Barometer

School’s out Aslef members walked out on strike again this week, 18 months after this round of rail strikes began. But the unions still have a long way to catch up with Britain’s longest-ever strike, which lasted 25 years in the unlikely setting of the village of Burston, Norfolk. It began on 1 April 1914 when husband and wife teachers Kitty and Tom Higdon were dismissed from the village school over a fire Kitty had lit to dry out the clothes of children who had walked three miles in the rain. Many of the children, led by Violet Potter – the Greta Thunberg of her day – walked out in sympathy. The Higdons went on to set up their own school, firstly in a marquee, then in a blacksmith’s shop, before putting up their own building.

Hobs choice Oxford City Council has banned the installation of gas hobs in new homes from 2025. What is best: gas or electric? – According to Which? running a gas cooker costs £23 a year, compared with £61 for an electric cooker. Boiling a large pot of water takes an average of 9.69 minutes on a gas hob, compared with 4.81 minutes on an electric induction hob. Getting a gas oven up to temperature will take around 15 minutes, and up to 25 minutes for an electric oven. – The nation is divided on the merits of gas vs electric cooking. According to the Office for National Statistics, 70% of us have electric ovens and only 30% gas. But on hobs the position is reversed, with 61% using gas and 38% electric.

Post-PM posts David Cameron will not be the first former prime minister to serve as foreign secretary (which remarkably is only his second ministerial post). – Sir Alec Douglas-Home served as Edward Heath’s foreign secretary between 1970 and 1974. The difference in his case is that he had renounced a peerage when he became prime minister, and sat in the Commons. Arthur Balfour, too, followed a spell as prime minister with that of foreign secretary, in which post he served between 1916 and 1919 under Lloyd George. – Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain all served as Lord President of the Council after leaving No. 10.

I want to be alone An animal described as ‘Britain’s loneliest sheep’ was ‘rescued’ from the bottom of a cliff in Easter Ross where it had been living for the past two years, presumably after clambering down the steep coastal slope and finding it impossible to climb back up.   Some other lonely life forms: – All albatrosses live in the southern hemisphere – except one. ‘Albie’, or ‘Albert’, is believed to have made a navigational error in around 2014 and has since been living in Europe, dividing his time between Germany, the Yorkshire coast and the east coast of Scotland, where he tends to hang out with gannets.

Sporting danger An ice hockey player died in Sheffield after his throat was cut by an opponent’s skate blade. How dangerous is ice hockey? – There were 7,668 visits to US emergency rooms as a result of ice hockey-related head injuries in 2018. This compares with 51,892 for American football, 24,516 for baseball, 38,898 for basketball and 26,955 for football. These figures are not adjusted for the participation rate. – An analysis of 13 seasons in the US found that an average of 3.17 ice hockey players per season suffered from concussion – A 2013 Canadian study claimed 44.

Side hustles David Solomon, chief executive of Goldman Sachs, said he would stop DJing in clubs, following criticism from the bank’s board. For years he had performed under the alias D-Sol, playing electronic dance music. Some other unlikely side hustles: – In 2017 King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands revealed that for the past 21 years he had been a co-pilot for KLM. – While prime minister in 1971, Edward Heath both captained the British yachting team to victory in the Admiral’s Cup and conducted the London Symphony Orchestra. – Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross has worked as a referee and linesman in the Scottish football league.

Gaza in history Gaza is no stranger to territorial conflict. Originally settled around 3000 bc as a fortress and trading post between Egypt and Canaan, the city of Gaza declined and was rebuilt several times during the Bronze Age. After serving as an administrative centre in ancient Egypt, it became one of five ports used by the Philistines. The Gaza Strip, incorporating a 25-mile stretch of coastline between Gaza City and Egypt, came into existence only after 1948 when the area was under Egyptian control. Other political entities which have had control of Gaza over the centuries include: the Assyrian Empire, the Kingdom of Macedon, the Bedouins, the Seleucid Dynasty, the Nabataeans, the Roman Empire, Judea, the Fatimid caliphate, the Ottoman Empire and the British Empire.

Party season Unusually, the Conservatives are holding their party conference before the Labour party. It has become tradition that the Lib Dems hold theirs one week, Labour the next and the Conservatives the week after that, with the latter concluding in the first week of October. The tradition held even in 2020 when conferences moved online due to Covid. But there was a year when the normal conferences didn’t take place: 1974, when the second general election of the year was held during that time. Labour did, however, hold a shorter conference in late November in London. With October touted as a date for next year’s general election, we may end up in the same situation. Track record Why is HS2 so expensive?

Within limits Do 20mph speed limits save lives?– A 2018 report by Atkins/AECOM/UCL found that 51% of motorists conformed to the new limit (47% in residential areas and 65% in city centres). – When a 20mph zone replaced a 30mph one the median speed fell by 0.7mph in residential areas and 0.9mph in city centres. It was found that there was insufficient evidence to judge whether the 20mph limit reduced casualties: while accident rates had tended to fall within the zones, the same was true of comparator zones which had remained at 30mph. – Only one area of 20mph zones (in Brighton) had seen a significant fall in casualties compared with comparable 30mph zones, with overall casualties falling by 19% and pedestrian casualties by 29%.

Get out of jail There were 8 prison escapes in the year to March. All were recaptured within a month. – Some 63 prisoners absconded, which is when a prisoner escapes without having to overcome a physical barrier: this is only possible in open prisons. – A total of 71 had their escape made for them after they were accidentally released.– Fortunately, the last escape from a Category A prison was in 2013. Source: Ministry of Justice Catching heat A century-old heat record for September was nearly beaten last weekend. Here are other records for the warmest ever day in a particular month that might soon be broken: Date and Temp in ˚C 2 September 1906 - 35.6 1 October 2011 - 29.9 1 November 2015 - 22.4 28 December 2019 - 18.

Puffed up Just 12.9% of Britons smoke cigarettes, figures out this week showed – the lowest on record. How does the UK compare? – The highest smoking rate is in Nauru (48.5%), the lowest is in Ghana (3.5%). – 24.5% of people in France are daily smokers compared with 11.5% in the US. – In Germany, the overall smoking rate is 34%, an increase from 26.5% in March 2020. For young Germans aged between 14 and 17, this has almost doubled between 2021 and last year, from 8.7% to 15.9%. – Maybe it’s the price of a pack. The average cost of 20 cigarettes in the UK hit £14.47 after the Budget in March. In France it’s £8.70, in Germany it’s even lower, at £5.68. Winning touch The Rugby World Cup is starting. Who do the bookies think will win?

Wagnerian exile Would Richard Wagner have approved of the Wagner Group? While he is believed to have harboured anti-Semitic views and his music later became an inspiration for Adolf Hitler, the young Wagner was a left-wing activist. In 1849, in spite of serving with the Saxon court in Dresden, he joined an uprising against Prussian rule. He is believed to have been involved in making and distributing grenades and to have acted as a lookout. Several of his associates were killed or arrested and sentenced to death after the uprising failed, but Wagner fled to Switzerland. His exile had a happier outcome than that of Yevgeny Prigozhin, and he was able to return to Dresden 13 years later when a ban on him was lifted.

Bank on it Does the August bank holiday actually celebrate anything? – When bank holidays were first established in 1871, the August bank holiday fell at the beginning of the month, allegedly because it was an important week for cricket in Yorkshire, the home county of MP Sir John Lubbock, who introduced the parliamentary act creating bank holidays. – It was moved to the Monday after the last Saturday in August as an experiment in 1965, largely because early August coincided with the annual factory closure, and many workers were on holiday then anyway. – In 1968 and 1969 the holiday fell in September, so in 1971 it was fixed as the last Monday in August. Except, that is, in Scotland, where it remains in early August.

The bare platform A 112-space car park built to serve the railway station in the Cambridgeshire village of Manea was used by just three cars in its first week. — The station, formerly a ghost station with one train a week, has been revived but even so is only served by two trains every hour. — Yet had it not been for the Civil War, it could have been the capital of England. Charles I planned an English Versailles there, surrounded by a great city called Charlemont – all built on land reclaimed from the fens. Thanks to the war, however, nothing ever got built. — The name Charlemont lives on as a cul-de-sac in the village (population 2,000) where you can buy a modest four-bedroom detached house for £400,000.

Scout’s honour Thousands of teenagers were evacuated from the World Scout Jamboree in South Korea as flooding, a heatwave and then the threat of a typhoon affected the event. What exactly is a ‘jamboree’? – Lord Baden-Powell adopted the word for the first gathering of scouts at Kensington Olympia in 1920. But the word itself can be traced back to the mid-19th-century American West, when it was used for a drunken revel – presumably not what Baden-Powell nor subsequent heads of the scouting movement would encourage. – The first documentary evidence for use of the word is in the report of a murder trial in the New York Herald in 1868, when two of the accused were described as indulging in a  jamboree before the crime was committed.

Union booze Several universities have renamed freshers’ week ‘welcome week’ in an attempt to dissociate it from heavy drinking. How much do students drink? – A survey last year by the group Students Organising for Sustainability found that 81% regard drinking and getting drunk as part of university culture. – 53% reported drinking more than once a week. – 61% said they drink in their rooms or with other students before going out for the night to a pub or club. – 51% said that they thought getting drunk would ensure they had a good night out. – 13% said they took illegal drugs. Round the houses Councils are to be allowed to charge more council tax for second homes. How many second homes are there in England? – There are 3.

Boss pay Julia Hoggett, chief executive of the London Stock Exchange, complained that FTSE 100 bosses aren’t paid enough, and suggested that the gap between UK bosses and US bosses needs to be closed if the London market is to prosper. How much are FTSE 100 bosses paid? – The median earnings in 2021 for a FTSE 100 boss was £3.41m and the mean £4.26m. Three were paid less than £1m, 57 between £1m and £4m, 35 between £4m and £10m and three more than £10m. Two changed jobs during the year and so aren’t included in the figures – But the best-paid FTSE chief executive wasn’t even in the FTSE 100. That was Frederic Vecchioli, CEO of FTSE 250 company Safestore, who earned £17.06m. The next best-paying companies were: Endeavour Mining (FTSE100) £16.

Swing when you’re winning What are the biggest UK by-election swings? — The 1983 Bermondsey by-election saw a 11,756 Labour majority turned into a 9,319 majority for the Liberal party – a result widely attributed to the Labour candidate, Peter Tatchell, coming out as gay during the campaign. The Labour party under Michael Foot was also extremely unpopular – and had its then biggest defeat in a general election four months later. — The Clacton by-election of 2014 saw a 12,068 Conservative majority overturned into a Ukip majority of 12,404, with the Conservative share of the vote falling from 53% to 25%. However, it was unusual in that the Ukip candidate, Douglas Carswell, had been the sitting Conservative MP.

Mx Universe A transgender woman was named ‘Miss Netherlands’, and will now compete in the Miss Universe contest. British TV viewers might be surprised to learn there are still such things as beauty pageants, given they disappeared from the main TV channels in the 1980s. They might be even more surprised to learn who was responsible for lifting the ban on transgender women taking part in Miss Universe. – The decision was made in 2012 by Donald Trump, who then owned the franchise for the competition, after a Canadian trans woman, Jenna Talackova, had been banned from taking part and her cause had been taken up by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.