11. Sod's unlucky law

Photo by Marcin Wichary on Flickr

Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

This is Murphy's law but in a major plot twist, it's now also known as Sod's law - named after the poor unlucky sod who always seems to be the victim of fate (this is a British invention - Editor). If you believe in Sod's law, you end up either very philosophical about life, or very paranoid. It probably makes no difference, because you'll be just as unlucky either way. Let me set the scene:

You oversleep, which makes you late for a very important meeting, but you can't find your car keys. You frantically search everywhere, and bang your head painfully on a cupboard door. When you do eventually find your keys, you run for the car, trip over your kid's scooter, fall headlong into the gutter, and your keys fall down the drain. At that precise moment, it starts raining, but your coat is locked inside the house. Your house keys are on the same keyring as your car keys - down the drain. As you stand there, you see your alternative transport - the only bus into town - go by. It drives through a huge puddle which splashes all over you and now, not only have you missed the bus, but you're soaked through to the skin. You eventually arrive into work, very late and very wet, and learn that the meeting was cancelled. That's Sod's law.

But how did Sod's (and Murphy's) law originate?

Astronaut John Glenn believes it comes from the story of Murphy - a character in U. S. Navy educational cartoons (are there such things? - Editor). Murphy was an incompetent mechanic, who always screwed up, no matter what the job was - so Murphy’s Law epitomises everything that could go possibly wrong, and usually does. Sod's law is the same, but somehow worse - the bad luck is not of your doing. It just happens to you, there's nothing you can do about it, and you believe that fate is mocking you. The positive side of this is that you know things can go wrong, so you anticipate this and you protect yourself.

That's why teachers plan. There is plan A and then, if they are wise, teachers have a plan B, and sometimes a plan C as well. You can never be certain whether your first plan is going to succeed, because - Sod's law. In my own experience, I was always aware that my digital resource use could be scuppered instantly if there was a power cut or a technical failure. I always planned an alternative.

My wife, a teacher of English and Media in secondary education, once presented a task to her students that involved them watching a certain TV programme and then writing a review. Two of the girls (twins) came up to her after the lesson and told her they couldn't do the task, because their parents banned TV in their house. My wife, ever the resourceful teacher, had to think of a plan B - an alternative task for them to do. It only goes to show that the best laid plans of mice and men.... that's why teachers plan.

Next time: 12. Dante's lukewarm inferno

Previous posts in this series
1. Pavlov's drooling dog
2. Chekhov's smoking gun
3. Occam's bloody razor
4. Schrödinger’s undead cat
5. Pandora's closed box
6. Frankenstein's well-meaning monster
7. Thor's lost hammer
8. Noah's character ark
9. Hobson's multiple choice
10. Fibonacci's annoying sequence


Sod's unlucky law by Steve Wheeler was written in Maribor, Slovenia and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Posted by Steve Wheeler from Learning with e's