselves proud when they warned me of the risks of watching a pirate DVD that might have been taped in a cinema and could have people standing up and getting in the way in the movie. Well done guys, you've just advertised a really good reason why I shouldn't go and see movies at all.
I would add another rule. I would require every entertainment outlet such as cinemas that is paranoid that you must only eat THEIR food in the cinema that in return the cinema is required to provide a wider range of food such that if you have to eat particular foods for dietary or religious reasons that you can actually either bring your own food or eat healthy food bought in the cinema. Currently the only options at the cinema seem to be "eat popcorn", "drink this unhealthy juice with lots of sugar in it", "eat these bags of sweets by the sackload", "have a hot dog (meat eaters only)" or "go hungry".
Pubs woke up to the food revolution about 30 years ago. When are cinemas going to catch up?
Craig
Craig
I'd recall every single DVD player ever sold and get the manufacturers to add a "skip the shite" button which takes you straight past all the unwanted adverts, the insults and accusations that you may be a thief, and any sort of fancy, self-indulgent DVD-designer stuff. I buy the DVD to watch the movie or TV show ... not to be told I'm a thief. I'd also force movie theatres to put up a 10 second message which says, "Hey, you paid to watch this movie, so you're probably not a thief! Thanks! We appreciate your business and hope you enjoy this movie".
See also DVD forced advertising hell.
The "don't be a pirate" clips at the start of DVDs really did themselves proud when they warned me of the risks of watching a pirate DVD that might have been taped in a cinema and could have people standing up and getting in the way in the movie. Well done guys, you've just advertised a really good reason why I shouldn't go and see movies at all.
I would add another rule. I would require every entertainment outlet such as cinemas that is paranoid that you must only eat THEIR food in the cinema that in return the cinema is required to provide a wider range of food such that if you have to eat particular foods for dietary or religious reasons that you can actually either bring your own food or eat healthy food bought in the cinema. Currently the only options at the cinema seem to be "eat popcorn", "drink this unhealthy juice with lots of sugar in it", "eat these bags of sweets by the sackload", "have a hot dog (meat eaters only)" or "go hungry".
Pubs woke up to the food revolution about 30 years ago. When are cinemas going to catch up?
Craig
Craig
25 October 2008
Royal Bank of Scotland incompetence
I have always been a bit surprised by the banking industry. It must be that there is a special set of skills you can only get when working for banking that is completely unavailable anywhere else. The vast majority of banks (when they used to hire people) only took on people with previous banking experience. You might be the best web project manager going, but if you haven't worked for a bank they won't interview you. You might have all the relevant qualifications, but if you haven't worked for a bank, they won't interview you. You might even have extensive payments, e-commerce experience and been security vetted, but if you haven't worked for a bank they won't interview you. Although I have worked in financial services, retail, government and a wide range of sectors, banking is unique in that they require previous experience and will wait forever for the right person and pay over the odds for them rather than take someone who is capable of doing the job. Even government has realised that just employing government people to top jobs is a loser and is keen to recruit from outside. Not so the closed and incestuous world of banking which being so far shoved it own backside is now up the proverbial creek without a paddle and in the biggest mess for nearly a century. Led of course by people who are lifelong bankers, rather than well rounded individuals with a breadth of experience.
I turn now to the fiasco which is Royal Bank Digital Banking which has been the biggest disaster of a service imaginable ever since it first launched, failing of course to casually ignore the bank’s obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act to provide an accessible service for many years.
7 years after the likes of Egg and Intelligent Finance implemented online secure messaging, Royal Bank (they like to claim they are a leader) still doesn't have it. The "alternative" is a long phone call, possibly at expensive rates overseas from a mobile. Not very much of an "online" service then.
They also used to have a very useful financial planner application online. This service was withdrawn.
Recently, and completely unannounced, they made some changes to online banking such that even amending a payment to myself requires a card reader and a card with PIN. Being a business banking customer, my account had no card as all my transactions are online. I write a cheque about once a month and since it's posted, there is no requirement for a card, nor does my account come with one. So in order to do my transactions online I had to have a special online-only card issued. I also need a PIN and a card reader and I have to pack the card and reader as additional extras when I travel just so that I can pay wages into my own account. The alternative (having done it twice now) is a long conversation lasting about 20-30 minutes on the phone to do exactly the same thing but at great expense if I was calling from overseas.
I won't debate the merits of how secure or otherwise this recent change is nor indeed why they would need to implement all that security online when the phone system is as insecure as ever and of course is over an open channel, anyone within earshot can hear it etc. Bit like having 1 lock on your front door and 2 million locks on your back door then saying "we just added another million locks to the back door; our service is really secure now". Burglars aren't stupid. They break in at the weakest point; therefore the security of the back door is irrelevant until the front door is up to the same standard.
So now I turn to the latest set of problems with online banking. They sent me a card, PIN and reader for use with the online banking service over a year ago. However, at that time I had no need for them. The service didn't require their use either for regular payments. A year passed and in all that time I didn't need them once. Then all of a sudden without warning RBS changed the website behaviour so that paying myself via the same payment I had successfully been using for years was now deemed as high risk as setting up a brand new payment to Nigeria in response to a possible scam. Both transactions now need the card, card reader and PIN. No problem I thought and dug out the card and reader I'd got a year ago.
Went to set up transaction and the system said I would need to order a card reader. Funny that, I wonder what the system thought the thing I was holding was that was called a "card reader". There was no way to reset the flag in the system to say I already had one other than to order another one and wait several days until the system thought it had arrived, by which time I could then use the one I already had.
Then I went to use the card I'd had for a year and realised that since I'd never used the card, I couldn't remember the PIN. I called RBS and asked them to send me a new PIN. No can do, that type of card can't have its PIN reset, they had to order a new card instead. However, there's a problem with the supplier and the new card might take up to 3 weeks to arrive. 4 weeks later, I still have no card, no PIN for use with new card and therefore no on-line service. This remember is from a so called leading bank. Buggy websites, poor card functionality and supplier problems too.
On 15th October I put in the following complaint:
1. That the on-line system was changed without warning and for customers like me who required both a card and PIN we needed a 3 week warning at least to ensure no loss of service. This advance warning was not given.
2. I need a card and a PIN to do trivial on-line transactions between my own accounts that have never been a problem, if you are going to change the service to require cards and PINs, you need to check that these cards and PINs are actually available and there isn't a supplier problem. If there is, you need to either delay the upgrade or have an on-line workaround.
3. My wife and I share the same bank account. It isn't possible to set up pay from the business account to our joint account so that my pay goes through as one transaction and her pay goes through as another transaction without endless security checks. Paying a husband and wife who share a common account is such a basic item it is astonishing that it is impossible with direct banking to set up two payments to the same account but with two difference references (e.g. Craig pay and Joscelin pay). Never mind the "Craig dividends" "Joscelin dividends" and expenses payment references I might need as well - one account can only have one reference at a time.
4. When logging the above complaint on 15th October I was passed between several agents all of whom re-requested my details verbally. This is a security risk when I am calling from a phone as it increases the opportunity of people overhearing the conversation. RBS should implement an internal secure call transfer system, just as they already have when transferring from the telephone banking system to when you speak to an agent.
Points 1,2,3,4 were logged as a complaint on 15th October and I was told I would receive a response by 17th October. On 19th October I complained that no response had been received. On 21st October they wrote me a letter saying that they had tried to call me on the 21st but were unable to make contact. My phone has no record of a missed call or otherwise from the bank on 21st October. The response to my complaint was to explain that a card reader order was pending (which I knew) and that I could order a card reader on-line (which I don't care about as they've just acknowledged one was on its way). The letter then said that the changes were introduced to safeguard customers from possible fraud. No explanation as to why no notice was given, no explanation to explain why the loss of on-line service was not considered any explanation as to when my card and PIN which I am still waiting for would actually arrive, no explanation as to their poor call handling and complaint response times.
So I thought I would document the problems on-line just so they have a written record they can look up in case they lose the details again. I also find that telling an organisation I have put my comments on my blog generally results in a better response than the usual stock half-hearted template reply.
Maybe the next time I think of applying for a bank I should put "I want to work for an incestuous company that has no concept of customer service, technical capability or approach to delivering a high class product" and I might stand more of a chance in future. On the other hand, I might just put "Previous banking experience: UK taxpayer. Through your own incompetence taxpayers like me own a part of you. We bailed you out."
Surely an organisation that used to make billions of pounds profit a year and was bigger than Coke could actually deliver a basic on-line service and help desk that is better than this?
I turn now to the fiasco which is Royal Bank Digital Banking which has been the biggest disaster of a service imaginable ever since it first launched, failing of course to casually ignore the bank’s obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act to provide an accessible service for many years.
7 years after the likes of Egg and Intelligent Finance implemented online secure messaging, Royal Bank (they like to claim they are a leader) still doesn't have it. The "alternative" is a long phone call, possibly at expensive rates overseas from a mobile. Not very much of an "online" service then.
They also used to have a very useful financial planner application online. This service was withdrawn.
Recently, and completely unannounced, they made some changes to online banking such that even amending a payment to myself requires a card reader and a card with PIN. Being a business banking customer, my account had no card as all my transactions are online. I write a cheque about once a month and since it's posted, there is no requirement for a card, nor does my account come with one. So in order to do my transactions online I had to have a special online-only card issued. I also need a PIN and a card reader and I have to pack the card and reader as additional extras when I travel just so that I can pay wages into my own account. The alternative (having done it twice now) is a long conversation lasting about 20-30 minutes on the phone to do exactly the same thing but at great expense if I was calling from overseas.
I won't debate the merits of how secure or otherwise this recent change is nor indeed why they would need to implement all that security online when the phone system is as insecure as ever and of course is over an open channel, anyone within earshot can hear it etc. Bit like having 1 lock on your front door and 2 million locks on your back door then saying "we just added another million locks to the back door; our service is really secure now". Burglars aren't stupid. They break in at the weakest point; therefore the security of the back door is irrelevant until the front door is up to the same standard.
So now I turn to the latest set of problems with online banking. They sent me a card, PIN and reader for use with the online banking service over a year ago. However, at that time I had no need for them. The service didn't require their use either for regular payments. A year passed and in all that time I didn't need them once. Then all of a sudden without warning RBS changed the website behaviour so that paying myself via the same payment I had successfully been using for years was now deemed as high risk as setting up a brand new payment to Nigeria in response to a possible scam. Both transactions now need the card, card reader and PIN. No problem I thought and dug out the card and reader I'd got a year ago.
Went to set up transaction and the system said I would need to order a card reader. Funny that, I wonder what the system thought the thing I was holding was that was called a "card reader". There was no way to reset the flag in the system to say I already had one other than to order another one and wait several days until the system thought it had arrived, by which time I could then use the one I already had.
Then I went to use the card I'd had for a year and realised that since I'd never used the card, I couldn't remember the PIN. I called RBS and asked them to send me a new PIN. No can do, that type of card can't have its PIN reset, they had to order a new card instead. However, there's a problem with the supplier and the new card might take up to 3 weeks to arrive. 4 weeks later, I still have no card, no PIN for use with new card and therefore no on-line service. This remember is from a so called leading bank. Buggy websites, poor card functionality and supplier problems too.
On 15th October I put in the following complaint:
1. That the on-line system was changed without warning and for customers like me who required both a card and PIN we needed a 3 week warning at least to ensure no loss of service. This advance warning was not given.
2. I need a card and a PIN to do trivial on-line transactions between my own accounts that have never been a problem, if you are going to change the service to require cards and PINs, you need to check that these cards and PINs are actually available and there isn't a supplier problem. If there is, you need to either delay the upgrade or have an on-line workaround.
3. My wife and I share the same bank account. It isn't possible to set up pay from the business account to our joint account so that my pay goes through as one transaction and her pay goes through as another transaction without endless security checks. Paying a husband and wife who share a common account is such a basic item it is astonishing that it is impossible with direct banking to set up two payments to the same account but with two difference references (e.g. Craig pay and Joscelin pay). Never mind the "Craig dividends" "Joscelin dividends" and expenses payment references I might need as well - one account can only have one reference at a time.
4. When logging the above complaint on 15th October I was passed between several agents all of whom re-requested my details verbally. This is a security risk when I am calling from a phone as it increases the opportunity of people overhearing the conversation. RBS should implement an internal secure call transfer system, just as they already have when transferring from the telephone banking system to when you speak to an agent.
Points 1,2,3,4 were logged as a complaint on 15th October and I was told I would receive a response by 17th October. On 19th October I complained that no response had been received. On 21st October they wrote me a letter saying that they had tried to call me on the 21st but were unable to make contact. My phone has no record of a missed call or otherwise from the bank on 21st October. The response to my complaint was to explain that a card reader order was pending (which I knew) and that I could order a card reader on-line (which I don't care about as they've just acknowledged one was on its way). The letter then said that the changes were introduced to safeguard customers from possible fraud. No explanation as to why no notice was given, no explanation to explain why the loss of on-line service was not considered any explanation as to when my card and PIN which I am still waiting for would actually arrive, no explanation as to their poor call handling and complaint response times.
So I thought I would document the problems on-line just so they have a written record they can look up in case they lose the details again. I also find that telling an organisation I have put my comments on my blog generally results in a better response than the usual stock half-hearted template reply.
Maybe the next time I think of applying for a bank I should put "I want to work for an incestuous company that has no concept of customer service, technical capability or approach to delivering a high class product" and I might stand more of a chance in future. On the other hand, I might just put "Previous banking experience: UK taxpayer. Through your own incompetence taxpayers like me own a part of you. We bailed you out."
Surely an organisation that used to make billions of pounds profit a year and was bigger than Coke could actually deliver a basic on-line service and help desk that is better than this?
23 October 2008
Estate Agents and the no commission model
So the property market is now at the point where estate agents are selling houses with no commission charges (This is London; 20th October 2008)
Hardly news for me however, I wrote about this in the Linlithgow Gazette on 17th October and on this very blog almost 5 months ago.
How many more estate agents will go bust before they realise the commission model driven on a low number of high profit sales is no longer viable?
These days the main source of house sales is the Internet. If websites didn't run a closed shop estate agents only model, then members of the general public could sell their own homes for a tiny fraction of the present commission driven cost.
The longer that estate agents cling to the 1%+ sales commission model, the more incentive there is for some real competition from the likes of House network - commission free selling.
I should not more have to pay an estate agent several thousand pounds for picking up the phone and sending a seller my way than I should pay autotrader a commission for selling my car. Even eBay don't charge a commission for selling property.
Conventional estate agents pay attention! Time to wake up and smell the coffee.
Craig
Letter from Linlithgow Gazette 17th October 2008:
Hardly news for me however, I wrote about this in the Linlithgow Gazette on 17th October and on this very blog almost 5 months ago.
How many more estate agents will go bust before they realise the commission model driven on a low number of high profit sales is no longer viable?
These days the main source of house sales is the Internet. If websites didn't run a closed shop estate agents only model, then members of the general public could sell their own homes for a tiny fraction of the present commission driven cost.
The longer that estate agents cling to the 1%+ sales commission model, the more incentive there is for some real competition from the likes of House network - commission free selling.
I should not more have to pay an estate agent several thousand pounds for picking up the phone and sending a seller my way than I should pay autotrader a commission for selling my car. Even eBay don't charge a commission for selling property.
Conventional estate agents pay attention! Time to wake up and smell the coffee.
Craig
Letter from Linlithgow Gazette 17th October 2008:
A challenge
Sir,— I have lived in Linlithgow for over seven years and during that time have seen businesses close in the High Street and seen a reduction in diversity in the High Street, including no toy shop, more sandwich shops and properties lying vacant. Coming from the other side of the argument, I worked for Tesco and was IT manager of the grocery website at their corporate HQ in Hertfordshire last year. Yet I feel that another out of town shopping centre is the last thing the town needs – I would rather have Tesco where it is than a larger supermarket that you need to get in a car to drive to.
The £10 minimum charge levied by retailers on credit cards doesn't apply at Tesco and if the small retailers don't want to alienate people they need to drop this requirement – even small retailers can use credit card clearing facilities that charge a flat amount per month (just like Tesco) rather than a per transaction fee.
My job as an e-commerce consultant takes me all over the UK. When I work in London, I see that small traders get more passing custom yet seem much more willing to capitalise on the internet to supplement their passing trade.
With online shopping continuing to rise, the efforts of the Linlithgow High Street to reach out to anyone wanting to shop on line are woeful by comparison. Even something as basic as a one page website listing the company name, address, email address, products and services and opening hours is missing from most of the High Street traders and instead people searching often find traders in Livingston or Falkirk instead – for example enter Linlithgow Plumber in Google and the first site returned says there are none.
Enter West Lothian computers and Google maps returns nothing for Linlithgow either. Most of the time entering generic search terms, for example Linlithgow pubs or Linlithgow restaurants such as tourists would use, simply results in generic listing type sites over which local businesses usually have little or no control – actually returning the site belonging to a local business or Linlithgow.com would be far more useful.
Whilst Linlithgow.com is a useful first step, in times of a credit crunch and competing with out of town shopping, the woeful presence of Linlithgow on the Internet does not help businesses reach out to new customers who would rather look online.
Indeed even those with the most developed websites, that is estate agents, now face challenges from online-only estate agents who list property for sale on the same websites and at a tiny fraction of the price charged by Linlithgow High Street agents. Even the might of Tesco.com can't tell me what's in stock at my local shop in Linlithgow.
The challenge of out of town shopping, online searching for businesses and online shopping presents a problem for businesses from local high street shops to major retail groups, and the people of Linlithgow. In difficult economic times we need to come together and do everything possible to reach as many customers as possible.
Not having an adequate Internet presence in this day and age is like not having a phone number 30 years ago.
Making Linlithgow at the heart of Silicon Glen fully connected with modern shopping trends would not only complement Cittaslow status, but would help businesses of all kinds to combat the challenges posed not only by Springfield's development but also global shopping trends.—Yours etc.,
CRAIG COCKBURN, M.Sc.,
Chartered IT Professional
17 October 2008
Star of Bombay, 157 Westbourne Grove, London W11
If you bought some goods and then had a mandatory 30% charge slapped on them without warning you'd probably be pretty annoyed.
Restaurants do this with alarming regularity, nowhere else indulges in such a dubious practice so why do restaurants such as the Star of Bombay and indeed about 90% of other restaurants annoy and mislead customers like this when 99% of non restaurant businesses are open and honest about their pricing?
Supposing the price of the food is £20. On top of this slap the 10% mandatory service charge whether you like the food or not and even if it's just you eating. So the price of the food is now £22. Rather than an honest price for the food of £22, it's a dishonest £20 with an extra £2 even if the service was rubbish.
On top of that, as a VAT registered business I should be able to claim back the VAT by getting a VAT bill. So the real cost to me should be £20 * 100/117.5 or £17.02. Instead, because the restaurant just issues a piece of paper with a VAT number and a total on it, this is not a VAT bill and as the VAT isn't separately itemised, it can't be reclaimed. Combined with the dishonest 10% mandatory service change (little more than a table ordering charge, since pub bring the food to my table and don't charge a tip) the cost of the meal is £22 instead of £17.02, a mark-up of over 29% and nearly £5. Eat out 5 times a week on business and approx 1.5 meals equivalent cost is due to rip off charges and poor billing practices by restaurants rather than the actual price of the food which I need to eat. When I registered for VAT, one of the first things I learned was how to issue a correct VAT invoice for customers and all it takes is a piece of paper, a computer or till, a printer and calculator/excel/word or similar so that the invoice has the total, vat total, date, address, and VAT number. Hardly rocket science, so why do restaurants think they are the only sector that can do what it likes in terms of billing? It also makes me wonder if a restaurant can't meet its VAT legal obligations, do they have the same laissez-faire attitude towards legal obligations towards food hygiene which require more skill to meet?
Anyone that rips me off by nearly 30% doesn't deserve praise. So in a recession where places are competing for customer business, I will be sending more business the way of pubs because 95%+ of pubs can produce a proper VAT receipt and don't rip me off with a mandatory service charge, whereas 90% of restaurants do (and they are more expensive). I note most restaurants, especially midweek, are pretty quiet just now. They might be busier if there wasn't a 29%+ surcharge in the bill.
As for the food at the Star of Bombay, well it may be the favourite restaurant of The Chemical Brothers, but I found the food fairly ordinary, the poppadoms were too crispy and disintegrated on touching and dumping the sweet menu in my face without asking me if I would like to see the sweet menu meant the mandatory 10% "service charge" was taking liberties with the name of service.
As for the Star of Bombay, I'll leave the Chemical Brothers to it and eat elsewhere in future. There's no chemistry here for me.
'Craig ate here' on 16th October.
Restaurants do this with alarming regularity, nowhere else indulges in such a dubious practice so why do restaurants such as the Star of Bombay and indeed about 90% of other restaurants annoy and mislead customers like this when 99% of non restaurant businesses are open and honest about their pricing?
Supposing the price of the food is £20. On top of this slap the 10% mandatory service charge whether you like the food or not and even if it's just you eating. So the price of the food is now £22. Rather than an honest price for the food of £22, it's a dishonest £20 with an extra £2 even if the service was rubbish.
On top of that, as a VAT registered business I should be able to claim back the VAT by getting a VAT bill. So the real cost to me should be £20 * 100/117.5 or £17.02. Instead, because the restaurant just issues a piece of paper with a VAT number and a total on it, this is not a VAT bill and as the VAT isn't separately itemised, it can't be reclaimed. Combined with the dishonest 10% mandatory service change (little more than a table ordering charge, since pub bring the food to my table and don't charge a tip) the cost of the meal is £22 instead of £17.02, a mark-up of over 29% and nearly £5. Eat out 5 times a week on business and approx 1.5 meals equivalent cost is due to rip off charges and poor billing practices by restaurants rather than the actual price of the food which I need to eat. When I registered for VAT, one of the first things I learned was how to issue a correct VAT invoice for customers and all it takes is a piece of paper, a computer or till, a printer and calculator/excel/word or similar so that the invoice has the total, vat total, date, address, and VAT number. Hardly rocket science, so why do restaurants think they are the only sector that can do what it likes in terms of billing? It also makes me wonder if a restaurant can't meet its VAT legal obligations, do they have the same laissez-faire attitude towards legal obligations towards food hygiene which require more skill to meet?
Anyone that rips me off by nearly 30% doesn't deserve praise. So in a recession where places are competing for customer business, I will be sending more business the way of pubs because 95%+ of pubs can produce a proper VAT receipt and don't rip me off with a mandatory service charge, whereas 90% of restaurants do (and they are more expensive). I note most restaurants, especially midweek, are pretty quiet just now. They might be busier if there wasn't a 29%+ surcharge in the bill.
As for the food at the Star of Bombay, well it may be the favourite restaurant of The Chemical Brothers, but I found the food fairly ordinary, the poppadoms were too crispy and disintegrated on touching and dumping the sweet menu in my face without asking me if I would like to see the sweet menu meant the mandatory 10% "service charge" was taking liberties with the name of service.
As for the Star of Bombay, I'll leave the Chemical Brothers to it and eat elsewhere in future. There's no chemistry here for me.
'Craig ate here' on 16th October.
16 October 2008
The Swan, 66 Bayswater Road, Lancaster Gate, W2
Decent enough pub serving a good choice of real ale and large portions of food. The slab of salmon completely dominated my plate and was one of the largest portions of fresh fish I've had in a while. Speedy service and a proper VAT receipt (unlike most restaurants) count in its favour, although having to walk through a smoky beer garden to get to the door was no fun. Convenient for Lancaster Gate tube and probably worth a repeat visit that next time I fancy a large slab of salmon!
'Craig ate here' on 14th October.
'Craig ate here' on 14th October.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Popular Posts
-
Why is it that Easyjet rip me off with a £4.95 minimum credit card fee when I buy something on their site yet I can buy a downloaded MP3 on...
-
I got a mail from Scottish Widows recently (an investment company). Their email signature and disclaimer was 68 (sixty-eight) lines long. Th...
-
Find me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/siliconglen/ Medium https://siliconglen.medium.com/ thanks Craig
-
An article on how Agile can sit alongside PRINCE2 and where DSDM Atern fits in. In 2007, I put "used an Agile/PRINCE2 development str...
-
My article about Dyson's breakdown problems made the front page of reddit and hopefully this article on Bosch will do so too because m...
-
Introduction You may be wondering the significance of the three Scottish flags in the image. I took this picture a few weeks ago. I...
-
The UK Government Digital Service (GDS) has just had a reboot . However will it be value for money and deliver its objectives? Will th... -
BBC displays another example of the Scunthorpe problem . I am no longer allowed to use my name on the BBC site. See the screendump (click to...
-
Dear BBC. I am a licencepayer who lives in the UK. Your attempt at an iPlayer service for Gaelic is a disgrace. 1. The iPlayer ...
-
In contrast to my usual relaxed drive to work I was on the motorway today. Tailgaiting seems to have got worse. It's not enough to be ...
