Why French flags are fine

Many people have changed their Facebook image to incorporate a French flag, in solidarity with the French nation over the atrocities in Paris last week. I certainly don't think we should be critical of people who haven't - I haven't, for one. There are a number of reasons for not doing so, but one objection that I think is suspect is the kind made in this article by Nathalie Bonney on the Good Housekeeping website.

The broad argument is that to show solidarity with the French this way is parochial. There have been thousands of people killed by terrorists this year, and yet no one is putting up flags of other locations. (Actually, not no one - one of my Facebook friends has made his own Lebanese flag cover for his Facebook photo.)

I have two problems with this complaint. One is that it seems petty to discourage someone from doing something positive for one group because they aren't doing something positive for another. It's a bit like saying 'I would never give any money to Cancer Research because I'm not giving anything to the British Heart Foundation.'

The response from supporters of the objection, I guess, would be that the argument is more nuanced than that. They don't have an issue with showing solidarity with France, but it's not fair that it took an atrocity in France to generate this kind of response from Facebook, and there wasn't an option for previous atrocities.

I would suggest this reflects the false 'small world' impression given by the modern media and many commentators. Because we can see disasters happening anywhere, we think that it is possible to have exactly the same attitude to an event wherever it happens - but that is totally unnatural and if we are honest and not self-deceiving, it is impossible to truly do. The fact is, I will always feel closer to, and more affected by, a disaster in my family than one to someone else who lives down the same street. And I will be more affected by a disaster to someone else in my street than to someone who lives in London. And I will be more effected by a disaster in Paris, a place that I have regularly visited and that has strong cultural ties with the UK than I would by a disaster in the Middle East.

We can't feel the same about everyone and everywhere. This doesn't mean we ignore things outside our own neighbourhood, but it is entirely natural, and should not be a matter for criticism, that we put more weight on events that are closer to home, physically or culturally. To try to feel exactly the same about everybody and everywhere is both inhuman and impractical, leading to a cold, thin porridge of a response. or universal outrage with no focus.

So, while, as it happens, I have not added the French flag myself, I think entirely fine that other people have, and consider the criticisms misjudged and unnecessary.

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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