When I saw the headline of this article in today’s Times, I thought that the government had finally come to its senses and was considering abolishing mandatory minimums, which take the judgement part out of judging, and pass judicial powers to politicians instead of judges. But, alas, no. Instead of abolishing them, they’re making more of them, presumably because they play well to middle England, who want all murderers locked up for life. And yet, when some old granny is locked up for life for helping her dying husband along, they’ll all be protesting. Madness.

The Tories essentially want to return to the leader selection process they had before Iain Duncan Smith was elected. Actually, it’s not a bad idea, and the original changes were a bit silly. But the changes do give less point to being a party member, so expect to see lots of concessions to get the party at large on-side. And expect some political flack for going back in time – even though it seems a good thing for our political leaders to recognise, admit, and correct their mistakes.

Just a couple of weeks after The Observer came out in support of the Make Poverty History campaign, Stephen Pollard has said in today’s Times that…

This campaign is so misguided you might think Kate Moss had thought it up herself

Whilst I concede some of his points, I think his piece is far too critical of a campaign which has highlighted awareness and demonstrated public support for action in this area. He has his own ideas, but I don’t see them getting the level of support that this campaign has, and he should respect their successes as much as criticising their failures.

Well, it had to happen some time. Despite the rather dodgy scanning (why can’t I find a cover shot when I want one?), the zoomed version clearly shows that I was featured on the front page of today’s Independent for supporting their voting reform campaign, which I mentioned here back on Thursday.

Over 4000 people have already signed their petition, and I strongly encourage you to do the same. If only to get them to accept that Labour won the election, and get back to reporting real news.

Today was my final exam of the week: the MCQ/TF/EMI.

This exam consists of three parts: a multiple choice section, which consists of sixty questions with five answer options; a true/false section, which consists of forty true/false questions; and an EMI section, which consists (essentially) of eighty multiple choice questions with up to thirteen answer options.

It didn’t go brilliantly today, and neither did it go terribly. So it’s just a case of being relieved that it’s over, and then waiting to find out whether or not I have a viva, and then there’s just results day to worry about…

Two bits of BBC trouble to deal with…

Firstly, the weather. They’ve come along with a flashy new 3D system, and people don’t like it. Notably, The Times continued its downhill slide by dedicating half of its front page to the story, and launching one if it’s much-advertised debates on the subject. The Guardian have a more balanced, but nevertheless critical piece.

Personally, I feel that I can see what the Beeb have tried to do, but the system seems poorly thought through. It is very difficult to see the progression of the weather for more northerly parts of the UK, and that is simply undeniable. The different shades of colour on the map are sometimes quite confusing, too, particularly when they decide that they’ll use a darker shade to represent cloud but then insist on making the whole map darker to represent night time. That said, it’s clearly a more accurate forecast than the old system, as I can actually see what the weather will be doing where I am, as opposed to where the symbols happen to be. With a little more thought, it could be a fantastic system, but I think somebody needs to do some tweaking.

Secondly, the strike. It’s looking like there will be no Newsnight on Monday, which is disappointing. Goodness only knows what’ll happen to News 24, if they can’t even manage to put out a 50 minute analysis programme. It’s certainly going to make for an interesting day.

Today, The Indy have officially launched their ‘Campaign for Democracy’. Whilst I’m not wild about the name of the campaign, and I’m a little bored of their continual front pages and leaders about the story, I am in general agreement that this country is in need of some form of electoral reform, and would encourage you to sign their petition. Even if it only stimulates debate about which direction our voting system should be taking, then it will have been worth the effort. So give it a click, and fill in the form.

There’s not much in life that’s more entertaining than reading the Mail’s sometimes ridiculous claims. Look, for example, here:

The Daily Mail was the first national newspaper to bring Sudoku to this country

Well, no it wasn’t. It’s not true. It’s plainly false. The Times first published Su Doku. Then the Mail picked it up, decided it’s readers couldn’t cope with a ‘foreign’ name, and called it Numbercrunch. The Times was first.

while the Mail on Sunday went one further with the introduction of Super Sudoku

The first Super Su Doku was published in the Indy. Not the Mail.

You might think that this is a minor correction… but the Mail splashed over half its front page that it was first. And it wasn’t. Besides which, as entertaining as Su Doku is as a puzzle, there really isn’t all that much to say about it, and its becoming quite frustrating to not be able to open a paper without some special feature or other about a number puzzle.

And just as I was about to hit ‘Publish’, it appears that Janine Gibson from The Grauniad has written along similar lines. Choice quotes:

Kudos, by the way, to Sun Doku which launched on Tuesday and distinguished itself immediately by being a puzzle that someone else has already half completed. The Guardian launched its own version on Monday, sprinting for the high ground with “the original Japanese puzzles hand-crafted by its inventors” and gently putting the boot in to the computer versions run by other papers. The others responded with suitable outrage. “We were first,” said the Times. “We’ve got four!” shouted the Independent. Sighs from baffled readers everywhere.

[T]he first Sudoku puzzle hit the UK press in the Times six months ago. The Daily Mail launched one shortly thereafter, though it was called Codebreaker and everyone else ignored it. In fact the Mail was in danger of being written out of the collective history of the Sudoku Phenomenon as it emerged day by day last week, until it devoted half of its front page to a bold “we was first” claim. It’s possible the Mail may now be regretting eschewing the Japanese name, which we can only assume it did in case its readers got upset by the idea of it being foreign.

And, I think, a perfect one to finish on:

I propose a truce. We’ve all got one now, let’s just leave it alone. Do the puzzle, don’t do the puzzle, just don’t talk about it.

Today was my third of four exams: the Non-Clinical OSCE.

This exam contains two parts: An anatomy spot test, which consists of sixty thirty-second questions relating to pinned structures in cadavers, and six five-minute structured questions on anything and everything else. The five-minuters weren’t so bad, with quite a few of them being straightforward enough – and there was no equivalent to the bus timetable question! But the anatomy spotter was horrendous – despite doing a huge amount of anatomy revision, I still didn’t feel confident on almost any of the questions. Having said that, I usually feel that way, though it was, perhaps, a little worse today. It’s difficult to judge.

Tomorrow I have the day off; my next exam is Friday afternoon, for the MCQ/TF/EMI paper.

Thanks to this post on Andrew Brown’s Helmintholog, the word mailscience is now officially entering the sjhoward.co.uk lexicon.