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Sunday 17 March 2013

Naive


A few years ago, I was speaking to someone who knew a local specialist furniture manufacturer. Their speciality was making furniture for show homes.

They would make beds, bedroom furniture, tables and chairs which looked like modern furnishings but were smaller than standard sizes. Beds would be narrower and shorter for example.

It was to make the rooms in the show-homes look larger of course and it's a reasonably well-known trick - children's furniture sometimes being used instead of adult. Even so, I was mildly shocked that anyone should do such a thing.

Naive of me wasn’t it?

Yes it was, but on the other hand it's not something I can imagine doing myself. It's almost as bad as... oh I don't know... almost as bad as exaggerating the statistical significance of global temperature trends I suppose.

Yet although I can't imagine doing the furniture wheeze, I can easily see how climate scientists were drawn into their particular scam. Science and bureaucracy being areas with which I'm much more familiar. So I suppose that's the lesson I have to absorb here - it is easy to be naive about the unfamiliar...

...and it's a rough old world. 

4 comments:

Sen. C.R.O'Blene said...

I don't think it's naive of you at all.

Politicians who dream up ways to encourage votes will always go for the intangible questions, like 'global warming', then, when it doesn't seem to work, change them to 'climate change'.

The stupid Prescottian Kyoto twattery convinced people with proper business brains that there was money to be made, and then we were off! Politicians were left standing, but rubbing their hands while they considered all those expenses pouring into their several bank accounts.

The slimy banged-up Huhne has made millions for undeserving, but clever money makers with his disastrous wind farms, and there are still huge energy bills to be paid by none other than Mr Haart and Mr Scroblene!

As for the furniture size, we've never found a duvet cover the correct size for a duvet...

A K Haart said...

Scrobs - "The stupid Prescottian Kyoto twattery convinced people with proper business brains that there was money to be made, and then we were off!"

That's true - and now they'll twist any arm that tries to put a stop to it.

James Higham said...

Even so, I was mildly shocked that anyone should do such a thing.

Smiling here, sipping on coffee and thinking of you writing that. :)

A K Haart said...

James - I'm a trusting soul (: