http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/dangerously-thin-climbers-face-ban-867625.html

Lets see, we take a measurement designed to make a broad brush categorisation of **sedentary** **populations**, and apply it to athletic individuals.

BMI is pretty much utter garbage at the best of times, in this situation more so.

I can understand that heavily muscled individuals are likely to weight more, but there's so much variation in people's shape that applying BMI arbitrarily to individuals is utterly, utterly, stupidly wrong.

Its a measure which has the advantage of simplicity, i.e. even the most dozy fool on the planet can understand it. Unfortunately it would appear that it is a measure being implemented by the dozy fools with no consideration for how healthy people actually are.

My ex's brother (powerlifter, bouncer, judo instructor) was barred from joining the police for five years as his BMI was huge and they said that their charts said he was obese, so he couldn't join. FIVE years of arguments, three independent doctors, vast amounts of correspondence becasuse those who cannot think have invented something that their rather under-active brains can understand.

It makes about as much sense as vetting marathon runners by BMI. Or Sumo wrestlers (in the opposite direction).

Idiotic.

I've known a couple of climbers who had BMI <17.5 and were simply quite tall with a very slim frame. Perfectly heathly and were eating well.

The Lady Blue (the other half) - also a climber - has a BMI of only just over 17.5 and also eats healthily - in fact she eats **heavily**, coz when I make food I tend to cook for four and give us half each! **grins**.

She is quite tall (5'8"), but again, quite a small frame.

I could probably think of half a dozen others who would be candidates, but I don't know the requisite details.

BMI is way too unscientific to be used as a screening aid.

At the end of the day why the hell should we care? Does it really really matter what someone's weight is? OK, I know that weight and BMI are the current fads, but why care about a healthy person with a BMI of 17 but not someone with a BMI of 20-25 who drinks heavily, takes loads of drugs, and eats every day at McDonalds?

Why do we, outside observers, have the right to exclude someone for what they are or are not doing to **their own** body? Oh yes, we are worried about the effect on young climbers.

For the sake of the children, in other words. The excuse for any overbearing nanny society to restrict the freedom of its individuals.

By the same token Sumo wresting as I mentioned above should be banned. I would imagine half the rugby props would be classed as overweight/obese, so lets ban Rugby too. Its totally unhealthy for someone to try and run a marathon (it does NOT do your body much good), so lets ban that. Weightlifters? All obese - that's another sport gone. Football? Well, look at all those nasty tackles - might cause someone injury - kids might see it and want to play football, and then fall over. For the sake of the children lets ban football.

The lunatics are running the asylum.

One could also make the valid point that IF anyone does have anorexia then excluding them from society in any manner (e.g. preventing them from competing in a sport they love) is really going to help them is it?

Sheesh.

20% drop in the rate of house price slowdown. Are we reaching the bottom of the curve?

Data from the Halifax released today shows a marked slowdown in the rate of descent of house prices. If this trend continues then house prices would be returning to a month on month growth by the end of the year, relieving the pressure for millions who are worried about negative equity.

City analysts and leading economists reacted positively to the figures, which showed that the trend of ever increasing descent has at last slowed and homeowners may be able to stop worrying about negative equity, and first time buyers may be able to buy their first home without worrying about losing money on the biggest purchase they have ever made.

In addition, the Bank of England' monetary policy committee held the base rate constant for the second month in a row, allaying fears that an increase in the base rate might be required to combat the slight increase in inflation that has become noticeable in the last quarter.

With the liquidity problems facing many of the major banks now showing significant signs of improvement it is hoped that the mortgage rates - currently high by historical standards in relation to base rate - may start to reduce to allow those who have put off buying during the recent downturn to buy their dream home.

Although it can not be said that at present there are signs for celebration, it can certainly be said that there are signs that the worst may be over, and that one of the most talked-about economic phenomena of the last decade - the so-called "credit crunch" - may at last be starting to evaporate, and with its demise bring hope for homeowners and aspiring homeowners everywhere.

[Ok, the above appears in no newspaper anywhere. I wrote it. Why? Because I was getting sick and tired of the doom and gloom merchants and decided to use the same data everyone else is using (the 20% drop I mention above is accurate per the Halifax data) and write a positive piece, using unattributed sources (leading economist, etc), like the media do (i.e. I make it up). I thought that switching around the point of view might be interesting. Any of the newspapers **could** write the above - they choose not to - Why? Because good news is not news right now.]

According to pretty much every media outlet available, Britain is in the maw of vast amount of credit card debt. The world is, as a result, going to end. Probably tomorrow.

No-one can pay back anything, overspending by consumers and poor regulation of banks, plus banks desperate to lend to anyone, regardless of status, are letting the world go to pot and society as a whole to head for the plughole.

Or is it?

Quoted verbatim from a few sites.

"This isn’t surprising when you consider the awful statistics regarding UK debt:

- average consumer debt in the UK: £3,008
- average consumer debt for Western Europe: £1,558
- average household debt for the UK: £56,000
- average household debt for the UK excluding mortgages: £8,856"

OK, lets think about those figures. Add in a few assumptions.

1. Average salary is 25k
2. Many homes will have two salaries.
3. Student loans will vastly inflate the debt figure

On this basis, a total of £3k on credit cards each and £9k on credit cards and student loans per household appears really quite reasonable, bordering on LOW.

On the basis of an average house costing about 200k, working on the 56k figure above and assuming that all houses have mortgages then the average loan to value in the UK is a frankly quite healthy 28%.

So where is the crisis?

Obviously, these figures are averages, and they are the figures typically bandied around to prove that the world is going to pot. Another figure bandied around is the total debt, which when you multiply the number of people in the UK (60 million) by average debt (3000) you do get a lot of money. Lots of trillions, if you really want to know. It's only relevance to the average punter is to scare them and prove that the economy is going to pot.

OK then, look at houses. Average price 200k. That means number 2-10 Anywhere Street is a million quid. 2-100 is 10 million, include the other side of the road and we have 20 million. Add Nowhere street, Noplace street, Anyplace Street and NoName Street and we have 100m. Pointless waste of time, but if you think there is probably £100m in house prices within five streets of you you can see how pointless aggregate accounting is.

Good news is no news, unfortunately. Yelling that the world is going to end is NEWS!!!!

As pretty much anyone who has encountered Mr Hat over the last couple of months knows, Mr Hat and Lady Blue are currently in the process of buying a home. I'll stress that we are buying a home, as opposed to a house, though the home is a house. It does not necessarily follow that a house is also a home.

The difference is important, to me at least. In the current environment (predicted 20-40% price drops, mortgage rates heading upwards, etc) I would not buy a house. However a home is different.

I have had many conversations with people who have said that waiting for a while would be a good idea. Plenty have said that if we wait a year or so then we will be able to buy a better place. Others have said that if we want to make money on the property we need to wait until prices bottom out. There's no point buying now, said a guy on an internet forum - wait and you'll get a better buy, less risk of negative equity, and make more money when you sell it.

I get this, I really do. I totally understand where the person concerned is coming from. However there is a fundamental difference - they see a house as an investment, I see it as a home. I am not interested in the slightest in making money on a property - I am interested in buying a house that we both love, that we feel comfortable in, and we can spend the rest of our days enjoying. What the price does is utterly irrelevant, to a certain extent.

To me a home is a place that Lady Blue and I can make our own, will be the shelter from the fates that life throws in our direction, and will contribute to my sense of identity, my sense of place in the world, and will contribute to how secure and happy I feel in a changing world. All these are emotional drivers.

Yes, cash changes hands, but in the same way that you buy the shoes that fit, not necessarily the shoes that are the snazziest, the shoes that are the cheapest, or the shoes that are at the right price, at the end of the day if they do not fit then it is a waste of money, however little or much you pay.

We, for example, have just moved to a new city. I still feel a little "dislocated". I have little sense of "place". A rental property is OK for a temporary place to live, but, to me, a house you own is a stake in the ground. A permanent location-fix to my psyche. An anchor.

Lady Blue wants a garden she can tend, plan, and nurture. I want to build a workshop, set all the IT up properly, buy furniture which fits and compliments the property. None of which we can do in a rental.

Hence our needs are emotional, not monetary. I think this applies to most people. Hence we will buy, regardless of interest rates and what house prices are doing. In thirty years time whether we paid 10% more or less for the property than we should is utterly irrelevant if the house brings happiness over that period.

A world of soundbites....

Reading the comments on The Times websites rather brings it home that people appear totally unaware that with most situations, there are hundreds of disparate factors which influence an issue. The "credit crunch" (oh let's have an alliterative snappy headline) is due to a lot of issues within the global economy. It is not a simple issue.

You read The Times website or (shudder) listen to Sky news (which I am forced to on the train each morning) and its boiled down to "Gordon Brown and his mates in the city letting people borrow too much to increase their fat bonuses". No, No, No, No, and, if I may say, NO!!!!!

We then have some Labour MP being caught fiddling expenses. "It's all the fault of New Labour" screams some muppet from Slough, "I'll never vote Labour again". Like the Tories have not been fiddling expenses for years.

Moving on to the latest Criminal Justice Bill. "People who are interested in BDSM are sick and perverted, etc". No, they are merely different from you. As Lady Blue said earlier. "People neither understand or want to understand a point of opinion that differs from their own".

Incidentally, and off on a tangent, the Criminal Justice Bill worries me. Not, I would stress, because I have a lot of pictures of love and nookie involving rural yokels and their Significant Sheep residing on this computer (which I don't - If A Man And His Sheep want to have a passionate affair then frankly the less I hear or see of it the better..), but because of, as I have said before, the criminalisation of anyone or anything whose views and behaviours upset the leader writers of the Daily Mail.

I note, incidentally, that the latest ban on pictures of the Significant Sheep results from a guy who was a nasty bit of work and murdered a lass. He had a lot of violent/extreme pornography on his computer. Obviously the possession of such imagery forced him to go out and act out his fantasies for real.

Now, I'm no psychologist (and a lot of actual psychologists have slated this bill), but I would guess that the nasty bit of work in question probably had the imagery because he was a nasty bit of work, rather than he was a nasty bit of work because of the imagery.

Equally, I might occasionally have fantasies about punching my boss. (I don't to be honest, he's actually OK). Does this mean that if I suddenly punch my boss it was the copy of "Batman" downstairs that, because of the violence in that film, was what suddenly turned a mild-mannered Accountant into a compulsive boss-puncher?

People want the simple explanations. People want the "He Watched Batman And Then Punched His Boss". They want the "He Watched Pornography And Went And Raped Someone" they want the "It Was All Because The Banks Lent Too Much" or, better, "It Was All The Fault Of Gordon Brown".

Complicated explanations are neither desired or read. The trouble is that pretty much everything, from the mind of a psychotic murderer to the financial markets, has a complicated explanation. Its a great pity that no-one is interested in them.