FofF = Flights of Fancy

When I was at junior school, there were certain maths problems we had to solve. One was along the lines of, if you need 30 people to do 90 tasks and 10 people to do 30, how many people do you need to do 60 tasks? 

The answer of course is 20.

Here’s a follow-up question. If 3/5 of your staff are off sick at any one time during a pandemic, compared with only 1/5 when there’s no pandemic, how many staff should you hire for (answers in brackets):

a) 90 tasks in normal times  (38, or 37.5 if you’re a purist)
b) 30 tasks during a pandemic  (25)
c) 60 tasks during normal times  (25)
d) 60 tasks during a pandemic  (50)

The epitome of vulgarity

Watering my whatever-they-ares on the patio yesterday afternoon, I was repeatedly irritated by manhood-substitutes (aka helicopters) returning from Silverstone, where Lewis Hamilton had become the second English sportsman to disgrace his country in a short space of time.

Hell-icopters, Compasses and 007

I received a few neat comments on my first posting of Hell-icopters, so I’ve rewritten it to incorporate them. It starts the same way:

Here’s a first – someone (my neighbour and good friend) has asked me to write a blog on a specific topic. Yep, I’m now taking requests – how cool is that! Except the topic that has been requested is helicopter noise (probably prompted by my previous blog inspired by Bea’s wedding). Sorry. Bit technical. Bit dry. I’ll start typing and see if the muse strikes. If it doesn’t then that’s another post collecting dust in my drafts’ folder.

And I was indeed struggling. Totally uninspired, until one of the buggers buzzed me when I was out walking last week, on a sunny day, lost in my own thoughts, enjoying the birdsong, the bees, the rustling leaves, the snorting of cattle … and then pulse pulse pulse, chop chop chop, grate grate grate.

Hell-icopters and Compasses

Here’s a first – someone (my neighbour and good friend) has asked me to write a blog on a specific topic. Yep, I’m now taking requests – how cool is that! Except the topic that has been requested is helicopter noise (probably prompted by my previous post). Sorry. Bit technical. Bit dry. I’ll start typing and see if the muse strikes. If it doesn’t then that’s another post collecting dust in my drafts’ folder.

And I was indeed struggling. Totally uninspired, until one of the buggers buzzed me when I was out walking last week, on a sunny day, lost in my own thoughts, enjoying the birdsong, the bees, the rustling leaves, the snorting of cattle … and then pulse pulse pulse, chop chop chop, grate grate grate.

Helicopter noise is different from the likes of SleasyJet and SwizzAir, because choppers generally fly lower, much lower, can hang around (I believe the technical term is ‘hover’), and I’m always suspicious who’s been flown where. If it’s an air ambulance, coastguard, police or military (especially Chinooks; I lurve Chinooks; so distinctive, so solid, so sexy) then fine. But if it’s the brash and tasteless nouveau riche heading to Silverstone or Pinewood Studios, then the finger it is. Some people make socialism a very attractive proposition.