The Course, Day 1

[caddyman]

As I suspected, courses arranged by the civil service dealing with local authorities are designed to be interest-lite. I had to drag myself from my pit early to be talked at for a day on a subject closer to the lecturer's heart than mine.

The room was alternatively too cold and too hot - the engineers are in an playing with the heating. Of course, having the heating turned on full when the weather has turned mild is something government institutions excel at.

Still, lunch was free, plentiful and tasty.

It is a given that on courses like this I sleep at worst and day dream/doodle endlessly at best, and so it was today. One piece of information did make it to me through the blather though, and I made a note of it. It turned out that I didn't need to because if I'd been paying attention I'd have known that there would be handouts. Nevertheless this gave my under occupied brane something to mull over.

It appears that in England and Wales we have a total of over 21,000 local councillors of one type or another. Now, there is an interesting bit in this - and as far as I know I'm the only person who picked this up.

It seems that out of these 21,000 councilors, 71.3% are male and 27.9% are female. This means that 0.8% is neither. That's about 1,680 completely androgynous individuals. Further, we are told that 97.4% of councilors are white, and that 2.5% are from ethic minorities. This means that 0.01% are of no race whatsoever. That's about 210 individuals.

So, let us consider the evidence here, and for want of better data assume an equal spread across the population. If we assume that the 0.01% is spread equally across the entirety of the councilors out there, it must be logically true of the androgynous ones. Now, let us surmise that of the androgynous 1,680 0.01% are also of no race. That means that we have 16.8 councilors who are neither male nor female, nor of any recorded racial type.

So what are they?

There are some 467 councils in England and Wales excluding Parish Councils. Do you know who your local ward councilor is? Would you recognize him or her if you bumped into your councilor? There is a 0.035974% chance that your democratically elected local representative is a silver android in a suit.

How cool is that?

I told you I was tired....

Comments

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

Speaking as someone who used to run a local authority web site, which had pictures of the local councillors on it... I think we had the non-humans, but mostly of male rather than androgynous type.

Come to think of it, I think some of them were being mindcontrolled by their awful toupees. Do toupees have gender?

[romney.livejournal.com]

They are all male - you have to call them "Herr"

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

*sidles off quietly*

Me? Oh, no, not going anywhere in particular... no, don't worry, just had to pick up this baseball bat... wasn't planning to beat anyone senseless with it, no, not me, never think of such a thing...

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Just try and keep the blood off the rug, there's a dear.

[thalinoviel.livejournal.com]

must... resist... urge... to... nominate... gonk...

[pauln.livejournal.com]

Aliens! [/Rimmer]

[keresaspa.livejournal.com]

Hate to be a part-pooper (well that's not strictly true) but the shortfall is probably vacant seats. Now I'm off to tell children that Santa Claus isn't real.

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Spoilsport.

anyway, the figures still don't match, so I'm sticking with the silver android theory.

[westernind.livejournal.com]

Hey, I know who my ward councillors are and what's more I would recognise them on the street! (As a result of Evil Property Developer's shenanigans)
http://www.redbridge.gov.uk/council/clementswoodward.cfm

None of them are androids. I think.

[mollpeartree.livejournal.com]

That's what THEY want you to think.

[keresaspa.livejournal.com]

There's some crazy people out there. Seems a bit like David Icke who went from being goalkeeper for Hereford United to claiming he was the son of God to finally settling on the world being run by 12 foot shape-shifting lizards. Still, you never know...

[mollpeartree.livejournal.com]

I think Icke may be the originator of the Reptoid theory now that you mention him. The news that he used to play football is lost on me, of course, since I would never make an insenstive remark about a possible relationship between blocking goals repeatedly with one's head and mental instability.

[keresaspa.livejournal.com]

The weird thing is Icke was a pretty lousy footballer and when he retired he just went for a standard career as a presenter of sport programmes on TV. I remember seeing him on 'Through the Keyhole' in the early 90's telling David Frost how great things were happening to him, the sort that hadn't happened in 2000 years. I thought he was just being dramatic but a few weeks later the whole son of God thing came out. Crazy crazy man. The reptoid thing definitely sounds like something he would come up with.