johnwvincent

Muddy

Rain, rain, rain. It’s been a wet spring, so far. Let’s put that down to global warming. The cause is one thing, but the symptoms another. They are there to see every day as I look out of the kitchen window. At the back of our house, the open field that stretches out towards the river Lambourn is about 7 acres in size. At least half of it has been flooded or is caught in that cycle of the ebb and flow of the river for the last 3-months. Great for wildlife. It’s a soggy marshland.

We are into mid-April and there are rainless days. Bit by bit, it looked as if the river’s flood waters[1] were receding, and they were but now and then a burst of rain tops up the pools and streams. That’s this morning in a nutshell.

Our lawn is growing fresh grass enough to fuel a herd of wildebeest. I jokingly said we need a goat to eat it all off. Getting my battery powered mower to control the lawn is a real effort. A healthy growing season. That’s the good side of a damp climate.

For livestock, and wildlife the flourishing fodder is a positive. Already there are two families of ducklings swimming around and eating as much as they can. On the negative side, parts of the field outback are too wet to allow cattle to trample the new grass. A seasonal problem I’m familiar with having grown-up in a place called Horsington Marsh.

Bright green growth is one of the delights of springtime. Leaves on the trees and the fresh grass as it reaches skyward. Even the moss looks shiny and alive. This is the two-edged sword of farming. Grass needs the rain but too much and the land becomes a potential mud bath.

Eventually, the fast-flowing waters of the River Lambourn run into the River Kennet and then the River Thames. Strange to think that the water the ducks and geese stomp around in around here eventually passes through the heart of London on its way to the sea.

It’s notable that the grass grows where the flood water has receded. That part of the adjoining field where the waters come and go has turned into a combination of mud and aquatic vegetation. There are plants that can tolerate little air getting to their roots and there’s others that start to die back if there are submerged for too long.

Sadly, although the river’s waters look clean and clear, sewage treatment works, septic tanks, arable farming, road run-off and industrial processes have all had their impact. Technically the river is in an “unfavourable condition[2]” when it comes to aspects of water quality.

What of the mud? It will be interesting to see how quickly the submerged areas recover as the weather improves. I’ll be looking out for how all the phosphates in the water and the dead grass come alive again. Or do we end up with a low-lying grimy mud riverbank supporting rushes, reeds, and algae? Climate change and the human activity are changing the nature of watercourses. It’s difficult to say if the worsts aspects of this can be mitigated.

[1] https://check-for-flooding.service.gov.uk/target-area/061WAF22Lambourn

[2] https://www.westberks.gov.uk/article/41082/River-Lambourn-Special-Area-of-Conservation-SAC

Reform

It’s not a name that represents their reality. Although, a couple of the political polices they have on their books do mean significant restructuring. Proportional representation being one of those policies. They are a British political party that wants to continue the destructive arguments that brought about Brexit. Created in 2021 the Reform Party are the rump of the Brexit Party.

For poll watchers they are stripping voters away from the Conservative Party. In fact, their aim is to replace the mainstream Conservative Party. Unashamidly populist and right-wing, Reform is sending shivers down the spine of the centrist Conservatives. More libertarian than liberal, abolishing and leaving institutions is more their meat and potato pie.

It’s not at all unusual for such populist political parties to point at everyone else as a problem and assert that simple solutions can be magicked up in an instant. Reform is going for those issues that greatly trouble unhappy “conservative” voters. Taxes, immigration, green initiatives, mainstream media, and that nebulous topic “woke”. Failures in Parliament, at the Home Office and in the NHS are targets too. It’s the sort of stuff that gives a type of British voter a sugar rush.

There’s a deliberate attempt to follow in the footsteps of Donald Trump in the US. The dynamics of politics are different in the UK but there’s an appetite for harking back to a mythical era when Great Britain was great and how that could be recreated.

If the Reform Party does nothing else, it’s tipping the existing Conservative Party to go ever more to the right of politics. This, to some extent, explains the ridiculous obsession with current Rwanda legislation that’s as likely to work as a square wheel.

One prediction can be made with confidence is that the coming Geneal Election is not going to be much like the one in 2019. What on earth would happen if well-known personalities like Boris Johnson backed the Reform Party who knows where we would go next. To me this is horribly like Germany in the 1930s. Taking a hard line on immigration is one thing but calling for the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights is a slippery slope.

Politics with a noisy and truculent style has its place. Jam tomorrow and promoting “easy” solutions to complex problems are not new. Red-faced shouting and finger pointing has been around since Roman times. It’s the way a lot of people feel when things do not go well. Trouble is that putting people in power who tout this style always ends in bad consequences and disillusionment. It’s guaranteed.

Reform is polling in double digits. However, with the UK’s traditional First Past the Post (FPTP) electoral system this means very little. Reform may influence the conservative climate of opinion only. Revolution is not in the air – yet. What niggles me a bit is that Brexit caught many people on the hop when it happened. Its legacy has been wholly negative. The question arises, are we in for another round of shooting ourselves in the foot? I hope not.

Clear out

The avalanche of information that hits us everyday is enormous. It’s arguably difficult to remain well informed. Under the weight of material streaming towards us at light speed we must be ruthless editors. A nice cartoon summed this up with one person saying to another: I’d like to be well informed, but I’d like to stay sane.

It’s not right to say that this situation is the same as it’s always been. Perhaps in past generations a slowness or paucity of daily News meant that imaginations flourished, and people made up plausible stories to fill the gaps. Now, I could say social media keyboard warriors make up the stories that we have to filter to distinguish what’s real and what’s fake.

Should I lament the passing of paper? I’ve been an advocate of digitisation. Most magazines, journals, newspapers and alike have an on-line version. They must do to stay in business. Boxes of books in a shed don’t add a lot to the quality of life. Colourful aviation and motorcycle magazines weigh a ton.

One aspect of moving house is digging into stratigraphy of times gone by. I’m not especially a person who hordes stuff. However, I do keep far more than is wise. Moving house is an excellent opportunity to recycle, shred paper and visit a charity shop or two with piles of books.

A stack of daily newspapers that sat next to the living room door in a wicker basket and they had to go. At the bottom of the pile were headlines from 2010. Even with this menagerie of News I had to save one or two notable cuttings. The last 14-years are so incongruous that trying to explain them is almost impossible without some references.

Electronic media can pile up too. I’ve several hard disks from past computers that really should be crushed. Photos may sit on them so they will get a reprieve or is that just putting off sorting.

What seemed important at the time eventually fades. I’m unsure that sifting through the layers of accumulated stuff helps gain perspective. I suppose it must, to a degree. This clashes with a phenomenon that comes with age. I can vividly remember moments that happened a decade ago, and more, better than I can remember where I left my car keys. That’s not entirely true but the general idea is that memory is far from linear. The brain stores images of the past in a peculiarly selective manner.

I guess this is one reason for keeping a minimum archive of past events. They trigger the remembering of moments. That fills in the gaps that grow all too quickly. Moving house is one of the most stressful events in life. On the upside, a move creates an opportunity to rethink and take a new path.

Highways

The last time I visited the city of Baltimore was in 2012. It was the location of the annual seminar of the International Society of Air Safety Investigators (ISASI)[1]. That was when I was representing the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) at such international events.

The relationship between aviation accident investigators and regulators are generally cordial. There’s a great deal of work that requires cooperation and good communication. That’s not to say that the relationships between these two vital parts of national and international aviation safety systems is easy. It’s not. My reflection on that fact is that a degree of constructive tension is inevitable and not always a bad thing.

One way of seeing that relationship is that the primary role of an investigator is to make findings to prevent the repeat of a given accident. For a regulator the primary role is to ensure the complete aviation system runs safely on a day-to-day basis. Both organisations have the public interest at their heart. However, their operational context and perspective are different.

Firstly, my condolence to the families and friends of those who perished because of the Francis Scott Key Bridge accident[2]. The collapse victims and survivors had no way of knowing what was to happen on the night of the accident. I use the word “accident”. This was not an act of God, as some commentators would have it. The safety risks involved in the operation of the port in Baltimore could be anticipated.

In the US there’s an independent federal agency that is tasked with such major investigations. Interestingly, it’s the same one as that investigates aviation accidents and incidents. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is a multi-modal organisation. That is something we don’t have in the UK. Also, we don’t have a divide between federal and state organisations. Since in the UK we have separate independent national Air, Marine and Rail investigation agencies that cover the country (England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland).

I will not comment on the accident sequence or causes. It’s the job of an independent investigation to arrive at the technical facts. Recommendations will flow from that investigation.

Where a comment may be in order is that there are many locations across the globe where a vital piece of infrastructure, like a bridge being struck by a large container ship is a possibility. I’d generalise that further. When infrastructure that was designed a built 50 years ago meets modern day operational stress there’s going to be vulnerabilities. Yes, the aviation system is not immune from this fact too. It wasn’t so long ago when I read of PDP-11 computer hardware used for air traffic control (now, historic artifacts[3]). I’m sure there are still Boeing 747s, and alike that need floppy disks to update their hardware.

So, the wider subject is operational legacy systems working with modern systems. This is the interface that requires particular care. The safety risk appetite and exposure in the 1970s/80s was quite different from that which we expect upheld today.

Unfortunately, society is often reluctant to revisit this subject. Additionally, there’s the incentive to go for quick fixes and sweating assets. The example I have in mind the so-called “smart motorways” in the UK[4]. I don’t know how many fatalities can be linked to “smart motorways” but I’m sure, sadly, it’s too many.

POST: In time-off I enjoyed a trip out to Fort McHenry and a walk around the places where The Wire was filmed. The Fort McHenry story is interesting given its role in times of war. The British burnt the White House but the navy didn’t get past Fort McHenry in 1812.

[1] https://www.isasi.org/

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-68661318

[3] https://www.tnmoc.org/air-traffic-control

[4] https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/plans-for-new-smart-motorways-cancelled

Smart

One of the most irritating peak-time adverts on British TV, now, is the one where a fake Albert Einstein wibbles on to a fake dog in a hideously fake humorous manner. It’s condescending and preachy. What on earth the Albert Einstein has to do with household energy meters I can’t imagine. His famous equation is more useful for making nuclear bombs than measuring domestic power consumption. You might think the great man was an annoying Italian computer gaming character.

The smart meter is pushed on the basis that “you can better manage your energy”. I expect that’s true in most cases when they work well. I’ve had one for some time. We recently changed energy supplier. Guess what? In the transition I had to throw away an indicator and replace it with another.

In the news are reports of defunct smart meters causing people concerning problems. Smart meter mode means a meter can automatically send readings to an energy supplier. When they don’t work, lack of meter readings opens the door to energy companies making up bill estimates often to their advantage.

When I informed our power company, I got an education that put me right. Can’t possibly call the whole system a smart meter. No, that would be wrong. So, says the company:

“The smart meter you are enquiring about is actually an In Home Display, the smart meter is the meter on the wall.”

That informative reply reminded me of the Not The Nine O’clock sketch set in a gramophone shop. Foolish householder not knowing that it’s called an In Home Display (IHD). The smart meter is installed on the wall.

I’m in support of energy saving and the role an intelligent meter can play in monitoring the use of domestic energy. What are they trying to do – put me off?

Long gone are the days when meter readers knocked on the door and with a cheery smile jotted down the gas or electricity numbers in the understairs cupboard.

Now, I see the claim is that the “vast majority” of smart meters are operating as intended. That’s good. Those words mean about 88% according to a BBC report[1]. That sounds fine but what about the 12% who are in limbo? That’s not an inconsiderable number of people.

The roll out of smart metering technology started in 2011. There’s a first-generation and second-generation set-up out there in homes. A lot of work has been done to sort out communication problems. However, network coverage is not universal. Those connection issue are familiar to anyone with even the best mobile phone.

The BBC report is right to highlight problems. There ought to be a bigger focus on a plan for maintenance of the system as much as pushing new smart meter installations.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz9zqn77ezno

Safety Culture 2

This may sound at variance with my last blog. I hope it’s not. I hope it’s complementary. What I’m highlighting here has been observed over decades of contact with a wide variety of organisations.

The term safety culture is fused into the pillars of ICAO Annex 19. The essence of building a good safety culture that fosters sound practices and encourages communications, in a non-punitive environment is at the heart of standards and recommended practices. With all those decades behind us the reader might assume that there’s unambiguous and well aligned attitudes and ways of working throughout the aviation industry. That’s not so.

On a spectrum of what could be called hard to soft the manner of application of know best practices can take different forms. By the way, please disassociate those two words with both easy and difficult. That’s not what I mean.

In my interpretation “hard” means like pages of Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince[1]. Aggressive, persistent, mandatory, uncompromising and all encompassing.

In my interpretation “soft” means like pages of The Little Book of Calm by Paul Wilson[2]. Harmonious, enlightened, progressive, sympathetic, and understanding.

As with extremes on any scale, going to the ends of that scale are not the best way to operate. I say “best” in terms of getting to ways of working to endure with engagement and effectiveness. I observe much of this depends on how power is disseminated through an organisational structure. Highly hierarchical organisations will approach culture differently from organisations with a relatively flat management system.

It may not be surprising to suggest that aviation Authorities can veer towards the “hard” approach and staff Unions towards the “soft” approach. Even when both are trying to reach the same goal. Where people come from a military background, command and control can be an instinctive reaction. Where people come from an advanced technology company background, collaboration and communication can be an instinctive reaction. In my observation there are advantages in both a hard and soft safety cultural approaches.

One advantage of a hard safety culture is that the time between discovery of a safety problem, taking corrective action and resolving that operational problem can be short. Clearly, that has distinct safety advantages. Certain airlines come to mind.

One advantage of a soft safety culture is that there can be the discovery of safety problems that would otherwise remain hidden. Where collective ownership of the problem is not in question. Again, clearly, that has distinct safety advantages too. Certain manufacturers come to mind.

I guess my message is as per much ancient thinking. All things in moderation. Try to reap the benefits of both ends of the scale. Balance.

[1] https://www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/stock/the-prince-niccolo-machiavelli

[2] https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-little-book-of-calm/paul-wilson/9780241257449

Safety Culture

Civil aviation remains an extremely safe means of transport. That said, any form of complacency must be addressed. It’s reassuring to say the past has been great but what passengers are most concerned about is their next flight. To have the confidence, to think it irrational to be afraid of flying, to look forward to the next journey, we must have a safe aviation system everywhere and all the time.

For any widespread system that has complex interactions between people and technology there’s never a moment when it can be taken for granted. We count the numbers, but safety is not purely an absence of accidents and incidents. Numbers counted are always past events. They have no direct causal influence on what happens next. True, there are factors in past accidents and incidents that will pop up again and again, but every flight is a unique event.

One of my colleagues who was a senior captain in a major international airline always remined me of the fact that, for all that has gone before, flight risk begins the moment an aircraft sets off down the runway with the intention getting to a destination. When the wheels lift off the ground there’s no stopping time. Reliant on the diligence, vigilance, and integrity of everyone who made a flight possible, flight risk is then in the hands of the crew.

The above is perhaps why we talk a lot about safety culture. The whole aviation family has a role to play. The care, professionalism, and watchfulness of every person makes a difference.

This can extend from the drafting of a new component for a new design, that a decade down the line. ends up as a part of an aircraft just about to leave the gate. This can go back to a flight instructors’ message that emphasised a key point back in a pilot’s initial training, years ago. This can encompass the extra care a couple of air traffic controllers took as they changed shifts.

Safety culture comes from caring. It’s that heightened awareness of the consequence of actions. Being alert to possibilities. Both the good kind, and the bad.

Safety culture is a matter for both individuals and organisations. One without the other doesn’t work. Placing a vigilant person in an organisation that doesn’t care is much like placing a reckless person in an organisation that does care. Although this is what I’ve written, systemic problems are likely the ones that are most likely to cause negative outcomes. This is where the role of management has the most impact.

Culture exists in context. When the ways people interact are determined by practices, processes, and procedures there’s an obligation on management to ensure they fit the bill. Drivers are often economic. In a commercial operation that’s no surprise. It’s when that driver displaces the safety imperative then safety suffers. There’s been several occurrences of this negative phenomena in the last year.

Unfair

That’s one way to start a note. “As a member of the post-active population”, I now feel that all the activity I now do is conveniently wrapped up as being somewhat like cosmic dark matter. It’s there in theory but no one knows what it is in fact. It’s activity that’s hidden activity.

There’s a great deal of talk about the large number of those people in their 50s, and above who have left the conventional workforce post-COVID. Unfortunately, much of it is tainted. The general implication being that the protestant work ethic runs deep and those who are not on the traditional 9-5 treadmill are letting society down. As if the only work worth counting is that which statisticians count into that magic number, namely Gross domestic product (GDP). The tyranny of an abbreviation. A great deal of useful productive and valuable activity is excluded from GDP.

Trogging off to Sunshine Deserts[1] every day, electronically or physically, and making or processing stuff and pushing rocks up hill is counted as the gold standard. This way of looking at the society is foolish. It comes from commentators being way behind the curve and politicians living life as if they were stuck in an idyllic childhood.

This way of thinking is especially true in the UK. More so than other European countries, we are dependent up charities and voluntary workers. German visitors are often struck by the number of charity shops in the UK. If you ask how palliative care, emergency services, children’s support, food banks, homeless shelters and crisis support are funded in German the response is simple – taxes.

The amount of unpaid work, like that performed in the home or by volunteers, in a massive range of organisations, is huge in the UK. That’s not wholly a bad thing. Sadly, this reality not recognised in government policy circles, other than being a way of off-loading responsibilities as funding cuts kick in. Of course, there’s politicians who turn-up for photo shoots at election time when there’s smidgen of recognition. If a charity is not in vogue or well known even those opportunities to raise funds and profile are few and far between.

All the above said, I do support the call for some education organisations that are deemed charities to lose the privileges rightly afforded to much more worthy charities. I know that’s a matter of judgement but not all fish in the sea are the same.

Often, it’s has struck me as strange that tertiary colleges (public funded education)[2] must pay Value Added Tax (VAT), but private colleges deemed to be “charities” do not. An uneven distribution of privileges is another characteristic of a way of doing things in this country.

As I understand, it what’s going on looks like this. Staff at Any Town College, where most local young people get their post-16 educational experience, order reams of paper for a printer. They pay 20% VAT. Staff at an expensive Public School, like the Prime Minister’s ex-college, order reams of paper for a printer. They don’t pay 20% VAT. That’s crazy.

No wonder growth is slow. No wonder social mobility is stifled. No wonder people are desperate for political change.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fall_and_Rise_of_Reginald_Perrin

[2] https://feweek.co.uk/no-plans-to-exempt-colleges-from-vat-says-treasury-secretary/

Dependency

It’s not unique. Charle Dickens wrote about it. We don’t like to admit it. We have a dependency on bureaucracy. Our complex society runs on it.

Whatever we do when it comes to the meeting of an individual with an organisation, it’s inevitable. Irrational people deny this fact or say it’s only true of public bodies, like government departments. It’s as if the generally high performance of modern computer systems renders them completely invisible.

One apt illustration of a dependency on systematic bureaucracy and digitisation combined can be read in a carefully constructed e-mail from the CEO of Sainsbury’s this weekend.

“I’m writing to update you on the technical issue that has affected our Groceries Online deliveries and some services in our stores this weekend.”

This could have come from any large complex organisation that exists in today’s digital world. When outages happen, we all sit patiently for affected systems to come back online with the full services that we normally take for granted. A sudden reversion to traditional cash transactions was a shock to the average post-COVID consumer.

This weekend my experience of one major hotel chain was that they would not accept cash at all in their restaurant. My “paper” money was useless. It sat in my pocket.

What we have is the power of utility. Systems become so good that we build ever more dependency into them doing the right thing, every time. The problem is that systems are often programmed to do certain tasks exceptionally well but as soon as there’s an unexpected deviation outside normal parameters the situation does not go well.

An illustration of that experience can be read in the public version of the interim report on UK NATS[1]. After the event, and similar unfortunate events, there’s a cavalcade of calls for more contingency, more resilience, more planning, more training, more checking and so on.

That list is perfectly sensible. But wouldn’t it have been better if those actions had been taken up-front? I often saw this discovery in my time doing systems certification audits. Companies who spend a lot of money upfront to build software that was well characterised and tested were not guaranteed success, but their chances were greatly improved. Those who hit the road with over-confidence, marketing hype and rigorous cost cutting had a high probability of negative outcomes. It’s not a simple cause and effect but good system architecture, robust software and a management that understood the need to spend time and money judiciously do well.

Just think. If a runner ran a marathon without a strategy, training, basic fitness, planning and sound motivation no one would expect them to be winning anything unless they were exceptionally lucky or unbelievably talented. Not many in the latter category.

There’s a lesson here. It’s been copied over and over. Saddy the almost completely invisibly of complex system that work well in everyday life means we soon take them for granted. And the result is?

[1] https://www.caa.co.uk/publication/download/21478

Flying a kite

Political discussion is much as it often is. One side is an abomination the other is the only way. Reverse that theme and you can sing the song of either Conservative or Labour party. Test yourself and see if you can think of a positive, constructive, cross-party initiative that is making Britian a better place to live. And that it isn’t jam tomorrow.

We are in a particularly febrile season. Holding the front page is mostly for atrocities, resignations, scandals and promises broken. Future quizzes about early 2024 may feature the question – who was Prime Minister or why was the inevitable General Election delayed?

I stripped off the daily one-page calendar for the 15^th and the saying presented was – Imagination is the highest kite you can fly. There is a sentence to end the week. In the face of grinding pragmatic reality and the predictability of the worn out adversarial political order what if there was some imagination?

Much daily News concerns conflict, war, crime, funding cuts, inflated claims, and disagreeable personalities. No wonder people are turning off serious News media. A diet of current events remains important in a healthy democracy. Sadly, lots of people are driven to News avoidance[1].

My recommendation is let’s have some daily News that stimulates the imagination. There’s a little tickle through on occasions. Sadly, again this is seen as a minority interest. The need for hope built on a positive vision for the future is great. The more people disengage with dependable, independent, and objective News, the more the spinners of misinformation and lies get a grip.

What is missing is imagination. It’s not so alien. To think we once had a prime-time show called – Tomorrows World[2]. It wasn’t a humours chat on a comfy sofa at teatime. Meandering about the lives of minor celebrities and entertainment plugs for coming shows.

For decades, the likes of Raymond Baxter, James Burke and Judith Hann took us on a weekly adventure. On reflection there’s an immense range in their presentations. From what now seems comical to what has turned out to be profoundly significant.

I propose a next generation version of Tomorrow’s World. It’s the Spirt of Imagination. Each week there would be an accessible, peak time, magazine style show that looks at what’s lighting up the world of science, technology, and engineering.

I’m not asking for a worthy educational STEM[3] fest. No. A show must be engaging. Not a bore fest. It must be led by talented communicators who have a passion and instinct for what people are talking about. It must look a generation ahead. Simultaneously ask grandparents to rediscover wonder.

[1] https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/five-things-news-media-can-do-respond-consistent-news-avoidance

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow%27s_World

[3] https://www.stem.org.uk/about-us