New Zealand, New Flag?

Okay, so New Zealand are considering changing their country's flag, which looks like this

The reasons for the change are numerous and complicated, but here's the main ones:

1. The flag is out of date: the existing flag still has the Union Flag of Great Britain on it, and New Zealand hasn't been a British colony for many years (just how many years is still argued)
2. The design is confusing: the NZ flag looks very much like the Australian flag, which looks like this

 New Zealand's Prime Minister is tired of being sat under the wrong flag apparently.

What's most interesting about all this is the way that the decision will be made: by two referenda.

Stage 1: five new designs have been chosen and people can vote for their favourite. Here are the five:

Stage 2: once the winner of this referendum is chosen, it will go head to head against the existing flag.

This is interesting because another way to do this would be to ask people to choose from all six flags in one vote.  But the winner of a one-in-six vote is almost certainly going to be the old flag, because more people will choose that than any of the new designs.

Doing this as a two stage process means that the second referendum is really clear: new flag or old flag, and that gives the new flag (whichever design it happens to be) a much better chance of being adopted.

That's the science of voting...

Local News

You might have already seen that a group of young singers made the front page of the Whitehaven News this week.

The group were due to sing at Disneyland Paris, but were prevented by the theme park's first ever closure following the Paris terrorist attacks. Not to be outdone, they chose to entertain people waiting at Charles De Gaulle airport by singing their chosen songs. Their performance is likely to be remembered for a very long time, not least because they showed that even in the middle of tragedy, there can be room for joy.

I think, at times like this, it's worth remembering the words of Martin Luther King. 

Movember

Okay, so it's November again, which means Bonfire night comes and goes, supermarkets' Christmas adverts start seven, eight and even nine weeks early, and huge numbers of men once again try to grow a moustache to raise awareness of prostate and testicular cancer.

I'm still trying to work out what growing hair on your face has to do with anything, but that's my problem.

Many of you will remember that I grew a 'mo' last year, and it was hardly a challenge: not shaving my top lip is something I'm pretty good having had the 'evil-twin' goatee beard for more years than I care to think about.

But the truth is that Movember isn't about hard work, it's not some kind of endurance test, it's about raising awareness in a simple and sometimes funny way.  Don't believe me?  Check out these moustaches.

In fairness, I don't think any of these were actually grown for Movember, but they still show that facial hair can be funny.










For more information, check out https://uk.movember.com/ 

Local news

A devolution deal giving more power to Cumbria continues to move forward.

Devolution basically means that a lot of the decisions affecting Cumbrian people will be made in Cumbria, rather than decisions being made in London by people who don't know what life is like up here in the frozen north.

The deal could boost our economy by as much as £1.3billion, which is quite a lot of money I'm sure you'll agree.

Note: this is $1billion not £1billion

The University Walk

This morning I learned that at a primary school in London, pupils are made to walk around with their hands behind their backs.

Some parents are angry because they feel that the children are being treated like prisoners, while others are claiming that it improves discipline, attention and safety.

What do you think: how far should schools go to make pupils behave, and what's more important -- conformity or individuality?

Eric Hoffer argued that it's our nature to conform, and so to fight it is a waste of energy.










John F. Kennedy suggested that conformity was not a good thing, calling it an 'enemy'.

Local News

A recycling area in Egremont may be closed because of a number of incidents of vandalism.

The Chapel Street site has been the site of at least three fires, and this has cost over £4,000 in repairs and lost income.

There are two likely consequences of this: one is that the site will be close and people will have to travel further to recycle their litter; the other is that the costs of keeping the site open will come back to the tax-payer.

Either way, a senseless act is going to cost people in Egremont money. That's the nature of crime: everybody ends up paying for it.

It would be so much better if whoever was doing this would find something helpful to do with their time.

Seeing things differently

Random? I don't think so.

Anyone know the connection?

And finally...

Videos of fails from Fail Army 

Because the only people who never fail are the ones who never try.