Three's a Crowd

Estimating the number of people at any march or event with political overtones is a thankless task for the police who these days usually just give into the organisers inflated figures to keep the peace. After all does it really matter if 10,000 people or 30,000 people attended a rally? I once considered setting up an company which would independently estimate the numbers attending rallies and marches and charge the organisers for being able to provide reliable figures. Then I realised the flaw in this plan. The organisers have no interest in a reliable estimate. From their point of view the more the merrier.

In fact ever since Jesus claimed to have fed 5000 people with enough food for 50 the controversies have raged. The organisers of the Million Man March in Washington DC in 1995 estimated that 1.5-2m people attended whereas the D.C. Park Service estimated 837,000 (+-20%) based on aerial photographs. Amid claims of racism and threats to sue the Park Service never provided estimates of marcher numbers ever again. But they stuck to their original estimate nonetheless.

One such figure I have been a bit obsessed with for years is the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardis Gras. The attendance figure at the parade has been variously quoted as between 300,000 and 1 million people (the latter in the heady days of the pre-Howard government Gay-B-C). It seems to have settled down to 400,000 this year.

I happen to think its relatively easy to come up with a ball park figure in this case. The Mardi Gras Parade route is about 1500m long. If you allow 2 spectators per metre (remember gay people are thinner so can more easily bunch up) on each side then this is 6000 people at the front of the parade. Based on photos I have seen in the thickest parts of the parade (in terms of numbers, not where the people from Newtown stand) the crowd is about 20 deep and about 10 deep in others so lets say 15 deep on average on both sides. So thats 15 x 2 x 2 x 1500 = 90,000 people. Allowing for various late arrivals and a generous margin for error lets say 120,000. Far less than the 400,000 claimed by the organisers. In fact for the organisers figure to be accurate would require the crowd to be over 50 deep on either side.

Of course it would be churlish of anyone to play into the hands of the bigots and contradict the official figure. Even the police are avowedly on the side of the participants. Yes it would take a brave blogger indeed to stand up, to count and be counted (even a gay one like yours truly).

Omerta and a Question of Loyalty

Loyalty Cards are a modern plague. I remember years ago working on American Express's loyalty program and thinking noone would be stupid enough to fall for such an obvious ploy. After all why would they give something away unless they expected to get more back and if everyone had identical loyalty programs it would be the consumer who would foot the bill.

How wrong I was and loyalty programs infect all levels of commerce now. Supermarket loyalty cards are particularly pernicious as it not just possible to avoid them by not getting one. Everytime you shop you will be asked if you have one. In the UK (but not yet Australia) it is not just enough to fail to answer: "Do you have a Tescoes card?" in the affirmative (Surely if you ask me a question unrelated to the commercial transaction we are undertaking I have a right to ignore your personal questions and you can take that as a "no" if you wish). They will continue to ask you even if you try any of the following (which I have) (a) ignore them, (b) pretend your iPod is on high and you cant hear them, (c) really, really ignore them. I wondered about this and eventually asked one of the regular cashiers at my local Tesco whom I had been in a war of attrition with for several years. Sometimes he took my prolonged silence as a "no" and sometimes I gave in after repeated questioning and aswered explicitly. I am sure it was wearying for both of us. And the answer: I was shocked to discover that the cashiers are paid a (derisory) bonus of a couple of hundred pounds a year to try to get customers to sign up and Tesco sends in secret operatives to check that they dont just take silence as a no.

Why would they care so much? Because saying "no" everytime is a negative response and most people prefer to avoid being negative. The ironic thing is that supermarket loyalty cards arent actually designed to increase loyalty through rewards. As I correctly surmised all those years ago this is a zero sum game. What the supermarket really wants is a database of your shopping purchases so they can target you with offers aimed at increasing your share-of-wallet. What is wrong with this you ask? Well like any private data is it is yours to give freely and coercing you into signing up for a loyalty program by harassing you at the till everytime you buy something is extremely unethical.

I often fantasised about wearing a t-shirt I could point at when asked that just said "No I dont have a fucking Tescoe's card".