Review: The Muse

The Muse by Jessie Burton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars



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Review: This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor

This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor by Adam Kay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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 I dreaded reading this book with its slapstick title. And from somewhere I got the impression that the author was now a comedian. It looked and sounded as though it was going to be awful. So I just downloaded the free sample to my Kindle and quickly read through it. It was truly obnoxious. Autobiographical, yes, but narcissistic, arrogant, self-important twaddle. And so offensive! I was appalled at the descriptions of patients as "bed-blocking fuckers". And that was mild compared to descriptions of female anatomy from an Obstetrics and Gynaecology Junior Doctor who seemed to treat patients as so much meat. It was horrible. I determined not to buy it so that I could avoid reading the rest of it. After a couple of weeks, in conversation about book club, someone asked me what we were reading this month and I felt a pang of guilt about not reading it; I read out a passage to her that was particularly obnoxious. She agreed. But then, I re-read the immediately preceding passage and wondered why I hadn't noticed the empathy and sensitivity in it. I looked again at what I had read and realized that I had ignored everything except the sarcasm and rudeness, having judged the book by its cover. I then paid for the whole Kindle book and resolved to read it. I soon got into the swing of it I found myself looking forward to reading it each day. While it was not a laugh-out-loud book there were a couple of passages that made me smile and one that actually made me laugh. His empathy for patients eventually shone through. I was constantly appalled by the conditions in which doctors have to work and by the dreadful way that management and politics conspired to continuously make the NHS worse, almost as if it were deliberate. It was an eye-opener. By the time I finished, I was glad that I had read it, but my brain feels ravaged and mangled. It is a raw and harsh book, but feels like an honest and frank account of what it feels like to work as a doctor in a hospital. Oh, and I learned more than I wanted to about female anatomy! Still, quite an experience to read it.

 

In 1993, The UK Government commissioned the Latham Report…

No, it didn’t. It is interesting and somewhat irritating to read this phrase over and over again in the construction management and construction law literature. It is a huge over-simplification, somewhat inaccurate, and completely misses the context of the events that lead to the Latham review of certain issues in the construction industry. 

First, as pointed out by Cahill and Puybaraud (2003, p146), this was a personal and independent report by Latham, representing his own views. Therefore, it would be more accurate to represent this as an independent review, rather than a government review of the industry. I need to chase down the magazines from the period leading up to the Latham Review, because my recollection is that Building magazine was campaigning for some years to get a new review of the construction industry carried out. Eventually, a group of industry organizations agreed that this was something that would be useful, and once they were on board, the Department of the Environment then agreed to contribute funding and support. In the Foreword of this report, Latham declares clearly, “This has not been a Government Review of the industry. It has been a Report commissioned jointly by the Government and the industry, with the invaluable participation of clients”. He goes on to say that this “is the personal Report of an independent, but friendly observer”. 

The full title of the report is rarely cited: “CONSTRUCTING THE TEAM by Sir Michael Latham. Final report of the government/industry review of procurement and contractual arrangements in the UK construction industry”. It is also of interest to review what was recorded in parliament about this review, on 5th July 1993, as reported in Hansard, Volume 228, Col 4: 

Mr. Baldry: I have today chaired a meeting of representatives of the construction industry at which it was unanimously agreed to appoint Sir Machael Latham to undertake a review of procurement and contracting arrangements in the construction industry. We want less litigation and conflict and more productivity in the construction industry. Sir Michael will begin work later this month and complete the review within 12 months. An interim report will be produced by the end of the year. Sir Michael will be assisted by a number of specialist assessors who will channel the views of their respective organisations. Where appropriate, groups of client and contracting organisations will stand behind the assessors and provide representative opinion on key issues. The review will be jointly funded by the Department of the Environment, the Construction Industry Council, the Construction Industry Employers Council, the National Specialist Contractors Council and the Specialist Engineering Contractors Group. It will be closely supported by a number of other bodies, in particular the British Property Federation and the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply. The terms of reference of the review, which have been placed in the Library, require Sir Michael to consider the current procurement and contractual arrangements, and the roles and responsibilities of all participants in a contract. Sir Michael's objective will be to present recommendations to Government and other bodies about practical reforms to reduce conflict and litigation and to encourage productivity and competitiveness. 

So, after years of pressure from the industry, an independent review finally got the support needed to go ahead. Obviously, the participation and support of government was essential. But this does not make it a Government Report, in my view! 

References 

Cahill, D and Puybaraud, M-C (2003) Constructing the Team: The Latham Report 1994. In: Murray, M and Langford, D (eds), Construction reports 1944-98, Blackwell Science, Oxford, pp145-160. Hansard 

HC Deb. vol.228 col.4, 5 July 1993. [Online]. [Accessed 19 Aug 2020]. Available from: https://www.parliament.uk/

Book Review: The girl in the red coat

The Girl in the Red Coat by Kate Hamer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


It was difficult to get into this book. The opening Chapters seem to lack sufficient context and I struggled to get a feel for the story. A series of fragments are presented that are obviously going to be connected later, but the narrative was a little clunky. It was also extremely difficult to suspend my disbelief an eight-year old who spoke the language of an adult. The mother and the daughter seemed to have the same voice and that annoyed me quite a lot. Too many characters were briefly mentioned before disappearing. And the paranoia or anxiety of the mother, Beth, was rather too self-absorbed and introspective to be of much interest. The characters were not well placed in the world. As I got more frustrated with where this story might be going, I glanced at a couple of reviews online and some of the mentioned the “magical realism” that creeps into the story. I like magical realism in the hand of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, so I gritted my teeth and rushed through a lot of Chapters that seemed to move the story along far too slowly. I skipped along until I finally started to find it interesting, about half-way in.

I was glad that I stuck at it. The magical realism was not the colourful and vivid metaphor that Marquez does, but something much more subtle and a little creepy. Beth’s daughter, Carmel, had been stolen away on a foggy day from a book fair and spirited away to USA by a creepy old man who managed to persuade her that her mother had been killed in an accident and her father was uninterested in looking after her. He made out that he was her Grandfather. He had found out quite a lot about her, apparently from some of the things she had said when she had raised her hand and asked a question at a talk by an author in the book fair. Again, I found this rather far-fetched, but it worked as a device to reveal to the kidnapper some information he could use to mislead her.

There is a lot of emotional hand-wringing back home as the mother realises that she has lost her daughter without a trace. People do the usual things without much surprise, as more characters swim in and out of focus. Grudgingly, I begin to acknowledge that there is an inner consistency that the language and perspective is predominantly internal monologues, and these are crafted well to reveal how different our thoughts and actions appear to ourselves, compared to how they seem to others. So I started to get used to the differences between the internal voice of the main protagonists and how they might be perceived by their listeners. I realised that this was a sophisticated approach to the writing that was more absorbing than a lot of the superficial pap that gets published as novels.

In the USA, Carmel is encouraged to develop here apparent powers of spiritual healing. She is not really aware of being held against her will, but she does feel dominated by the man she believes to be her grandfather. It becomes less claustrophobic and more easy to accept the strange world that they have constructed for themselves once we get more into the nuclear assemble of Gramps, his partner, Dorothy, and Dorothy’s two daughters, who are a similar age to Carmel. As the story evolves through Carmel’s eyes, it gets more interesting and convincing. And the earlier Chapters now start to make sense. For example, when Carmel is going through the healing process at the command of Gramps, she imagines herself being inside the head of the person she is healing. This is just the same as how Beth imagined herself inside the brain or Carmel, looking out through her eyes in the first Chapter. And the maze where Beth lost Carmel at the beginning becomes a metaphor for the complexity of being inside someone else’s brain. Just as Carmel looked up to the sky at the beginning in the maze, seeing birds flying across in the narrow patch sky between the yew hedge that constructed the maze, so she got risked getting stuck in the maze of someone’s brain as she looked out of their eyes while trying to heal them. No wonder Beth thought of Carmel as her ‘little hedge-child’. This was because she sometimes looked as though she had been dragged through a hedge backwards, but it was intriguing that the first time she lost Carmel, it was in a yew-hedge maze.

From the middle to the end, I read the book avidly. The characters came to life for me and I enjoyed the fiction of spiritual healing being a real thing. I like the twig soup served to her by one of the Dorothy’s girls, as it exactly matched the twig dinners that Carmel had made in the first Chapter. So, ultimately, the structure of the narrative was revealed as an enjoyable circle as every aspect that was opened up at the beginning was closed at the end, coming full circle in a very satisfying way.

There was a lot of sadness in this book. A deep sense of loss runs through everything. Loss at the demise of marriage relationships. Loss of a daughter, loss of the estranged parents of Beth, loss of her friends and her future. The first half involves a lot of prolonged exploration of the sadness of loss and I found some of that a bit overcooked. The second half involves the transformation of Beth and Carmel into more resilient people, still desperately missing each other, but coming to terms with their respective sense of loss and making the most of their new lives as best they could. The climax of the book with the weird religious gathering, Carmel’s maturing into a young independent woman, Beth’s new career as a nurse, Gramps becoming progressively more unwell and useless, and the loss of the spirituality all round as the reality of the world finally gets in (police arresting religious extremists, ice storms creating mayhem, Carmel being turned away by some from who she seeks help). The cleverly sustained sense of hope throughout the whole story finally gets us the conclusion that must have been the only way to resolve this story as Beth and Carmel are finally reunited. Finally, the tears are for joy, rather than for loss and everyone is in a better place.

So, a classic story line, really, with all the loose ends tied up and some very carefully constructed narrative devices used to good effect. This is Kate Hamer’s debut novel. It will be interesting to see how she develops her style and approach to storytelling in her subsequent books. I like her.




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Book Review: The earthquake bird

The Earthquake Bird by Susanna Jones

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A story involving Lucy Fly, Teiji the photographer and noodle cook, Lily Bridges the superficial girl on the bounce from a pressured relationship, various police officers and a septuagenarian string quartet as well as the families of each.

Lucy is a complex character, a product of a difficult family with bullying brothers. The first-person narrative brings the story alive and the details of her upbringing as well as the immense attention to detail in the descriptions of situations and people provide great insights into what it feels like to go through the experiences she had. I really felt for her. There was an unusual stylistic device of sometimes switching to third person to describe herself, almost as if she had multiple personalities - but that was a tease; a red herring, as it happened. I loved the way she did not tell the police she was in interpreter at her first interview about Lily's disappearance; very English - "I wasn't asked"...

Her life as an interpreter and her hobbies that involved her in the local community, the string quartet, were very typical for the kind of person she was. She reminded me of how my wife would join local music groups as her first job after university took her to live in various towns for a few months each time.

I loved the way that Lucy first met Teiji, the photographer with whom she developed a relationship: "He was leaning over a puddle, apparently taking photographs of it. Water slid over his hair and face but he seemed not to notice. His camera clicked and he moved fluidly to the other side of the puddle. I stared. He appeared to be made of water and ice. I had never seen a man with such delicate fingers, sharp brittle shoulder-blades, transparent brown eyes. He glinted in the neon dark more sharply than the vast ice sculptures of the Sapporo Festival I had marvelled at when I first came to Japan. He was an exhibit of the Tokyo night and so beautiful that I couldn’t walk past him." This graphic description of seeing his reflection first, was like a frame from a manga comic. Very memorable. I liked his troubled mind and the way he had a job in his uncle's noodle shop. Prosaic details like this reminded me of all the 1930s detective novels I used to read; Rex Stout, Margery Allingham, Dorothy L. Sayers, Raymond Chandler and so on. Susanna Jones had that eye for detail as well as a sense of foreboding that made it easy to think the worst of her lead character.

Lily Bridges whimps into Lucy's life through mutual acquaintances and, like Lucy, I took an instant dislike to her. As the relationship grew and Lucy developed more of an almost friendly interaction with Lily (albeit an over-dependent one), Teiji found it difficult to control his primitive urges and moved his attention over to Lily. Not a good move at all, which was bound to end in tears.

The deaths around Lily were strange and disturbing. It was intriguing to see how, eventually, everyone involved from police, to family and string quartet, acknowledged that she might have a sense of guilt, but no one blamed her for simply living her life as best she could. Ultimately, the story is a coming-of-age kind of thing as she finally achieves a more mature adulthood in which she is more comfortable with who and what she is.

I really enjoyed the intrigue, the narrative, the attention to detail and the ultimate resolution of all the loose ends. A masterful book. It has been made into a movie, which I watched as soon as I could. I enjoyed watching that, as well, but the format of movies has to involve slipping a lot of narrative detail that makes this kind of story so absorbing.



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Quotations

When I closed my Facebook account, I downloaded all the data that they had on me. One part that I wanted to preserve was my list of favourite quotations. I am posting them here for now, as I want to be sure I do not lose them:

"Because memory and sensations are so uncertain, so biased, we always rely on a certain reality - call it an alternate reality - to prove the reality of events. To what extent facts we recognise as such really are as they seem, and to what extent these are facts merely because we label them as such, is an impossible distinction to draw. Therefore, in order to pin down reality as reality, we need another reality to relativize the first. Yet that other reality requires a third reality to serve as its grounding. An endless chain is created in our consciousness, and it is the maintenance of this chain which produces the sensation that we are actually here, that we ourselves exist. But something can happen to sever that chain and we are at a loss. What is real? Is reality on this side of the break in the chain? Or over there, on the other side?" (Haruki Murukami, 'South of the border, west of the sun', p176.

Making money isn't hard in itself ... What is hard is to earn it doing something worth devoting your life to. (Carlos Ruiz Zafón in The Shadow of the Wind)

Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind (George Orwell)

You have to be an intellectual to believe such nonsense. No ordinary man could be such a fool (George Orwell)

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; In practice, there is (Chuck Reid)

Cry 'havoc' and let slip the dogs of war... (Shakespeare)

Eliminate management by objectives. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals. Substitute leadership. (W. Edwards Deming)

It is a fundamental fallacy to believe that it is possible by the elaboration of machinery to escape the necessity of trusting one's fellow human beings (Clement Attlee)

Quod licet Jovi, non licet bovi (Publius Terentius Afer)

Do not become a mere recorder of facts, but try to penetrate the mystery of their origin (Ivan Petrovich Pavlov)

I don’t care about posterity, that’s what I’d like to be remembered for. (Banksy)

It is important to bear in mind that political campaigns are designed by the same people who sell toothpaste and cars. (Noam Chomsky) (Incidentally, what really worries me is that those same people are now running our Universities. Degrees are now products. Graduates are now products. Why do we tolerate this?)

Bringing science into disrepute - Part 2

In December 2017, I received an unusual email from a journal I had never heard of. In this email, I was invited to submit a paper to the International Journal of Agriculture Innovations and Research. It all sounded rather grand, although the email was not signed by a person. No names of anyone in an editorial office appeard in the email, and it felt a little odd. Obviously I have never done any research in this area, and never published in it. So I was a little puzzled about how I got on to their mailing list. But I thought I would set aside my scepticism and submit a paper. After all, what had I got to lose? The time writing the paper, perhaps?

Some years ago, I came across a very funny website called SciGen. Some MIT Information Scientists had got rather fed up with constant invitations to conferences with almost no standards in relation to what they would accept. They developed a site that neeeded only the input of names for authors, and a random text generator would automatically generate a spurious paper in Information Science, instantly. The papers are properly formatted, had references, diagrams, graphs, and enough nonsense jargon to satisfy those who organise academic work only to make money, with no thought given to the quality of science. In fact, the papers are complete nonsense, but they have often been accepted for publication and at conferences. So, it took me about 20 seconds to generate the paper and send it to the International Journal of Agriculture Innovations and Research for their consideration.

Here is their invitation to me:

And here is my response:


As requested, here is my paper.

Best wishes

Will Hughes

I didn't bother with a salutation, or explanation, as no one signed the invitation and there seems to be no named editor. It felt strange writing this kind of covering email for a paper. (Especially in light of the guidance I once wrote about how to write a covering letter for journal submissions.) All this had taken less than a minute. I then waited...

Within 90 minutes, I got this back from them:


Dear Author,
Received your paper and we are submitting it to our reviewers and will get back to you soon.
If you had not submitted .doc (word file) file of your paper, please submit it.
Please also provide the alternate email id and contact number to avoid bounce back problem and communication gap.
Feel free for any query..
With Regards,
Editor-in-Chief,
IJAIR.
ISSN : 2319 – 1473
"Submissions Open"

So, I sent them a Word version, with this email:

Dear Editor

Here it is. I have only one email address. There will be no bounce-back problems.

Best wishes

Will

Then, they must have read it, because two weeks later, at 5 am, they sent this:

Dear Author,
Thanks for your valuable paper submission.
Your submitted paper is not in the scope of IJAIR.
It is most suited to our another journals IJECCE(International Journal of Electronics Communication and Computer Engineering) (www.ijecce.org ). and IJEIR(International Journal of Engineering Innovations and Research)(www.ijeir.org) and we are considering it for IJECCE and for IJEIR.
The review process of your paper has been completed but it will be helpful for us, if you can mail us your concern.


Feel free for any query..
With Regards,
"Wish you Happy Christmas and Prosperous and Bright New Year"
Editor-in-Chief,
IJAIR.
ISSN : 2319 – 1473
"Submissions Open"

So I came back with:

Hi
Thank you for this. I have no concern. Please go ahead.
Best wishes
Will


And, hey presto, my paper was now submitted to two more fake journals:

Dear Author,
Thanks for updates and soon you will get the final response from IJECCE and IJEIR

Feel free for any query..
With Regards,
"Wish you Happy Christmas and Prosperous and Bright New Year"
Editor-in-Chief,

IJAIR.
ISSN : 2319 – 1473
"Submissions Open"


I noted that there was still not editors named and nothing that would lead me to believe that this was real, but we we all seemed happy enough, spinning each other along.

The very next day, I got an email with seven attachments! The paper had been reviewed and the referees' comments were in. Fantasic! I was looking forward to read about how the paper was utter nonsense and could not possibly be published. It was going to be a great rejection letter, I was sure. Imagine my surpise when I read this:

And, 40 minutes later, this:

The same paper accepted in two different journals! This was despite their insistance that no paper can be considered for publication if it is being considered for publication elsewhere. They had messed that up, big-time. Still, I was looking forward to the referee reports. Given that the paper was pure random mush, they must have pretty steep requirements? Here are the referee reports, 1 and 2.

This was getting rather stupid. Both journals sent exactly the same referee reports. They were behaving like money-grubbing idiots, so I felt that this was the time to close this down. Here was my final message to both journals:

I am not paying money to publish a paper in your journal. You should have mentioned that there was a fee before you embarked on this process. By the way, I don’t know who you asked to review this paper, but they have no expertise in this area. They have utterly misjudged this paper. Your editor-in-chief is also ignorant in relation to the topic of your journal. I have no idea why you think I would pay money to publish in such a terrible journal. What are you playing at?

You do not even sign your emails with a name. This is not an academic process in any way. If you want to publish this paper in your so-called journal, go ahead. But I am not paying a penny. And I don’t care whether the paper cannot be withdrawn. Keep it. It can bring you nothing but disrepute.


They never answered this, and I suppose they never published the papers. Now the agriculture journal have written asking for another paper. I am not sure I can be bothered again. It took much longer to write this blog post than I spent on the actual tasks. But then, that's the price of having a blog!

Bringing science into disrepute

There is a growing number of journals and conferences whose sole purpose seems to be to elicit papers and then charge authors for publication. This is not the route to scientific communication and dialogue. Here is today's example, which seems to be sent to anyone they can get an email address for, regardless of the kind of science or quality of work:

Journal of Applied Science and Innovations

Dear Dr Professor Will Hughes

Greetings from Journal of Journal of Applied Science and Innovations 

To celebrate the Vol. 1 Issue 3, it is our pleasure to invite you to contribute an article. Your contribution will help the journal to establish its high standards and get indexed by prestigious indexing services soon.

Short-communications, Review articles, Research articles, Case reports etc. are also accepted.

Note: On this happy occasion, we are here to announce that those who contribute their manuscripts will receive Discount to the articles submitted on or before November 10, 2017.

Submit your article at to this E-mail id.
appliedscience@rroij.com, editor.jasi@peerreviewedjournals.com

Please provide your acceptance to the same.

Look forward for your reply

Best regards,
Cynthia Grace
Journal Coordinator 
Journal of Applied Science and Innovations

Disclaimer
This message is confidential. It may also be privileged or otherwise protected by work product immunity or other legal rules. This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which they are addressed. If you have received it by mistake, please let us know by e-mail reply and delete it from your system; you may not copy this message or disclose its contents to anyone. The views, opinions, conclusions and other information’s expressed in this electronic mail are not given or endorsed by the company unless otherwise indicated by an authorized representative independent of this message.

There are hallmarks of fake standing here. Claims that the journal has high standards and hints that it might become indexed by as commercial indexing service, as if that were a badge of recognition. It isn't. Many indexing services are indiscriminate. The list of types of communication that indicates they will take anything as long as you pay. You can even get a discount on the charges for publication if you are quick! So, the only things missing from this is any connection to a recognised University, an established publisher, an international editorial board, a web page, even a named editor who is an authority in a particular field.

I sincerely hope that no one is taken in by this cynical practice of milking the academic community for money.

Chale Wote Arts Festival 2017

Avoid Chale Wote festival, Jamestown, Accra. It is dangerous. As soon as I walked near to it, six burly men wearing white tee-shirts with the word "Security" in white letters on black background accosted me. They were rude and aggressive. They had seen me taking a photo of some graffiti as we strolled down the street. We had seen no entrance, and no apparent barrier into this festival. I was not even planning on spending more than ten minutes on this festival, as I wanted to visit other places in the vicinity. These men surrounded me, held my arms and roughly manhandled my expensive camera from me. They were all shouting very threateningly that I was not allowed to take photos without a permit and I would need to pay GH$250. “This is not America”, they shouted as the marched away with my camera signalling that I should follow. I tried to explain that I was not American, but they were not interested. I supposed that they were not referring to nationality but to the rule of law and human rights. I shuddered inside. This was scary. Should I go with them, or just write off the camera and all the photos from the trip so far?

The further we walked, the more shocked and scared I became. I had already been walking around Jamestown, having first visited the Fisherman's Village. The plan was to swing through this festival (AKA giant art sale) and visit the boxing gym to see and photograph the local kids being trained. But these security thugs were not interested. They walked away with my camera and someone said, “go with them”. I had no choice. They marched me to the quadrangle of some old building and they took my camera indoors and upstairs while I was told to wait outside in a quadrangle, surrounded by a crowd of about 20 beefy men with bulging muscles and tight shirts and scowling faces. These were thugs, not security people, despite what it said on some of the tee-shirts. My guide was also clearly disturbed by this and started calling his boss to come and help, and the other guide duly turned up. Lots of shouting in local language. I was nervous and feeling extremely vulnerable. Even the guides were ineffectual at getting my camera back or calming the thugs.

After ten minutes, the first man, tall and threatening with his moustache and posturing body language, came back out and barked questions at me but did not let me answer. He said I must go with him to pay this money and get a permit. After several attempts at asking him to just listen quietly, I managed to tell him who I was, that I was not a commercial photographer, and that I was not interested in permits or commercial arrangements. I just wanted my camera back and to leave, as I was running short of time by now. I was on a three-hour window to explore this area and I didn't want to spend any more time in Chale Wote Festival. I told him my name and workplace and showed him my business card. He made a token attempt to look up my name on the internet but just shouted the strange response, "your name is not in the database, I don't trust you, you are collecting data and you cannot have data for free, you need to pay". He then walked across to a quieter part of the quadrangle and told me to go with him away from the thugs. he looked me in the eye and quietly asked, "OK, do you work for MI5?", "no sir", I answered politely. "Do you work for MI6?", "No, sir", I answered politely. A short pause then he said, "OK, I don’t believe you. You are being tricky, you are a spy". What demented fantasist! Clearly, whatever I had to say was of no interest or significance. The man was a delusional mobster and imagined that he was a really important part of the festival, because he could command some thugs to be violent. So I was as meek and calm as I could be.

I was then marched over to another place. On the way, we walked passed the graffiti that I had photographed in the first moments of this terrible experience. Two small boys, about 11-12 years old attracted my attention. One took my hand momentarily while we walked and said quietly and calmly, “don’t worry, you will get your camera back”. He smiled while he said it and for some reason, this was remarkably reassuring. His friend on the sidewalk pointed at the people with my camera, then at himself that and me and mimed, “you will get it back”. My emotional reaction in this turmoil turned to amusement as I digested the irony of what the boys was indicating – that if the thugs did not give it to me, the boys would just steal it and bring it to me! Amazing. I would have happily paid them if it came to that. (Afterwards, I discovered that they had already ascertained which taxi was waiting for me, so they would know where I was later, if it came to that. Fighting fire with fire, I thought.)

In this next location, other people shouted at each other for a while, the original thugs having disappeared, apart from the one carrying my camera, although he had no security tee-shirt or anything that would identify him. I started to imagine that he was holding the camera until someone gave him some money. We then went to yet another place, something like a car park with gazebos and a place where permits on lanyards were being sold to people filling in forms and parting with cash. Various unknown and unidentifiable people yelled at each other and argued. My senior guide was getting so angry at these idiots he was shouting and waving his arms and it all seemed as though things might get violent, after all. And then finally someone calm faced me and said, "OK, you can have you camera back if you pay GH$250 for a two-day permit but you must ask your man to stop shouting so aggressively". I said that he was not “my man” and I did not want a permit; I did not want to take any photos; my time at this venue was finished. I just wanted to leave.

I had been held detained for nearly an hour by now and was getting very thirsty in the hot sun and was sick with worry. Three Police stood nearby looking completely disinterested; clearly, this was normal life. I tried to stand near them and to get their attention, but they were totally oblivious and uninterested. I guessed that they needed cash in order to intervene and only worked for the highest payer. I could not compete. Finally, a big man about 6 feet 6 inches tall joined in. He would not speak to me or make eye contact. When I tried to explain myself to him he just shushed me and said, "I want to know what these guys are telling me". He did not want to know what I had to say. Then another man joined in and he would not let me speak until he heard what the shouty people had to say. Finally, he looked at me and said calmly that they had a big festival, that he was the representative of the mayor and some other authority, that they were providing blanket coverage of the whole event to ensure that nothing untoward happened, that they were conscious of the need to control and manage what was going on and that I would get my camera back. He asked me for my account of the situation and I explained that I was a professor here for a conference that was over and had just taken a short walking tour of Jamestown with a guide in order to take some photos and see local life. I was not really interested in Chale Wote. It was just something we came across. “There has been a misunderstanding”, he said. “Fine”, said I, “can I please have my camera back now as I need to leave”. “You will get your camera back”, he said, and then took me with an entourage of more shouty people, including the youth who would not give up the camera, to another place with big steel doors and a little step-through gate, into yet another courtyard. Here, there were some artists demonstrating their art of making something to an audience. For some reason, we had to stand here to argue some more with the same people. It was getting surreal. I tried to ask this senior man, if I was going to get my camera back, could we stop arguing about it and just give it back to me so that I could be on my way. But, apparently, he still had to argue with a few more thugs first.

Finally, in this performance space, the youth relinquished the camera, and I was allowed to put it back in its case, which was still on my shoulder. I left with my guide because the car I had booked for the morning was waiting for me, and there was now only sufficient time to back to the hotel before the agreed car hire time elapsed. I was called back, of course, as these people, whoever they were had not finished. Now, the issue was that they did not want me to leave feeling victimised, bullied and upset. The mayor's rep wanted to apologise and wanted me to accept that it was just a little misunderstanding. Despite my inner anger and extreme anxiety about spending another moment in this terrible place, I shook his hand, looked him in the eye, and quietly, calmly thanked him for his apology and told him I accepted it. Then I walked away at a brisk pace without looking back, as they continued to shout their vain attempts to persuade me that this was just a little misunderstanding. Finally, back at the car the guides wanted money even though they had failed to provide the protection that they had promised and they would not let the car go until I handed over something. They said they had helped me because they had got my camera back. I said, no, you made it worse by shouting and jumping around as if you were going to beat someone up. I had got the camera back myself from the mayor’s representative by talking quietly and calmly. But they insisted that I had to donate something to the free school they ran for the fishing village kids, so I had to give them some money in order to leave. Actually, the taxi driver gave them some money, because he wanted to leave. I refunded him later. By now, I just needed to get out of there as quickly as possible without looking back.

After struggling through road blocks and police and security people shouting that we were not permitted to drive out, as we should never have driven in, we finally escaped. What a bloody shambles. As you might imagine, my recommendation is steer clear of this place unless you leave your camera at home. Even then, steer clear of Chale Wote Festival. It is an awful, nasty and brutish place where gangs are operating under cover of some kind of fake authority. If you must go, stay in a large group with some strong, local, official guides with you at all times. And don’t take a camera!

Units of measurement

As a society, we have, for centuries, been developing measurement standards and a variety of units for a wide range of purposes. But watching and listening to BBC, I have come to realise that there is now only one unit of measurement; football pitches. Everything on the BBC is measured in football pitches. So, what I want to know is, how big is a football pitch? I wish we could use real units of measurement.

Conceptualizing a research project

In my work as a supervisor of dissertations, whether BSc, MSc or PhD, I have developed an approach to help with research design and developing an outline of research.

The first question that needs to be settled is, what kind of science does the student want to do? Incidentally, social science is a kind of science in my mind. Who are the key researchers in the field that this students wants to base his/her work on? Some kind of conceptual model is usually required to make clear how the main concepts connect. The main concepts would be drawn from the research literature on the topic.

Second, where is the data from and how will it be analysed? Many students begin the dissertation process with a description of the kind of observations they wish to make, but this can only be part of the research design if it is placed in the context of the conceptual model, which itself is based on a theoretical position.

Third, if someone is working in a well-trodden academic discipline with a clear theoretical tradition that underpins it, then they typically do not explain their theoretical position, since understanding that is taken as a basic tenet in the discipline. So it is fair to expect that many papers will be silent about their theoretical perspective, even though it can be implied from the kind of question they are dealing with. In a multi-disciplinary or inter-disciplinary field like construction management, it is important to be explicit about the theoretical position. This does not always need a whole chapter. It is sometimes a few lines in the early part of the dissertation.

Following these three aspects, the initial work will rely heavily on literature review and will set up theory-concept-observation as an axis that leads to the research design. I tend to insist on a clear explanation of the connection between theory-concept-observations. Every dissertation student, I think, needs this to be clear in the write-up. This initial setting up will eventually form approximately half of the thesis followed, of course, by the second half; analysis-discussion-conclusions, which acts as a kind of mirror to the first half. These may be translated approximately into chapters: introduction, literature, methods. And it is useful to think how the analysis reflects the methods; the discussion reflects the literature (and conceptual model); the conclusions reflect the introduction.

With this conceptual model of a research dissertation in mind, I find supervision becomes much more transparent and students tend to see better where they are headed. There is no strict recipe for a dissertation, of course, and each student will change this initial framework as their confidence grows. But I find it forms a good starting point. Many different kinds of research can be covered by adapting this model to fit the kind of research.

I sketch this out frequently when talking to students, annotating it with keywords and ideas that relate to their specific interests and type of research. Sometimes it needs significant changes in order to make sense. But it still forms a good starting point for the early discussions when the student does not really understand what it means to do research and the supervisor does not really understand what the student wants to do. I have not yet had time to prepare a nice graphic with drafting software, but a pen-sketch is good enough:

The diagram shows how the conclusions relate back to the theory, how the discussion chapter relates to the conceptual model and how the analysis relates to the observation. It also shows how the aims inform the theory, the theory informs the objectives, the objectives drive the literature review to provide the conceptual model, the conceptual model leads to the research design and so on. Finally, we can see how the general issues lead to increasingly specific issues in the first half, and the second half involves moving back to generalized statements for the conclusions.

It must also be noted that not all research goes through this sequence. Ethnographic methods are often highly appropriate for construction management research, especially for those who have experience in practice. It is not always necessary to behave as if you have no experience or as if you were an outsider to the industry. If you are an insider, then look at ethnographic methods. These often involve immersing oneself in the field and then developing theory from the experience. For part-time MSc students, in particular, this is a very powerful way of construction a piece of valid research.

Why vegetarian?

People often ask me why I am vegetarian. They seem to find it odd. So many people seem to find it difficult to contemplate excluding meat from their diet. Watching this video reminded me that I find it it difficult to understand why anyone would willingly eat meat or fish. Not only the mindless slaughter; not only the unnecessary damage to the environment. But why would anyone choose to put this stuff into their mouths? Indeed, why would anyone put this into their children's mouths? I suppose that people can continue to eat meat and feed it to their children for as long as they avoid finding out anything about the processes that bring it to the supermarket. And I know many people who claim to be in the 1% who buy meat that is not factory-farmed. But, what about this: "As people become more aware of the horrors of factory farming, companies are responding by labelling their products “all-natural,” “free-range,” “free-roaming,” or “organic.” But these labels are misleading. Most “free-range” animals are still mutilated and forced to endure long trips to slaughterhouses without any food or water. Moreover, they all have their lives violently cut short and are denied the opportunity to engage in anything that is natural and important to them." Read more here.

Well, have a look at the video, eat some chicken and then reflect on whether there are viable alternatives to eating meat...

Doctoral researchers working with industry

There are at least two perspectives for doctoral researchers contemplating working with industry. First is the problem of negotiating access for data collection and second is developing networks of industry contacts for the purposes of further career development. Many researchers feel that practitioners may be nervous about disclosing commercially sensitive or personal information. It is useful to understand such nervousness and deal with it. This requires clarity and honesty about why data is needed, and a careful data collection strategy that avoids giving the impression that data is being trawled on the chance that something useful will emerge. Some participants seem responsive, others don’t. Therefore, do not worry about unresponsive individuals but focus on finding the responsive ones. Many companies fear that they may give away time that they cannot afford, or, worse, reveal confidential information that might weaken their competitive advantage. It helps take an approach where they stand to gain from participation. It also helps if we talk like someone who understands and appreciates the nature of commercial confidentiality (like you mean it). Generally speaking, companies may not be interested in the intellectual aspects of research but they will be interested in problem-solving. So, try to think about what you might give them in return for their participation that helps with problem-solving. It will probably not be the same material that you incorporate into your thesis, but that’s usually a good thing. In terms of networking, it helps your data collection and negotiation of access if you are not a complete stranger. There are strategies for developing networks, inviting industry people to seminars on campus about your research (involving your supervisors and other academic staff as well as alumni of your School or Department), setting up discussions on serious social networks like LinkedIn and so on. Some time ago, a researcher in USA, Phil Agre, wrote about using the internet for developing research and professional networks and he updates it from time to time. It is worth looking at: http://vlsicad.ucsd.edu/Research/Advice/network.html

Conference posters

After submitting your paper to a conference, instead of being invited to make a ten-minute presentation, you may be invited to present a poster instead. This is a good opportunity to put your work in front of others, and it should involve different techniques to those involved in making a presentation.

The first thing about posters is that your message about the research you are doing is more important than any corporate or brand image of your institution. I would avoid the habit of cluttering up your valuable piece of paper with logos, names of research units, collaborators and so on. You may find that there are certain requirements of some funding agencies and some institutions to have a clear acknowledgement of their support. These should be adhered to. But don't add unnecessary logos and associated names unless they are really needed.

Next, it is good to use graphics and large fonts. A good poster will focus on one aspect of your work, rather than trying to put everything across. There is no need for bibliographical references, and it is good to avoid jargon and complex sentences; big fonts, nice graphics and short messages. Graphical communication works best when you avoid fussy and unnecessary embellishments such as 3D, shadows, gratuitous use of colour and so on (most of the default settings in Microsoft Power-point and the like need to be changed to remove many of these features; it was developed for business presentations, not research presentations). An overriding principle is that the density of data in a graphic should be greater than the equivalent text that might alternatively be used to represent the same data. So pie charts are a complete waste of paper, because the message in a pie chart can be put across in one sentence of text. Histograms are frequently better portrayed as a list of labels and numbers. Your audience is not innumerate, and they understand the relative sizes of numbers. (You don’t need to draw me a picture to explain that 75 is much bigger than 10.) Graphics work best when every line, colour, symbol and label perform a function that is more concise than writing things out. There is some really good advice and detailed exposition on the use of graphics for conveying information by Edward Tufte; get hold of it if you can.

It is interesting to type “scientific posters” into Google. That is how I stumbled upon some useful guidance from North Carolina State University where it is emphasized that there are basic principles of scientific poster design: Focus, Graphics, Order. I like the advice given there. Also, I recommend a good PhD Blog, called the Thesis Whisperer, where there is further good advice.

To summarize, this is a good opportunity to develop a skill-set that differs from making presentations. Posters should have minimal clutter. There should be a clear focus, good use of graphics and a clear sequence of ideas. This will make it easier for observers to ask questions and for you talk about your research. Finally, it is OK to be uncertain about research that is in progress.

Guidance on delivering a paper

The purpose of a conference presentation is to tell people what your work is about, why it is important, how you went about it and what you discovered that we did not already know.

Conferences run to a tight schedule, typically allowing only ten minutes for each presentation. Find out in advance how much time you will be allotted for your presentation. In such a short period, it is impractical to put over more than three real points. Remember that the audience have your paper and that they will be able to read it later. Your aim in your presentation is simply to get them sufficiently interested in your work to generate discussion during the discussion period and to get them to want to read more, later. The golden rule is to simplify what you are trying to say and then exaggerate the points in order to generate interest. Forget the detail. Make sure that your talk progresses through a series of logical steps, so that you finish with a clear conclusion. The worst thing is to finish by saying "I was going to say something else but I have run out of time"! If you are not sure how much material will fill a ten minute presentation, practice it first with friends or colleagues.

Repetition is essential in a spoken presentation. People cough, sneeze, nod off or whatever; they miss things. The significant points must be introduced before they are made and reiterated afterwards. Towards the end of the talk, summarize the main points. People will remember most the first things and the last things that you say. Therefore, speak at your loudest and clearest when you first open your mouth. Do not fumble through notes or with trying to get your PowerPoint slides to display; get these ready beforehand. If possible, try out the room and the visual aids in a break before your talk. Also, if you are not the first speaker, you can practice talking to the particular audience by making comments or asking questions on other presentations.

If you are using slides or presentation software, do not use too many. Two or three are more than enough to fill ten minutes. Do not put lots of small text on them that cannot be read. If you are just making a summary of the main points of your paper, you should not be drawing attention to the fine detail of the data.

If you are using power-point, please avoid excessive animation and flashy colours. They serve only to distract the audience from the point of your work. (It is useful to remember that power-point was developed for business presentations, not for scientific presentations, which are very different.) Better still, do not use slides if they contain only your own notes in bullet point format. There is no need to show your notes to the audience. Doing so will only draw attention to the things you have to miss out when you run out of time. Moreover, it will be difficult to adapt your sequence and flow to suit the way that the audience appears to be reacting to your talk. Use the slides only for graphical portrayal of things that are not easy to express in words. When you are ready to start, and your power-point file is open, remember that typing the function key F5 will start the slide show; this is much easier than trying to find and click on the little icon to start the slide show, which is in a different position in different versions of power-point. Practice this on your own computer, before you get up to speak. Get used to operating power-point in slide-show mode. Some people only use it in editing mode until the day they stand up to make their presentation!

With any form of visual aid, switch it off once you have finished referring to it. (In powerpoint, simply pressing the letter B during the presentation will turn the display all black; press any other key to bring it back.) Avoid passages of text on a screen, unless you are going to keep quiet for a few minutes while people read it. Also, never stand in front of the screen. There is no point at all in putting things on the screen and then obscuring them with your body. Stand next to the screen to avoid this problem.

Finally, be yourself; do not try to stop moving about the stage or using gestures, if that feels natural, and do not force behaviours that do not suit you. You only have time to make a few points and to raise the general level of audience interest in your work. The main aim of the conference is not the presentations, but interaction with your peers.

Supply-led procurement

I am interested in how new developments to procurement and business practice will impact roles in construction projects. For example, I can see a strong and compelling case for distancing architects from the construction process even further than they are now, so that their focus would be more on the art and less on the technicalities of building. I am developing my research along the lines of Supply-led procurement (a more robust development of the industrialized building agenda). This basically means handing over responsibility for innovation (and the rewards for innovation) to the supply chain. Either architects become more technical and get involved commercially with innovative producers of technical solutions, or they step aside from the commercial process completely, and develop a more advisory role. The idea of an architect co-ordinating and certifying work in progress may become a thing of the past. Indeed, I would like to go further and suggest that construction work should not be based around labour and materials paid for on a work-in-progress basis. The supply chain has an opportunity to get its act together and become truly innovative and integrated. It may be that architects and the professions are the main obstacles to developing new models of finance, new contracting methods and new business models. What would a fit-for-purpose construction sector look like in the Third Millennium? What kind of obligations are suppliers willing to take on, in return for a closer relationship with construction clients and users, and the opportunities to introduce technological innovations without having to route their work through layers of intermediaries?

Something rotten with the state of procurement

There must be something fundamentally wrong with the procurement of construction work. A new report from The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS) summarizes a twelve-month review of public procurement in Scotland. They cite work carried out by others to highlight the huge expense of construction procurement, being the sector with the highest procurement costs across Europe. They also cite evidence that procurement is slower in the UK than anywhere else in Europe apart from Greece.

There seems to be something fundamentally wrong with the connection between theory and practice when it comes to transaction costs. Empirically speaking, if the costs of contracting-out are unreasonably high, then organizations would bring operations in house and carry them out within the organization, rather than going to the market. In the long run, assuming that the production costs would be the same in either case, the most efficient form of transaction would be the most competitive, and therefore would predominate. What, then, should we make of the calls for reducing transaction costs in construction? If they are too high, then why is construction not routinely an in-house activity?

Hard times

A friend of mine asked me to write something about the impact of the current financial crisis on the construction sector. What follows are my personal impressions about the threats and opportunities currently confronting the sector.

Since the beginning of the financial crisis, things have panned out in a somewhat strange way. First, the impact on the construction sector was a long time coming. There were many public sector projects already in progress, which was part of the government's problem at the time. They had continued to spend on major public sector projects at considerable rate, and all those major projects in the pipeline kept construction companies in work, though at a more relaxed rate until well after the labour government was unseated in a coalition of conservatives and liberal democrats, when there was no outright majority in the 2010 general election. The new government soon discovered that the adventurous public spending by the previous administration had all but exhausted the countries reserves, so a comprehensive public spending review soon put paid to many planned construction projects. As work for the construction sector finally dried up, new major projects were announced, and the tap of public sector investment was quickly turned on again, to try to avoid too many insolvencies and consequent redundancies. Thus, while there is not a lot of work about, the public sector investment programme has maintained a low level of work that seems to have provided a buffer. But the private sector has slowed significanctly, largely through the disappearance of capital markets. Once  the full impact started to hit the construction sector, insolvencies were seen to rise much higher in the construction sector than in others, with a 20% increase in some quarters, compared with the previous year. But most of the time we seem to be seeing insolvencies running at about 10-15% higher than the previous year. Of course, these headline figures are increases, not the proportion of companies disappearing. Headline grabbers are great for creating disquiet. Normally, I would expect construction insolvencies to run at the same rate as all business sectors (contrary to popular belief). But construction insolvencies are always slightly higher in recessionary periods, as they are now. But, still,the vast majority of businesses are continuing to trade, although they would prefer to be busier.

Few developers can raise capital from banks, because the banks do not have any. Clearly, this is a very lean period for the construction sector.  Construction workers are being laid off and a proportion of business are disappearing. Since most work is sub-contracted, the sector is very resilient. Those contractors and suppliers with workflow are now in an odd situation, becaue if they are making profits, there is a real problem in terms of what to do with their reserves. Contractors typically manage their projects so that there is a positive cash flow, ensuring that payments out are always some weeks behind payments received. Few people seem to notice that this means contractors do not need to invest in projects; their clients do. This positive cash flow means that contractors with projects have surplus cash to invest, typically in developments of their own. But in such an austere period, the markets into which they sell their own developments are somewhat moribund. Since this is often quite lucrative, times are hard. Moreover, trade contractors who design and manufacture the things that they install are reliant on investment in their processes, in a way that others in the sector may not be. And they are also hit with the double problem of very competitive pricing levels and nowhere to invest surpluses. Since the banks are not lending, there is not much happening in the private sector capital markets. So those with surpluses appear to be  shepherding their money for now, to see them through continuing lean patches. What development there is, is relying on capital, rather than debt financing. 

In the longer term, locally and globally, I feel that there is chance the construction sector might be able to finally move away from being a cash cow. If we are to make this into a 21st century business sector, it is essential that we abandon the Victorian business models and ideals that have served us so well throughout the 20th century. I sense that there is an opportunity for businesses to take more of a stake in the things that they are producing. If we can get contractors and trade contractors to invest in the things that they make, and take a greater proportion of their payment after completion, then we shall see greater incentives and rewards for innovative (and, perhaps, sustainable) products and practices. And what better time than now to enable large, successful companies to pump-prime their clients' developments with cash? Many more contractors are establishing capital arms to invest in their own and their clients' projects. This is interesting. If it continues, we could see the end of a business sector based on large volumes of cash being pumped around construction sites, and the growth of significant investment-driven construction companies which will be able to weather financial storms as successfully as any other business sector.

So, who knows what will happen? Even in this difficult time, there are great opportunities. One thing is for sure, as someone once said, "if you always do what you have always done, you'll always get what you've always got".

Complex, commercial, contractual relations

It is interesting how much research in our field is predicated on the assumption that good process leads to good buildings. If this were so, surely there would be few poor quality buildings by now? After all, we are surrounded on all sides by advice and guidance on processes of all kinds. There are British Standards, International Standards, Codes of Practice, Guidance Documents of all kinds. Yet still we produce poor quality buildings. Clearly, we are dealing with a level of complexity in construction that is difficult and uncertain. Perhaps the idea that good process leads to good buildings would form a useful basis on which to critique a lot of the research that has been published in construction management? After all, it has long been accepted in organizational theory circles that there is more to an effective organization than its structure. So much so, that organizational structure is a rare breed of research paper. Or perhaps they have just changed their vocabulary so that I don't notice what passes these days for organizational structure!

The complexity in construction is not necessarily technical, but organizational. Because of the way that the processes are organized, there is a need for diverse skills, and it is important for the purposes of continuity of work and the development of specialized skills that these diverse disciplines are typically found in different firms. To bring a team together means that contracts are important, because each different group of skills comes from a different business. And we are talking about business, therefore commercial interests play an important role in colouring the behaviour of the parties, even if they are exercising professionalized roles. Finally, because the planning, design, construction and occupation of a building occupy many years, the continuity of relationships can be very important. Thus, the kind of organisational problems we face are characterized as complex, commercial, contractual relations.

Anyhow, today's realization was that buildings are just buildings and not, in themselves, good or bad. Good and bad are judgements that reside in people, not characteristics that reside in buildings. More important, in my view, is that when we judge something to be good or bad, successful or unsuccessful, we are typically comparing what we can observe to our expectation. If our expectations are met, then we are more likely to be satisfied. I have long been aware that this is why marketing is so important for business; good marketing is designed to adjust and deal with our expectations, so that we are more likely to be satisfied with certain products, despite their qualities and characteristics, rather than because of them. So if expectations are the important thing, then clear communication is essential. Within the construction sector, we are used to problems of conflict and dispute. Perhaps these, too, can be laid at the door of inadequate communication leading to unmet expectations? Information asymmetry is an important idea that underpins this. It is inevitable in a complex commercial environment that one party will have more information and knowledge about the transaction than the other. Often, the supply side has the upper hand when it comes to information asymmetry, but if the demand side employ professional consultants and design what is to be fabricated, then perhaps the result would be that the demand side has more information than the supply side about important aspects of the job.

Perhaps the purpose of communication in complex, commercial, contractual relations is to reduce information asymmetry and ensure that expectations on both sides are reasonable. This would lead to a hypothesis that information symmetry should lead to greater satisfaction. Businesses expend lots of effort in precisely this area. Conflict flows from dissatisfaction and it is expensive and destructive.

Above all, in construction the transaction is very difficult because the demand side basically requires space, whereas the supply side can only provide boundaries to space. I think this is the interface between architecture and building. We buy buildings because we want space, not because we want walls. No wonder there is information asymmetry, when we have to buy something other than what we want in order to get what we want!

Noisy trees?

Reading this week's New Scientist, I came across the phrase "an objective reality that exists independently of our beliefs" in relation to the stupidity of the idea that the world was ever flat (Feedback, New Scientist. 211(2829), 64). It got me thinking. My world used to be flat when I was quite young. That "model" became useless when I learned a bit more, and better explanations made sense as my childish observations and experience grew. It struck me that there may be scientists, particularly in the Natural Sciences, who may claim to believe in an objective reality, even though they themselves contribute to emergent explanations that help to make sense of increasingly contradictory or complex observations. Social scientists seem more ready to acknowledge that there are no objective facts; merely a provisional, negotiated consensus. This reminded me of that old philosophical chestnut, "if a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a noise?" The article made me realize that I now have a view on that. It doesn't; because noise is an experience and a perception. Those who think it does, perhaps, believe in objective reality that exists independently of beliefs.