Pearsall Smith and the Goat at Portsmouth

"Someone mentioned a goat, so I told them the story of the Goat at Portsmouth"

'In conversation, someone mentioned a goat, so I told them the Story of the Goat at Portsmouth, whereupon an awful thought crossed my mind: "Had I told them this story before?". But then a deeper chasm loomed before me: "Was it the case that whenever anyone mentioned a goat I always told the story of the Goat at Portsmouth?".'

This quaint metaphor is well know in my family, but seems largely unknown elsewhere. It was a favourite with my father, RGR West, psychiatrist and philosopher. My brother Michael points out that Father clearly read it in Logan Pearsall Smith's 'More Trivia' which came out in 1921. What a delight to discover that cerebral goldmine of quirky fragments (which you can read online here)! One lingers unintentionally, drawn from each disjointed gobbet to the next by its sheer inconsequentiality; the only common elements are the very 'Bloomsbury' figure of Pearsall Smith himself and the chintzy clarity of his Edwardian England; umbrellas, railway carriages, teacups and sofas. (I quote: "Though I sometimes lay down the law myself on public questions, I don't very much care to hear other people do it." )  So delightfully challenging, so carefully phrased! I therefore append Pearsall Smith's original.

THE GOAT

In the midst of my anecdote a sudden misgiving chilled me—had I told them about this Goat before? And then as I talked there gaped upon me—abyss opening beneath abyss—a darker speculation: when goats are mentioned, do I automatically and always tell this story about the Goat at Portsmouth?

From 'More Trivia' by Logan Pearsall Smith (1921) (Available online)

 

Goldbach's Conjecture

Every even number can be expressed as the sum of two primes.

     One of the oldest unproven conjectures stems from a letter of 1742 from Goldbach to Euler. I was intrigued, for in seventy years I had not come across this type of concept, one which (as Euler declared) is certainly true even though it cannot be proven to be true.

     I very soon convinced myself that the conjecture is sound, by an argument that many others have discovered and explored. The gap (g) between two adjacent prime numbers (p1, p2) grows as p1 increases, but grows far more slowly than p1 grows. For example the gap between the adjacent primes 977, 983, 991, 997 are (respectively) only 6, 8 and 6. As all primes (other that 2) are odd, any two added together will produce an even sum. It is easy enough to show for small even numbers (2n, 2(n+1), etc) that the conjecture holds: 4=3+1; 6=5+1, or 3+3; 8=7+1, or 5+3; 18=17+1, or 13+5, or 11+7.   Thus we see that as 2n increases the number of ways in which it can be expressed as the sum of 2 primes also increases. So, even though it is a laborious task for computer enthusiasts to find the necessary primes, it becomes progressively harder to imagine the falsification of the conjecture.

But that is not a proof that the conjecture must, for all values of n, be true a priori. It is at least in part an induction a posteriori.

Higher Tax Bands

Gift Aid for higher tax bands

The current (April 2012) position with respect to Gift Aid is (I believe) as follows. For those who only pay 20% tax, the Inland Revenue makes a contribution to the charity that is equivalent to the donor making the donation before their tax liability is calculated. If I donate £100 the charity is given £25 extra. This is because when I earnt my money in the first place, the Inland Revenue took some in tax. I earnt £125, gave £25 to IR and £100 to the charity, whereupon IR gives the £25 to the charity.

For those who pay 40% tax, Inland Revenue DOES NOT make a proportionately larger contribution to the charity. If £100 is given out of taxed income, the donor would have had to have earnt £167 (and paid £67 in tax). To play level the Inland Revenue would give the charity the £67. Instead it gives the charity £25 and returns a portion of the remaining £42 to the donor. In the words of  HM Revenue and Customs:

"If you pay higher rate tax, you can claim the difference between the higher rate of tax 40 per cent and the basic rate of tax 20 per cent on the total 'gross' value of your donation to the charity. For example, if you donate £100, the total value of your donation to the charity is £125 - so you can claim back:  £25 (i.e. £125 × 20%)".

Mysterious!  There must be a White Paper somewhere that justifies this arcane system. To guess at the justification we suppose the tax efficient donor will see this as a way of clawing back some of the money he lost in tax; his eye is not on the charity, and giving is not his aim; his eye is on his own money. If he gave nothing his tax rate is 40% and he loses £67 of his £167 to the tax man. If he gives £100 to a charity the tax man rebates £25 to him and give the charity an equal amount. He writes a cheque for £100, but it costs him only £75 and benefits the charity £125. This incetives the donor. Furthermore, it is so complex that a considerable number of 40% (and 50%) tax payers neglect to claim their rebate, so the Revenue benefits by the complexity. 

On the other hand there is certainly a research paper from 2009 that reccommends a change (http://www.cgap.org.uk/uploads/seminar_15thDec Gift Aid.pdf). This was commissioned by HM Revenue and Customs on behalf of HM Treasury and examines the effect on donations of possible changes to Gift Aid. It argues that it is more efficient to focus on the charity rather than the donor, and suggestes that the 40% (or 50%) tax payer gets no rebate while the charity gets either all or a larger portion of the tax.  Getting all the tax would be simplest, and the easiest to justify.

Programme Notes April 2012

Programme Notes:

String Quartet in B minor, (Op. 33/1)  –––  Franz Joseph Haydn (1732 - 1809)

i. Allegro moderato, ii. Scherzo — allegro di molto, iii. Andante, iv. Presto

Though numbered 31 of Haydn's 68 quartets, this Opus 33 set, dedicated to Grand Duke Paul of Russia and first performed in his wife's drawing room in Vienna on Christmas Day 1781, is regarded by many as the beginning of his mature concept of the string quartet, and a model for Mozart and Beethoven after him. Indeed, in a letter to his publisher Artaria, Haydn claimed that these quartets were composed in an "entirely new and special style". One easily-spotted feature is that the classical minuet is here replaced by a scherzo (a more vigorous, earthy version though still in 3/4 time). Another, is the way each of the 4 voices is treated as a melody line, making the works more contrapuntal, and more interesting for player and listener alike. Our quartet (33/1) hovers between B minor and its relative major (D maj.) though other keys are touched on transiently. Each movement contains extended passages in D major, but end in the minor with its characteristic shrunken feeling.   (For an intriguing 'visual analysis' see YouTube®: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaPOCoSaugw.)

String Quartet no. 3 in G major, Op.94   –––    Benjamin Britten (1913 – 1976)

i. Duets: with moderate movement, ii. Ostinato: very fast, iii. Solo: very calm

iv. Burlesque: fast - con fuoco, v. Recitative and Passacaglia (La Serenissima)

Britten (born 99 years ago) was precocious. At 12 he had written 9 sonatas (and 3 suites) for piano, and 6 string quartets. In 1928 the 14 year-old began lessons with Frank Bridge who took an interest in the lad and took him to concerts. In 1930 (aged 16) he won a scholarship to the Royal College where he studied composition with John Ireland, but it was Bridge who was the deeper influence particularly in regard to the 3 mature quartets that Britten counted in his oeuvre. Of these, Nos.1 & 2 were written during the war, while No. 3 was, in the words of Hans Keller, his "last masterpiece". His deeply serious opera "Death in Venice" (premiered 1973) epitomized, in his words, 'everything that' he and Peter Pears had 'stood for'; Thomas Mann = Aschenbach = Britten. Open heart surgery in 1973 left him partially paralysed and failed to cure his condition. During 1975, a year before his death, he wrote what David Matthew called his "Aschenbach Quartet"; the last movement, written in 'La Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia', contains 5 thematic references to the opera. Overall the texture is light, open and sparse, the thematic strands distinct, the mood reflective with only brief discords.  Its first movement, in a complex sonata form, explores tonality, and an interplay between two voices (the duet motif). The opening element is a gently shifting (semitone) oscillation. The 3^rd movement is a violin solo largely consisting of a sequence of strange intervals, large and small, sandwiching a birdsong-like passage. The  restrained, searching, intricate final movement achieves a fitting tranquillity for Britten's last musical utterance. Britten heard the work in a private performance by the Amadeus Quartet 2 weeks before he died, and was content with it.

String quartet No. 12, in F major opus 96  ––––   Antonín Dvořák (1841 – 1904)

i. Allegro ma non troppo, ii. Lento, iii. Molto vivace, iv. Finale: vivace ma non troppo

This famous quartet, now known as 'The American', was composed in 1893 in Iowa while Dvořák and family were on vacation from his New York teaching post and living with Czech compatriots. He had come to the United States the previous year with the explicit aim of exploring negro and 'first nation' music to encourage Americans to develop their own distinctive music, as Smetana and he had done so successfully in Bohemia. Many people have searched for negro tunes in this quartet, but the only musical reference to the New World confirmed by Dvořák's notebooks is to the song of the scarlet tanager (a bird whose insistent call annoyed the composer), to be heard as an intermittently repeated high warble in the 3rd movement. On the other hand, it is decidedly pentatonic; the big gaps of that ('black notes') scale give an open character and distinctive flavour to the melodies. This may have seemed to the composer distinctively 'American', for he said of his New World compositions in general that they differ "very much from my earlier works, as much in colour as in character...". However, to us the work sounds Czech; fast/slow tempi, off-beat rhythms, augmented intervals, 'gypsy' melodies. (It is well analysed on Wikipedia.)

(Programme notes compiled from various sources by Ian West.)

 

 

Budget 2012

A response to the 2012 budget

 

Dear MP

[1]  I, and other Quakers in the North East, support the need to progress firmly towards a balanced budget.

[2]  We recognize the need for British tax policies to be related to the tax policies of our major trading partners in Europe or North America; it would be Quixotic to be too far ahead in the direction of fairness and equality. But we also recognize the absolute value of justice, the inherent wrongness of exploitation, and the infectious and corrosive nature of greed. We think it would be appropriate for Britain to lead (as we did in the case of slavery), or at least point the way, towards a more moral, equal and integrated society, rather than to follow others (shamefully) in the opposite direction toward inequality and greed.

[3]  The fact that the gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen in advanced capitalists societies convinces us more forcefully than any economic argument that there is something wrong with the system. That trend leads to social disintegration, exploitation, and eventually to revolution. We believe that the need to curb the growing wealth of individuals and groups trumps the need to attract greedy entrepreneurs to this country. We ask for effective measures to break up large accumulations of wealth, as well as for adequate progressive taxation. The significance of a progressive tax structure lies as much in the signal it gives of a government's stance on this issue as in raising revenue. We believe that withdrawing the 50% tax rate gives the wrong signal.

 [4]  We understand that Parliament was told that the removal of the 50% tax rate after only one year of operation was justified on the grounds that it yielded several fold less than was predicted. We also understand that such was largely because profits were brought forward into a year that escaped the tax, which would inevitably be only a one-off effect. We would strongly condemn any deliberate attempt by Government to 'pull the wool over the eyes' of Parliament and the British people. We do not see why tax avoidance (and possibly criminal tax evaison also) should be rewarded by withdrawl of the tax.

[5]  Punitive tax regimes do not encourage philanthropy; rather they tempt people into tax avoidance and evasion (as we have just seen). Can more be done to encourage those liable to high rates of tax to lower their tax liability by voluntary donations to registered charities? 

[6]  I endorse the suggestion by Tim Harford (1) that the  Government sould aim to implement reccommendations of the Mirrlees Report (2), including:  "broadening the tax base, unifying national insurance with income tax, abolishing the majority of special treatments, aligning tax on income with that on capital gains and dividends, taxing property and land" .

Refernces:

(1) http://timharford.com/2012/03/mr-speaker-let-an-economist-speak-sense/

(2) http://www.ifs.org.uk/mirrleesReview

Taxation of the Wealthy

Taxing the Wealthy

I am shocked that anyone should talk of repealing the 50% tax bracket for those earning more than £150,000 per annum. Especially at a time when the national debt is enormous and growing. There will always be a gap between the average income of the top 10% of the population, and that of the bottom 10%. But I am shocked that it is rising in our 21^st century liberal democracy. In Britain, that ratio has risen from 8 to 12 in the last 30 years [1]. And, in the face of that, there is talk in government circles of abolishing the 50% tax bracket and inheritance tax!

Who on earth is voting these people into power? Of the 30 million tax payers in the UK only 0.126 million earn over £150,000 [2] So we look back at the Conservative Party manifesto and find that there is no talk of scrapping the 50% tax bracket. It is not the voters that matter in this case, but the cabinet; a bunch of rich kids looking after themselves. They point out that the revenue raised by the 50% tax rate in small (because the number affected is small). True! So its importance is not the revenue, but as a curb and a gesture; it places a slight restraint on the tendency of the rich to get ever richer, and it signals a gesture of intent — "this country does not favour a widening gap between rich and poor".

I take it as axiomatic that society works better when the relative wealth of rich versus poor is kept moderate. But perhaps there are some people brought up with other prejudices, who think that it is better that the assets of the country be mostly in the hands of the skilful, thrifty and wise, than in those of the foolish, thriftless and lazy. There are some (I suppose) who see it as a natural law that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. They might think it foolish to combat the inevitable. So, let me try to defend my prejudices with objective arguments. 

1. We are interdependent. A rich factory owner needs workers for his factory and customers for his product.

2. Beyond a certain point accumulated wealth becomes a dead asset. Money that is spent ends is someone's pocket and is then spent again, whereas money beyond what can be spent is money lost to the community.

3. Wealth corrupts. The need to be nice to our neighbours is what keeps us civil; no such need, no such civility.

4. Un-earned wealth is both undervalued and regarded as a birth-right. Necessity and need are the parents of creativity and energy.

5. A wealthy person who sees his poor neighbours as servants, customers, objects, but not as human beings, is disgusting.

So, we must continually trim the wealth of the wealthy for the sake of all strata in society.

Occidentis, MORPETH

 

Assad and Syria

Bashar al-Assad has been President of Syria since his father Hafez al-Assad died in 2000. He is the head of state, but is also Chairman of the Syrian Al-Baath Party and of its Central Committee. It seems naïf to suppose that he alone is responsible for every decision made by the effective government of the country. Even more naïf to suppose that the people of Syria will benefit from his removal. However, the pressure for his removal seems to be building. It is the misfortune of repressive governments that their only exit strategy is death.

Since the Ottomans evacuated Syria in September 1918 at the end of the first world war, Syria has experienced almost continual violence and political turmoil till 1970 when Hafez al-Assad and Mustafa Tlass staged a bloodless coup inside the ruling Syrian  Al-Baath Party . Since then the country has become one of the most stable in the Arab world, no doubt by operating a more effectively repressive regime than before, but also by gaining the support of religious minorities with secular and modernizing reforms, and by fostering if not actually bringing about a considerable improvement in living standards.

When Bashar al-Assad, the ophthalmologist second son of Hafez, became heir apparent in 1994, on the death of his older brother Bassel, he had only 6 years in which to establish himself in the Baath Party machine and in the country as the obvious and only successor to his father.  However, he was adopted unopposed, and has survived for 12 years. While offering tiny glimpses of reform and liberation he has in fact retained all the tools of repression used by his father's regime, and (of course) retained most of the advisors and policies.

There seems little prospect that the present government of Syria will be able to institute any democratic reforms or even tolerate free discussion of alternative policies. But that does not seem to me to justify the lack of any serious or remotely sophisticated diplomatic effort by the West to encourage reform. The opposite seems to have been the case. There seems to have been an assumption that some sort of 'Arab-Spring' revolution is needed, and revolutionary elements have been encouraged and armed.

It seems obvious that any diplomatic dialogue with the Syrian government should have  started by seeing the situation from the Syrian government's point of view; accepting that it is the duty of every government to maintain order. And starting from there. Though 90% of the chatter in our British media is the childish, gung-ho excitement one might see at an illicit badger-baiting, occasionally we hear a more mature voice of understanding and restraint [1-4]. The prospect for peace and reason seems very meager. But our knowledge of the methods of Conflict Resolution teach us that each party to the dispute must see the pain of the other party.

The other message from history is about PATIENCE rather than PRIGGISHNESS. We in England also had a decade of civil war (admittedly 370 years ago); in England also government troops fired on peaceful demonstrators (admittedly 193 years ago). Thank goodness no external power had the impudence to interfere significantly on either occasion. Let us hope that Syria also can be left to sort out its own future.

References:

1. http://www.caabu.org/news/news/building-democratic-syrian-state-transcript

2. http://www.redstate.com/nikitas3/2012/02/27/us-should-leave-syria-alone/

3. http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/simoncollis/

4. http://uk.tv.ibtimes.com/syrian-opposition-lacks-coherent-leadership-former-uk-envoy/2139.html