Richard Herring's excellent website introduced me to the strange world of CNPS: that is Consecutive Number Plate Spotting. He explains it better and funnier than I can here, but as a pointless longwinded harmelss taks, I felt inspired as I read. He took a year to spot the 1,000 numerical elements of number plates in the right order.
In trying to work out whether that was a good or bad time, I started looking at the probability, assuming at the start that there was a random distribution of numbers. My first approach was to think in terms of the probability that the next car would have the number required (1 in 1000 or 0.1%), or the second (1 in 999 or a tiny bit more than 0.1%), but then I realised that if I ignored duplicates, there was an elegant solution: for a given number (say 123), it could be encountered anywhere between 1st and 1000th, which neatly gives a mean order of 500th. So in order to complete the challenge, you might expect to have to see 500 x 1,000 = 0.5 million cars (about all the cars in Wales).
Thinking about the question of duplicates, it doesn't actually matter that much if there is a peak (say 100 extra cars with 101 in the number): it would mean that searching for 101 will be much quicker, but on the other hand other numbers would take longer to find since there would be extra 101 duplicates to go through. As far as I can, see this cancels out.*Update below
More problematic, and what gives the game its urgency and charm, is that the world has changed. In 2001, the old three-random-digit number elements plus year-denoting letter were replaced by a two-digit number denoting year + letters, which makes 01-06 easy to do, but also means that the pool of larger numbers is restricted to older cars : it may already be the case that there are no longer any cars with some numbers on the road, and there is no way to find out.
There is an odd apsect to the way the statistics work: it doesn't actually matter how long you spend looking on any particular day: fatalistically, if you only see 300 cars you're unlikely to see the number you need, but then, you might see 900 and still not see it.
There is, at a low level, a bit of the thrill of gambling: you sink into a depressed torpor as one wrong number after another flies by, until suddenly you see the one you need: surprise and joy, almost disbelief, lasts for a few seconds, and then it fades, you switch to the new number, hoping this time it'll be quick... in its own way, it's as addictive as nicotine.**Update below
UPDATES
* This is wrong, further thought has shown. The initial assumption is that there are 1000 numbers, equally distributed, and therefore there is 1/1000 = 0.1 % chance that any given number will be that required. If we then inflate the figure by making 5 numbers represented by 200 rather than 1 per thousand, then the likelihood of 995 numbers when being searched for is 1/2000 = 0.05%, and the likelihood of the five numbers is 200/2000 = 10%. Unfortunately, the higher probability only operates when looking for those five numbers; for all the other 995, there are more, twice as many, wrong numbers to go through. So no, it doesn't cancel out, it makes it harder.
** Having gone through this a few times now, and not being a gambler, I can see why they go on about lucky streaks. After initial hope, you fall into a stupor of near-despair- is that number ever going to come up? That's why, when it does, it is as much a surprise as a joy. Now comes the critical point: any logical view would be that having just won, you are almost bound to endure the long period of loss before you win again, and therefore you would think twice about betting again. Except the voice of hope tells you that you are on a roll, that no way will it be so long to the next win, it's worth trying for a bit at least-- and then in no time at all you have lost so much that it would be foolish to give up when you were 'due' a win again. My view on gambling is that you should look carefully at the people who want you to do it: experienced gamblers, gambling companies, the government. Do these often give away money?
Friday, October 20, 2006
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
The heart of darkness: Review of Martin Amis, House of Meetings
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Amis is unafraid of the big issues. His obsession with politics, totalitarianism and corporate evil is sometimes interpreted as a bid for greatness, for respect; more likely it arises from a lively moral sense, triggered partly by concern for his burgeoning family, and partly from a feeling that in comparison to modern history the domestic arrangements of middle class Londoners are trivial as a topic.
House of Meetings takes Amis back to Russia, or rather the Soviet Union, and the corrosive effects of Stalin on his subjects. Unlike the broad factual account given in the earlier Koba the Dread, here he provides a narrative of a single family's experience as they attempt to live ordinary lives while being bent out of shape by the demands of the state. The anonymous memoirist who tells the story is met first as an angry dying man, touring the ruins of the Arctic labour camp in which he had been imprisoned; he writes a letter to his stepdaughter explaining his life, describing his loss of conscience. There follows a vivid description of life and death in the Gulag of the 1940s, whence he had been sent following the War, in which he had raped and fought his way into Germany. His uneasy accommodation with camp life is then disturbed by the arrival of his half-brother, Lev, and the news that Lev has married Zoya, a Jewess they both had pursued in their youth. The brothers fight to survive the camp as its regime changes following the death of Stalin, culminating in the provision for conjugal visits in the House of Meetings. Lev's assignation with Zoya leaves his spirit broken, and much of the rest of the book comprises speculation as to the cause. They are eventually released and find themselves marginalised under the Brezhnev regime; Lev chooses moral rectitude and material squalor; the memoirist material wealth, travel, and a series of unsatisfactory love affairs, culminating in the post-glasnost torpor of a society that believes so little in its future that people are reluctant to have children.
Thus the story is that of the nation, in microcosm. In Koba the Dread, Amis took care to show that Stalin was merely the most extreme and arbitrary tyrant produced by October: here, it would appear that Stalin was the sole cause of all woe. It was Stalin's camps that denatured his citizens, rendered them fearful, untrustworthy, and brutal. Nevertheless, Amis argues that the danger from the Russians is different in kind, not scale, from that of present-day Islamists, as represented here by the Chechen attack on School No. 1.
A conventional narrative structure would expose the unbalanced nature of the treatment: the memoirist's shifts in time and focus, and the giving and withholding of confidences, force the reader to grant him a hearing. They do, however, lead to a sense of anticlimax, since the impact of the camp section leaves the post-release saga as a minor addendum, echoing the exhaustion of the brothers. The plot is almost absurdly melodramatic, with its twins, death-bed confessions, and letters from the dead.
This would matter less is the characterisation of the memoirist was clearer. The descriptive style throughout is vintage Amis: clear, startling, elegant, poetic (contact with English culture is unconvincingly explained by the plot). The tension between this tone and his actions is an unresolved issue: we are perhaps half convinced by the evocation of what it feels like to kill, in the wild days when he takes the breakdown in order in the camp to murder the hated informers; but we are unconvinced by the interior view of the rapist, at either end of his life.
Amis expects his readers to know a lot of Russian history; he provides footnotes to identify Russian presidents, referred to by the memoirist by unfamiliar names, but does not elucidate the political developments for those unversed in the country's tragic arc.
But to write an encycopledic narrative would have taken a book much bigger than these 200 pages, which share with the short stories of Heavy Water an inexplicable luminosity, a subtle charge that leaves them resonating in your mind long after you have finished. A similar effect is derived from reading Time's Arrow, and of all Amis's works, it is that first-person narrative, of the other great European tragedy, which is closest in tone to this. A serious book for serious times.
Review of Not Going Out
Not Going Out is a new comedy on BBC1 for Friday evenings. And if that sentence doesn't make your spirits sink, you haven't been watching Blessed, or My Hero, or the under-powered Worst Week of My Life, or My Family, or that My Family clone so bad that my brain froze rather than allowing its name to reach the cerebral cortex. The bar for success is not set high.
It ought to pass it. The writing is sharp and clever, if a little self-indulgent: the inclusion of three zany elements (depressive author, Lee's job packing Christmas crackers, and circus skills class) in a single episode seemed to me to be trying a bit hard, when the core of the comedy has to be the interplay between Lee, Kate and Tim. Unfortunately some of the best lines were lost; Lee's delivery was so fast that he didn't give them space to breathe, and the audience's early laughter often swamped the killer line.
A more serious problem is the location: whatever one may say about Men Behaving Badly, Extras, or even Two Pints of Lager, they all have a distinctive locale, a real place where these characters and their relatives live. In contrast, Not Going Out is set in a vague generic city, the same city as Coupling, with an anonymous flat, anonymous bar, anonymous office, and characters with no history.
Kate is American, so she is earnest and New Age. That doesn't really cut it as back-story. It always amuses me when people say America is a classless society when it is clearly just as nuanced as ours: Friends isn't just six random people, but six people each from a specific social milieu.
Tim and Lee's characters are equally simple: accountant and slacker; so middle class and dolemite; so pompous and sarcastic. It's a bit schematic.
But it's not as if we are spoiled for choice if we want to watch smart comedy, so I'll hope for improvement.
Update
Now the series is over, and it's time to come off the fence.
Actually, my first impressions proved quite reliable: the Tim character proved impossible to develop, and played only a minor part towards the end. The core of the comedy is the relationship between Lee and Kate, one of comfortable coupledom without the sex, masked by verbal bickering. Megan Dodds managed to undercut the excessive kookiness or earnestness of some of her lines with a sly twinkle in her eye that implied her detachment from her statements. Lee remained slightly problematic, partly because his character was boxed in by its narrow definition: the most complex thing he could do was to realise how he felt about Kate; but also because unlike Megan's actorly clarity of diction, his remained a rushed mumble. Jokes about the badness of Kate's cooking aren't funny: strangely enough, neither were the similar jokes in My Family, Butterflies, or The Young Ones. The only halfway good jokes about bad cooking were in (crikey) The Vicar of Dibley. So leave it.
Paradoxically, this was a comedy that tried too hard: it would have been better with fewer wisecracks and a more paced direction. Still, all on board for Series 2 (no, not you, Tim).
It ought to pass it. The writing is sharp and clever, if a little self-indulgent: the inclusion of three zany elements (depressive author, Lee's job packing Christmas crackers, and circus skills class) in a single episode seemed to me to be trying a bit hard, when the core of the comedy has to be the interplay between Lee, Kate and Tim. Unfortunately some of the best lines were lost; Lee's delivery was so fast that he didn't give them space to breathe, and the audience's early laughter often swamped the killer line.
A more serious problem is the location: whatever one may say about Men Behaving Badly, Extras, or even Two Pints of Lager, they all have a distinctive locale, a real place where these characters and their relatives live. In contrast, Not Going Out is set in a vague generic city, the same city as Coupling, with an anonymous flat, anonymous bar, anonymous office, and characters with no history.
Kate is American, so she is earnest and New Age. That doesn't really cut it as back-story. It always amuses me when people say America is a classless society when it is clearly just as nuanced as ours: Friends isn't just six random people, but six people each from a specific social milieu.
Tim and Lee's characters are equally simple: accountant and slacker; so middle class and dolemite; so pompous and sarcastic. It's a bit schematic.
But it's not as if we are spoiled for choice if we want to watch smart comedy, so I'll hope for improvement.
Update
Now the series is over, and it's time to come off the fence.
Actually, my first impressions proved quite reliable: the Tim character proved impossible to develop, and played only a minor part towards the end. The core of the comedy is the relationship between Lee and Kate, one of comfortable coupledom without the sex, masked by verbal bickering. Megan Dodds managed to undercut the excessive kookiness or earnestness of some of her lines with a sly twinkle in her eye that implied her detachment from her statements. Lee remained slightly problematic, partly because his character was boxed in by its narrow definition: the most complex thing he could do was to realise how he felt about Kate; but also because unlike Megan's actorly clarity of diction, his remained a rushed mumble. Jokes about the badness of Kate's cooking aren't funny: strangely enough, neither were the similar jokes in My Family, Butterflies, or The Young Ones. The only halfway good jokes about bad cooking were in (crikey) The Vicar of Dibley. So leave it.
Paradoxically, this was a comedy that tried too hard: it would have been better with fewer wisecracks and a more paced direction. Still, all on board for Series 2 (no, not you, Tim).
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Is he having a laugh? Extras, That Mitchell and Webb Look and Lead Balloon
It is ironic that Ricky Gervaise, who saves his sharpest barbs for what he dismisses as catchphrase comedy, has unleashed a catchphrase himself: in the last week I have heard at least three broadcasters say "Is he having a laugh?", in contexts where it is clear that the phrase has risen from their subsconcious, without any deliberate attempt to reference its source. So people are watching the new series of Extras. It's hard to see why exactly: the three main jokes are repeated each episode:
1. people are more prejudiced than they are allowed to admit these days, and this may be revealed in extreme situations
2. celebrities famous for their amiable image are in real life obnoxious in various ways
3. people (particularly Andy Millman) will sometimes have to deal with the conflict between what they want to do and social norms of behaviour
We haven't yet seen the last variation on the celebrity joke- Jeremy Paxman, Julie Burchill or Richard Littlejohn revealed as mild-mannered and indecisive in private.
But although I have laughed from time to time, the truth is that Gervaise's school of the comedy of embarrassment can get a bit wearing. In the most recent episode, Millman storms into a high-price shop to revenge Maggie's hurt feelings, boldly promised to buy the dress regardless of cost, and then attempts to wriggle out of paying for it once he finds out the price. This is quite funny at first. But watching five minutes of wriggling is painful, or boring. Now that Millman has lost his status as an Everyman figure, since being shown up at a BAFTA awards ceremony is unlikely to chime with many of the audience, the reliance on accuracy rather than gags that made The Office compulsive viewing is unavailable as a fall-back.
I have seen it suggested that putting on sketch-based That Mitchell and Webb Look immediately afterwards was tempting fate, but it bears up well, mainly because unlike most sketch shows its hit rate is close to 100%, probably because it is writer-driven. Some of the recurring sketches, such as the snooker commentary, worked better on radio, but the razor-sharp parodies of pointless gameshows, docusoaps, and lifeswap programmes are both accurate and funny.
Lead Balloon, Jack Dee's new comedy, isn't bad either. It was instructive to compare its first episode with last week's Extras, since both featured an accidental humiliation turning into a media frenzy despite the best efforts of the main character. There were some graces of omission: the tearaway teenage daughter was dealt with in passing in a matter-of-fact way, rather than forming a whole episode as it would in My Family. The foreign au pair was a bit unwelcome; the American agent was the major pain, along with the recursive 'I'm a comedian trying to write comedy' segments which comedians seem to love despite the indifference they inspire in everyone else. Strangely enough, in the light of my comment on Extras, Jack Dee is portrayed as being a nicer person 'offscreen' than in his usual persona.
1. people are more prejudiced than they are allowed to admit these days, and this may be revealed in extreme situations
2. celebrities famous for their amiable image are in real life obnoxious in various ways
3. people (particularly Andy Millman) will sometimes have to deal with the conflict between what they want to do and social norms of behaviour
We haven't yet seen the last variation on the celebrity joke- Jeremy Paxman, Julie Burchill or Richard Littlejohn revealed as mild-mannered and indecisive in private.
But although I have laughed from time to time, the truth is that Gervaise's school of the comedy of embarrassment can get a bit wearing. In the most recent episode, Millman storms into a high-price shop to revenge Maggie's hurt feelings, boldly promised to buy the dress regardless of cost, and then attempts to wriggle out of paying for it once he finds out the price. This is quite funny at first. But watching five minutes of wriggling is painful, or boring. Now that Millman has lost his status as an Everyman figure, since being shown up at a BAFTA awards ceremony is unlikely to chime with many of the audience, the reliance on accuracy rather than gags that made The Office compulsive viewing is unavailable as a fall-back.
I have seen it suggested that putting on sketch-based That Mitchell and Webb Look immediately afterwards was tempting fate, but it bears up well, mainly because unlike most sketch shows its hit rate is close to 100%, probably because it is writer-driven. Some of the recurring sketches, such as the snooker commentary, worked better on radio, but the razor-sharp parodies of pointless gameshows, docusoaps, and lifeswap programmes are both accurate and funny.
Lead Balloon, Jack Dee's new comedy, isn't bad either. It was instructive to compare its first episode with last week's Extras, since both featured an accidental humiliation turning into a media frenzy despite the best efforts of the main character. There were some graces of omission: the tearaway teenage daughter was dealt with in passing in a matter-of-fact way, rather than forming a whole episode as it would in My Family. The foreign au pair was a bit unwelcome; the American agent was the major pain, along with the recursive 'I'm a comedian trying to write comedy' segments which comedians seem to love despite the indifference they inspire in everyone else. Strangely enough, in the light of my comment on Extras, Jack Dee is portrayed as being a nicer person 'offscreen' than in his usual persona.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Change and decay 7
Selections from the Littleworth Estate Papers
Letterhead: Littleworth Estate Telephone Littleworth 102 Telex LITTLEWORTH[Typescript]
Herr Goering
Reichsluftfahrtministerium
Wlihelmstraße 79
Berlin
Deutchsland
21st April 1937
Dear Herr Goering
Further to your enquiry concerning availability of aluminium and magnesium for your Ministry, I am pleased to confirm that we hold substantial stocks of these materials.
It is our understanding that under the recent international agreements restricting the trading of munitions and related raw materials to Spain, it would be advantageous to both parties to handle delivery via Eire, since it is not a signatory and remains open as an entrepot.
We await your instructions
I remain, Sir, your obedient servant
H Eldon
[manuscript] P.S. You must visit us again for the grouse season!
---
Letterhead: Littleworth Estate Telephone Littleworth 2 [manuscript]
Lt H. Eldon
2nd King’s Rifles
South Africa
10th March 1902
My dear Harry
I’m pleased to hear that you are now back ‘in the field’. I trust you are fully recovered – one hears such terrible things of military hospitals. The newspapers here report nothing but victories. You should watch for the arrival of a shipment of barbed wire in the Province, from our mills – we have been contracted to supply 88 tons to the War Dept for use in civilian detention camps. This was most opportune, since we had been contemplating selling the works – there has been much agitation amongst the men over pay and hours of late, and it has been all the police could do to break up their protests. I have sent a parcel of food which no doubt will arrive in a few weeks.
You are much in our thoughts
Best wishes
Edward
---
[manuscript; copy letter in letterbook]
T. Osprey, esquire
Deptmt of Supply
Richmond
Virginia
American Confederacy
10th January 1863
Sir
We are obliged for your letter of 1st ultimo and beg to tender these prices for your consideration:
Swords, forged and tempered £1 per dozen
Daggers, 6” blade 6 shillings per dozen
Bayonets, 8” blade 10 shillings per dozen
We can supply leatherwork, scabbards, & cetera, at little additional cost, but believe that these may be more readily obtained by yourselves locally.
Our company does not manufacture rifles; we would be willing to act as agents on your behalf in securing the same, tho’ our govt’s intransigence would entail some difficulties on our part.
I beg to remain your most obedient servant
Edward Eldon
---
[manuscript]
From: Tom Eldon
Cold Harbour Hall
Kingston
Jamaica
To: Miss Frances Eldon
Littleworth Hall
Littleworth
1st October 1803
Dearest Cousin Frances
You inquired after our situation here. You may have read in the Gazette that the Negro rebels have been defeated and captured at last. The ringleader, styling himself “Captain Moses”, was an escapee from Mr Jones’ estate, just over the creek from us. Jones tells us that he had been making an experiment in educating the savages, but has resolved to desist in such efforts. Captain Moses was hanged by the militia in the Town Square this last week, although our niggers mutter that it was another man and that Moses lives. We have whipped them and keep them locked up at night, yet they do not apply themselves to their work.
We anticipate the arrival of a new shipment within the month, wch will be sorely needed, so many of our current complement having died from malarial contagion. Alas, prices are rising now that supplies are short, the Navy’s patrols having dislocated the traffic.
You should soon receive at the Hall a delivery of Wedgwood’s porcelain – I would be obliged if you would inspect it as to condition, since the factory disclaims any control of its carters. I am as yet undecided where it is best to place; if you let me know it has arrived I shall be put upon to chuse!
I trust that you will not find me importunate in allotting you such a task
And remain
Your loving cousin
Tom
---
Letterhead: Littleworth Estate Telephone Littleworth 102 Telex LITTLEWORTH[Typescript]
Herr Goering
Reichsluftfahrtministerium
Wlihelmstraße 79
Berlin
Deutchsland
21st April 1937
Dear Herr Goering
Further to your enquiry concerning availability of aluminium and magnesium for your Ministry, I am pleased to confirm that we hold substantial stocks of these materials.
It is our understanding that under the recent international agreements restricting the trading of munitions and related raw materials to Spain, it would be advantageous to both parties to handle delivery via Eire, since it is not a signatory and remains open as an entrepot.
We await your instructions
I remain, Sir, your obedient servant
H Eldon
[manuscript] P.S. You must visit us again for the grouse season!
---
Letterhead: Littleworth Estate Telephone Littleworth 2 [manuscript]
Lt H. Eldon
2nd King’s Rifles
South Africa
10th March 1902
My dear Harry
I’m pleased to hear that you are now back ‘in the field’. I trust you are fully recovered – one hears such terrible things of military hospitals. The newspapers here report nothing but victories. You should watch for the arrival of a shipment of barbed wire in the Province, from our mills – we have been contracted to supply 88 tons to the War Dept for use in civilian detention camps. This was most opportune, since we had been contemplating selling the works – there has been much agitation amongst the men over pay and hours of late, and it has been all the police could do to break up their protests. I have sent a parcel of food which no doubt will arrive in a few weeks.
You are much in our thoughts
Best wishes
Edward
---
[manuscript; copy letter in letterbook]
T. Osprey, esquire
Deptmt of Supply
Richmond
Virginia
American Confederacy
10th January 1863
Sir
We are obliged for your letter of 1st ultimo and beg to tender these prices for your consideration:
Swords, forged and tempered £1 per dozen
Daggers, 6” blade 6 shillings per dozen
Bayonets, 8” blade 10 shillings per dozen
We can supply leatherwork, scabbards, & cetera, at little additional cost, but believe that these may be more readily obtained by yourselves locally.
Our company does not manufacture rifles; we would be willing to act as agents on your behalf in securing the same, tho’ our govt’s intransigence would entail some difficulties on our part.
I beg to remain your most obedient servant
Edward Eldon
---
[manuscript]
From: Tom Eldon
Cold Harbour Hall
Kingston
Jamaica
To: Miss Frances Eldon
Littleworth Hall
Littleworth
1st October 1803
Dearest Cousin Frances
You inquired after our situation here. You may have read in the Gazette that the Negro rebels have been defeated and captured at last. The ringleader, styling himself “Captain Moses”, was an escapee from Mr Jones’ estate, just over the creek from us. Jones tells us that he had been making an experiment in educating the savages, but has resolved to desist in such efforts. Captain Moses was hanged by the militia in the Town Square this last week, although our niggers mutter that it was another man and that Moses lives. We have whipped them and keep them locked up at night, yet they do not apply themselves to their work.
We anticipate the arrival of a new shipment within the month, wch will be sorely needed, so many of our current complement having died from malarial contagion. Alas, prices are rising now that supplies are short, the Navy’s patrols having dislocated the traffic.
You should soon receive at the Hall a delivery of Wedgwood’s porcelain – I would be obliged if you would inspect it as to condition, since the factory disclaims any control of its carters. I am as yet undecided where it is best to place; if you let me know it has arrived I shall be put upon to chuse!
I trust that you will not find me importunate in allotting you such a task
And remain
Your loving cousin
Tom
---
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