We need to be enterprising

The Careers Fair was lively all day, but I caught it at a fairly quiet moment

I spent an interesting day yesterday at the Civic Centre in Trowbridge at the invitation of Wiltshire Council. The event was a 'Careers Fair and Enterprise Day', with the idea being to give 16+ young people some help with with moving in the direction of their desired careers. It was a great idea, though I think there were a few lessons to be learned in terms of how to do it.

The Careers Fair part was buzzing and clearly doing a good job, as was the Apprenticeship Bus parked outside. Then there were the opportunities to undertake practice interviews and tables where various interesting people (including me) sat, able to provide Q&As on what it's like to work in their particular field. These were less successful.

The interviewers were quite busy in the morning, but mostly unoccupied in the afternoon. This was a real shame - mock interviews are hugely useful. I've interviewed for real, and a lot of young people don't have a clue how to present themselves. I also do mock interviews at our local secondary school, and know how much these help - so there should have been some gentle pressure to ensure the young people attended at least one of these, perhaps stressing they didn't have to have an interest in the particular organisation that was doing the interviews.

As for the Q&As, I think these were the least successful, because of a lack of structure. The young people didn't know where to go or how to use us. The principle's good, but I think there should have been more Q&As tailored to specific requirements (we had a huge batch of people who wanted to be electricians, but no electricians doing Q&As, for instance), and also perhaps a clear schedule - so if, for instance, you wanted to hear about science, to visit me (perhaps in a separate smaller room) at 2pm or whatever.

There was a bright side about sitting around most of the day with little business to occupy me, though, which was meeting the other people involved. As well as the Wiltshire Council folk, who it was good to meet (and weren't at all 'councilly' if you know what I mean), there were four people who stood out for me.

I got to meet the High Sheriff of Wiltshire, Peter Addington, which was fascinating, if only to find out more about his role and to add him to my collection of strange position holders I've met in the county, as I already know the Lord Lieutenant. It's quite mind boggling, but apparently all the counties still have sheriffs, the longest established official role in the country after the monarchy and the direct descendants of the likes of the Sheriff of Nottingham (though much nicer).

Jemima (right) joins Wiltshire Council's Susan Barker
in pretending to read my books

Equally interesting were an Asda community rep (she had a fancy title, but I've forgotten it), which every store apparently has - someone whose role full time is to work with the community, which is a great idea - and a youth worker with a charity that helps young people who don't get on with education but haven't been able to get a job, who was clearly highly dedicated and very eloquent about his role.

Last, but certainly not least, I shared my table with a genuine member of Team GB (she had the official track suit to prove it). Jemima Duxberry is currently fourth in the world in her class in Judo (number one in Europe) and hoping to represent us in the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2020. I'll be honest, with my inbuilt dislike of all things sporting, I wasn't quite sure what it would be like to be sitting alongside an athlete - but she proved to be an excellent conversationalist and not at all how you might expect a sportsperson to be if your main experience of hearing them speak is interviews with footballers.

All in all, the kind of thing we need more of to help young people into the right employment.

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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