… in 1940 the Blitz began. The Luftwaffe began bombing London and other British cities. By late October, the ‘Battle of Britain’ was over. The Germans were unable to sustain the losses because of RAF fighter opposition. I was reminded of this today as I was passing the Duxford war museum earlier on the M11 and suddenly three WW2 fighters flying in close formation appeared and looped the loop. Magical.

In the mid-1980s I learned everything one needs to know in order to understand large organisations. I was in Aldershot, Britain’s biggest army town, having a pee in the toilet of a large pub patronised mainly by army squaddies. As I stood there relieving myself I noticed a graffito at eye level. “AT THIS MOMENT”, it read, “YOU ARE THE ONLY MAN IN THE BRITISH ARMY WHO KNOWS WHAT HE’S DOING.”

The ‘Peter Principle’ expresses this in slightly less charged language. In the late 1960s the Canadian psychologist Laurence J. Peter advanced the principle that “Every new member in a hierarchical organization climbs the hierarchy until he/she reaches his/her level of maximum incompetence”.

Now three physicists have found a way of simulating this effect using agent-based simulation methods. “Despite its apparent unreasonableness”, they write, “such a principle would realistically act in any organization where the way of promotion rewards the best members and where the competence at their new level in the hierarchical structure does not depend on the competence they had at the previous level, usually because the tasks of the levels are very different between each other”. Their simulations show that if the latter two features actually hold in a given model of an organization with a hierarchical structure, then not only is the Peter principle ununavoidable, but it yields in turn a significant reduction of the global efficiency of the organization.

So how to avoid it? The simulations suggest that in order to avoid such an effect the best ways for improving the efficiency of a given organization are (a) either to promote each time an agent at random or (b) to promote randomly the best and the worst members in terms of competence.

Hooray! At last I understand what’s been going on.

Robin Mason, who was one of my best academic colleagues, and one of the nicest mavericks I’ve known, died recently. There’s a nice obit in today’s Guardian.

Born in Winnipeg, Canada, Mason completed her first degree at Toronto University and her master’s at Madison, Wisconsin. She was a free spirit, best exemplified by stories recounted by colleagues. One remembers her swimming across a very chilly Norwegian lake during a break in an international conference programme. Her colleagues sat anxiously on the shore, wrapped in warm jackets, while Mason swam into the distance and, so her colleagues thought, into mortal danger of hypothermia. They were greatly relieved when she emerged again, dripping and smiling.

Much loved by her colleagues, she was known as a maverick who didn’t give much regard to what she saw as unnecessary administration. But she struck the right balance between scholarly activity, practical application, and having fun with new ideas. Her legacy will continue to inform educational technologists in the future.

We’ve been watching a terrific BBC film (in Alan Yentob’s Imagine series) about David Hockney’s return to his Yorkshire roots. It’s an entrancing movie (still on iPlayer here.) It’s complemented by this nice Spectator piece, A Yorkshire genius in love with his iPhone.

Landscape and nature dominate Hockney’s life these days. In mid-May, I arranged to call in with my wife to see him for lunch. The exact timing was decided only after a lengthy conversation by text, the point to be determined being when the hawthorn would come into blossom. As soon as it was out, he would want to be painting it all day, every day. So a definite invitation could only be made after the progress of buds in the local hedgerows was examined. Day after day for several years, in summer heat and freezing winter winds, Hockney has set up a canvas beside some quiet road. The film catches him at work, putting on the paint. At one point a local driver stops to remark to Jean-Pierre — in Yorkshire so broad that the BBC has resorted to subtitles — ‘Tell him when he’s finished we’ve got some decorating needs doing at t’pub.’ Hockney himself is as unmoved as Van Gogh was when heckled by the youth of Arles. He carries on calmly depicting the rolling fields…

Thanks to Gerard for spotting the Spectator piece.