For many years top scientists have endeavoured to quantify the pleasures of walking on a Wednesday evening.
For over 25 years Keene (2006) has taken a qualitative approach in which this poor saddo with little to do has earnestly recorded every footfall on the moor.
Fortunately others have taken a more quantitative approach. These can be summarised as:
Yosser (1993) WWQuaC=(120-m)*pq where m is the time of the walk in minutes and pq is a measure of pub quality
Raz (1997) WWQuaC=(pp*pp)+h where pp is participant pain and h the time of the walk in hours
Scrivener S., Stacey Norris H. and Sturmer J. (1999) WWQuaC=vc*gc where vc is the volume of chat and gc is the girly count
Worsey N. (2002) WWQuaC=wq*ns where wq is the whinge quotient and ns is the number of people the whinging can be shared with
Steevenson (2004) WWQuaC=so*pp where so is the sales opportunities and pp the number of people present
Balment (2006) WWQuaC=nw/ga where nw is the number of walks allocated to be organised and ga is the number given away for others to do.
Stacey-Norris W. (2005) WWQuaC-qv*ns*nc where qv is the quality of the views, ns is the nice things seen and nc is the number of nice chats engaged in
Last night afforded a new opportunity to formulate WWQuaC, the detailed analysis of the evening revealed that; Hughes J. and Coupland J. (2006)
WWQuaC=(100-wq)/((pp*pp)+1) where wq is the weather quotient on a scale of 1- what a lovely summers evening for a short bimble to 10-Oh my god I am not going out in that. pp is the number of people present.
Last nights walk gave a WWQuaC of 19.4. It would have been enhanced by even worse weather and fewer people turning up – two fewer would have been ideal.
So, what us up with all you wimpy lot? Don’t forget that a misery shared is a misery doubled!