Odds are you’ll lose anyway
QUESTION What was the Monte Carlo fallacy?
THIS is the belief that a totally random event can be influenced by what has occurred previously. Most people are probably susceptible to the effect, but it is of particular significance to gamblers, especially those at the roulette table.
Roulette is played on a wheel with 18 red and 18 black pockets with an additional one or two green pockets named zero or, in the US game, double zero.
The bank pays out the odds on a win on red or black but keeps the cash when the ball is in zero pockets, which is how it makes its money.
Other types of bets, such as bets on individual numbers or high/low, can also be made.
Ignoring the zeros for the purposes of explanation, the chances of a ball landing on red is one in two; it is either red or black. The chances of two reds in a row are one in four, and so on.
The chances of ten reds in a row are one in 1,024. The fallacy is that people, knowing that runs of one colour become increasingly rare, believe that the run must end, but the wheel has no memory. Thus, occasional runs of one colour are very profitable to the house because with every red that comes up, people switch to black and the other way round.
Though the odds of ten reds in a row are one in 1,024, if there have been nine in a row, then the odds of the next turn of the wheel coming up red is just one in two, the same as for any other turn.
The phenomenon goes beyond the casino. We have just had a very wet February so I am betting on a hot, dry summer. Well, it’s got to change, hasn’t it?
P. Alexander, Farnborough, Hampshire.
QUESTION What are the best and worst songs that have been used on the political campaign trail?
THE British Labour Party’s use of D:Ream’s Things Can Only Get Better captured the mood of the public for Tony Blair’s effective 1997 election campaign.
The song now sticks in the throat for many.
Gordon Brown’s use of James’s Sit Down at the 2008 UK Labour Party conference upset singer
Tim Booth, who said it was written about the ‘unity of people and spirit rather than healing the divisions of political parties’.
Then there was Neil Kinnock’s strange 1984 appearance in the video for Tracey Ullman’s My Guy, featuring the UK Labour leader gazing longingly into the eyes of a girl half his age.
Theresa May, at the 2017 UK Conservative Party Conference, came on to Calvin Harris and Rihanna’s This Is What You Came For and used Florence And The Machine’s You’ve Got The Love. Harris said: ‘I do not support nor condone happy songs being played at such a sad event.’
Florence asked May to refrain from using her song. A year later, May famously boogied onto the stage to Abba’s Dancing Queen.
Dan Ball, Sheffield. WORKING for Harold Wilson with Joe Haines and Bernard Donoghue in 1974, they asked me to produce a record that could be played as Wilson entered venues during that year’s British general election campaign.
As a former successful record producer – hits with Vanity Fare and others – I decided to re-write the lyrics of Hello Dolly and called it Hello Harold. To do this I had to get the permission of the famous American composer Jerry Herman, who had not only written Hello Dolly, but other Broadway hits.
He not only gave his permission for me to change his lyrics but also said he was very happy to be associated with the prime minister of Great Britain.
Hello Harold was a professionally made studio recording with session musicians led by Dave Green of Deep Feeling. Harold loved the record, but his wife was not so keen.
They say imitation is the highest form of flattery. Several years later the Conservatives also used Hello Dolly as Hello Maggie. I often wondered if they obtained Jerry Herman’s permission to change his lyrics too.
Roger Easterby, Gravesend, Kent.
QUESTION Why, when you spill bleach on clothes, does it turn them pink?
HOUSEHOLD bleach is a powerful oxidant. Its primary constituent, sodium hypochlorite, will oxidise manganese to permanganate, which has a characteristic pink colour, and iron to various forms of iron hydrate – basically rust, which gives it a yellow colour.
Well water or borehole water can contain iron, so even if you wash white clothes in bleach you may get yellow clothes.
White clothes contaminated with suncreen are also known to turn pink.
This is usually down to its reaction with Avobenzone, a chemical sunscreen ingredient that absorbs UVA rays.
Dr K. Singh, Leicester.
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