Skip to main content

Trading up on standards

I'm not usually a great fan of common sense. That sounds wrong, but what I mean is that what's often labelled 'common sense' is more an example of letting feelings push facts out of the way. However, I do wonder if it's sensible when I hear of officials sticking with the letter of the law and not applying... yes, well, common sense.

I gather in the recent furore over Mclaren buggies trapping children's fingers, the Trading Standards line is that they comply with European regulations, so there's nothing that Trading Standards can do. When it's a product where the manfacturer has been forced to provide a fix to all customers in the US, when it's quite clear that there is a risk that can easily be overcome, why should Trading Standards hide behind European regulations? Surely they should be able to say 'Yes, there's a problem. Fix it.'

My only brush with Trading Standards was not particularly helpful. I called into an unfamiliar petrol station. There was no indication on the pump of pricing for the different options (I later discovered this was illegal, but that isn't my point). With no price to guide me, I had to choose between two versions of unleaded fuel, one labelled 'Super' the other 'Premium'. Now to my mind, 'Super' means very good, 'Premium' means of a special quality, commanding a greater price. So I went for Super. And got charged quite a lot more than the unleaded price on the big sign by the entrance.

So I moaned to Trading Standards, only to be told that this is the convention. Premium is cheaper than Super. Apparently it doesn't matter than this doesn't make any sense. Sigh.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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