What on earth is the 'Sunk Costs Fallacy'?

Don't you just love it when something you didn't know had a name... has a name?

I've been reading an intriguing book called Think Like a Freak: Secrets of the Rogue Economist from those Superfreakonomics chaps and of the many interesting points I picked up, the one that pleased me most was finding out about the 'sunk cost fallacy'. Sunk costs are the amount of time, energy and resources you have invested in an enterprise. The danger, or the fallacy, is that because you have spent these costs you must continue even if you are flogging a dead horse* by doing so. You don't want to end up losing all that money and effort over nothing, do you? 

Good examples of this are ordering too much food and feeling you have to eat it to 'get your money's worth' or keeping things you don't want or need because they were expensive.

I, and a small circle of friends, have been referring to this as 'the queue at the Blue John Mines' after a 1990's bank holiday trip spent in a long line whilst disputing whether to stay because we'd already invested hours in the trip or abandon the whole idea and recoup what was left of the day. The trouble with 'the queue at the Blue John Mines' is that it means nothing to everyone else in the world. (They weren't even mines, it turns out, but a cavern, but we didn't wait to find out as it happens.)

The other things in the book that really struck me include: the importance of admitting you don't know, defining the problem properly before trying to solve it, and the importance of premortems - imagining your plans going wrong and asking what would have been most likely to cause it. Also - and this is where the sunk costs fallacy comes in - the importance of quitting before you waste more time and energy going down a wrong path. 

There's a much longer piece about the sunk cost fallacy on You're Not so Smart... we all do it all the time!

* No dead horses were hurt in the making of this blog

More Ups and Downs

I've been busy with many things so, here's a whistle-stop catch-up of the peaks and troughs, the ups and downs, the rounds and abouts, the pluses and minuses, checks and balances, swings and sparrows... etc

Poetry 24 is now in the hands of 3... possibly 4, who can tell?... new editors. This will free up some time in the new year. If you've a poetic bone in your body, support this unique eZine by sending your news-related poems.

Conversely, I've taken on the running of the Festival of Firsts International Poetry Competition next year, and will be doing publicity for the festival, which will take up a fair bit of time between now and July.

Shrewsbury's high tech flood defences

I went to Shrewsbury, getting into the Christmas spirit (gin mostly) but worried that it might be a bit flooded, walked around Stiperstones and had a 13 course Roman banquet.

Conversely, I have lost a stone in weight - largely thanks to the MyFitnessPal which is online too, but I use the app on the iPad.

I have had another 30 or so rejections.

Conversely, hot on the heals of winning Sefton (what a raffle, that was!) I came second in the Voices Israel competition (scroll down  to the second poem... just after the one about having sex with the washing machine repair man*).

Click text (left) not image!

I STILL haven't quite finished my novel The Undead Residents Association...

Conversely part of it is already out in hard back and on Kindle as part of Pulp Idol - Firsts 2012 where the top ten finalists of the novel-writing competition have their first chapter published as a promotional tool.

Oh, and I've been on a week-long training course, of which more  anon.  Conversely that 'at risk' letter and budget talks put a question  mark over the whole library service.

I must apologise for not visiting other blogs recently - as you see,  there's been an overlap between  finishing and starting (see above) plus work on the house involving moving and sorting a LOT of stuff. Hope to be back in circulation soon.


Didn't do one this year, but here's last year's: 10 Great Gifts for Writers 

* Note to self: my washing machine needs some attention too

Bossiepoo and Schnoodle

Dalmapoo and Rough poo ('artist's' impression... ahem)

We had a border collie when I was growing up. Her name was Scooby - we'd been told she was a 'he' at the puppy shop. The Dooby Doo was optional (the Dooby Doo is always optional.)

I'd like a dog but I'm put off by the moulting. In the exhibition currently on at the library there's a nice oil landscape that's only just visible through a thin veneer of pet hairs.  That's the reason for the current trend in crossing other dogs with poodles, which apparently don't shed hairs.

You have probably heard of the labradoodle and possibly the cockerpoo, but there are some you may not have come across:

• Bossie-Poo (Boston terrier / poodle)
• Giant Schnoodle (Giant Schnauzer / Standard Poodle)
• Pekingese / Poodle mix.. wait for it.... Pekepoo!
• Saint Berpoodle
• Welsh Terrier / Poodle mix - Woodle
• and possible the cutest ... the Westiepoo

I'm not making these up - you can see the full, extraordinary list on Dog Breed Info / Poodlemix

Where will it all end?  How to choose between Boxenese and Aire-enese? The small but vicious Yorkieweile, the lascivious Cocker-Pinscher or the alarmist Skye-Pointer? What about a nice King Charles Shit?

Things we have learned from this post? 

1. Never let a child name a dog. You can call a rabbit Neil (you know who you are), but there are some things you just don't want to shout across the park
2. Don't try painting with oils in the same room as a pet

Retro gismo flashback

My previous post got me thinking about having lived through the dawn of this digital age ... cue fuzzy flashback...

I was first in my class to have a calculator and when I started work (as a mere child) in the early 80s computer programs were loaded manually from reels of tape with holes in. The 'computer' was actually just a terminal linked by a modem to the bank's national computer centre. I worked there on the staff help desk after panic set in when they introduced terminals with screens!  The actual computers took whole rooms to house the sort of memory you now get in the average mobile phone.

(An avant garde friend had an early mobile phone as big as his head - and that was pretty big! When he went to the bar we'd run out to the telephone box and call him to ask for crisps.)

Our home's first remote control device was for a video recorder, but was attached by a lead! I used to carry around a cassette recorder (pictured above) before the Sony Walkman, and can vividly remember the first time I heard a CD - Tom's Diner by Suzanne Vega.

Apart from a brief foray with a Commodore 64 and flirtation with an Amstrad wordprocessor, I first saw a home PC in about 1990, but as late as 1995 at the local newspaper we sent stories via an Olivetti keyboard and modem. At the printer, stories were quite literally 'cut' and 'pasted' onto mockups and the lines between them were put on manually using teeny tiny rolls of sticky tape with a line down the middle.

By 1996 I had a  PC (a 256 with 4MB memory) and an email address - but I only knew 2 other people with emails! You couldn't imagine in those days that one day you'd own something like an iPad. It is not only music player and recorder, calculator, word processor, camera, means of communication, publishing device and video player. It's also camera, movie studio, orchestra, art studio, reference library and GPS.  I've just been using Facetime (Skype for iPads) to talk to a friend working in Azerbaijan. And it used to take 6 months for a letter to reach my missionary uncle in deepest Congo but he has a satellite powered laptop now and I can wave to him on Google Earth... up to a point.

Care to share some of your 'old tech' stories - what was your most exciting new gadget in the 'old days'?

Happy Towel Day

Did you know it's Towel Day?

Every year, around the known universe, fans of the late, great Douglas Adams do towel-related things to celebrate his genius.

I discovered Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in my teens - on radio, then the books. They are the works I most wish I had written. I love his fount of ideas and the way he marries comedy with deeper truths.

If you have never read it, and I urge you to do so, click here for a full explanation of the significance of the towel, which finishes with:

"...any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with"

I blogged a towel-related story yesterday without having even remembered it was Towel Day, so I probably already have Betelgeusian* Brownie Points for that.

Despite the fact that I really don't like being told not to panic, some of my favourite quotes are from the first of the six books in the H2G2** trilogy:

Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so.

"It's horrible - it's like being drunk."
"What's so bad about being drunk?"
"You ask a glass of water."

A man who no more knows his destiny than a tea leaf knows the history of the East India company.

"I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young."
"Why, what did she tell you?"
"I don't know, I didn't listen."

Anyway, I can't sit here blogging all day - it's a beautiful day and I'm off up the nearest hill... with my towel.

Later...

And here is the proof (and there's Hilbre Island in the background again!

* Full list of races and species in the Adams Universe is here

** Geek shorthand for Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and also an Adams-created alternative to Wikipedia which is seriously worth a browse: www.h2g2.com

30th April

This is a very special day.

All across Europe there will be a great merry-making . In Finland there will be widespread swilling of sparkling wine at fancy picnics...

in Estonia there will be joyful costumed processions through the streets...


in Germany there will be bonfires and pranks (which I dare not illustrate), and in Czech Republic witches will be burnt.


For today it is my birthday!



What?... What do you mean it's Walpurgis Night?

Yes, April 30th, half way to All Hallows, is a spring festival across large swathes of Europe. I'd have a day off and be celebrating my special day in an appropriate manner (which may indeed involve bubbly, processions and pranks).

Instead I am on a course for work. A bit of a jolly? No! Wasting council tax-payers' money on perks and incentives? No. 'Bring your own tea-making stuff' I have been told.

Claims to Fame

Me and Kenny (with Superlambanana ears)

I stumbled across the end of some sort of football match on Sunday, and who should I see but my old chum 'King' Kenny Dalgleish?

I may have shown this pic here before, but can't resist bringing it out again. It's the big yellow ears.

But this time I thought I'd add in a few other pics of me hobnobbing with more celebs.

Me wanting to be a millionaire, with
Chris Tarrant....

... and with another ex-member of the TISWAS team

Boo

Me and John Hegley sporting the giant
glasses I made for his visit... bit blurry

TV's Nick Knowles judged a poetry slam I did.
He gave me 70.  One less and it would have
been a whole different story!

So, spill the beans!  
Have you rubbed shoulders (or other body parts) with anyone notable?

Bucket List

I've been putting some thought into a bucket list, lately. You can't put some thought into an actual bucket - it just spills over the edges and makes the idea of a mess on the floor.

I have actually done a lot of the things which might be on the average bucket list: I've performed in Vegas, done stand-up, written a novel (ok, I haven't had one published - picky, picky!). I've back-packed, flat-packed, rat-trapped. I've had several interesting jobs... and I just walked away from some of them. I've set up a charity, had an expense account, been offered food by beggars near the Alhambra. I've been on a camel, in a helicopter, lost at sea in an open boat. I've swum with dolphins, heli-hiked on a glacier, walked on a volcano...

...you all hate me now, don't you?

The trouble is, I can't think of anything much I am burning to do. World peace? Yeah, but I'm realistic. Win a million? Yeah, but I'm not really sure what I'd do with it. (I wouldn't say 'No!' - that would be churlish - but I don't want it enough to get off my bum and go and get it.) I mean what's the point of anything?

Maybe it isn't that I don't want anything in the world, I just rationalise myself into thinking I don't. I know people who do this really well and it's certainly a strategy to avoid disappointment.

But I respect the idea of a list as an impetus to provoke action, so here it is so far:

The List

• see the Northern Lights
• jump out of a plane ... preferably with a parachute and someone attached to me who knows how to use one
• fly a plane
• drive across the USA
• write a best-selling novel
• go on some kind of retreat
• get invited to the Oscars
• win a major writing competition
• eat at a Michelin starred restaurant
• jump fully clothed into a swimming pool
• get thrown out of a pub for bad behaviour (I'm not nearly bad enough)

What's on your list that I could steal for mine?

Top 10 job titles

I'm always envious of people with great job titles, or even just funny or unusual ones. So here's my list of the 10 best or funniest job titles I've heard of.

If you work your way up diplomatic circles* you could be Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary.

Not high-falutin' enough? My friend's great uncle helped to design the building of British ambassadorial buildings for the Empire** in the East Indies. His job title was: Chief Architect of the Eastern Hemisphere

But why on earth limit yourself to, well... Earth? NASA employ a Planetary Protection Officer. You may be wondering whether their role is to protect us from aliens or aliens from us. The answer is: both!

In a similar vein, Apple allegedly have this post: Senior Armageddon Avoidance Engineer. (It sounds scary, but having survived Armageddon once and accidentally missing it another time, I could be just the person!)

Back down to earth, a local authority in mid-Wales made the news last year by renaming lifeguards 'Wet Leisure Assistants.'

Councils are fond of strange projects, teams and persons. Mine has a Teengage Pregancy Strategy Group (who must sit in meetings where someone says: ''I know, let's get them drunk on alcopops and play Justin Beiber songs...") and the Older People's Modernisation Team - which presumably retro-fits grannies with gang tattoos and USB ports. But someone must be in charge. An Older People's Modernisation Team Leader perhaps?

Another council worker has done prize-winning work providing support to the victims of various kinds of intimidation. She's the Domestic Violence Co-ordinator.

A friend of mine was Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge - it made him sound rather dashing but I was very disappointed on attending one of their 'Ladies' Night' dinners when no virgins were sacrificed.

Applicants for the job of S&M Administrator might be disappointed, too, to find it refers to Sales & Marketing. I got that from Worst Job in the World.

I have never had a job with a particularly unusual or amusing title. I suppose I could cross out 'Library Assistant' on my badge and write something more off the wall: 'Senior Junior Under-lender' perhaps. What do you think?

If you DON'T have, and have never had, a groovy-sounding job title, you can generate one using this handy Job Title Generator

If you DO have (or have had) a groovy-sounding job title ... or can convince us that you have ... I want to hear about it!

* Not a euphemism... then again...

** Before they started on the Death Star, that is

The Bruise - Day 3

If you think my bruised bum was bad on Monday - look at it now!

I haven't had one this bad since I was married.

Don't worry - I'm not going to post pics of my bum every day. I did get a lot of interest on Facebook (now retitled Buttockbook) on this issue, but I'm not sure I've had quite enough sympathy yet.

No flowers? No chocolate?

I bet I even get rejected by NiceBruise.com

p.s. Still no flowers or chocolate, but a MrKenyon has written me this:

Stop the presses - hold the news
Clare has got a massive bruise
Was it painful? - did she moan?
Has Rupert Murdoch hacked her phone?
A story for us all to share
Clare lost out
To a Garden Chair

How to avoid damaging your lobelia

This was going to be my 'Silent Sunday'* pic - a lovely Pimms in the sun - but Sunday wasn't quite so silent... what with the screaming in the undergrowth.

It started with me innocently trimming my foliage. I was standing on a plastic garden chair, giving my clematis a good tug**...
...when one of the legs fell off (the chair's not mine) - sending me plummeting three feet.

It could have been nasty - I could have landed on the red-hot poker** or crushed my lobelia**. But don't worry - the broken pointy corner of the chair broke my fall.

So I've sprained my good blogging wrist and what's more...

suffered this magnificent bruise and swelling in my general buttock area.

I never thought I'd see the day when I'd be posting this sort of picture on the internet.

It's the thin end of the wedge.

p.s. spookily, as I was recovering (which did involve another Pimms, and a gin and tonic just to be sure) the recliner broke as well!

I live in fear of all seating now... waiting for number 3...

but sofa so good.

* Linky where you just post a picture which speaks for itself, no title, no caption.

** Not a euphemism

Mink knickers and water damage

I was disappointed to miss the Duke of Edinburgh's* visit to my home town earlier this week - I would have enjoyed listening out for more gaffes.

Famous for saying the wrong thing, the Queen's hubby is 90 next week, and to celebrate The Independent printed a fantastic list of 90 of his best foot-in-mouth moments:

"I would like to go to Russia very much – although the bastards murdered half my family."

...which include racism:

"British women can't cook." To Scottish Women's Institute .

...sexism:

"I thought it was against the law these days for a woman to solicit." To a woman solicitor.

...snobbery:

"The problem with London is the tourists. They cause the congestion. If we could just stop the tourism, we could stop the congestion."

... insensitivity:

"People usually say that after a fire it is water damage that is the worst. We are still drying out Windsor Castle." To survivors of the Lockerbie bombings in 1993.

and the difficult-to-master double whammy:

"Do you know they have eating dogs for the anorexic now?" To a wheelchair-bound lady with a guide dog.

or

"You're not wearing mink knickers, are you?" To fashion writer Serena French at a World Wildlife Fund gathering in 1993

I've got a soft spot for the old duffer and the way he just says what he thinks. As he says himself: "I have never been noticeably reticent about talking on subjects about which I know nothing." I know the feeling.

Of course The Independent does have an axe to grind. Here's an exchange at a Golden Jubilee event in 2002:

Philip: "Who are you?"
Simon Kelner: "I'm the editor-in-chief of The Independent, Sir."
Philip: "What are you doing here?"
Kelner: "You invited me."
Philip: "Well, you didn't have to come!"

So anyway, he was in Wirral to judge a model boat competition, apparently. This is the Marine Lake here. I may post some more pics of it if you're interested... we have an evening view of people on the footpath that encircles it and an aerial view. Nice huh?

* Yes, the same Duke of Edinburgh as in 'Duke of Edinburgh Awards' for young people had this to say about them: "Young people are the same as they always were. They are just as ignorant."

I've been framed!

In my early teens, having wondered for years why teachers didn't write more clearly and buses didn't have bigger numbers on the front, I discovered I was shortsighted. It was a revelation to discover that the world wasn't as fuzzy as I'd first thought!

So I've worn glasses for about 100 years and think nothing of it. (Or I didn't until I made this collage of pics from my life for my 40th and the ONLY thing people commented on* was the SIZE of my specs in the 80's!!)

Here's me looking very trendy as the decade commences...

But here are the ones that everyone finds hysterical,

but which were BIG in the eighties...

It was the fashion - honest!

I wasn't trying to make a spectacle of myself.

Then a more chic, neutral tone for these whoppers...

But then along came the nineties, and I opted

for a more retro John Lennon look...

Ono!

(see what I did there?... my jokes just get cornea!)

I wore them for much of the nineties when I couldn't afford new ones.

But then I went for smaller - still trendy - frames - like these...

... and also the ones you see in my profile pic

and various permutations of the same.

No-one could take offence at them surely?

Boring!

Then when I started working in PR I went a bit 'whacky'

-it was in the contract... and there was a 'two for one offer'

so I got these stripy reactalight little beasties:

and the mad lattice red ones which I loved at the time

but then regretted... for the last 3 years!

which makes it odd

that I have chosen new ones

that actually aren't a million miles away...

... apart from being...

...well...

... a bit leopard skinny as well

...with a sort of buckle.

I'm not 'selling' them very well am I?

Here goes:

Whaddya think?

* Apart from the really dodgy hairstyles which I have cunningly edited out here!

Awareness Awareness Month

I'm sorry to disappoint long-standing followers, but I forgot about National Double Entendre Week back in March.

This was a completely fictitious theme week that myself and Moptop invented last year and planned to bring into being merely by pretending it was real!

I was reminded of this by this tweet from comedian Jimmy Carr:

Stress? I know about stress. Hypertension is my middle name. (Actually it's Marion... I made that up too.) I packed in my lucrative PR job because of it, but not before sending my blood pressure to near-critical levels and irreparably messing up my kidneys.

But when I looked on the web I couldn't decide if it was National Stress Month here or in America - I mean I'm not going to get all 'aware of the issues' if it's some foreign thing. Then I found this list on Wikipedia.

So - in April, we should be especially aware of alcohol, the earth and sexual assault whilst appreciating jazz, pets and volunteers, and preventing cruelty to both animals and children. No wonder it's stressful!

... and if you can't be bothered to scroll down the whole hellish confection there, here's some examples:

• National Be On Porpoise Month... sorry that should read Be On Purpose (I did that 'on purpose)
• Return Shopping Carts to the Supermarket Month
• Creative Romance Month
• Typewriter Appreciation Month
• Black Hole Awareness Month (I dare you to click on that link - it will mess with your head!)
• Antiphospholipid Antibody Syndrome (APS) Awareness Month (and let's face it - they need the publicity because I've never even heard of that)
• National Library Card Sign-up Month

October is National Dessert Month, National Pasta Month AND National Pasta Month (AND pork, pretzel, pickled peppers and popcorn months) - are they trying to kill us?.... And it's also, ironically Hunger Awareness Month: People will just keep saying: ''Yes, I'm aware that millions of people are starving to death, but pass me the Parmesan!' until the penne finally drops.

There's even a National Constipation Awareness Month - no shit! (And I'd made that up as a joke before I even found out it was real!)

I think National Double Entendre Month would fit right in, don't you. Although I am vaguely suspicious - it being Wikipedia and all - that some of them (Dirty Harry Month?) might be just as made up as mine... and actually don't they all exist only because somebody says they do?

What kind of awareness month would you champion?

p.s. I must STRESS that these are just the themed months... I haven't even started on the themed weeks or days - and nor shall I (probably) - not with my blood pressure!

What dreams may come..?

Poor old young Dave has been suffering disturbed nights over at Dave - The Blog and I sympathise.

Anyone who says to me: 'In your dreams' hasn't been there when the molten sky is falling and we few survivors are sheltering in caves, or when I come out of primary school one afternoon and it is years later and my family moved away a long time ago, or when everyone in the room is about to turn into a monster - but no-one knows which kind so you have to watch for snake tongues, claws...

As a child I lay awake in the fear of having nightmares. More recently I learned to quite enjoy them, their imagination. But they're still odd. My friend's husband is a clinical psychologist. He says it isn't what happens in your dreams, it's how you feel in them. And he says that everyone in the dream is really another projection of yourself.

But it could be worse...

I was in my 30's before I had even heard of sleep paralysis or 'night terrors'. It occurs when the consciousness is still awake while the body is shutting down for sleep and the symptoms are the inability to move, pressure on the chest, an acute sense of danger and terrifying hallucinations.

It's believed that the old idea of an incubus sitting on your chest comes from this and potentially a good number of 'ghost' sightings and 'alien abductions' - with the symptoms being so very realistically physical and so little heard about it.

Oddly, my first experience of sleep paralysis (that I remember) was not long after first reading about it. I had just moved house - one of the triggers can be a change in environment or lifestyle (and I've certainly had a brilliant flying dream after another house move.)

I 'saw' a malevolent, shadowy figure in the corner, 'heard' indiscriminate, but evil voices and felt a heavy pressure rolling over my body from head to toe. Throughout all this I knew I was wide awake. It was genuinely very frightening and would have been so much more so if I didn't have a clue what was going on. It's happened to me a couple of times since then and, whilst scary at the time, is fascinating.

After this, I started asking people whether they had heard of it or experienced it. And although most were blissfully unaware of it, I was shocked how many people had had it without it being common knowledge. At least three people I know have suffered from it on a regular basis all their lives - one even thought she could never marry because who would want to share the bed of someone who spent their nights in terror?

Around the world there are different beliefs about it and word for it. And guess what? The word nightmare is derived from the old Norse word 'mara' or... a goblin that rides on your chest.

So - how many of you have had this or heard of it? And -really - what is your worst nightmare?

Further Reading:
DARK INTRUSIONS: An Investigation into the Paranormal Nature of Sleep Paralysis Experiences
Sleep Disorders for Dummies (For Dummies (Lifestyles Paperback))

King Kenny with the comedy ears

So Kenny Dalglish is the new manager of Liverpool FC... (and they say I know nothing about football ...hah!).

Well I may know nothing about football but I've had my mitts on Sir Kenny! Here's myself and the plucky Scottish footie star at the auction for superlambananas towards the end of Liverpool's year as European Capital of Culture in 2008.

Obviously it was not me who took the picture - though I'm sure I could hardly have improved on the positioning of Kenny's head exactly between the ears of the Everton Superlambanana!

In fact, I believe I may have stumbled upon the Mayor of Liverpool (I was quite intoxicated and more than a little emotional that night - for reasons I won't go into here) and demanded he take the snap. So all credit to him.

... erm... there's also this picture of me and Jimmy Corkhill from Brookside, and Craig from the very first Big Brother.

The event was very swish, with bubbly and canapes and a series of trendy little tiny mini-meals -fish 'n' 3 chips, titchy burger, more bubby... I forget after that.... And it all took place in Liverpool's prestigious St George's Hall - which has a very famous floor (which I may have ended up on!).

And no, I didn't end up with a Superlambanana for Wirral.

But at least I tried.