Posts by SA_Mathieson 25 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Sep 2015
Just to confirm that this round of LGR will not include Birmingham City Council, which is already a unitary council under the West Midlands Combined Authority with a mayor. (Some city councils are lower-tier ones under county councils, such as Exeter and Oxford, just to make things confusing.) The government's idea is that everywhere in England will move towards the unitaries and combined authorities structure.
Happy to say that the giant moon pastel (where you said it is), the early scientific instruments (top floor) and the copy of Dee's table (entrance hall) are all still there. Although I focused on the medical exhibits for this article, the History of Science Museum has treasures from a range of sciences. Another is a blackboard that Einstein used when he lectured in Oxford, up on the wall to the left of the bed pan/biscuit tin cabinet in the basement (https://hsm.ox.ac.uk/blackboard-used-by-albert-einstein). Just possibly this is more significant that the Sinclair calculator I mentioned.
I recall being told about the 'Cable' exchange rate at my first job in journalism, covering corporate finance from an office on Playhouse Yard, just round the corner from the GPO South/Faraday Building North site.
Yes, that would be a Morse key, although it seems that the CTO tried pretty much every cable technology available at some point - the Hughes 'piano' keyboard is particularly striking.
Both Scotland and Wales run their national health services along similar lines, as does Northern Ireland, although it doesn't use the NHS name. All three have less complicated structures than England, less private-sector involvement and in some ways are more generous (free prescriptions for everyone). Wales has largely nationally-run IT, and managed pretty much to avoid the Wannacry ransomware. But the differences aren't massive, and all face the same funding issue.
Labour plans to increase the annual NHS England budget by £11bn a year. Given three health think tanks reckon it needs £30bn extra in five years' time to stand still given the healthcare inflation problem (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/127abc06-4a19-11e7-a7b8-5e01acd01516) the same funding shortfall largely applies.
Capita is certainly a big supplier to government, and I found £442m spent with the group across the five departments - although that's still less than Aspire at HMRC. The problem is as you say that Capita provides all sorts of services, and trying to work out what was IT and what wasn't would have been tricky. Also I noted that the Cabinet Office, which presumably can demand information rather than using FoI and open data, didn't have Capita on its list of IT suppliers (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/29/central_gov_splashed_63bn_on_it_with_42_per_cent_on_just_three_suppliers/).
Thanks for your comments Aelfric, MOV r0,r0 and VinceH - we've corrected the park and ride charges and tweaked the section on Acorn and RISC.
Thanks Magnus Ramage for your comments on EDSAC and the Arup Building. I was using "on the same site" as meaning "on the New Museums Site" as well as trying to keep the tour reasonably simple by treating it as one location.
I loved Micro Men, but did realise when researching this article that it was best-treated as based on a series of true stories rather than the truth and nothing but.
Thanks for the responses. Lars - the idea of class being a factor in mistrust is an interesting one - guessing you mean 'lions led by donkeys' where the majority have an assumption that the leadership class are incompetent and/or in it only for themselves?
On 'small country', I should probably have qualified that by saying 'small country of roughly equivalent wealth and development to the UK'. When I talk to civil servants working in the Welsh and Scottish NHSs (healthcare is fully devolved, ie run from Cardiff and Edinburgh not London), they say they find it easier to get things done than colleagues in England because they can more easily get everyone around the table, and much smaller budgets provide a strong reason for everyone to co-operate.
Happy to say that the Bodleian Library declaration survives, just under the data protection notice on admissions form A: "I hereby undertake not to remove from the Library, or to mark, deface, or injure in any way, any volume, document or other object belonging to it or in its custody; not to bring into the Library, or kindle therein, any fire or flame, and not to smoke in the Library; and I promise to obey all rules of the Library."
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
