I'm quite in favour of PC, but...

Political correctness gets an unfairly bad press (probably mostly thanks to the likes of the Daily Mail). In part, this is because it's easy to forget just what things were like before PC. Take a look at a comedy TV show of the 60s, full of racist or sexist jokes, and it is absolutely cringemaking. We have moved on a long way, and political correctness has helped shape our thinking.

It's also true that when disgusted of Tonbridge Wells complains about political correctness, the 'news' story (s)he is reacting to is often fiction. Infamously, Birmingham is supposed to have once banned Christmas from the city, insisting that the 'neutral' Winterval be used instead of Christmas in any council activities. This is just baloney. The city ran a winter festival, called Winterval, but this had nothing to do with Christmas, and didn't replace the Christmas celebrations, which ran as usual.

However, the danger with political correctness is when it comes up against logic, and a knee-jerk reaction to what might be but isn't politically incorrect causes an overreaction.

A couple of weeks ago on the news I heard an interviewer in absolute PC shock. 'Are you saying,' he said to his interviewee, 'that Asians aren't British? How can you say that Asians aren't British?' Quite easily.

Just take away the racist connotations and substitute neutral terms. 'Are you saying that Europeans aren't American? How can you say that Europeans aren't American?'

This isn't about racism, it's about poor use of English. Asians are inhabitants of the continent of Asia. British people are inhabitants of the British Isles. Of course they aren't the same thing. Now if the interviewee said that Britains of Asian origin, or of Asian descent aren't British, then there would have been cause for concern. But this was different. I'm of second generation Irish descent. I would love to say I'm Irish - I think Ireland is great. But I'm not, I'm British. I was born in Britain and I hold a British passport. It would be ludicrous to say that I was Irish.

Come on, media, get your act together. PC will be mocked if you use it an illiterate fashion. And it shouldn't be.

If you aren't convinced, I gather the T-shirt is available here.

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5. However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense

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