Grandad, the little one asks, what happens to all those letters you get?
She is referring, of course, to the sacks of mail emptied daily onto the Etruscan marble top of the table in the main hall that once belonged to Pious IX (the hall that is, not the table, which was ex Francesco Medici via contacts in Argentina best not mentioned further here).
Why little one, Grandad reads them all, then they are kept in those books over there. Points vaguely to the east wall of the library, where countless books bound in Cardinal red kid hold the correspondence generated by my work, meticulously indexed in 12-point Sushing Immacula printed on hand-scuted 250gm paper. Pick any volume at random, open it where you like, and the same sort of drivel will be found- typically questions about the inspiration for my writings, usually from those in search of some inspiration of their own.
Take this one, from June 2015. Why, it asks, are there sometimes such large gaps between the entries in my blog? Is it because I am working for long periods in other media? Well, yes, I suppose that accounts for it partly. I have my other means of expression- film, music, theatre, opera, my bronzes, the sketches I send to Foster and Piano, the choreography, my old Leica L3, the wrapping of the Grand Canyon in cling film, programming Deep Blue- and so on, and they all, to some extent, eat into the time I have to enter the character of the bloggeur Peluxes. But I can't entirely dispel a suspicion that behind the question there is an assumption that posts such as these- golden nuggets of literary humour- can somehow be.... just made up. That they can be...dashed-off in a moment, and that if it weren't for other distractions my blog could be a near-continuous outpouring. One might as well ask why the seven-year gap between the Special and General Theories of Relativity? Was Einstein doing something else? Why the eight year gap between War and Peace and Anna Karenina? Did Tolstoy take up photography? Blog posts such as this are not simply...written. They are conceived, nurtured, refined, examined from every angle. The actual typing of them is like the birth of a child- a few short moments of painful effort after months of development.
It's as if people think that I come in from the pub, tell the lovely wife to put her feet up and I'll get her a cup of tea, then type the first old nonsense that comes into my head while the kettle boils. How do people get these ideas?
Shouted from a distance: Where's that tea? I'm dying of thirst here.
Self: Sorry sweetest, just coming.
Friday, 5 February 2016
Thursday, 4 February 2016
Terry Wogone
Having intended to remain silent on the matter I have been persuaded to pen suitable words to commemorate the sad passing of my erstwhile mentee Terry Wogan. I first heard the young 'Tell Woe' (as I nicknamed him) in London's St Thomas's hospital, where I had been brought in to establish a neurosurgical unit and he to push the trolleys that bore my patients. When one of the announcers on the hospital's radio service fell ill, Tell Woe volunteered to take her place, fancying himself as the next Jimmy Young. His programme was aired in the surgeons' mess, and I quickly became sensitized to the tedium of his delivery, which was limited in the main to the passing on of 'special hellos' to patients from their relatives, and reading in a soporiphic monotone the daily specials from the canteen menu.
Sensing that the lad had not the first notion of the numbing effects of his performance, and wishing to be relieved of the ordeal of overhearing it, I suggested to him that he might find it educational to allow me to take the lead in one of his slots, a suggestion to which he gladly assented.
Even today I remember almost word for word the off-the-cuff banter I uttered in a rich resonant baritone when the strains of the theme music died away. Something along these lines...
'Yesterday in my Spartan Mayfair apartments my work on some matter of profound global moment was interrupted by one of my domestic staff. A call from Los Angeles. President Kennedy was hoping to speak with me. I put down my papers and beckoned for the call to be put through to my desk. The usual pleasantries were exchanged. Jackie and kids fine. Bobby still a worry, and so on. Something of my impatience must have sounded in my voice, for JFK apologised for taking my time, but needed some advice. This Bay of Pigs business. Military chiefs spouting on about game theory. Didn't understand a word of it. Didn't think they understood a word of it either. Given my role as von Neumann's mentor could I shed light on best strategy etc etc. I said it was best if he left the thinking to me, and I would call Kruschev after supper. No thanks necessary, Happy to help. Hope the introduction to Marilyn had lived up to expectations, and so on. No wonder I never got round to the crossword. But how's this. One across: 'Judas preferred chocolate to pigeons'. Seven letters. Prize to the first patient to ring in.' Then straight into the second movement of Scheherazade.
To say that Tell Woe was gobsmacked my impromptu delivery would be a major understatement. It was at least two hours before his hanging jaw closed and he uttered a word. That, I told him, is radio magic. But how, he wanted to know, how could he, with his narrow life experience, and his meagre fund of stories, possibly match my own peerless performance. Tell Woe, I said, art need not be true. No-one needs to know that you are a young good-for-nothing wastrel. If your true factual recollections are insipid and forgettable, invent. Unshackle your imagination. Let your listeners believe you are a seasoned man of the world, with Hollywood connections, backstairs influence, money, sex appeal. and the rest. It is radio, don't forget, so they cannot see the callow Limerick boy, they can only hear the character that he projects. And most of the rest you know. Tell Woe and I remained close friends, sharing carefree hours on the golf-course. With my talent for mimicry I was able to emulate his delivery faultlessly, and when in Broadcasting House I would often take over the microphone during his show so that he could slip out to Ladbrooks. Of course, television put a stop to those innocent capers, as I could never disguise my appearance to match his dumpy gormless look.
Sensing that the lad had not the first notion of the numbing effects of his performance, and wishing to be relieved of the ordeal of overhearing it, I suggested to him that he might find it educational to allow me to take the lead in one of his slots, a suggestion to which he gladly assented.
Even today I remember almost word for word the off-the-cuff banter I uttered in a rich resonant baritone when the strains of the theme music died away. Something along these lines...
'Yesterday in my Spartan Mayfair apartments my work on some matter of profound global moment was interrupted by one of my domestic staff. A call from Los Angeles. President Kennedy was hoping to speak with me. I put down my papers and beckoned for the call to be put through to my desk. The usual pleasantries were exchanged. Jackie and kids fine. Bobby still a worry, and so on. Something of my impatience must have sounded in my voice, for JFK apologised for taking my time, but needed some advice. This Bay of Pigs business. Military chiefs spouting on about game theory. Didn't understand a word of it. Didn't think they understood a word of it either. Given my role as von Neumann's mentor could I shed light on best strategy etc etc. I said it was best if he left the thinking to me, and I would call Kruschev after supper. No thanks necessary, Happy to help. Hope the introduction to Marilyn had lived up to expectations, and so on. No wonder I never got round to the crossword. But how's this. One across: 'Judas preferred chocolate to pigeons'. Seven letters. Prize to the first patient to ring in.' Then straight into the second movement of Scheherazade.
To say that Tell Woe was gobsmacked my impromptu delivery would be a major understatement. It was at least two hours before his hanging jaw closed and he uttered a word. That, I told him, is radio magic. But how, he wanted to know, how could he, with his narrow life experience, and his meagre fund of stories, possibly match my own peerless performance. Tell Woe, I said, art need not be true. No-one needs to know that you are a young good-for-nothing wastrel. If your true factual recollections are insipid and forgettable, invent. Unshackle your imagination. Let your listeners believe you are a seasoned man of the world, with Hollywood connections, backstairs influence, money, sex appeal. and the rest. It is radio, don't forget, so they cannot see the callow Limerick boy, they can only hear the character that he projects. And most of the rest you know. Tell Woe and I remained close friends, sharing carefree hours on the golf-course. With my talent for mimicry I was able to emulate his delivery faultlessly, and when in Broadcasting House I would often take over the microphone during his show so that he could slip out to Ladbrooks. Of course, television put a stop to those innocent capers, as I could never disguise my appearance to match his dumpy gormless look.
Celebrity Mastermind
The blood pressure was up again last night, and no surprises
there. Keep it to yourself but some months ago I bet Melvyn Bragg and Joan Bakewell
that I could take any dunce they cared to mention and cram them to win
Celebrity Mastermind, using, of course, the techniques of didactic gradualism. Now
I know what you are saying, and I agree, I agree: betting those two old chisellers is hardly a
fitting demonstration of the powers of so monumental a development as didactic
gradualism. But let’s just say that there were some old scores to settle, and
leave it at that. So hands were spat on
and shook, and the bet was made, the next step being for my counter-parties to
nominate a suitable subject for the trial. Well they took their pints and withdrew
into a corner of the pub for a prolonged and evidently heated discussion, returning
some minutes later with crafty looks and the smiles of anticipated victory. I
sat stiffly erect and waited for their worst with a look of granite dignity and
forbearance; but I must confess that an involuntary wince was the reaction when
they announced the name: JP McCoy.
Cripes! I’d known JP since he was a lad mucking out the racers at my stud in County Meath, and even then, when his toughest mental challenge was to figure out how to move horse muck from point a to point b you could virtually hear the mental cogs grinding. How he had gone on to become the greatest jockey of his generation was a triumph of my training over his rudimentary capabilities. Never give up- no case is completely hopeless, I said to myself repeatedly on the gallops as JP jumped the rails instead of the fences, and I said the same thing to myself when Bragg and Bakewell sprang his name upon me. After all, I had overcome bigger challenges- look what I managed with Hawking, after all.
All the same it was fierce work. I had JP flown out to my apartment in Dubai, where the harsh prohibitions on the consumption of alcohol might constrain his tendency for purposeful rambles down Toping Street. I shall never forget the first night in which we thrashed out a list of the ‘specialist subjects’ which JP would have to master if he were to win the coveted ‘Celebrity Mastermind’ bowl, and I my bet. There were four subjects on the list, one for each of the knock-out rounds of the competition, and one for the final:
The techniques and equipment of fly-fishing
Styles of peasant dance
Panavision
Historical currencies of Spanish origin
I clutched the arms of my chair as JP was invited to take the hot seat, peering at the television to see whether his walk across the studio floor betrayed any signs of ‘green room’ indulgences. Nor did my grip loosen by the smallest fraction as the questioning began:
JP: The Itchen back-flip.
Humphries: Correct. Which type of caddis fly larva is mimicked by the lure known as a ghiillie’s eyebrow.
JP: Saluris Madriedae
Humphries: Correct. In the 18th century what was the weight of heaviest recorded salmon to have been caught with a line on the River Tay between Golmoray and the ‘Stirling Bends’.
JP: Sixty four pounds, seven ounces and four drachms.
Myself, leaning forward in chair: Attaboy JP!
Humphries: Correct. What is meant by ‘under champing’?
JP: A largely obsolete practice of casting with a horizontal ruffle that was once popular with the ‘underhand butts’ school.
Humphries, smiling: Correct.
Myself, half standing: Yes!
Humphries: For what purpose might a ‘poplin Mary’ be employed?
JP: To re-inforce a weakened top-knuckle that had caught on an overhanging tree, submerged supermarket trolley, or countless other forms of obstruction that plague the life of the angler.
Myself, punching air with fist: Yeah… textbook!
Humphries: Correct. In which navigable waterway has the practice of double reefing been banned by the British Waterways Board since a fatal accident in1953?
JP: The Firth of Forth.
Humphries: Correct. Which of its members were removed from the Standards Committee of the British Angling Authority after the ‘eased spindles’ scandal in 1904?
JP: Brigadier Sir George Robert Carlisle; the Right Reverend Enoch, Bishop of Ely; Lord and Lady Aberaeron; and the Duke of Argyll.
Humphries: Correct. What is the maximum modulus of elasticity of nylon headers under the Glamorgan convention introduced in 1988 following an accusation of sprocket packing at the West Highland championship?
JP: 4.8 Pascals.
Humphries: Yes I’ll accept that, or Newtons per square metre.
Myself, outraged, flecks of spittle at corner of mouth: Time wasting- get on with it!
Humphries: What notable printing error characterises the rare 2nd edition of Sir Arthur Bower’s classic reference ‘Imitating the Thorax of the Water Nymph with natural Hemp Sutures’?
JP: The reversal of a plate.
Humphries: More specifically…
Myself, shouting hoarsely: Pedant!
JP: The colour plate facing Page 64 in which three faux nymphs are shown with doubled barbs.
Humphries: Correct. Whose 1921 record for catching the most brown trout with slip-faced ticklers was temporarily broken by Alison Broad using synthetic rayon slip-faces in 2003 before the use of rayon was overturned in the ‘Cahill’ judgement.
JP: Father Patrick Sweeney of St Brendan’s Church, Mallow.
Humphries: Correct. What is the conventional penalty for a frayed tie-end in Class 2 international fly judging.
JP: Three points provided the frayed-end is no longer than 2 millimetres, otherwise five points.
Humphries: Correct.
Myself, having drained tumbler of premium malt in a single gargantuan swig: Come-on come-on!
Humphries: With what elongated variety of close-chuffed fly is the Welsh opera singer Bryn Terfyl closely associated?
JP: the triple ‘French’.
Humphries: Correct. Since 2006 what has been the maximum number of eyelets permissible on a split cane rod under international competitive salmon fishing rules?
JP: thirteen if the bottom runner is more than 30 centimetres from the butt.
Humphries: Correct. For what non-compliance were all of the lady members of the Canadian team disqualified in the Henessey casting handicap at Stockbridge in 1963?
JP: The use of ovolo barbs with less than the minimum legal radius of curvature.
Humphries: Correct. What is the common term for…I’ve started so I’ll finish… the piece of equipment that consists of a spool, ratchet, centre pawl, eccentric crank, spindle button and clamp and which is used to regulate the distention of the line?
JP, squeezing a perplexed chin: ermmm…
Myself, nodding at television, eyebrows at maximum altitude: ….
JP: errmm…
Myself, head turned upwards imploringly to the unheeding gods: for *****sake it’s THE REEL MCCOY!
JP: errmm…
Myself: nnngggggggnnnnn
JP: ..the reel?
Humphries: Correct.
Myself, dissolving with relief: thank God for that.
Monday, 1 February 2016
Kids Company
This morning sees the publication of the 'PACAC' report on the failure of 'Kids Company', the children's charity headed by the colourful Camila Batman-Ghelidjh. I first met the young Camila Ghelidjh, as she then was, in Iran, when in 1982 she accompanied her father who came to seek my advice in connection with a matter relating to the estate of the recently-deceased Shah Mohhamad Reza Pahlavi, to whom the Ghelidjh family was distantly related. Although her father was the ostensible leader of the little delegation that sat drinking Persian tea in my office, I soon observed that Camila was the driving force behind the enquiries into the Shah's testatory status, and switching from the mode of legal advisor to that of psychologist I readily established that hers was a most acquisitive nature. I was not in the least surprised, therefore, when she approached me in later years to draft the now-notorious 'pre-nup' for her marriage to billionaire socialite and philanthropist Bruce Wayne, from whom she took the name Batman-Ghelidjh; and it was interesting to note from the PACAC report that none of Camila's personal fortune was ever risked in the coffers of her charity.
Of course, the bulk of the criticism in the PACAC report is rightly directed at Alan Yentob who chaired the board of trustees which so-badly failed to instil adequate standards of governance at the failed charity. That Yentob failed can hardly be a surprise to anyone aware of his background- his only work experience has been gathered during a lifetime at the BBC, that most-introspective of organisations whose standards of governance were responsible for Jimmy Saville, and, worst still, for the £6.8m pension pot it has put aside for Yentob himself.
Of course, the bulk of the criticism in the PACAC report is rightly directed at Alan Yentob who chaired the board of trustees which so-badly failed to instil adequate standards of governance at the failed charity. That Yentob failed can hardly be a surprise to anyone aware of his background- his only work experience has been gathered during a lifetime at the BBC, that most-introspective of organisations whose standards of governance were responsible for Jimmy Saville, and, worst still, for the £6.8m pension pot it has put aside for Yentob himself.
Thursday, 28 January 2016
The Google Tax
Another of those coincidences which pepper the life of the world’s
mentor to the great and not-so-good…
Prone on the massage table, barely awake, just as Martina is
working around the assegai scar on the left glute, from the door there’s a soft
respectful knock, and one of the interns pokes in a tentative head to say
Sergey Brin is asking if the Professor is available for a quick word. Stretch
out a questing hand from under the warmth of sheltering towel. Into it intern
places telephone. Bring telephone to seasoned man-of-the-world ear. Sergey’s sorry
to disturb. Hopes it’s not inconvenient. First must say thanks for the new
algorithm. Got rolled out to all datacentres on Saturday. Search times dropped
by more than half. Wouldn’t like to be in shoes of CTO at Bing when news
breaks. Etc etc. Effusive thanks are waved away. Next, had I heard about the UK
tax issue. Not sure what to do for best. Grateful for any advice etc etc. Yes…
yes…understand… marvellous…excellent, can’t thank me enough. One last favour…
could I talk to Osborne?
Stretch out hand again. Telephone removed. Withdraw arm
under towel.
Five minutes later, another tentative knock. The Chancellor is
wondering if the Professor might be available for a quick word. Hand stretches
out once more from under sheltering towel, clutches phone and brings it to
careworn ear. Osborne's sorry to interrupt. Hopes it’s not inconvenient. First
must say thanks for the report on interest rates. Was passed round MPC
on Saturday. Deficit forecasts dropped by more than half. Wouldn’t like
to be in shoes of shadow chancellor when news breaks. Etc etc. Effusive thanks
waved away. Next, had I heard about the Google tax issue. Not sure what to do
for best. Grateful for any advice etc etc. Yes… yes…understand…
marvellous…excellent, can’t thank me enough. One last favour… could I talk to
Brin?Stretch out hand again. Telephone removed. Withdraw arm under towel.
Five minutes later, another tentative knock. Prime Minister wonders if the Professor might be available for a quick chat. Hand stretches out once more from under sheltering towel, clutches phone and brings it to now somewhat irritated ear. Cameron sorry to interrupt. Hopes it’s not inconvenient. First must say thanks for the intervention with Merkel. Emailed EU ministers on Saturday. Opposition to border reform dropped by more than half. Wouldn’t like to be in shoes of Corbyn when news breaks. Etc etc. Effusive thanks waved away. Next, had I heard about the row between Google and Treasury. Not sure what to do for best. Grateful for any advice etc etc. Yes… yes…understand… marvellous…excellent, can’t thank me enough. One last favour… could I talk to Osborne and Brin?
Those of you with the forbearance to have read this far through so much repetitive tripe will understand why my response to the last request was to utter into the telephone an old Danakil hunting oath. PM unsure what I mean. Tell him to Google it. Hurl telephone at intern's head.
Wednesday, 27 January 2016
The simple large hadron collider
Wednesday at 21:31 hundred hours pm O'clock finds your favourite and most esteemed bloggeur struggling to find the way back to planet normal after being exposed to 3.748 minutes of 'Science Stories', a programme broadcast on the BBC channel currently known as Radio 4. Feeling somewhat like the victim in an alien-brainwashing episode of 'The Outer Limits', I, with my unrivalled powers of vividly articulate self-expression, am currently unequal to the task of adequately conveying the bizarre characteristics of the aforementioned programme. My elegant, delicate, sensitive, and richly bejewelled fingers hover indecisively over the keys of my immaculately maintained laptop, poised to react to the overdue instructions from a bewildered mind. Ok.. let me just spell out what happened, and you can decide for yourself...
I walked into the chicken shed to make sure that all the old cluckers were present and correct, my intended next steps being to close the 'pop-holes' and switch-off the radio which is left-on during the day to give any passing foxes the impression that real humans are about. From the radio I heard a summary of an experiment performed in the 17th century by Hooke to determine the weight of air, which he achieved by weighing a glass cylinder before and after evacuating it with a vacuum pump, the difference between the two readings being the weight of the air removed. According to the presenter of the programme- Naomi something- the possibility that air might have a weight was inconceivable to most of Hooke's contempories. Fair enough you might think. Those were unenlightened times. It might be possible that men blinded by ignorance and religion could struggle to conceive of what we now consider to be the obvious. The presenter might be stretching the point somewhat, but a degree of hyperbole is probably unavoidable if one is to spin a radio programme out of such meagre raw material. I missed what was said next because I slipped out to give a deformed egg to the dog, but upon my return I heard the presenter describe the experiments that proved the existence of the Higgs-Sushing boson as 'almost as esoteric as weighing air'.
Now, perhaps, you will appreciate my struggle. On the one hand we have an experiment that can be performed by one person with few and simple apparatus, summarised in a line or two, evaluated by subtracting one number from another, and readily understood by the uneducated masses. On the other we have the most complicated and expensive scientific machinery ever constructed, used to generate thousands of petabytes of observational data, evaluated by millions of lines of computer code, and explained by a theoretical model that no-one professes to understand. And according to Naomi the latter is almost as esoteric as the former...
I'm off to bed. Hopefully it will all make sense in the morning.
I walked into the chicken shed to make sure that all the old cluckers were present and correct, my intended next steps being to close the 'pop-holes' and switch-off the radio which is left-on during the day to give any passing foxes the impression that real humans are about. From the radio I heard a summary of an experiment performed in the 17th century by Hooke to determine the weight of air, which he achieved by weighing a glass cylinder before and after evacuating it with a vacuum pump, the difference between the two readings being the weight of the air removed. According to the presenter of the programme- Naomi something- the possibility that air might have a weight was inconceivable to most of Hooke's contempories. Fair enough you might think. Those were unenlightened times. It might be possible that men blinded by ignorance and religion could struggle to conceive of what we now consider to be the obvious. The presenter might be stretching the point somewhat, but a degree of hyperbole is probably unavoidable if one is to spin a radio programme out of such meagre raw material. I missed what was said next because I slipped out to give a deformed egg to the dog, but upon my return I heard the presenter describe the experiments that proved the existence of the Higgs-Sushing boson as 'almost as esoteric as weighing air'.
Now, perhaps, you will appreciate my struggle. On the one hand we have an experiment that can be performed by one person with few and simple apparatus, summarised in a line or two, evaluated by subtracting one number from another, and readily understood by the uneducated masses. On the other we have the most complicated and expensive scientific machinery ever constructed, used to generate thousands of petabytes of observational data, evaluated by millions of lines of computer code, and explained by a theoretical model that no-one professes to understand. And according to Naomi the latter is almost as esoteric as the former...
I'm off to bed. Hopefully it will all make sense in the morning.
BT OpenBreach
The blood-pressure readings hit a local high this morning,
and no wonder- in the minutes directly before they were taken I listened with
mounting outrage to an interview with Gavin Richardson, the chief executive of
British Telecom, who was on the radio to defend the indefensible performance of
the BT subsidiary known as OpenBreach. For my millions of adoring readers overseas I
should say that BT used to be the monopoly provider of telephone services in
the UK, and still owns most of the network of cables that connects the
long-suffering Briton to the Internet. In a misguided attempt to loosen BT’s
stranglehold on the broadband market the UK government ordered the lumbering
company to set-up a standalone subsidiary which would own the network and offer
it on equal terms to the rest of BT and any other would-be provider of telecoms
services. Quite what difference the government officials thought this would
make- other than introducing extra layers of bureaucracy and a £3bn bill for
decorating all the BT engineers’ vans, uniforms and equipment with a new
OpenBreach logo- I cannot even begin to speculate. OpenBreach continues to be a
monopoly, shielded from the revitalising pressures of competition. That it
provides the same shambolic and over-priced service on an equal handed basis to
the rest of BT and all the other fleeced ISPs does nothing to help the people
who count, namely the customers who pay the world’s highest price per megabit
per second, and who receive services as reliable and prompt as the slowest slow
boats to China in a particularly breezy typhoon season.
According to Richardson- the world’s greatest champion for
mediocrity- we should be congratulating BT for having connected 90% of the UK
to broadband. Hah (laughs derisively). I suppose we should just be glad that
Richardson’s benchmark for excellent performance is not adopted by other
providers of services to the public, or 10% of us would be without television,
radio, electricity, the post, access to roads, and so on.
As for his claim that the remaining 10% of the UK is ‘hard
to reach’… hah (second laugh of even deeper derision). I was experimenting with phonon
recoil signalling in twisted pair copper as long ago as ’83, and even then
16Mbs was considered a routine achievement in the lab’. And that was in the
days of floppy disks, mind. Your OpenBreach engineer will tell you, while he
stirs the cup of tea you’ve given him and pads out the duration of his visit at
your expense, that the wires to your house have a floating earth, that there’s
potential leakage at the insulators on the pole down the street, that birds
feet have ‘pinched’ the conductors, that there are over-tight radii of
curvature in the ducts entering the exchange, and that all that explains why it
takes you four hours to download last night’s Coronation Street on the catch-up
service. As if.The ultimate blame lies with ‘Offcom’, the so-called ‘regulator’ of the UK telecommunications market. I met one of the non-executive members of the Offcom board at Davos last week, and what a story that told. Your man has ‘a background in retail’, an MBA, a list of other non-exec positions as long as your last phone bill, and absolutely no knowledge whatsoever about telecommunications. Glazed eyes and hunched shoulders were the unwavering responses to my observations on quantum bipole multiplexing, heuristic video compression, abelian latency reduction strategies, ‘inductive’ manhole lids and a dozen other basic ideas that should be bread and butter to a broadband man. And there, in a nutshell, you have the root cause of the problem- an industry whose effectiveness depends fundamentally on specialised technical matters is run by generalists who have not the first understanding of the factors that determine the success or failure of their mission. The more I think about it the more ridiculous it all becomes.
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