I'm afraid I did

This is that moment: when David Cameron admits to Nick Clegg that he did say "Nick Clegg" in reply to the question "What is your favourite joke?" Need I say more?

Standby Surprise

On the UK government "Act on CO2" website there is clear advice, which no one would disagree with: Don't leave it on standby
"If everyone in the UK switched off unused appliances it would save £800 million a year. Leaving appliances plugged in and switched on at the socket means they're still using energy – so turn TVs, games consoles and mobile phone chargers off at the mains to save yourself money."


This is self evident advice and easy to implement. Why would any one question it? Turning something off that you don't need will save energy and save the planet. But is it always true?


Here is a simple quiz question for all you energy gurus out there:
I go out for the evening and despite my usual vigilance I leave my phone charger switched on, my TV on standby, and (horror of horrors) an electric light on. The room is heated (it is winter) by an electric heater, which has a thermostat. So here is the question, does leaving the electrical devices on unnecessarily:

1. Use extra energy, contributing to my carbon footprint?
2. Make absolutely no difference to my energy consumption, but increase my carbon footprint?
3. Increase my energy consumption by the wattage of the devices left on, but make no difference to my carbon footprint?
4. Make no difference to either my energy consumption or my carbon footprint?
5. I need more information and need to thermally model your home and the insulation system on a computer before I can say.

So here is the surprise (for some people). If you want to be pedantic and very accurate, the answer is (5), but to a very close approximation, the answer is (4). The reason? Let me go over some very simple physics.


All these electrical devices convert the energy they use into heat (I'm assuming that the phone is not plugged into the charger so we are not converting any mains electrical energy into battery energy). Actually, conversion of electrical energy into heat energy happens at 100% efficiency for almost all electrical devices. The electric heater does the same. The thermostat on the heater does not know if the heat delivered to your room is from the heater or the other devices; it is all just heat. So whilst you are heating the room, the job of the thermostat is to maintain the room at a particular temperature. Everything else being equal, it will turn on the heater for slightly smaller periods of time to exactly compensate for the heat generated by the offending devices. The energy you use will be whatever is necessary to maintain the temperature difference between the outside and the chosen thermostat temperature inside. Which electrical device generates that heat does not matter. Obviously the thermal installation makes a massive difference and air flow from the outside through your room (a draft) is probably even more important. But the TV on standby makes no difference at all.


So why might answer (5) be important. We let us suppose that the phone charger is on the window sill, behind the curtains. It might then lose the heat it generates without contributing so much to the heating of the room. There would then be an argument for switching it off to save energy. I mention this only because there will be people who spot this and then claim that my argument is completely wrong. I will let you judge, on this.


Don't be complacent if you are in a hot climate with air conditioning running. Unfortunately the physics works the other way around in this case. Because air conditioning uses more energy than it shifts, the extra devices in your home now get multiplied by the efficiency of the air conditioning. A TV on standby using five watts now needs, maybe, another 5 watts of air conditioning to keep the room at the same thermostatically controlled temperature. And this will increase both your energy costs and your carbon footprint.

Salinger's Message Still Apposite

The death of J D Salinger (for some reason nobody calls him Jerome) on 27th January prompted me to read his one famous book, "The Catcher in the Rye," again. This book "had the dubious distinction of being at once the most frequently censored book across the nation and the second-most frequently taught novel in public high schools" (Yardley, Jonathan (2004-10-19). "J.D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield, Aging Gracelessly". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2007-04-13.)
Holden Caulfield, 17, has been expelled from prestigious Pencey Prep and it is not the first time he has been expelled from a school. Action takes place over 48 hours starting when he decides to leave early, not wishing to face up to his parents' inevitable rebukes. He travels to New York and checks into a hotel, near where he lives. His experiences, include contact with old girl friends, an encounter with a prostitute (he is unable to follow this through) and the rescuing hand of his younger sister Phoebe.
The language, uniquely for its time, is that of the disaffected youth, struggling to make sense of the world; alienated, defensive, cynical, immoral. Holden, in a touching conversation with his sister (chapter 22) confesses that all he wants to do is "catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff." "I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all."
With authentic turn of phrase, no censorship of profanities, his opinions, presented in a stream of consciousness, are cutting, shocking and depressing. When you realise that this young man, with life's big puzzle yet to be solved, is simply telling you how it is for him, the world turns upside down, and you question the sanity of our culture and morals; the pretensions of the modern world; the expectations we try to live up to and mostly fail. Who is it who is having the nervous breakdown here. Is Holden's treatment by "the one psychoanalyst guy" helping him or breaking him in.

The Trial – Franz Kafka

We all have stories that you could not make up. I was once allocated the budget to recruit a new member of the engineering team I managed. However, before I could spend this approved budget, I had to apply for approval to 'increase the head count'. To do this, I had to submit a particular form at a certain date to the HR department and this, I was told, would be reviewed at the next board meeting. My first submission was rejected, with the instruction that more information was needed, which I duly provided – a full A4 sheet justifying the need for the post. This was also rejected – I was informed that the extra information must fit the form. OK, much reduced information was now provided, and soon I heard from one source that the position had finally been approved, and I should expect official notification soon. I proceeded with the recruitment, but on the day before a second interview with a candidate to whom I expected to make a job offer, I was told through the official channel that in fact the position had not been approved. I cancelled the interview. Half an hour later I heard from a more senior person in the organisation that yes, the position had been approved. After explaining the situation, I got an e-mail endorsed by the CEO to confirm this. Through the recruitment agent I then tried to contact the candidate, who as it happens was flying to the UK for the interview. Sorry, I wanted to say, can you come after all? The message did not get through. The second interview never happened. Who in their right mind would want to work for an organisation which behaved like that? Like me? How could I find myself in such a position? In the event I had to continue the search and the position was filled more than a month later than it could have been.
Kafka knows this world. A world were little makes sense. Where each action you take made sense at the time, but, when you are judged by the result, none of it makes sense. A world where snippets of information must be weighed for their value in influencing your decision, but the rules are never clear and the results unpredictable. A world where your emotions, you anger, must be harnessed, not unleashed, if you are even to survive. In the human search for understanding, familiarity sufficient to achieve predictability, there is so much to digest, so many theories to test against the meagre data.
'The Trial' is probably Franz Kafka's most pure example of his art. A complex fabric of topics, treated with consummate ease. In simple language. On bureaucracy? Is Kafka's world an amplification of the absurdity we find all around us? That absurdity that results from human behaviour that is the natural consequence of animals with consciousness, driven by emotion. We only pretend to be working in a rational framework of necessary rules designed to achieve a clear purpose. Worse than that, the fabric grows as we each attempt to carve out our own livelihood in what has gone before. We are at once cushioned and shielded from the original intent by the ever expanding fabric of the organisation. Inscrutable procedures are evident but few clues as to what you should do are available. The rules are never explicit; they depend on interpretation and everyone has their own interpretation.
Equally, this novel evokes a tingling sensation reminiscent of that curious state between wakefulness and sleep, between dream and reality where nightmares are mixed with reality and it is impossible to tell which is tangible and which pure imagination – or horror. For a Jew living since the holocaust this novel is a chilling echo to the view held by Nazis that Jews are in some way guilty to the extent that they must be eliminated, a whole race. But no one can say what they are guilty of.
Sex is a recurring theme. Kafka explores this in its many aspects. Read the novel, there is much, much more in store for you!