By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
Last Updated: 11:01pm GMT 14/02/2008
People in crowds behave just like sheep, scientists claim, by blindly following one or two people who seem to know where they are going.
# Like ants, humans are easily led
Researchers at Leeds University believe their findings could have important applications, notably in the management of disasters.
The study found that people, like sheep, can be easily led
The study found that people, like sheep, can be easily led
The team, led by Prof Jens Krause, conducted a series of experiments in which volunteers were told to walk randomly around a large hall without talking to each other. A select few were then given more detailed instructions.
The results published today show that it takes a minority of just 5 per cent of what they called "informed individuals" to influence the direction of a crowd of a minimum of 200 people. The remaining herd of 95 per cent follow without realising it.
"There are strong parallels with animal grouping behaviour," says Prof Krause, who reports the work with John Dyer in the Animal Behaviour Journal, with colleagues at the Universities of Oxford and Wales Bangor.
"We've all been in situations where we get swept along by the crowd but what's interesting about this research is that our participants ended up making a consensus decision despite the fact that they weren't allowed to talk or gesture to one another.
"In most cases the participants didn't realise they were being led by others."
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The work follows another study by Dr Simon Reader of Utrecht University that showed that most of us are happy to play follow-my-leader, even if we are trailing after someone who does not really know where they are going.
"Even more striking, that study found that even when we are shown a faster route, we still prefer to stick with the old one and tell others to take the long road too.
That discovery could have lethal implications when it comes to evacuating a building or ship in an emergency, when people would likely stick to the familiar evacuation route, even if slower than an alternative.
Friday 15 February 2008
Thursday 14 February 2008
Everybody Loves A Good Farce
Everybody Loves A Good Farce
Raj Thackeray must be pleased, as would be MNS, SP and, particularly, the Congress. All of them came out a 'winner', except the city of Mumbai and the families of those who suffered. First in that list is the family of an unsuspecting 52-year-old from Nashik.
SMRUTI KOPPIKAR Raj Thackeray may have gone home pleased tonight, pleased that the script turned out quite the way he wanted it, with himself as a hero for disgruntled Marathi youth. But this new hero has blood on his hands, ironically the blood of a Maharashtrian. Even as his arrest and released-on-bail drama was being played out in a tense but edgy Mumbai, an unsuspecting 52-year-old Ambadas Dharao was killed by a stone hurled at him by Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) activists in Nashik. Dharao was returning home in the staff bus of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited when the activists, enraged at the arrest and determined to display their 'strength', began throwing stones and setting public transport vehicles on fire. Nashik was among the worst hit cities at the end of a tense Wednesday. Pune, Nagpur, Latur were also affected as were various parts of Mumbai.
Would Raj Thackeray have spared a thought for the hapless Dharao and his distraught family? How can Raj Thackeray ever justify his 'boys' taking a Maharashtrian life, any life, to uphold the cause of Maharashtrians? How, indeed, does Raj Thackeray justify the weeks of endless tension, slander campaigns, vicious words, malicious actions that he and his 'boys' indulged in to justify anything at all? A script that he did not begin writing has propped him up as a hero, bestowed on him the larger-than-life halo he always desired, and turned his fledgling party's political fortunes. But in his moment of political triumph--Raj Thackeray now has a national political profile--would he have the mindspace to reflect upon his words and actions of the last few weeks? He can now boast an identity other than that of being Bal Thackeray's estranged nephew, he can cite his cause in place of a well-deliberated ideology, but most of all, he can now claim to have suffered an arrest to uphold the cause of Marathi identity or "asmita". Raj Thackeray would love to be anointed the spokesperson of all things Maharashtrian, never mind his ageing uncle.
Scores of Marathi-speaking people have hesitatingly approved of his cause but disparaged his methods. They believe, rightly or otherwise, he is speaking their thoughts when he says that Uttar Bharatiyas--migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar--are an impediment in the progress of Maharashtrians particularly in Mumbai. Even so, many such Maharashtrians do not approve of taking lives to press that claim. That his methods, mimicking those of his uncles' 40-year-old ones, may not get him brownie points. At some point in his political career, Ambadas Dharao's death may come back to haunt him but right now, Raj Thackeray has reached a high that he himself would not have imagined in November 2005 when he announced to the world that he was quitting his beloved uncle's Shiv Sena.
No wonder then that he wanted to be arrested, that he dared the state government to arrest him, that he reiterated last Saturday all that he had been saying last few weeks. When asked if the poor man on the street--Uttar Bharatiya panwalla, taxi driver and so on--suffered even as he joined fight with Amar Singh and Abu Asim Azmi of the Samajwadi Party, Raj has this to say: "What bichara [loosely, helpless], who bichara? This same bichara man goes to the rallies and chat pujas to show his strength, isn't it? How then is he a bichara? Besides, when two countries go to war and two generals fight, it's generally the soldier who dies. This is inevitable." Shorn of pomposity, it translates as: there's nothing wrong if the poor man on the street has to pay with his life for my cause, it is bound to happen. To many, it would sound callous. For Raj, it's part being a toughie.
To wit, Abu Asim Azmi played along in a rather coordinated manner to provide Raj with the counterpoint that he was desperately looking for in this script, and also to resurrect his own political career.Azmi is not new to controversies. Like Raj, he too thrives on contrarian points of view, incendiary language and outlandish claims. With Amar Singh as his boss, and perhaps chief guide this time, Azmi's public discourse with Raj touched a new nadir. If Raj had to be arrested for his words and actions, Azmi too would have had to face similar treatment though his words--provocative as they were--could not be directly linked to violence anywhere. When the Mumbai police moved in for the kill Wednesday evening and picked up both, Azmi was pleased with himself too. It meant another shot at a political career that has been on the downslide. As Amar Singh screamed out, it meant the SP could try its luck again in Mumbai.
In many ways then, Raj Thackeray and Abu Asim Azmi seem like two peas in a pod, two faces of the same phenomenon, two utterly self-absorbed small-time politicians who will happily build and re-build their careers over dead men and spilt blood. No wonder then they fed off one another for over a fortnight. But as many Mumbaikars say, Azmi cannot claim to speak for all Uttar Bharatiyas or even those from UP just as Raj Thackeray cannot claim to be spokesperson of all Maharashtrians. Who then does Mayawati speak for? And whom does the Shiv Sena represent? Mumbai became the battleground for identity politics to play out.
In allowing Raj and Azmi a free run over the last two weeks, the state government helped them become heroes. In the farcical drama of arrests and bail that played out Wednesday evening, if both Raj and Azmi walked away satisfied, so did the government. The Congress-NCP government "showed", however unwillingly, that it meant business this time when its home minister RR Patil spoke of the law taking its course. Patil and chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh "proved" to whoever it mattered that they could "act" tough with those breaking the law. Act, they certainly did. In the process, they earned a few pats on their backs from their party bosses, showed they were not cowed down by empty threats issued by the likes of Raj and Azmi, and picked up extra points for not letting Mumbai burn during the drama. It's a different matter, though, that the First Information Report, filed as belatedly as it was, ensured that the charges levelled would not stick, and that the bail could easily be organised.
Politically, the Congress must have loved every moment of the drama, for as Raj's heroic status grew, his ability to impact and wean away the Marathi vote from the Shiv Sena multiplied. To the extent that the Sena--and with it the BJP--weakens, there's one less factor for the Congress to worry about in the 2009 general and state assembly election.
In the end, it's all about politics and who got what in the bargain. In this drama, all the protagonists came out a 'winner', except the city of Mumbai and the families of those who suffered. First in that list is the Dharao family from Nashik.
Messenger on the move. Text MSN to 63463 now!
Raj Thackeray must be pleased, as would be MNS, SP and, particularly, the Congress. All of them came out a 'winner', except the city of Mumbai and the families of those who suffered. First in that list is the family of an unsuspecting 52-year-old from Nashik.
SMRUTI KOPPIKAR Raj Thackeray may have gone home pleased tonight, pleased that the script turned out quite the way he wanted it, with himself as a hero for disgruntled Marathi youth. But this new hero has blood on his hands, ironically the blood of a Maharashtrian. Even as his arrest and released-on-bail drama was being played out in a tense but edgy Mumbai, an unsuspecting 52-year-old Ambadas Dharao was killed by a stone hurled at him by Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) activists in Nashik. Dharao was returning home in the staff bus of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited when the activists, enraged at the arrest and determined to display their 'strength', began throwing stones and setting public transport vehicles on fire. Nashik was among the worst hit cities at the end of a tense Wednesday. Pune, Nagpur, Latur were also affected as were various parts of Mumbai.
Would Raj Thackeray have spared a thought for the hapless Dharao and his distraught family? How can Raj Thackeray ever justify his 'boys' taking a Maharashtrian life, any life, to uphold the cause of Maharashtrians? How, indeed, does Raj Thackeray justify the weeks of endless tension, slander campaigns, vicious words, malicious actions that he and his 'boys' indulged in to justify anything at all? A script that he did not begin writing has propped him up as a hero, bestowed on him the larger-than-life halo he always desired, and turned his fledgling party's political fortunes. But in his moment of political triumph--Raj Thackeray now has a national political profile--would he have the mindspace to reflect upon his words and actions of the last few weeks? He can now boast an identity other than that of being Bal Thackeray's estranged nephew, he can cite his cause in place of a well-deliberated ideology, but most of all, he can now claim to have suffered an arrest to uphold the cause of Marathi identity or "asmita". Raj Thackeray would love to be anointed the spokesperson of all things Maharashtrian, never mind his ageing uncle.
Scores of Marathi-speaking people have hesitatingly approved of his cause but disparaged his methods. They believe, rightly or otherwise, he is speaking their thoughts when he says that Uttar Bharatiyas--migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar--are an impediment in the progress of Maharashtrians particularly in Mumbai. Even so, many such Maharashtrians do not approve of taking lives to press that claim. That his methods, mimicking those of his uncles' 40-year-old ones, may not get him brownie points. At some point in his political career, Ambadas Dharao's death may come back to haunt him but right now, Raj Thackeray has reached a high that he himself would not have imagined in November 2005 when he announced to the world that he was quitting his beloved uncle's Shiv Sena.
No wonder then that he wanted to be arrested, that he dared the state government to arrest him, that he reiterated last Saturday all that he had been saying last few weeks. When asked if the poor man on the street--Uttar Bharatiya panwalla, taxi driver and so on--suffered even as he joined fight with Amar Singh and Abu Asim Azmi of the Samajwadi Party, Raj has this to say: "What bichara [loosely, helpless], who bichara? This same bichara man goes to the rallies and chat pujas to show his strength, isn't it? How then is he a bichara? Besides, when two countries go to war and two generals fight, it's generally the soldier who dies. This is inevitable." Shorn of pomposity, it translates as: there's nothing wrong if the poor man on the street has to pay with his life for my cause, it is bound to happen. To many, it would sound callous. For Raj, it's part being a toughie.
To wit, Abu Asim Azmi played along in a rather coordinated manner to provide Raj with the counterpoint that he was desperately looking for in this script, and also to resurrect his own political career.Azmi is not new to controversies. Like Raj, he too thrives on contrarian points of view, incendiary language and outlandish claims. With Amar Singh as his boss, and perhaps chief guide this time, Azmi's public discourse with Raj touched a new nadir. If Raj had to be arrested for his words and actions, Azmi too would have had to face similar treatment though his words--provocative as they were--could not be directly linked to violence anywhere. When the Mumbai police moved in for the kill Wednesday evening and picked up both, Azmi was pleased with himself too. It meant another shot at a political career that has been on the downslide. As Amar Singh screamed out, it meant the SP could try its luck again in Mumbai.
In many ways then, Raj Thackeray and Abu Asim Azmi seem like two peas in a pod, two faces of the same phenomenon, two utterly self-absorbed small-time politicians who will happily build and re-build their careers over dead men and spilt blood. No wonder then they fed off one another for over a fortnight. But as many Mumbaikars say, Azmi cannot claim to speak for all Uttar Bharatiyas or even those from UP just as Raj Thackeray cannot claim to be spokesperson of all Maharashtrians. Who then does Mayawati speak for? And whom does the Shiv Sena represent? Mumbai became the battleground for identity politics to play out.
In allowing Raj and Azmi a free run over the last two weeks, the state government helped them become heroes. In the farcical drama of arrests and bail that played out Wednesday evening, if both Raj and Azmi walked away satisfied, so did the government. The Congress-NCP government "showed", however unwillingly, that it meant business this time when its home minister RR Patil spoke of the law taking its course. Patil and chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh "proved" to whoever it mattered that they could "act" tough with those breaking the law. Act, they certainly did. In the process, they earned a few pats on their backs from their party bosses, showed they were not cowed down by empty threats issued by the likes of Raj and Azmi, and picked up extra points for not letting Mumbai burn during the drama. It's a different matter, though, that the First Information Report, filed as belatedly as it was, ensured that the charges levelled would not stick, and that the bail could easily be organised.
Politically, the Congress must have loved every moment of the drama, for as Raj's heroic status grew, his ability to impact and wean away the Marathi vote from the Shiv Sena multiplied. To the extent that the Sena--and with it the BJP--weakens, there's one less factor for the Congress to worry about in the 2009 general and state assembly election.
In the end, it's all about politics and who got what in the bargain. In this drama, all the protagonists came out a 'winner', except the city of Mumbai and the families of those who suffered. First in that list is the Dharao family from Nashik.
Messenger on the move. Text MSN to 63463 now!
Wednesday 13 February 2008
Valentine's day greetings
Its Valentine's day my friend
A time for us to ascend
On the path of love
In a nice little cove
Or soon our time will end
Warmest greetings of love
Girish
Sounds like? How many syllables? Guess and win prizes with Search Charades!
Saturday 9 February 2008
Let the new knowledge in
Once a person has been announced as an expert, they lose the impetus to use wisdom wisely
Annalisa Barbieri
Saturday February 9, 2008
The Guardian
The five men boarded the flight from Sardinia to London. They were all members of a steel band, but because the flight was full they had to mostly sit apart. They were ordinary passengers, on their way home to spend New Year's Eve with their families. One was blind, and his colleague, whom he was sitting next to, was reading him the football scores.
However, this perfectly innocent scene held intrigue for a fellow passenger - no normal person but an expert: a psychology professor. He had seen the men in the departure lounge sitting together, now they were dispersed. The man pretending to be blind was now reading the paper. They were clearly terrorists! He alerted the pilot (I can imagine what he said: "I'm a psychology professor; these men are terrorists!") and the men were escorted off, and not allowed back on, even when they proved they were entirely innocent. In the event, the band did not get back to their families until January 2, after travelling to Italy and London, via sleeping rough in a Liverpool bus shelter.
Four years ago, a mother gave birth to a child and died a few hours later. Instead of being given an anaesthetic as an epidural, straight into her spine, she had been given it through a drip into her arm. The midwife who made the error repeatedly denied making the mistake, and because of course she never made the mistake, she could show no remorse. The hospital took more than a year to admit there had been a mix-up. Clearly, experts don't make mistakes.
In Paris, seven senior French doctors and former health officials are standing trial for manslaughter and fraud related to the death of more than 100 people they allegedly caused to be infected with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Three stories, from just one day in this week's news, of experts getting it very wrong. And what about the famous, entirely tragic case of the recent past? Sally Clark was wrongfully convicted of the death of her sons after one expert asserted that the likelihood of two sudden infant deaths in the same house was "one in 73 million", and another submitted an incorrect pathology report. Later, to add insult to injury, an expert in Munchausen by proxy decided, simply by watching a television programme, that it was actually Sally Clark's husband who did it. God save us from experts.
The problem with being an expert is that once it's been announced you know it all, it almost ceases to matter what you say. Because you're an expert. Some perfectly sane, intelligent people fail to question the questionable, because if a statement is prefixed with "the expert's view is ...", they think it escapes analysis. Even without tipping into real tragedy, who hasn't had the experience of an arrogant doctor who won't listen because he knows best. And don't even get me started on TV doctors, who belong to a whole special world of their own, the TV expert. Or the teacher who won't countenance you having an opinion on your own child because - look, she's the educational expert. Or the priest who actually thinks he's God?
These people don't let new knowledge in, they don't allow for variables, they don't listen. They don't need to, after all. I wonder at which point experts decide they no longer need to learn, because they already know it all?
The people I know with real specialisms and expertise - and yes, I am grateful for all the learned people in the world that use their wisdom wisely - purposely avoid the word expert. In turn, I avoid the opinions of experts; experts are rigid, and the one thing a keen mind must have is flexibility. The cleverest people I've met are also the best listeners. A really intelligent person is humble, and realises that knowledge is never finite.
annalisa.barbieri@guardian.co.uk
Comments
sbgman
February 9, 2008 2:07 AM
The really strange thing to me in reading this column is that I am a scientist...one would assume one of the "experts" (at least within my particular field of study), yet one of the things we scientists learn (or should learn) early on is that even the gurus and giant names can be wrong and their opinions/ideas should be questioned. Somehow, we seem to have mixed up "experts" with expertise. It often comes down to "Show me the data", and if you can't, be quiet!
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RogerINtheUSA
February 9, 2008 2:09 AM
What would happen if the UK's most prestigious Medical Journal's expert reviewers were to decide that the MMR jab causes autism?
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Auric
February 9, 2008 3:09 AM
Clearly applicable to Williams. `Listen to me, I know about gods, religions and things like that.` To borrow from George Orwell - No ordinary person could be such a fool.
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jakebylo
February 9, 2008 3:44 AM
this is an astoundingly ridiculous column - possibly setting a new record for the Guardian website - gave me an extended case of the "dancing eyes", especially the smug Aunty-knows-best last paragraph.
The columnist has absolutely no evidence that the few stories she cites (incidentally, a handful of situations out of the many millions of actions/decisions that designated experts (expertise is typically formally designated by official qualifications and other marks of recognition, and not merely someone declaring themselves an expert) in an enormous number of fields carry out every day) involved people with expertise who were arrogant and conceited and closed to new knowledge... and even if they really were, she has no evidence that this led to the mistake (And if an expert who had been involved in a serious mistake at work were found personally responsible, there are a whole range of possible explanations for their mistake - ranging from say, really bad luck to say, drunkenness due to personal problems at home - many explanations which can't be attributed to the blanket accusation of arrogance )
This article's accusations/character assassinations against these people in the cited cases is purely speculative and groundless, just so another snootily self-satisfied and self-righteous column can be written. (does the columnist really avoid the opinions of all experts? what an impractical way of living life.)
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goldengate
February 9, 2008 4:05 AM
And then there is George W. Bush, the expert decider in chief by virtue of having being installed in the Presidency, overrule all experts, because he alone knows what is best and his like minded other experts , in particular his Cabinet, that servers at his pleasure just tow the same line. The world should be congratulated to have so much wisdom.
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parallaxview
February 9, 2008 4:24 AM
Whoa Annalisa, just checked out your profile: seamstress to the Queen Mother, fashion PR, fishing correspondent, columnist, author, co-founder of the progressive parenting website.
Jack of all trades, master of ...?
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Mujokan
February 9, 2008 5:21 AM
One problem from two years ago, another problem from four years ago, and a third problem from twenty years ago. Luckily the writer isn't an expert on experts, or I wouldn't have found this column so convincing.
Once a person has been announced as an expert, they lose the impetus to use wisdom wisely
Annalisa Barbieri
Saturday February 9, 2008
The Guardian
The five men boarded the flight from Sardinia to London. They were all members of a steel band, but because the flight was full they had to mostly sit apart. They were ordinary passengers, on their way home to spend New Year's Eve with their families. One was blind, and his colleague, whom he was sitting next to, was reading him the football scores.
However, this perfectly innocent scene held intrigue for a fellow passenger - no normal person but an expert: a psychology professor. He had seen the men in the departure lounge sitting together, now they were dispersed. The man pretending to be blind was now reading the paper. They were clearly terrorists! He alerted the pilot (I can imagine what he said: "I'm a psychology professor; these men are terrorists!") and the men were escorted off, and not allowed back on, even when they proved they were entirely innocent. In the event, the band did not get back to their families until January 2, after travelling to Italy and London, via sleeping rough in a Liverpool bus shelter.
Four years ago, a mother gave birth to a child and died a few hours later. Instead of being given an anaesthetic as an epidural, straight into her spine, she had been given it through a drip into her arm. The midwife who made the error repeatedly denied making the mistake, and because of course she never made the mistake, she could show no remorse. The hospital took more than a year to admit there had been a mix-up. Clearly, experts don't make mistakes.
In Paris, seven senior French doctors and former health officials are standing trial for manslaughter and fraud related to the death of more than 100 people they allegedly caused to be infected with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Three stories, from just one day in this week's news, of experts getting it very wrong. And what about the famous, entirely tragic case of the recent past? Sally Clark was wrongfully convicted of the death of her sons after one expert asserted that the likelihood of two sudden infant deaths in the same house was "one in 73 million", and another submitted an incorrect pathology report. Later, to add insult to injury, an expert in Munchausen by proxy decided, simply by watching a television programme, that it was actually Sally Clark's husband who did it. God save us from experts.
The problem with being an expert is that once it's been announced you know it all, it almost ceases to matter what you say. Because you're an expert. Some perfectly sane, intelligent people fail to question the questionable, because if a statement is prefixed with "the expert's view is ...", they think it escapes analysis. Even without tipping into real tragedy, who hasn't had the experience of an arrogant doctor who won't listen because he knows best. And don't even get me started on TV doctors, who belong to a whole special world of their own, the TV expert. Or the teacher who won't countenance you having an opinion on your own child because - look, she's the educational expert. Or the priest who actually thinks he's God?
These people don't let new knowledge in, they don't allow for variables, they don't listen. They don't need to, after all. I wonder at which point experts decide they no longer need to learn, because they already know it all?
The people I know with real specialisms and expertise - and yes, I am grateful for all the learned people in the world that use their wisdom wisely - purposely avoid the word expert. In turn, I avoid the opinions of experts; experts are rigid, and the one thing a keen mind must have is flexibility. The cleverest people I've met are also the best listeners. A really intelligent person is humble, and realises that knowledge is never finite.
annalisa.barbieri@guardian.co.uk
Comments
sbgman
February 9, 2008 2:07 AM
The really strange thing to me in reading this column is that I am a scientist...one would assume one of the "experts" (at least within my particular field of study), yet one of the things we scientists learn (or should learn) early on is that even the gurus and giant names can be wrong and their opinions/ideas should be questioned. Somehow, we seem to have mixed up "experts" with expertise. It often comes down to "Show me the data", and if you can't, be quiet!
Offensive? Unsuitable? Email us
RogerINtheUSA
February 9, 2008 2:09 AM
What would happen if the UK's most prestigious Medical Journal's expert reviewers were to decide that the MMR jab causes autism?
Offensive? Unsuitable? Email us
Auric
February 9, 2008 3:09 AM
Clearly applicable to Williams. `Listen to me, I know about gods, religions and things like that.` To borrow from George Orwell - No ordinary person could be such a fool.
Offensive? Unsuitable? Email us
jakebylo
February 9, 2008 3:44 AM
this is an astoundingly ridiculous column - possibly setting a new record for the Guardian website - gave me an extended case of the "dancing eyes", especially the smug Aunty-knows-best last paragraph.
The columnist has absolutely no evidence that the few stories she cites (incidentally, a handful of situations out of the many millions of actions/decisions that designated experts (expertise is typically formally designated by official qualifications and other marks of recognition, and not merely someone declaring themselves an expert) in an enormous number of fields carry out every day) involved people with expertise who were arrogant and conceited and closed to new knowledge... and even if they really were, she has no evidence that this led to the mistake (And if an expert who had been involved in a serious mistake at work were found personally responsible, there are a whole range of possible explanations for their mistake - ranging from say, really bad luck to say, drunkenness due to personal problems at home - many explanations which can't be attributed to the blanket accusation of arrogance )
This article's accusations/character assassinations against these people in the cited cases is purely speculative and groundless, just so another snootily self-satisfied and self-righteous column can be written. (does the columnist really avoid the opinions of all experts? what an impractical way of living life.)
Offensive? Unsuitable? Email us
goldengate
February 9, 2008 4:05 AM
And then there is George W. Bush, the expert decider in chief by virtue of having being installed in the Presidency, overrule all experts, because he alone knows what is best and his like minded other experts , in particular his Cabinet, that servers at his pleasure just tow the same line. The world should be congratulated to have so much wisdom.
Offensive? Unsuitable? Email us
parallaxview
February 9, 2008 4:24 AM
Whoa Annalisa, just checked out your profile: seamstress to the Queen Mother, fashion PR, fishing correspondent, columnist, author, co-founder of the progressive parenting website.
Jack of all trades, master of ...?
Offensive? Unsuitable? Email us
Mujokan
February 9, 2008 5:21 AM
One problem from two years ago, another problem from four years ago, and a third problem from twenty years ago. Luckily the writer isn't an expert on experts, or I wouldn't have found this column so convincing.
Friday 8 February 2008
Meditation is more than flower-power indulgence
Joan Bakewell
They are almost entirely wrong. The world needs meditation more than ever. Just ask Heath Ledger's family. The actor had complained for weeks of insomnia, anxiety and stress before his death last month. He turned for help to prescription drugs, none of which would have harmed him on its own, but taken together had a fatal result. "I can't stop my brain thinking..." he is rumoured to have complained. How much better if he had learned some simple meditation techniques that would have calmed the stress and given him space to rest his overactive mind.
I'm not suggesting the Maharishi's brand of Transcendental Meditation was what Ledger needed. It's hard to understand what the so-called giggling guru's specific teaching amounts to, other than that it requires substantial fees, results in bizarre bouncing activities, and has created a trust worth some £600m. Perhaps the trust's role is to spread the message, whatever the message is.
I understand that the pop star Donovan, a long-time devotee, and film-maker David Lynch are currently proselytising for the cause. I am not sure I want the man who makes spooky films, and created the nightmare vision behind the 1986 shocker Blue Velvet, to be my spiritual guide.
Whether the Maharishi was a genuine inspiration or simply an old fraud is beside the point. Meditation, as part of Eastern philosophy, has an ancient and respectable past, and in bringing it to the attention of young people in the West thrown into confusion by the 1960s drug culture he did something worthwhile. The West already had its tradition of meditation too, of course, but it was falling out of favour. It is known as prayer.
By contrast, I learned what I know of meditation for nothing more than the cost of a book, called Teach Yourself Meditation. I was planning to visit India for a second time and already knew that the density of that country's spiritual life has a strange and disturbing effect. So I took the book along with me just in case. And when the moment came – a calm and beautiful place, a restful time – I sat cross-legged on a cushion and opened its pages.
I learned one thing fast that day: meditation isn't easy. For hectic, busy minds living in a turmoil of thoughts and ideas it is seriously difficult. I persisted throughout my Indian visit and slowly began to have a different sense of things from what I had before. It was entirely rewarding, offering some small sense of the cosmic nature of things and the immediacy of our place in time and space. It could easily be written off by cynics as holiday euphoria. But I didn't believe it was and I have persisted intermittently ever since. I can now manage to meditate properly for as long as five consecutive minutes: after that some sneaky idea, some distracting thought, wriggles its way into my consciousness and spoils that vast canvas of quiet that is what meditation aims for. And I have to start all over again.
Would the world benefit from meditation? Up to a point. The Maharishi believed his movement could bring about world peace, and John Lennon went on to write the beautiful but fanciful "Imagine". They both make the illogical leap from the individual to the community. Meditation is essentially personal, internal and even narcissistic. It aims to overcome the force of the ego but it is primarily self-regarding. It can clear clutter and confusion from the individual mind. But communities don't work like that. That's why saints don't fight each other, but countries have gone to war under holy banners.
Transcendental meditation imagines a world where everyone is so spiritually calm and at peace that wars become redundant. That is to suppose that tyrants and despots will be chilling out too. Whereas, we know full well they would welcome a meek and submissive population as being so much easier to subjugate to their will. The dangers of universal quietism is that it would abandon all the outrage we bring to our sense of injustice. There is a proper place for anger at the state of the world, for resistance to the forces of oppression. But meditation can help temper the anger.
They are almost entirely wrong. The world needs meditation more than ever. Just ask Heath Ledger's family. The actor had complained for weeks of insomnia, anxiety and stress before his death last month. He turned for help to prescription drugs, none of which would have harmed him on its own, but taken together had a fatal result. "I can't stop my brain thinking..." he is rumoured to have complained. How much better if he had learned some simple meditation techniques that would have calmed the stress and given him space to rest his overactive mind.
I'm not suggesting the Maharishi's brand of Transcendental Meditation was what Ledger needed. It's hard to understand what the so-called giggling guru's specific teaching amounts to, other than that it requires substantial fees, results in bizarre bouncing activities, and has created a trust worth some £600m. Perhaps the trust's role is to spread the message, whatever the message is.
I understand that the pop star Donovan, a long-time devotee, and film-maker David Lynch are currently proselytising for the cause. I am not sure I want the man who makes spooky films, and created the nightmare vision behind the 1986 shocker Blue Velvet, to be my spiritual guide.
Whether the Maharishi was a genuine inspiration or simply an old fraud is beside the point. Meditation, as part of Eastern philosophy, has an ancient and respectable past, and in bringing it to the attention of young people in the West thrown into confusion by the 1960s drug culture he did something worthwhile. The West already had its tradition of meditation too, of course, but it was falling out of favour. It is known as prayer.
By contrast, I learned what I know of meditation for nothing more than the cost of a book, called Teach Yourself Meditation. I was planning to visit India for a second time and already knew that the density of that country's spiritual life has a strange and disturbing effect. So I took the book along with me just in case. And when the moment came – a calm and beautiful place, a restful time – I sat cross-legged on a cushion and opened its pages.
I learned one thing fast that day: meditation isn't easy. For hectic, busy minds living in a turmoil of thoughts and ideas it is seriously difficult. I persisted throughout my Indian visit and slowly began to have a different sense of things from what I had before. It was entirely rewarding, offering some small sense of the cosmic nature of things and the immediacy of our place in time and space. It could easily be written off by cynics as holiday euphoria. But I didn't believe it was and I have persisted intermittently ever since. I can now manage to meditate properly for as long as five consecutive minutes: after that some sneaky idea, some distracting thought, wriggles its way into my consciousness and spoils that vast canvas of quiet that is what meditation aims for. And I have to start all over again.
Would the world benefit from meditation? Up to a point. The Maharishi believed his movement could bring about world peace, and John Lennon went on to write the beautiful but fanciful "Imagine". They both make the illogical leap from the individual to the community. Meditation is essentially personal, internal and even narcissistic. It aims to overcome the force of the ego but it is primarily self-regarding. It can clear clutter and confusion from the individual mind. But communities don't work like that. That's why saints don't fight each other, but countries have gone to war under holy banners.
Transcendental meditation imagines a world where everyone is so spiritually calm and at peace that wars become redundant. That is to suppose that tyrants and despots will be chilling out too. Whereas, we know full well they would welcome a meek and submissive population as being so much easier to subjugate to their will. The dangers of universal quietism is that it would abandon all the outrage we bring to our sense of injustice. There is a proper place for anger at the state of the world, for resistance to the forces of oppression. But meditation can help temper the anger.
Thursday 7 February 2008
The best chat-up lines in the world
With Valentine's Day just a week away and Britain's single men honing their (usually drunken) chat-up lines, Times foreign correspondents reveal how bachelors in other countries do it. We can learn something from them all - except, perhaps, Australia . . .
German men see the conquest of German women as an extreme sport, a physical activity that is up there with bungee jumping and paragliding. It boils down to three essentials: stamina, technique and the right kit. The charm thing doesn't really come into it, any more than it does with mountaineering. One chat-up line suggested by the much-visited German site Flirt-mit-mir (Flirt with me) is: "Your eyes are the same colour as my Porsche." Apparently this works quite well, even better than, "Do you want to see my gun collection?"
There is a growing awareness though that this might not be quite enough. The fact that Germany's most celebrated beauties are falling for foreigners (Claudia Schiffer for Matthew Vaughn, Heidi Klum for Seal) is beginning to be seen as a national problem. The columnist, Jochen Siemens, views German men as suffering from Caligynephobia (also known as Venustraphobia) – the fear of chatting up beautiful women. "The fact is that a beautiful woman undermines the illusion that one is leading a happy life," he says, "doubts begin to gnaw at us." And, since there is no chat-up line in the German language that can overcome this kind of brittle masculine self-confidence, the country is now brimming with flirt academies and seminars. Here, German men are taught supposedly romantic lines such as "Life is a big jigsaw puzzle – and you are the missing piece". And that it is not absolutely necessary to line up your mobile phones on the restaurant table, or casually drop your car keyring (with Jaguar symbol), or to flash photographs of your villa in Spain.
Surveys usually find that German women prefer men who listen to them. For all the obvious reasons this message has yet to be taken on board. But part of the problem, of course, is that German women cannot quite distil what they want from a man into a text-book formula. The journalists Stephan and Andreas Lebert recently interviewed women on this subject for their book Instruction on How to be Manly. One typical response: "A man shouldn't be a fretter, someone who is always asking how you are, or who is checking whether the yoghurt in the fridge has passed its sell-by-date. He should be able to show feelings and weaknesses, but not be a wimp, that's the worst, not a gossip, no, no, but he should have the gift of the gab, that's the most important, oh yes, and a sense of humour and, he should be, you know, a bit of a cowboy." That's it, then. Back to the classroom, Hans
Roger Boyes
UNITED STATES
Strategy, planning, opportunism, execution – all feature in the American heterosexual male's pursuit of the opposite sex. Take, for example, my American friend Jim's recent flight to Spain. On the plane was a conspicuously attractive Spanish attendant, who was receiving a great deal of attention from the Brits at the back. The Brits had calculated that if they ordered as much booze as possible from her, then with every repeat order, they would get more confidence and therefore another opportunity to charm her with their self-deprecation.
Jim had also taken a fancy to this stewardess. He was polite, he smiled, he made eye contact. He also made sure to get her name and repeat it often. And then, when the plane landed, he went straight to the newsagents' to buy an envelope, a pen, and some notepaper. At a nearby caf� he composed a letter to the airline congratulating it on its excellent cabin service – in particular the helpfulness and professionalism of a certain Spanish flight attendant, whom he named as a tribute to the values of the organisation. He included his name, number, and e-mail address, and posted the letter right there. Two weeks later the woman called him to say that his letter had earned her a bonus and that could she please go out for a drink with him next time she was flying through LA. "The idea just came to me, as soon as we landed," Jim explainsto me. "I didn't expect it to actually work."
Hogwash. American men know very well that this kind of thing works. The very fact that I have two American male friends who have successfully charmed flight attendants – a career that surely represents the most fortified beachhead of womankind's defence against unwanted romantic advances – suggests that it was no accident. In a culture where the drunk'n'lunge method most definitely doesn't work (although it has been known to happen), it's a necessity.
In terms of romantic pursuit, the American male is simply a more evolved creature than his British counterpart. It's been this way for a while: take the plot of Graham Greene's The Quiet American, in which the quiet American in question arrives in Vietnam and uses a letter-writing campaign to steal the girlfriend of the hero, a foreign correspondent for The Times. The key to the American strategy is deferred gratification: what my Dad still calls "courting" and what the Americans call "dating". Essentially, the American seduction comes in three stages: a conversation, a phone number, and then a date. Strategy, planning and execution.
As for opportunism – look no farther than Jim's letter to the airline.
Chris Ayres
ITALY
It's lunchtime at a high school (Liceo) in Rome's historic centre, and older pupils are milling about discussing plans for the evening. I ask one of the girls, Francesca, if Italian boys are shy about asking her out. She looks at me fairly witheringly. "Nowadays we do the asking," she says.
My friend Fabio agrees. "It's not so much that we have lost the art of seduction as Italian women become more feminist and independent. It's more economic. Italian men tend to be old fashioned and think they should pay for everything. But times are hard, and we sometimes hesitate to make a date because it means asking the girl to go halves, even for a film and a pizza, which is not very romantic. So they take the initiative."
Changes in the law have also had an effect: Italy has caught up with the concept of sexual harassment, with the result, Fabio says, that Italian men have discovered "there is a fine line between making advances and molestation. Making what you think is an innocent gesture can nowadays land you in trouble."
The same evening, Rome's youngsters are gathered on the cobbled piazza of Campo de' Fiori, still in groups, though some will pair off later. In Italian socialising there is often little need to break the ice: going to a disco, club or pub is a group activity involving school or university friends, the extended family, friends of friends. Singles bars are thin on the ground in Rome, and speed-dating never really took off. Nor is there much binge drinking compared with Britain: Campo de' Fiori is lined with bars but the only people getting legless are foreigners.
In the end, though, someone has to make a play for his or her object of desire – and despite economic constraints and fear of harassment allegations, young Italian men can still cut it, according to Daniela, a blonde Alitalia stewardess. "Italian men are pretty forthright. They don't hesitate to compliment you in the street on your beauty, ciao bella and all that. They even whistle." Does she mind? "Don't be silly."
What Italian men do not do, Daniela says, is drink to work up courage. Francesca agrees. "If they did it would be counterproductive," she says, looking appalled. "If a boy came up to me and asked me out smelling of drink, I would tell him he was schifoso (disgusting)." And that would be that? "And that would be that."
Richard Owen
FRANCE
For younger Frenchmen, dalliance with the opposite sex is no longer the elegant dance of their fathers' days. A smile and a flash of wit used to go a long way, even between strangers in the street. "I used to prefer galleries and caf�s," remembers François, a lawyer in his late fifties whose recent divorce has put him back on the market. "Women were playful. There was time. Now everyone is in a rush and they are suspicious and don't flirt with strangers. You have to meet at a dinner party, and even then it can be hard work."
Nicolas, 24, an accountant in Montreuil, Paris, says that he is quite successful with women but the old pickup places such as the street or disco no longer work. "The disco is absolutely out these days. Everyone is with their mates," he says. "I have joined a salsa dance class and that's great. It's a super plan de drague (pickup method)." As for the approach, Nicolas sticks to the age-old one. "I improvise depending on the girl's personality. There's no set line. The thing is to try to make her laugh."
A common complaint from Frenchwomen young and d'un certain âge is that younger men no longer know how to make a delicate approach. "Too many guys come on heavy and they tell lies," says Mireille, a 34-year-old secretary in the posh 16th Arrondissement. Muriel, a recently divorced sales executive in her mid-forties, says: "Men nowadays don't have the old panache. They' re not romantic. They used to know how to make compliments and put you at ease.
Now they just come at you."
Christine, a publishing editor in her fifties, who has lived in London, says that there is still a big difference in the art of flirting on each side of the Channel. "Englishmen do not look at you in the street, perhaps because Englishwomen do not know what to do. Frenchwomen love being looked at. You miss it when you go abroad – those glances exchanged in the street, on public transport, the little smile of admiration," she says.
"Frenchmen still know that an admiring look flatters a woman and gives them pleasure. No more than that. It doesn't mean the man wants to put you in his bed."
Charles Bremner
AUSTRALIA
Six months ago a larrikin Australian mineworker woke after four hours' sleep, following eight at the bar, and saw a man in the mirror with a thousand-yard-glass stare.
Ian Green might finally have caught 40 winks, but none of those he gave to the girls the night before had got him a phone number. Ditto his mate, Brett – but they had a plan.
"We walked up to the shopping centre and we went, 'Righto, let's just approach 25 girls we don't know'," he says. "By the time we left we had phone numbers galore. We actually met up with two of them that night out in a club."
The 30-year-old health and safety adviser, in the macho state of Queensland, explains that the hangover has the same bracing effect as the brews that got him there – giving him that "what the hell" confidence.
Australian blokes may revel in a manly reputation and prefer – in the words of one comedian – to have their shirt ironed while it's on their back. But anecdotal evidence suggests that they would wilt in the presence of a wildflower if not for a little liquid courage.
"If you're sitting there at a barbecue, and you've got a beer, a girl's drinking the exact same drink, well then you've got something in common just to start up with," Ian says.
Jeff Cashen, of Sydney, says that most of his mates need a couple of drinks to up their swagger. But the singer-songwriter and emergency doctor says that now he's 35 years old, girls expect a more mature approach and he has studied the little black books of Neil Strauss, the American seduction artist.
"A couple of my friends have done a lot of reading on strategies. We've tried a lot of those strategies – in fact, more work than don't," he says.
One common strategy is noted by Katherine Feeney, an internet agony aunt. In this game plan, as one fella locks on to a female target, his "wingman" steps in to distract her friends with a little witty banter and, yes, a little more social lubrication. But there are some more redeeming features to the Australian – and British – male.
"There's a whole sort of larrikin spirit that you can't overlook and self-deprecating humour, which is fairly strong in Australian culture and it's accepted that that is a way to open up conversation," Katherine says. "In comparison with Poms, I have met a heap of English guys who are wittier, and that's a bit of a winner with Aussie girls, I think."
Sarah Miller, 22, of Mackay on the central coast of Queensland, agrees that confidence is the key to success in the dating game but that alcohol more often than not encourages a straight-up proposition – small talk not included.
Does she mind? "Not really, if they're hot it doesn't matter."
Paul Larter
Everything in one place… All new Windows Live!
Friday 1 February 2008
Why won't bankers say sorry?
By Martin Vander Weyer
Last Updated: 1:33am GMT 01/02/2008
Have your say Read comments
'Vampires. Assassins. Bankers," shouts a large poster in Bond Street station. On closer examination, this turns out to be an advert for Terry Pratchett's latest Discworld novel, Making Money, but I sense from passing commuters' reactions that it strikes a strong chord as a comment on current news stories.
# Robert Peston: Hedge funds are the new global super powers
# Life will get tougher, says Gordon Brown
As headline follows headline of financial catastrophe today and economic doom tomorrow, there are plenty of villains to choose from: America's (and our own) greedy, debt-laden consumers; Chancellor Alistair Darling, with his half-hearted attempt to "strengthen banking regulation" and "ensure financial stability" months after Northern Rock bolted out of the stable; Prime Minister Gordon Brown, with his Downing Street summit of European leaders discussing how to address the next market crisis when none of them have a clue how to address the current one.
advertisement
Yet among this gallery of rogues, it is the vampires and assassins of the banking world, and their cousins in the hedge fund community, who surely take the biscuit - with their ability to go so spectacularly astray in markets which they invented; their refusal to accept responsibility for damage wrought to the wider economy; and their appetite, come what may, for gross personal rewards.
I used to be a banker in my youth, and I know many of the people in that profession to be admirable, intelligent individuals. Many, I'm sure, are kind to animals; some even have social consciences. Philip Richards, the hedge fund manager and outspoken Northern Rock shareholder, is a committed Christian who speaks of "righteousness" in his approach to investment. Stephen Green, chairman of HSBC, is actually an ordained Church of England minister in his spare time. Yet collectively, financiers seem to have become so punch-drunk with their own power to play God with our money that they have lost sight of the effect of their actions and reactions. Their sense of the proper relationship between risk, responsibility and reward has been overwhelmed, I fear, by their arrogant self-regard.
Take this week's news stories. First came the sad tale of pub-chain operator Mitchell & Butlers, which had been obliged by its bankers - Citigroup and Royal Bank of Scotland to the fore - to buy £1 billion worth of hedging contracts to protect itself against interest-rate and inflation risks connected with a deal to sell and lease back 1,300 pub properties. No need to go into the details: suffice to say that when the property deal failed to go ahead, the company had no need for the hedge, which turned into a massive one-way bet that lost M?&?B some £274 million and has left the shaken company vulnerable to takeover.
How could banking advisers have allowed a client to get into a pickle like that, and not come up with a way to get the company out of it again? How big a share of the responsibility have they admitted to? Have they volunteered to share the pain, or hand back their fees? I think we can guess the answers: bankers' legal get-out clauses are as impregnable as the vaults they keep their gold in.
Meanwhile, there had been ducking of responsibility on an even grander scale over at Société Générale. The French bank's management has long prided itself on the sophistication of its computer systems and internal controls - yet we learn that rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel claims he had been taking unauthorised trading positions for the past two years, and so had some of his colleagues, and that the Eurex derivatives exchange had been trying to warn SocGen about the extraordinary scale of Kerviel's dealings for two months before the bank finally woke up to what he was doing.
Despite these revelations, SocGen chairman Daniel Bouton remains in post - with the "unanimous" support of his board and despite messages from president Nicholas Sarkozy and finance minister Christine Lagarde that it would look better if Bouton fell on his sword. From everything we know so far, it's a fair guess that SocGen's internal controls were far from robust, that its authorised trading volumes were startlingly large in relation to its capital (hence Kerviel's book did not attract attention until someone realised it included €40 billion worth of unauthorised trades), and that, as when Barings collapsed in 1995, the senior directors really didn't understand what was going on down on the trading floor anyway: they just relished the profits. The early spin from SocGen was that Kerviel must be "a genius of fraud" to have beaten the bank's system, but the real story looks like one of catastrophic management failure. If that's so, Mr Bouton should set an example and walk the plank as soon as his dignity allows.
And no doubt when he does go, his dignity will be well looked after: an office and a limo at his disposal while he sorts out his affairs, a commodious pension package. After all, new benchmarks have just been set for rewards for boardroom failure: Chuck Prince of Citigroup and Stan O'Neal of Merrill Lynch, respectively carrying the can for their firms' multi-billion losses on subprime mortgage debt, suffered no hardship in their recent departures. Their only difficulty will have been the matter of how, in such turbulent markets, to invest their enormous pay-offs - reported to be $42 million for Prince and more than $150 million for O'Neal. Soon another Titan may be joining them on the golf course: Marcel Ospel, chairman of the Swiss bank UBS, which has admitted to £9 billion of subprime losses so far, looks unlikely to survive a shareholders' meeting next month. But if they do defenestrate him, watch for the fluttering of another giant golden parachute.
Bankers individually are just the sort of chaps we'd all be happy to have lunch with at the club. And we should resist the Leftish urge to bash them purely because they're rich - an instinct to which, bizarrely, the celebrity gardener Monty Don gave vent on Radio 4 the other day in an outburst about how glad he was to see bankers losing money they should never have been allowed to make in the first place. No, Monty, let's leave the spirit of '68 out of this.
That said, there is still something peculiarly unattractive about the way financiers have been behaving. Other sickening lurches of the securities markets - such as the dotcom boom and bust - took place in a kind of cocoon, with little impact on ordinary economic life. But this time it's different. The spread of subprime contagion through the derivatives markets led directly to the credit crunch, making life more difficult for borrowers of all kinds; short-selling of bank shares by hedge funds was a direct contributing factor to the panic of Northern Rock depositors; speculative trading was largely responsible for the last spike of the oil price towards $100 a barrel, affecting fuel and heating costs for all of us. This time, it is the traders and financiers, more than the politicians or the central banks, who have put the global economy in peril. The least they can do is admit their responsibility, and start showing some contrition.
Last Updated: 1:33am GMT 01/02/2008
Have your say Read comments
'Vampires. Assassins. Bankers," shouts a large poster in Bond Street station. On closer examination, this turns out to be an advert for Terry Pratchett's latest Discworld novel, Making Money, but I sense from passing commuters' reactions that it strikes a strong chord as a comment on current news stories.
# Robert Peston: Hedge funds are the new global super powers
# Life will get tougher, says Gordon Brown
As headline follows headline of financial catastrophe today and economic doom tomorrow, there are plenty of villains to choose from: America's (and our own) greedy, debt-laden consumers; Chancellor Alistair Darling, with his half-hearted attempt to "strengthen banking regulation" and "ensure financial stability" months after Northern Rock bolted out of the stable; Prime Minister Gordon Brown, with his Downing Street summit of European leaders discussing how to address the next market crisis when none of them have a clue how to address the current one.
advertisement
Yet among this gallery of rogues, it is the vampires and assassins of the banking world, and their cousins in the hedge fund community, who surely take the biscuit - with their ability to go so spectacularly astray in markets which they invented; their refusal to accept responsibility for damage wrought to the wider economy; and their appetite, come what may, for gross personal rewards.
I used to be a banker in my youth, and I know many of the people in that profession to be admirable, intelligent individuals. Many, I'm sure, are kind to animals; some even have social consciences. Philip Richards, the hedge fund manager and outspoken Northern Rock shareholder, is a committed Christian who speaks of "righteousness" in his approach to investment. Stephen Green, chairman of HSBC, is actually an ordained Church of England minister in his spare time. Yet collectively, financiers seem to have become so punch-drunk with their own power to play God with our money that they have lost sight of the effect of their actions and reactions. Their sense of the proper relationship between risk, responsibility and reward has been overwhelmed, I fear, by their arrogant self-regard.
Take this week's news stories. First came the sad tale of pub-chain operator Mitchell & Butlers, which had been obliged by its bankers - Citigroup and Royal Bank of Scotland to the fore - to buy £1 billion worth of hedging contracts to protect itself against interest-rate and inflation risks connected with a deal to sell and lease back 1,300 pub properties. No need to go into the details: suffice to say that when the property deal failed to go ahead, the company had no need for the hedge, which turned into a massive one-way bet that lost M?&?B some £274 million and has left the shaken company vulnerable to takeover.
How could banking advisers have allowed a client to get into a pickle like that, and not come up with a way to get the company out of it again? How big a share of the responsibility have they admitted to? Have they volunteered to share the pain, or hand back their fees? I think we can guess the answers: bankers' legal get-out clauses are as impregnable as the vaults they keep their gold in.
Meanwhile, there had been ducking of responsibility on an even grander scale over at Société Générale. The French bank's management has long prided itself on the sophistication of its computer systems and internal controls - yet we learn that rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel claims he had been taking unauthorised trading positions for the past two years, and so had some of his colleagues, and that the Eurex derivatives exchange had been trying to warn SocGen about the extraordinary scale of Kerviel's dealings for two months before the bank finally woke up to what he was doing.
Despite these revelations, SocGen chairman Daniel Bouton remains in post - with the "unanimous" support of his board and despite messages from president Nicholas Sarkozy and finance minister Christine Lagarde that it would look better if Bouton fell on his sword. From everything we know so far, it's a fair guess that SocGen's internal controls were far from robust, that its authorised trading volumes were startlingly large in relation to its capital (hence Kerviel's book did not attract attention until someone realised it included €40 billion worth of unauthorised trades), and that, as when Barings collapsed in 1995, the senior directors really didn't understand what was going on down on the trading floor anyway: they just relished the profits. The early spin from SocGen was that Kerviel must be "a genius of fraud" to have beaten the bank's system, but the real story looks like one of catastrophic management failure. If that's so, Mr Bouton should set an example and walk the plank as soon as his dignity allows.
And no doubt when he does go, his dignity will be well looked after: an office and a limo at his disposal while he sorts out his affairs, a commodious pension package. After all, new benchmarks have just been set for rewards for boardroom failure: Chuck Prince of Citigroup and Stan O'Neal of Merrill Lynch, respectively carrying the can for their firms' multi-billion losses on subprime mortgage debt, suffered no hardship in their recent departures. Their only difficulty will have been the matter of how, in such turbulent markets, to invest their enormous pay-offs - reported to be $42 million for Prince and more than $150 million for O'Neal. Soon another Titan may be joining them on the golf course: Marcel Ospel, chairman of the Swiss bank UBS, which has admitted to £9 billion of subprime losses so far, looks unlikely to survive a shareholders' meeting next month. But if they do defenestrate him, watch for the fluttering of another giant golden parachute.
Bankers individually are just the sort of chaps we'd all be happy to have lunch with at the club. And we should resist the Leftish urge to bash them purely because they're rich - an instinct to which, bizarrely, the celebrity gardener Monty Don gave vent on Radio 4 the other day in an outburst about how glad he was to see bankers losing money they should never have been allowed to make in the first place. No, Monty, let's leave the spirit of '68 out of this.
That said, there is still something peculiarly unattractive about the way financiers have been behaving. Other sickening lurches of the securities markets - such as the dotcom boom and bust - took place in a kind of cocoon, with little impact on ordinary economic life. But this time it's different. The spread of subprime contagion through the derivatives markets led directly to the credit crunch, making life more difficult for borrowers of all kinds; short-selling of bank shares by hedge funds was a direct contributing factor to the panic of Northern Rock depositors; speculative trading was largely responsible for the last spike of the oil price towards $100 a barrel, affecting fuel and heating costs for all of us. This time, it is the traders and financiers, more than the politicians or the central banks, who have put the global economy in peril. The least they can do is admit their responsibility, and start showing some contrition.
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