How to play Beleaguered Castle

Beleaguered Castle is a one-pack solitaire game (“patience” on the British side of the Pond) that needs careful thought to make it come out, as well as the usual slice of good fortune!

Take the four aces and place them in a column. These will be the bases on which you will build each suit up to its king. Then deal the rest of the pack face upwards as follows:

Deal the first card to the left of the top ace, and the second to the right of the top ace. The third card will go to the left of the second ace down, the fourth to the right of the second ace, and so on until eight cards have been dealt.

The next card goes on to the first card you dealt, but overlapping it so that you can see the number on the lower card, and likewise for the next card to the right of the top ace.

Carry on until all the cards have been dealt, so that you now have eight “wings” as well as the four bases. Each wing will have six cards, the top one of which will be fully exposed and the rest will be partially visible. You will probably find it convenient to deal the cards from the centre outwards, so that the exposed cards will be to the left of the left wings and the right of the right wings. However, your preference may be to deal all the wings in the same direction.

The eight exposed cards are available for play, either on to the bases or on to other exposed cards, in descending value but irrespective of suit or colour, so that a five of clubs could be played on to the six of spades for example. Only one card can be played at a time, so strings of cards cannot be moved as a block.

If a wing is completely removed, the space may be filled by any exposed card from another wing.

In this game, it is important to plan ahead, and just because a move is possible does not mean that it is sensible to make it. This applies both to building on exposed cards and playing to the foundations. The aim should be to try to create spaces, and you should plan your moves ahead to enable you to do this. If you can, build your foundations in parallel (i.e. don’t build one suit at a time), because you will need to keep cards that are close in number on the wings to make building possible.

It is also worth noting at the outset where the low numbered cards are so that you do not bury them too deeply as you play. If all your two and threes are deeply buried to start with, you are probably not going to win. That is where the luck comes into play!

© John Welford

Geological faults

When two sections of the Earth’s crust move relative to each other, the zone in which they do is known as a fault.

The two sections can move towards each other (in relative terms), apart from each other, or laterally (i.e. sideways to each other). Large areas of land can be pushed up or drop down as the result of a fault.

If two faults occur in parallel, the land between the faults can move downwards to form a rift valley, the best example of this being the Great Rift Valley in East Africa.

Fault movements occur suddenly, as pressures that have built up over tens or hundreds of years are released. This is a major cause of earthquakes.

Faults can allow material from deep in the Earth’s crust to come closer to the surface. This can include valuable minerals and deposits such as gold and silver. There is clearly an economic benefit to mankind in exploiting these resources, but there is also a downside in that zones that are mineral rich may also be prone to frequent earthquakes.

A prime example of this is California, where the discovery of gold led to the region attracting huge numbers of people to settle there, but the local geology made it subject to earthquakes. The whole area is riven with faults, the most prominent being the lateral tear fault known as the San Andreas (see picture).

© John Welford

Geysers

Geysers offer spectacular evidence that, in some parts of the world, there are some very hot rocks not far underground.

The word comes the Icelandic for ‘spouter’ or ‘gusher’, and they are a regular feature of the landscape in Iceland, which sits on top of the mid-Atlantic ridge where hot volcanic material is constantly being pushed towards the surface.

A geyser occurs when rainwater percolates down through cracks in the rocks to accumulate in an underground reservoir that is under constant pressure from a heat source such as rising magma. The water is heated to the point where it expands and is forced upwards through a narrow pipe to the surface.

The result is a geyser of hot water and steam that can shoot seventy metres or more into the air.

The reservoir is now ready to receive more water which will also be ejected when it has been heated and forced upwards. As long as the supply of water is constant, the geyser will erupt at predictable intervals.

It is as though one kept a kettle constantly on the boil but with the lid blocked and only a narrow spout. The contents would be forced out violently time after time, provided that water was always being added to the kettle to replace what had been lost.

One of the world’s best-known geysers is Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, USA. This often erupts at 90-minute intervals, with each eruption lasting up to five minutes. However, if the supply of water is lessened, it will erupt more frequently but for shorted durations. The heat source is the volcanic ‘hot spot’ that underlies a vast area in this part of the United States.

There is evidence that Old Faithful has been erupting for at least 700 years.

© John Welford

Henderson Island

Henderson Island is one of those places that you are highly unlikely ever to visit, unless you are an advanced student of ecology or evolution. The fact that it has been visited by so few people over the centuries is the main reason why it is so unusual and supports such an extraordinary variety of wildlife, much of which is found nowhere else.

Henderson Island is a raised coral atoll that forms part of the Pitcairn Group in the eastern Pacific Ocean, although it is 120 miles away from Pitcairn itself. The nearest landmass, South America, is 5,000 kms (3,100 miles away).

The island was once occupied by people of Polynesian origin, who arrived in the 12^th century but whose descendants abandoned it in the 15^th century. Since then there has been no permanent human presence. This means that it is one of only a handful of coral atolls in the world that has been free of human presence for a very long time.

For this reason, the process of evolution has developed unhindered, resulting in Henderson Island having ten plant and four bird species that are found here and nowhere else. The birds in question are the Henderson Lorikeet, the Henderson Fruit Dove, the Henderson Reed Warbler and the Henderson Crake.

The island therefore has immense value as an ecological time capsule and it is vitally important that human interference is kept to a minimum. It would be a tragedy if, for example, a visiting yacht were to leave a pair of rats behind, as these could easily lead to whole species being wiped out within quite a short time, as has happened elsewhere.

Henderson Island received its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988, for the criteria: “Natural phenomena or beauty” and “Significant natural habitat for biodiversity”.

This is one of those places that people might think was “nice to visit” but the message has to be – keep off!

© John Welford

Can "Big Pharma" have a heart?

Are the world’s major drugs companies only in it for the money, or might they, just occasionally, be persuaded to do research that brings them no profit but saves lives?

We all know that undertaking medical research and producing treatments is a hugely expensive business, and most people will appreciate that drugs companies must be allowed to make profits at a level that will enable them to carry out and sponsor such research. However, it is also very clear that the companies are making billions that are enriching their shareholders and their chief executives, vastly in excess of what is being ploughed back into research.

The net result seems to be that the drugs companies will spend huge amounts on finding cures that benefit large numbers of people, and which will therefore generate the biggest profits, but are quite happy to ignore rare conditions and diseases that are devastating to their sufferers but who, because there are relatively few of them, can safely be ignored.

A few years ago The Times newspaper highlighted the case of a boy who suffered from Batten disease. This is a fatal condition, caused by a genetic malformation, in which the victim begins life normally enough but, at the age of four or five, will start having seizures that look initially like epileptic fits. The child will gradually start losing all their functions, becoming blind, unable to walk, talk or feed themselves, then dying before they reach their teenage years.

If this condition affected a large number of children, one would have expected that research into it would have been undertaken many years ago and effective treatments developed by now. However, Batten disease is extremely rare, with fewer than 30 cases at any one time in the whole of the United Kingdom. There is therefore nothing to be gained by any drugs company that decided to invest in research. Even if an effective treatment were to be found, it is probable that it would be so expensive that the National Health Service would be unable to afford to provide it.

It must also be borne in mind that, even if research started today, no cure that was discovered would be any use for children currently suffering from Batten disease. These projects can take much longer to produce results than the lifespan of an affected child.

Even so, it would be a wonderful gesture on the part of a major drugs company were it to sacrifice some of its vast profits by getting to work on developing drugs for very rare conditions such as Batten disease, in the knowledge that there is no money to be made by so doing.

Or is it the case that only money talks in a capitalist world? One certain thing is that the boy mentioned by The Times was soon unable to talk at all.

© John Welford

The evolution of Sanskrit

Sanskrit is one of the foundation languages of the Indo-European family, and an understanding of its evolution is therefore vital to knowing how the languages of this family interrelate and how the modern languages of South Asia came to be as they are today.  Indeed, the science of linguistics owes its origins to the discovery by Sir William Jones, in 1786, of the similarities between Sanskrit, Greek and Latin.

It is also a religious language, in that it is the language of the ancient texts of Hinduism and Buddhism, and it thus occupies the same revered place for Hindus and Buddhists that Hebrew does for Jews and Arabic for Muslims. Surprisingly, despite its antiquity, it is also a living language, being one of the 22 official languages of India, although it is spoken fluently by only about 14,000 people.

Origins

The origins of Sanskrit are unknown, although one theory is that it derived from a source language that also spawned Greek, Latin, and several other language groups. This has been termed the Proto-Indo-European language (or PIE) which has been traced to Anatolia (part of modern Turkey) and which dates back to at least 6500 BCE. However, this theory is not accepted universally, with some Indian scholars holding that Sanskrit derived from the language of the first settlers of the Indus valley. Indeed, many Hindus regard Sanskrit as having existed for all time as the language of Heaven, and that to talk of its origins in other terms is sacrilegious.

For a language to spread and evolve, either the people speaking that language must migrate into new territories, or communities must have contact in other ways, such as by trade. There is no evidence that the ancient peoples of the Indian subcontinent came from Anatolia, so the latter path seems more likely. If Sanskrit did evolve from PIE, it must have happened before 5000 BCE or thereabouts, because the Indus Valley civilization (3300-1800 BCE) was clearly using a fully fledged version of Sanskrit that was adopted by the succeeding Vedic civilization at around 2500 BCE. It is generally accepted among Indian scholars that Sanskrit took at least 1000 years to reach its perfected state; indeed, the word “Sanskrit” means “complete and perfect”.

Sanskrit is recognised in two forms, known as Vedic and Classical, although the differences between them are not great. Vedic Sanskrit was the language of the Vedas, the four foundation texts of the Hindu religion. These were doubtless the result of a long oral tradition, but the written forms date from around 1800-1500 BCE.

At the close of the Vedic period, in the 4^th century BCE, the grammar of Sanskrit was set out in great detail by Panini, who defined 3,959 rules of morphology. His grammar effectively created Classical Sanskrit, which became the language of science and scholarship as well as of religion.

Evolution into other languages

The languages of modern India derive from two main sources, one being Sanskrit and the other Dravidian, which was the ancient language of southern India, and was not Indo-European. Later movements of population, and military invasions, have led to many other influences entering the language spoken in everyday use, and the creation of new languages.

The term “apabhramsha” is used to denote north Indian dialects of the 6^th to 13^th centuries AD that deviated from Sanskrit, the word meaning “corrupt”. From these dialects, several quite distinct modern languages have evolved, including Hindi, Bengali, Urdu, Marathi, Gujarati and Sinhala. Hindi, for example, shows many instances of grammar and vocabulary that derive straight from Sanskrit.

The evolution of Sanskrit, both before and since the Classical period, is therefore a complex study, and there are many issues that are far from certain. However, the preservation of so many ancient texts, and the current interest in reviving Sanskrit as a working language, show that interest in this supposedly “dead” language is still at a high level.

© John Welford

Counting the votes at a UK General Election

The political process in the United Kingdom is steeped in tradition, and no part of it is more traditional than the actual process of counting the votes and declaring the result. During a General Election this will happen across the country on election night, with the media anxious to catch each constituency’s declaration and calculate the “swings” that can be used to predict the overall result.

Getting the results early is clearly in everyone’s interest, and it is remarkable how quickly this can sometimes be done. Some constituencies actively seek to race to be the first to declare a result, and the record is currently held by Sunderland South, which, on the 5^th of May 2005, was able to announce its next MP only 43 minutes after the polls had closed, beating its previous record by two seconds.

So how is the count organised?

This is normally done in a large hall at a central point in a constituency. Quite often this is a sports hall, but it can be a room in a civic centre, a large church hall, or any other space that is big enough for the job. Quite often, neighbouring constituencies share the same hall for their count, either counting in parallel or delaying one of the counts until the previous one has finished.

Under current electoral law, the polling stations close at 10.00pm, at which time the ballot boxes are sealed and then taken to wherever the count is to be held. This is normally done in vans belonging to the local authority, with a council official on hand to certify that the number of boxes originally delivered to the polling stations are returned to the count. Police officers often accompany the boxes on this journey, especially if there are concerns about security in a particular area.

In most constituencies, the count starts during the night of the same day that the poll took place, but this is not always possible. For example, some Scottish constituencies include many remote villages and offshore islands, from which the ballot boxes have to be transported by boat or plane. The count in these places is usually delayed until the day (sometimes two days) after polling day.

At the count, rows of tables await the boxes. Each table usually represents a council ward within the constituency, and the boxes delivered to that table will be from all the polling stations within the ward. This makes it possible for election results to be monitored for trends within different parts of a constituency – such as between urban and rural wards, for example.

Sitting at the tables are the counting staff, who are often recruited for the night from local banks, as they are used to counting large numbers of pieces of paper.

Overseeing them are council officials, and at the head of the operation is the “Returning Officer” who is responsible for declaring the result and delivering, or “returning”, the announcement to Parliament.

The title of Returning Officer is traditionally an honorary one that belongs to a mayor or a “high sheriff”, and the task is usually performed by somebody a little lower down the pecking order in the local hierarchy, who takes the title of “Acting Returning Officer” on the night. Even if they have political views of their own, these must be set to one side when people are carrying out their electoral duties.

Counting the votes

The election candidates are allowed to view the count at close quarters, by walking around the room and looking out for any obvious mistakes, such as a paper being assigned to the wrong pile. If they think they see something untoward they can draw this to the attention of a supervisor but must not interfere with the counting staffs or touch any of the papers. The candidates are also allowed to nominate a small number of assistants who can patrol the count. Apart from these people, everyone else in the room must stay well away from the tables.

The ballot papers are actually counted twice. When a box is first emptied on to a table, each paper must be unfolded and then counted to ensure that the number in the box matches the number of counterfoils that the polling station officer has stamped. This process is known as verification. If there is a discrepancy there could be a problem of votes having gone astray, or even of “ballot box stuffing” with illegal votes.

Once the papers have been verified, they can be divided between the different candidates’ names according to where the crosses have been placed. The counters will also be on the lookout for “spoilt papers” where either a voter has deliberately or accidentally marked the paper wrongly, or not at all, or there is a technical discrepancy such as an official mark not being present on the paper. There may be papers on which the voter’s intention is not immediately clear, and these are consigned to the “bad or doubtful” pile so that a senior official can make a decision on each one later on.

Once sorted, the piles, one for each candidate, are counted. The usual procedure is for the teller to count 20 papers at a time and clip them together. Two counters sitting together can double-check each others’ clips of 20. The papers are then placed on a central table, in their clips, where, as the count progresses, it can be seen which candidate is ahead as the overlapping clips spread down the length of the table.

The candidates will have a fairly good idea of which parts of the constituency are more likely to show a preference to them. They will therefore be aware that, as boxes will arrive from the more outlying areas later than will those closer to the count, the pattern of voting may change. An early lead can often be reversed.

One unknown factor is the box containing the postal votes that have been received prior to election day. In some constituencies, postal votes can represent a considerable portion of the votes, such as where there is a large military base and most of the servicemen are overseas at the time but eligible to vote by post. The box (or boxes) containing the postal votes is often the first to be counted, as the counterfoils can be matched with the votes received in advance, and the box is already at the count when the polls close.

The total number of votes for each candidate is ascertained by adding up the number of clips of 20 and then adding the “odd” votes numbering less than 20. Normally, the Returning Officer will tell the candidates what the result is before announcing it in public. This gives a candidate an opportunity to ask for a recount if the vote looks to be close.

Recounts

If a recount is called, the whole process must start again, or at least some of it must. Mistakes are possible at almost any stage, in that papers could have been mis-assigned to the wrong pile, a 20 might not have been a 20, or the number of clips has been added up wrongly. When the vote is very tight, the number of papers in the “last clip” is likely to be vital. It is very rare for a recounted vote to be exactly the same as the original count.

It should also be noted that a recount may not have been called for the purpose of deciding the winner. A candidate must achieve 5% of the vote in order to reclaim the £500 deposit that was paid when he or she submitted their nomination. If they are just short of that number they may ask for their own papers to be recounted, which clearly will not take as long.

The result

At the end of the count, the Returning Officer will mount a stage or dais and invite the candidates to array themselves behind him. He/she will then announce: “I, (name), being the Acting Returning Officer for the (name) constituency, hereby declare that the votes cast in the election for each candidate were as follows”. He/she then reads out the names in alphabetical order and their number of votes. In past times, the political affiliations of candidates were not given on ballot papers or announced by Returning Officers. However, this is no longer the case and the names are now given together with their political allegiances.

The final line of the Returning Officer’s speech is: “And I hereby declare that the said (name) is elected to serve as Member of Parliament for this constituency”. He/she then concedes the microphone to the winning candidate who makes a short speech that firstly thanks the Returning Officer and his/her team for the count, then the officials and Police who oversaw the election, and his/her supporters for the campaign. It is usual for politics to enter proceedings at this stage, with the new MP declaring that this result shows how the British people have given a fresh mandate to … and so on!

The losing candidates then make speeches of their own, thanking the same groups of people as the winner and stating that they will be back and will win next time!

The speeches have most interest when the winners and losers are prominent in the political scene. In the British system, the Prime Minister and most of his team must also be Members of Parliament and thus also attend their count when they are elected. At this point, even the highest politicians in the land are no more than candidates who are seeking a seat, and are subject to exactly the same procedures as the humblest would-be backbencher.

Election counts are all part of the rich tapestry of the British political scene. They can often be highly dramatic, as when a whole string of recounts takes place, or a cabinet minister loses their seat. They are always highly charged pieces of political theatre that the United Kingdom will long treasure.

 © John Welford