Perhaps in a profound metaphor for the eternal cycle of life and death, a replacement for Emmanuel Macron’s late “friendship tree” is on its way (reincarnated as a birch tree this time around).

Macron has confirmed that the “friendship tree” he presented as a gift to the White House last year has died in quarantine, and that a replacement has been sent.

HS2 needs rethinking, according to a recent report from The House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee. Apparently, HS2 isn’t going so well.

To reduce the risk of cost overruns on HS2, their Lordships propose joining it up with Crossrail. That’s the same Crossrail that does not yet have a confirmed target date for full operation. (Spoiler alert: it won’t be December 2018).

Perhaps the NAO should check the distribution for their recent Crossrail report… Sir Amyas Morse was very keen to point out to MPs that he works for Parliament (not the Civil Service) and last time I checked, Parliament still includes the House of Lords.

So, to reduce risk in one project of concern, we should integrate it with another project. Of course we should.

Multiple choice time: if you integrate two projects together is this likely to:

1. Reduce overall risk; or
2. Increase overall risk?

If you chose (a), despite the slightly leading question, would you choose a second project with a slightly dodgy history of risk management?

Alternatively,  perhaps 19% / £2.8 billion over budget doesn’t sound too bad by HS2 standards so anything might be an improvement.  Neither alternative is encouraging for the UK taxpayer.

Completing Crossrail – after that encouraging and optimistic title,  once again the NAO goes all “glass half empty”. Actual trains may be very infrequent so far, but to be fair we’ve been treated to some really cool videos of tunnelling machines.

Crossrail started in the 1970s and the 21st century iteration is now unstoppable, because large tunnels have been dug underneath London and no-one knows what else to do with them. Opportunities for repurposing as some sort of vegetable stockpiling facility or ferry terminal seem to have gone away, temporarily at least. Perhaps there’s scope to convert them to luxury bunkers ahead of the apocalypse. 

The Crossrail programme was ‘absolutely dominated’ by completion in December 2018 and everything was focused on that completion date, apart from adopting a programme management approach which could actually deliver it. When this milestone was (inevitably) missed, it was all too unbearable and the team are now refusing to admit when a full service will run. None of the Underground lines currently in operation is named after a living monarch, and Crossrail seem determined to uphold this tradition.

The NAO make some radical suggestions in ‘Completing Crossrail’: unrealistic and arbitrary milestones can be counterproductive and actually end up causing delay ; an ‘aspirational plan’ has limitations in terms of actually helping to achieve any useful results; and the critical path should take account of interdependencies across the whole programme. Fortunately, this seems to be a unique set of circumstances and similar issues are unlikely to occur elsewhere.

On the plus side, everyone admitted from the start that this project would be complex and challenging and it’s only 19% over budget (so far). Key lessons about risk have also been learned – commiting to an actual delivery date means people inevitably start banging on about slippage, so the current open-ended approach seems more prudent.

Llamapalooza – be calmer with a llama? Socialising with llamas has been reducing pre-exam stress among university students. In California.

Llamas differ from humans in many ways – as well as their soft wooly coats, llamas have good social skills and are calming to be around in stressful situations. Their reputation for spitting is undeserved – according to one animal behaviour specialist, you would have to be, like, “super in its face and irritate it for a llama to spit at you”. The average llama has a limited vocabulary, so perhaps this is an understandable response.

Llamapalooza seems to be a popular and effective approach to stress relief  for the students and apart from Lorenzo (aka Zoe) feeling “overwhelmed”, the llamas seem contented with the arrangement. Apparently they get plenty of grass (now legal in California) and the occasional carrot. Although if they were bored or mildly dissatisfied, it might be difficult to tell.

Extensive research has shown that hubris has a strong correlation with schadenfreude, to the extent that a robust causal relationship can often be identified.

However, this effect is significantly less frequent in the hubristic subject themselves.

Schadenfreude – a convenient overview for the beginner.

Apparently the Spectator claimed in 1926 that there is no English word for Schadenfreude “because there is no such feeling here.”

If Jane Austen had still been alive in 1926 she might have disagreed… One of the main characters in Pride and Prejudice identifies it as the core value for him and his peers. (Obviously she made his actual words a bit more pithy and charming.)

This also confirms (if such confirmation were necessary) that the Spectator has a long and proud tradition of publishing bollocks.