Do you have thoughts?

Do you sometimes have crazy thoughts that you are scared to tell people about? Such crazy thoughts that you fear people may doubt your sanity? Do you wonder where those thoughts end up?

Well, wonder no more. Almost all of these thoughts are vacuumed up and safely stored in think-tanks where they are allowed to mature. Only when they reach epic craziness are they harvested by the studious custodians of the think-tank and lovingly crafted into a 500 page document that is presented to politicians to be digested and regurgitated as sound thinking that should be enacted and instituted.

So, the next time you have a random, insane thought you can rest assured that it is not lost and will probably appear within your lifetime as a law or way of life.

The Killer Financial Instrument

Where I live we have a big central bank called the Bank of England. It controls much of the economy. Well, actually, it controls a small part of the economy in reality - the rest of the economy is out of control in private financial banking hands.

Anyway,  our central banking shop has the killer instrument to solve all banking problems. Whenever our finances go belly-up and we have to sell our trousers our head banking person deploys the killer instrument. This killer financial instrument is a letter to the chief Government Financial guy. It's written in red crayon on ruled paper and the hand-written words slant at a 30 degree angle to the lines and are printed.

This letter has magical properties. It's capable of reducing blood-pressure, increasing GDP and stabilising the economy. The letter is used as a last resort, only when war and invasion and wholesale firings of all employees have been tried. Indeed the letter is so powerful that it has to be treated reverentially. It is too dangerous to employ as the head banking person someone that can write letters (or write at all) and so we trawl society and employ the most illiterate person we can find.

The financial sector is picking up on this and is actively employing the best illiterates it can find to fill senior financial positions with the sole responsibility of writing letters in red crayon to the chief Government Financial guy (and each other) in order to avert financial ruin.

This powerful, effective instrument will soon begin to reap benefits once the financial sector has obtained the address of the chief Government Financial guy. Only when these letters are written and delivered will we see the economy start to depart from Financial Disaster station and head towards Financial Euphoria.

Predictions for 2010

Many people these days are looking at the future. It's very possible that it's because the present is not too good (or the past wasn't too good). Or, it could be because the present is fantastic and it's dangerous to have too much of a good thing.

Anyway, regardless lots of people are looking at the future. There are many approaches that help predict the future. The most common one, and indeed the most successful one, has been developed by the financial industry. Its predictive power is truly awesome, without fault and totally accurate. It's a little wonder that the financial institutions have been and continue to be fantastically successful.

The approach requires placing a small stone (technically a pebble) of reddish-grey colour and smooth (sort of almond shape) in a glass of still mineral water and then waiting. By the osmotic process future events are transferred from the pebble and amplified by the water into your brain (if you put the pebble in the water otherwise the future events will go into some other persons brain and may cause an accident if they are not expecting them).

The predictive power is so accurate that we have decided to use it here to determine the future events for the coming year so we can all plan for the big events. Here's the top ten future events:

1) Government imposes tax on ants provoking a prolonged war with the social insects.

A bill is passed unanimously through Parliament supported by all sides and the roof to impose a tax on ants after a right-thinking think-tank determines the revenue would offset the cost of the increased size of the tax collection department (approx number of employees 80million). Ants rebel and provoke war by tripping up the Royal family and the entire government. Ant leader claims no citizen will be able to walk down the street without cutting their knees. Government in crisis.

2) First sheep satellite launched.

After the discovery of the sheep's incredible aptitude for storing information and efficiently relaying it back the global telecommunications industry launches the first sheep into orbit. The added bonus being the sheep eating the atmospheric CO2. Tests indicate the sheep capable of increasing bandwidth by 800% heralding the mobile networks to display non-stop, continuous reality shows.

3) Discovery of connection between Cows and earthquakes.

After much research the connection between cows and earthquakes is firmly established. Careful placement of cows completely neutralises earthquakes. Spurs a completely new industry of Cow Feng-shui experts paid large sums of cash to determine the optimal placement of cows.

4) Herrings accurately identify successful Governments.

Intense study determines that shoals of herrings accurately determine successful government when placed within approximately 1meter of the candidate government. Necessitating the immersion of Parliament in the North Sea to determine the successful government.

5) Shellfish replace passports

Exploiting the fact that shellfish are able to store the entire biometric information of a person they have spent the evening in a bar with the Homeland security agencies abolish passports in favour of shellfish. The added calming benefit of having a shellfish on your person reduces security incidents at airports.

6) Worms replace coinage

The discovery that the number of worms in a country is in one-to-one correspondence with the number of banknotes in the country spurring the replacement of the easy-to-counterfeit banknote with the impossible to replicate worm. Exchange rates are catered for by worms dying or reproducing when traveling abroad.

7) Slugs replace credit cards

The discovery that a slugs slime-trail is (a) unique, (b) lasts forever causes banks to replace unreliable plastic credit cards with slugs. The added benefit being that a financial transaction takes approximately 15days to complete (the time a slug takes to produce a standard 1m trail) factors in a 'cooling off' period reducing the number of impulse buys.

8) Snails ensure secure internet financial transactions

The holy grail of a secure, foolproof method of internet transactions is finally found in the humble snail. The discovery that the snail can upload complex pieces of information securely in its shell and download them to a designated recipient ensures tamper-proof transport of sensitive information (e.g. money, personal information). Even the eating of the snail will not force it to give up the vital information it contains.

9) Cauliflower replaces high-definition television

Researchers successfully transmit the popular reality television show 'dancing on a balloon' to a Caulifower allowing an entire household to enjoy the high-definition-3D-surround-sound experience from their Cauliflower.

10) Flies replace the smartphone and cellphone

Researchers successfully train a herd of bluebottles to store conversations and other information and relay them to the intended recipient. Sparks the mobile providers to collect up all the blue bottles in existence and sell them at a premium to customers. Downside being the flies can only hold approximately 1 hour of inane mobile-phone conversation before committing suicide by flying at high-speed into a glass window.

Researchers determine in December 2010 that wasps are much more effective communication carriers with the added benefit of stinging the cell phone owner if the conversation is found to be pointless.

Dissolving the Financial Crisis

Recently many countries have had a few problems (it could be a few countries had many problems I may have got that bit wrong). Anyway, it seems that there are a few problems around of a country-wide scale. One, or all of these problems are to do with the financial peculiarities.

Actually, most countries don't like the statement 'financial catastrophy' or 'financial disaster', or 'financial depression', and have got their best brains to hunt for a better more apt statement. They discovered the statement 'credit crunch' which avoids negative impressions and also avoids any connection with anything financial or anything disastrous. Coupled with the stroke of genius of not defining the statement removes any worry about the statement being misunderstood. In fact, most people enjoy something crunchy and credit has always a positive impression. So, the two words together make it something doubly desirable! In the not too distant future we will see many citizens handing over large quantities of cash to obtain a credit crunch.

But, that's beside the point.

So, we have this credit crunch which is causing a little concern as it appears we have borrowed rather a lot of money from somewhere to pay for something and now wherever we borrowed the money from we need to pay it back.

Now, the way it can be figured is we owe something like 1 trillion (million million) pounds. Which works out to roughly 16 thousand pounds per person in the UK. That sounds like a lot of money for each person to pay. But, if we pay the government 1000pounds per person and then we each need to find roughly 15 thousand pounds per person. From my studies it seems that if we each do a sponsored walk, or a sponsored silence, or sponsored holding-our-breath then the way I figure it at 1pound per mile, or minute we'd need to walk roughly 15thousand miles or hold our breath for roughly 250 hours (roughly 10 days) or be silent for roughly 10 days. The sponsored walk could possibly work as could the sponsored holding-our-breath, but the potential winner could be the sponsored silence for 10 days.

So, in summary we can get out of the current credit crunch by (a) each paying 1000pounds and (b) being silent for 10 days and being sponsored by some folks from the EU or elsewhere to do it. If we can do that we can clear our debt.

10 Best Places to be during Christmas

I live in an extremely cosmeticopolitan place with people from many places that don't follow the Christmas fashion who ask me for the best places to go to experience genuine Christmas. Here are the top 10 best places to experience Christmas:

20) Ice Cream Parlour - in colder climates the peak of the cold season tends to appear a few blocks away from Christmas. If they are open, the ice-cream parlour is the best place to be. Experience a melon-apple-chocolate ice-cream fondu to gain the full Christmas experience.

19) Photocopier Parts Replacement Store - in any weather it's the best place to go to experience infestive cheer.

18) Soup Engineering Store - watch true Christmas genius in action at one of the many soup stores. Watch a traditional Father Soup festival only held on Christmas day - has to be seen to be believed.

12) Cheese Replacement Store - an excellent place to understand the meaning of Christmas where the various different parts of the meaning are fused together.

9) Mushroom Grooming Plant - for the more sophisticated a good place to see the evolution of the history of Christmas.

4) Fish Scale Sorting Store - great for the children, a real Christmas wonderland.

50) Escalators - an excellent place to view how Christmas moves and transports itself. Choose a moving one.

23) Iron Gates - these gates have been well known to attract Christmas pieces.

7) Sand Measuring Store - hours of true fun in theses stores where Christmas descends and is slowly extracted.

0) Carton Label Removal Store - unbeatable, sure-fire location to experience, evaluate and digest the Christmas package.

Quantum Transport

Have you watched many Sci-Fi movies or series?

Have you wondered what it would be like to be transported in time or space, or both - have your essence beamed somewhere else and reassembled with various fly components?

Well now you can experience it in true, living, multi-dimensional colour!

At a justifiably incredible cost London Trans-port has deployed a number of experimental Quantum Transport devices in London. These devices take on the appearance of the humble Bus (double, or single decker or warpy-bus), but with one (or two) important, significant additions.

These buses obey the Quantum principles:

1) You cannot predict when the bus will arrive with 100% accuracy (according to the quantum principle the prediction should be around 0-0.1% accurate).

2) When the bus does arrive and you embark you cannot predict with 100% accuracy where the bus is going.

3) No two buses can go to the same destination on the same day (violation of this principle can be catastrophic and could very well signal the end of the Universe if violated).

4) You cannot predict with 100% accuracy which bus stop the bus will stop at. Indeed, it can be rather disconcerting if you are standing as the bus driver only knows which bus stop they should stop at according to a complicated algorithm (which, coincidentally does not depend on the number of people waiting at the stop - contrary to a popular myth).

Indeed, if you are fortunate enough to be waiting at a bus-stop you can get an idea as to which bus is Quantum by studying the estimated time indicator, if the bus arrival time differs by the factor (sqrt(1-gamma)exp(-2*pi/sigma)) then it's highly likely the bus is Quantum - of course if the bus doesn't stop then it's definitely Quantum.

London Transport are busy replacing conventional buses as quickly as possible and at great cost so you can experience the wonders of Quantum Transportation.

How to Reduce Plastic Waste

Technologists have noticed a rather large amount of plastic bits and bobs littering all over the place and have come up with a green solution:

1) Identify persistent litter.
2) Spray the litter with a new chemical compound (KFC).
3) This chemical compound attracts green recycling units (namely rats and pigeons) to consume the litter. The chemical compound is so attractive the recycling units consume the litter exclusively until they expire (roughly 1-2 days after first encountering the litter).
4) The plastic fortified, expired recycling units can then be reused as insulated bricks (in the case of the four legged recycling units) or loft, or wall insulation (in the case of the flying recycling units).

The transformation from useless persistent litter into useful, insulated, building material is powering the property building trade and has created a whole recyclable economy ranging from the producers of the chemical compound (KFC, whose by product happens to be a rather attractive and economical after-school-before-dinner snack) through the producers of the green recycling units to the collectors/hunters of the recycling units (in some cases not every recycling unit expires on the prescribed date).

An important by product is a small, but noticable reduction in the amount of CO2 being produced. This has encouraged scientists to research the possibility of encouraging Cows to eat KFC infected litter to further reduce the CO2 production and produce building material for large skyscrapers.

Do We Need our Head?

We all know that science has determined that we are composed of rather a large quantity of water. In fact, over 50% of our weight is water. If we couple that with the additional fact that we only use approximately a small quantity of our brain (roughly 4% or so) we make the astounding discovery: we don't need our heads!

In fact science has determined that since we are predominantly water we can replace our head with a glass of water (spring water is ok, tap water is almost ok if you still have some tap water - Thames Water are busy replacing tap water with rusty brown plastic water or nothing, carbonated water is ok if you're looking for hyperactivity).

Scientists have determined in some cases that replacing whole people with glasses of water has had no noticeable effect. Indeed, the head of a number of Hedge Funds, London Transport and a number of politicians have been replaced by glasses of water without disturbing the efficient workings of those organisations.

Do we need a head?

For many years sociologists have studied the workplace. They have studied every aspect of the workplace; from the placement of wastebins to the quantity of coffee drunk as a function of the paper cups. They have studied all the people that litter the workplace from the humble sales-clincher-person to the mighty tea-person to the exalted biscuit-person. Every aspect has been studied in vomiting detail and published in a large number of obscure journals.

Research has discovered a purpose for all components that go to make-up the workplace. That is all except one. Research has failed to define a purpose for the executive.

Study has discovered an inverse relationship between the health of a company and the number of executives it contains. They have found that executives tend to cluster into a group of about 10-12 forming a 'board-of-directors' and once a company is infested with a board-of-directors there is a rapid decline in motivation, direction, output, standards and general quality of the tea.

Researchers have found close analogy with a parasite which tends to feed off its victims extracting a small slice of the best bits allowing the host to produce more best bits. Although, in the case of the executive a large slice of the best bits are extracted resulting in a barely living host incapable of producing any best bits (scientists have termed this type of parasite as a 'stupid-parasite').

Work is currently underway to understand how a company becomes infested with a board-of-directors or a cluster of executives. Once this is understood it will be possible to create ointments and balms and creams capable of combating an executive infestation. For those infested with executives there is hope...

A New computing paradigM

Do you own a computer? If so then the chances are quite high that you have written in the last few days a Graphical user interface toolkit in C++ (a bit like the C programming language, but with a ++ here and there). The chances are high that as you coded those thousands of lines you thought, "Gee Stan I wish that there were some kinda computing paradigm that would ease the development of this high quality toolkit that I'm developing".

Well, worry no longer.

Scientists have managed to develop and then discover a new computing paradigm that addresses these kinds of thoughts and more. The paradigm goes under the name of the CLOWN paradigm (or CLOWN computing for short) and tests show that it's revolutionising the software industry.

The paradigm is based on a large number of basic points:

1) Code and coder should be able to withstand a sustained 15min Custard Pie unit test (the maxim is "custard pie now, custard pie often").

2) The clown car IDE must be used to ensure code portability (the roof should blow off, windows fall out, and wheels fall off at regular intervals - in keeping with current standard software practices).

3) Evaluate the coder and you have evaluated the code:
3a) How much water can the coders trousers hold?
3b) How far does the coder travel when shot from a cannon?
3c) How many balloons can fit into the coders shirt?

4) Software analysis and design:
4a) How many times is the architect caught out by the pull-the-chair-before-they-sit-down trick?
4b) Does the architect make liberal use of the exploding marker pen?
4c) Does the architect use the electrocuting projector?
4d) Does the architect make exclusive use of mime in the analysis stage?
4e) Does the architect make flowers and snow out of the use case and requirements documents?

5) Project management must ensure that all staff are equipped with exploding laptops or desktops.

6) Project management must ensure red noses, orange, yellow or green hair and extremely large shoes are worn during all stages of the project.

7) Project management must sit in a cold custard bath during project meetings.

Scientists have determined that following these simple guidelines ensures projects are delivered on time and to spec and, as a by product, generate improved respect and admiration from customers.

Who's in charge?

Have you noticed in your dealings with large service industries (such as your utility companies, transport companies, etc) that it's very difficult to determine who's in charge especially when something appears to go wrong?

Well, extensive, laborious research has determined exactly who is in charge of these important service providers. Technically, it's nobody. Well, actually, it's not a person, but a largish white document contained in a buff folder marked 'Important stuff' (usually with a date and an illegible signature). The document itself is roughly, exactly 25 pages long and describes the organizational chart of the company, with a coffee mug stain obscuring the central and higher management. The remaining pages contain information on the processes in the company, well actually it's just the curious phrases TBD and references to other documents that have TBD next to them.

This large document is kept in a grey filing cabinet in the store-room and is referred to in every persons contract under the name 'as-stipulated-in-the-company-policy-handbook-document-TBD-001' (this is in fact the official title of the document, 'Important Stuff' is a higher management term). All matters of importance are referred to the document and it is this document, and this document alone that provides wisdom to the staff to enable them to combat these matters of importance.

That is why when you contact your large service provider of some service you are often told about company policy in vague terms since the staff themselves are not allowed to directly quote from the unseen document as this would almost certainly destroy the wisdom of the document. Indeed, if you lodge a query you may notice that your query is ignored. This is not negligence, this is the document working its wisdom. Study of the document 'as-stipulated-in-the-company-policy-handbook-document-TBD-001' has revealed that queries should be allowed to cluster and mature so that they may find their own wisdom and thus the solution to their own problem (a far more enlightening and rewarding effort).

Am I repeating myself?

You may have noticed that your television broadcasting corporations (technically called circuses or circuii if you want to be strictly correct) appear to repeat a program at a well defined interval. You may be wondering why. Some more cynical people may think that the television broadcasting executives and controllers and directors and organizers (collectively, technically called clowns) are simply trying to save money by 'filling' empty airspace with, well in some cases empty air space, but in others with well meaning docu-type-info-entertainment.

Well, this is totally incorrect!

Scientists have recently conducted research and study into the frequency of repeated programs and have determined that the greater the number of repeats the more advanced the society is. This is because the citizens everyday life is so rich and so full their brains have to reject some information and by constantly repeating programs they can determine just how civilized the society is. By slowly increasing the repeat frequency until they achieve critical complaint mass they can (through complex non-deterministic methods)  determine the civilization status. For example, in the US programs are repeated more than daily, they are quite advanced. In the UK we are approaching daily repeat status (in some cases we are at the sub-daily status).

Only when we reach sub-minute program repeat status where the repeat starts before the original has finished will we have achieved true civilization status. Indeed, by sub-minute repeat status of reality shows will determine we have achieved the new nouveau-classical period.

Canal Origins

It is well known that the first canals appeared in the UK long before any other country. But, only recently has science uncovered exactly why these canals were created. There was conjecture that they were originally built to carry goods. This clearly doesn't hold water as people have been using trucks, shopping trolleys and white vans since prehistory.

The real reason for the invention of the canal was in order to alleviate the massive infestation of bicycles that plagued the UK in the early history. In bygone days artists created bicycles that were built to last. This was a good thing. People used their cycles until they expired (the people that is) and then they were handed down to their offsprings. But, this was at odds with the consumer-based economy that had been introduced in neolithic times. Such an economy relied on constant consumption without reason and the presence of long-lasting indestructible bicycles didn't fit the bill.

There was a need for a mechanism to encourage the destruction of bicycles allowing consumers the ability to buy new bicycles perpetuating the economy.

The governments of the day came up with the fence-less canal. The invention, by the Steam brothers, itself was not enough to improve the economy. Only with the introduction of irresponsible alcohol consumption and poorly lit roads did the scheme finally begin to reap benefits. Since approximately 800AD (late afternoon) the number of irretrievably sunk and broken and rusted bicycles in canals shot up far outstripping production of bicycles necessitating a massive increase in production and also a massive increase in bicycle insurance.
These two single measures have formed the basic cornerstones of modern consumer society and it is for this reason that you can go to any canal and find a myriad of consumer articles within their depths (buildings, financial institutions, hedge funds).

Reality or not?

It takes a great deal of knowledge to craft a reality or talent show. A great deal of time goes into creating the correct program, the duration of the events and the precise choreography of the words used by the audience and the eventers. Indeed, nothing is left to chance, even the audience is selected with great care: any person with the large sum of cash needed to procure a seat in the arena is accepted.

It's little wonder that this height of modern engineering has attracted the attention of eminent scientists who have dissected these programulations in order to understand better their purpose.

Their deliberations have unearthed some surprising results: participation (active or passive) in a reality or talent show appears to not activate one cerebral neuron. Not one.
Scientists performed a number of studies in which they replaced living audience members (the passive component) by (a) recently deceased people, (b) insects, (c) vegetables. In all cases no difference in the passive component was detected (the brain patterns were exactly the same for all audience members).

They then replaced the active component (the contestants) by (a) frozen peas, (b) a box of dust, (c) drawing pins. Again, in all cases no difference was detected - although a slight (possibly statistically significant) response to the box of dust was observed, but it's unclear if the response was from the dust itself or the audience (researchers are still studying a much higher statistics sample of dust taking part in a 2 year marathon X factor talent show).

An important result of these recent findings is that frozen peas have now been granted sentient being status which has spurred further research into the social behaviour of frozen peas.

space collapse

If you have wondered what on earth is happening in London I can enlighten you.
You may have noticed that a large number of trenches have reappeared in strategic places. These places are strategic because of the large density of people appearing in those places.

The number of strategic places in London is rather large and can indeed be seen from outer space - as far outer as Jupiter (on a sunny day when the fog has burnt off and there are no smaller planets crashing into it). It is interesting that the trenches resemble an upside down smiley from Jupiter which explains why, when you observe Jupiter, you can see the appearance of smileys and other graffiti on the surface - Saturn has joined in and Neptune appears to be advertising that "Saturn sucks big time" (there is research to understand exactly why).

The reason for the appearance of these trenches is purely down to the density of the people between the hours of 7am-9am being so great that they form a black hole. The trenches are an attempt by the London Councils and Transport for London to introduce distortion effects to minimise the density of the black hole by encouraging people to fall into the hole to reduce the critical mass.

LHC for dummees

I'm a bit of a scientisticcolo and will give a two sentence description of the LHC big guy machine in the International Institute for collisions in Geneva, near France, Europe.

The LHC aims to collide a bunch of left hand and right hand particles together at high speed. What are these particles?

Well, if you take your left shoe (which should be about size 6 red and green patent leather with a rubber sole) then all these particles from the left hand side are equivalent to your left hand shoe.

Now what about these right hand particles?? Well, they are your right shoe (which should be about size 8 exactly orange and blue with yellow all leather upper and downer) that's what these right handed particles are: your right clown shoe.

So, in a nutshell, we're colliding your left hand size 6 clown shoe with your right hand size 8 clown shoe. The result should be equivalent to the birth of the universe or a shoe shop and should explain why there are only left-hand shoes on sale in most shoe shops.

Living Water!

Have you considered just how many sentient species there are in the world? There are people, ants, crispy fried duck, bacteria, plants. Millions of thinking, living, feeling things.

Well scientists have discovered another one to add to the list: water.
By studying spa/spring/mineral water scientists have discovered that mineral water is a social, living being. They have discovered that water enjoys the company of other water and forms a very strong bond between water from the same source.

This astounding conclusion was reached after carefully studying the rate at which water was produced by a well-known spring and the rate at which it was bottled and sold to vegetarians. They deduced that if water was not sentient and always made its way back to its origins in order to be reunited with the other bits of water it had left behind it would have meant that the well-known spring would have dried up 30 years ago.

Thus the water that you consume carefully makes its way back, against great odds, to its source to be reunited and rebottled and reconsumed by another vegetarian.

Tube Design

I don't know if you have noticed. But, during rush hour you will see a few smartly dressed people all congregating in clumps and generally causing increased stress and confusion. Have you seen these people? They're the ones that cut in-front of you and push you into much smaller spaces.

Well, these people have been scientifically designed and placed there by the various transport companies in order to improve your public-transport experience. In addition, the public transport nerve-centre can fine-tune the number of lost, broken, depressed public transport machines to enhance the experience.

What are they?

So, it seems that an fund manager is a person that manages funds. We, well not me because I don't have any (I'm a hedge fund trader - a hedge for short), give these guys our hard earned money and they spend all their time looking in minute detail at the bazillion of stocks (chicken, beef, fish), shares, exotic cocktails, and shoes on offer and invest wisely. They spend their working day working for us and their sleeping nights sleeping for us. They are so smart and they do a good job. The investments, on the whole, tend to have lots of ups and downs. Which is a bit like life - although the investments tend to have catastrophic downs which makes us feel a lot better since our lives aren't that catastrophic.

They tend to approach investment with an avant-guard philosophy. They are daring. Investments in schemes that perhaps yesterday were shunned are now seen as highly lucrative. It's clear to me that Ponzi schemes are now considered highly profitable 'exotics'. Guaranteeing stable returns even in the case of horrible times. Clearly this is the reason why many invested in Mr Madoff's scheme.

MP Hour

Where I come from we're heavily into metrics. This is a good thing. We design metrics for everything: metrics for the number of shoes you're allowed to buy, the number of times you're allowed to oversleep the alarm, the number of left and right shoes you're allowed to buy.

Recently, we have discovered that our Politicians aren't metric. This is bad. We cannot appreciate the work they do if we don't know how well they are doing.

So, our Politicians have hired an external metric consultancy to metricify them. The main problem the consultants faced was exactly what metric to use. Since, nobody, not even the Politicians really knew what they did.

After much study they determined that speaking constituted 98% of the job. They determined that Politics appeared to be a game involving people capable of selecting items of no particular interest and then arguing viciously for many months about them.

Once this discovery was made it was simple to design metrics consisting of the number of words spoken, how long a Politician has been standing on their feet for, the number of uninteresting statements made. Extra points are gained if a Politician makes a definitive conclusion (regardless of the manner or truth).

With this system we have metrics that show us the fantastic amount of work being performed by our Politicians. Other countries would do well to follow our approach. We even have done away with the 1 party system and have gone to leagues. We are very proud that our local Politican's play in the Premier League (missing out on top-spot on goal difference).