A View from the Swamp

I spent a little while playing with Google Maps over the weekend and I’ve managed to overlay the ward boundaries for my constituency (North-West Cambridgeshire) onto a map. You should be able to click on a ward. In the pop-up, the name of the ward should send you to the map for that ward.

I’m quite pleased with myself! Next steps: properly integrate this into the constituency web site.

I am neither a republican nor a strong monarchist but, I must admit, I’m quite looking forward to a bit of pomp-and-ceremony tomorrow and a couple of parties later.

On the monarchy, it seems to me that it more than pays for itself in tourist revenue. More importantly, the monarch still has an important constitutional role.

Imagine what would happen if the Queen refused Royal Assent! Your view may differ, but I’m fairly sure the government would fall. Okay, it hasn’t happened here since Queen Anne in 1708, but it has been refused as recently as 1937 in Australia (excluding the denials in 1976 and 2001, which were due to procedural errors).

She has other reserve powers which have been used as recently as 1999, when she refused Queen’s Consent to the Military Action Against Iraq (Parliamentary Approval) Bill.

I’ve never really paid much attention to the colour scheme I’ve used for this blog. However, I’ve just noticed it is BLUE. After experimenting with shades of yellow, I don’t intend to change it right now, but this does not mean I’m some kind of closet Tory!

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming:-)

Take a look at this cartoon (nod to Julian Huppert for tweeting about this and PZ Myers for the pointer on his excellent Pharyngula blog).

As pointed out in the comments on Pharyngula, no paper would use percentages in headlines. So I wondered how the UK papers might react:

• The Sun: JELLYBEAN ACNE SCARE! “I’m worried for my Billy,” says Sandra, 18, mother of two.
• The Times: POSSIBLE JELLYBEAN LINK TO ACNE. Study flawed says industry spokesman.
• The Guardian: GREAN JELLYBEANS AND ACNE: ARE THEY LINKED? [ Does the Grauniad joke still work? ]
• New Scientist: SCIENTISTS DISCIPLINED OVER FLAWED STUDY after national jellybean scare. Poor statistical methods blamed.
• Sunday Sport: JELLYBEANS: THE ALIEN MENACE! “Brian ate a green one and turned into a fishfinger,” whines Pauline, 37, from Scunthorpe.

After a little turmoil in my life, I’m back and will resume some kind of service.

Well, I have now successfully installed WordPress and have a blog of my very own.