Early Risers.

[jjb1970]

I have been thinking about some of these educational things quite a bit lately.

 

The boy is a promising linguist and gets glowing reports for English literature. He got A* in his Spanish IGCSE and his Spanish uncle speaks very highly of his Spanish. He is also fluent in Indonesian,  my ability to learn languages is embarrassingly poor. He will take a very different path in life from me I think.

 

The girl is completely different,  she is getting great reports for additional maths, physics and chemistry and seems interested in studying engineering. She is also talented at languages,  she is doing really well in Mandarin and is fluent in Indonesian.

 

I don't want to sound too much like a gushing parent but I have to admit they're both way ahead of where I was and have talents I never developed. They're only 18 months apart but different in just about every way.

[rockershovel]

1 hour ago, PhilJ W said:

Jacob Rees-Mogg is a distant cousin of mine. Politically though we are complete opposites.

One might be forgiven for thinking that David Cameron and Harriet Harman were politically opposed.....

[rockershovel]

26 minutes ago, The Lurker said:

Had John Major gone to public school, and/or not run away to join the circus, perhaps he would have been aware of the full context!

John Major had a quite sufficient education to have covered Orwell and Shakespeare. I suspect it was more based upon the fact that most people forget their Eng Lit within a few years. 

 

Wasn't it his brother who joined the circus? 

[polybear]

7 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

 

Not everyone on ER is in the microwaved frozen food league - quite a few do know how to cook!

I’ll have you know that Bear cooks omelette's….with water….in a pan….

 

6 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

You need the Aussie ones.  No struggle at all. They're great. Except that in most places you have to pay extra for them. Which is not great.

 

What a waste of plastic thoug

 

3 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

Morning all from Estuary-Land. At school we did not do English lit. so we were spared Shakespeare. The music teacher retired and was not replaced before I left school as well. In later years I read the Canterbury Tales, a bit of a curate's egg, some of the tales I gave up on but some are quite entertaining and some are downright bawdy. Not sure what I'll be doing today, there's so much to do, starting with the laundry. 

Bear did English Lit. - it was that or French (and the French Teacher was a right B1tch).

And what a waste of 2 years it was too.

[tigerburnie]

The education system failed me completely at school, I was. at the age of 10 put into a half baked idea to replace the then defunct 11 plus. I was told I had passed a 10 plus and was sent to high school a year early, before then going on the grammar school at 13. There were no plans in place for such an experiment, in my first maths lesson the teacher started into a subject and was writing things on the board. I said I had never done this particular work before, his reply was "yes you have you did it your last year at juniors". "But I didn't do the last year someone sent me here instead" I replied. "Oh well you will just have to catch up then" and ploughed on offering me zero guidance.

Maths was always a struggle for me after that, thankfully higher education at college saved my career prospects and I was able to attain the required knowledge and qualifications to have a career as an engineer, however I do wonder if I might have attained higher qualifications had I not been an Guinea pig for a ill conceived idea.

Edited August 27 by tigerburnie

[Andy Hayter]

1 hour ago, Sidecar Racer said:

 

  In the five years of secondary school education I HAD to spend four years taking

lessons in music, french and art .

 

Guess what , since leaving I have never had to interact with a French person in their language ,

I have never had a desire to play a musical instrument and any attempt at art just produces

something akin to  that  a five year old does .

 

 

 

 

 

But if you have a layout that is pleasing to the eye, then I would contend that you have produced a piece of dynamic 3D art.

[Andy Hayter]

The problem with selective education is that you never know which twists and turns life will take.

 

I learned (better said was taught) German at school.  I was told I would never master the language.  I got an average O level but proceeded with sciences, so never used it and it faded away. 

At uni there was a one semester course in translating German language science papers.  I never used it and it faded away.

I then went on a 6 week student exchange to Zagreb.  No chance of learning Serbo-Croat before hand but inside the research institute everybody spoke English.  Outside however it was another thing but those old enough to have experienced WW2 spoke German, so bits floated back.  But afterwards I never used German and it faded away.

Then some 20 years later, our business was bought by a large German company.  I thought I had better get to grips with the language once more and hope that this time it would stick.  Thankfully it did.

[TheQ]

The play with the " fat bloke in it" are 3, Henry IV part 1, Henry IV part 2 , and at QE1s request The Merry Wives of Windsor.

The part was written for Will Kemp, who was fat but wore "fat clothing" to emphasise the fact. Will was "The lord Chamberlain men"s  resident comedian. Originally called Sir John Oldcastle in the first play, a genuine historical character also known as Lord Cobham. When a later lord Cobham became lord Chamberlain, the characters name rapidly had to be changed to Falstaff, so everyone at court called  the new Lord Cobham "Falstaff" behind his back.

 

Afternoon Awl,

 

Mowing mowed, surprisingly easy, as that rain we had doesn't seem to have had much effect on the overall dryness of the garden.

The future gate frame was given another coat of paint.

 

All bits of parallel metal have been pinned in place.

 

Received, ally U channel which nicely fits SG9 servos and a box of 150 micro / mini drill bits.

 

Eyelid inspection is required...

 

[Sidecar Racer]

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

So, no holidays in France, Quebec, the Caribbean or parts of equatorial Africa?

 

  I was never wealthy enough to get abroad until I was in my  40's. I did get to travel through France

  on a coach , just a couple of service station stops to grab a sandwich so just needed to say

  merci at the till . On holidays to Spain I learnt enough say please , thanks , good morning , how are you ,

   a San Miguel please .

-----------------------------------------------------------

 

But learning about music doesn’t necessarily mean you have to play a musical instrument. Sometimes learning that there’s more good music out there than what is heavily promoted on commercial radio is rewarding enough.

 

  So what is the point of learning it if you are not going to use it , what is  the use of knowing the

  names of things  like minims , crotchets and so on , they are not helping me type this out .

  My family was not a musical in any sense beyond what was on the radio and tv in the later 50's

   and 60's so it was not all rock and roll .

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

But do you do any railway modelling? The whole process of creating a layout is a much art as is painting a landscape, more so perhaps as railway modelling is a multi-media discipline. And what you learn from learning about “art” (colouring, highlighting, the use of shadows, Trompe-l'œil, etc) rolls over very well into railway modelling.

 

  That is one area that does work for me , I can see a scene in my mind and translate it to 3d in a model ,

 but on a flat surface no way , now Stuart my late friend and co layout owner was the other way round , he was

 great at 2d art work but just could'nt seem to turn it and visualize it in model form .

 

 

  I actually designed an built a sidecar  from scratch in a rear engine style like the track bikes at the time ,

  , bought cut and joined all the  tubes for the frame , built the  suspension in a wishbone style like a car ,

  the engine and other parts were from another bike .

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just because one doesn’t have an aptitude for something, doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it. Just because my aptitude for playing piano barely extends to the first few notes of Mussorgsky’s Pictures At An Exhibition, doesn’t mean I can’t (won’’t? mustn’t?) enjoy listening to someone play the piano well.

 

 That helps if you actually have a piano , when and where I grew up very few people did .

 

-------------------------------------------------------------

Hmm. If I have any criticism then it’s of this mentality (overt or covert) of <not for the likes of us> that so permeates British society - at all social levels. Why shouldn’t someone with no musical ability enjoy great music? Why shouldn’t  someone with the means to regularly eat in Michelin starred restaurants not enjoy fish and chips on the sea front?

 

 What makes you think I don't enjoy music other than the chart stuff , there is a lot

that I enjoy .  I just don't have to talk on about it .

 

 

 

 Apologies for replying in the quote box , it was easier than cutting and pasting all the

sections I wanted to reply to . Please use the expand feature .

 

 

Edited August 27 by Sidecar Racer

[PeterBB]

2 hours ago, rockershovel said:

John Major had a quite sufficient education to have covered Orwell and Shakespeare. I suspect it was more based upon the fact that most people forget their Eng Lit within a few years. 

 

Wasn't it his brother who joined the circus? 

The answer to the question is yes - a wierd out of generation brother.  John Major was very good at cricket.  Other comments at the school - Shakespear) - yes (Macbeth the 'O' level play); Orwell - no; Dicken's Great Expectations was the set book that personally I  enjoyed.  French - just a jumble of sounds and basically still is r, my dislike of a certain  Political 'Gaul' made the option to take Russian rather than French at uni but ... no good at that either.

Woodwork - what was that?  Greek and Latin if you wanted it in the 6th form.

Music - only specifically taught in the first year but the school orchestra was very good under Mr Howard who was enthusiastic and helpful (fortunately perhaps was never in his French class) but at one time or another played(!) 2nd violin, viola, trombone and G-trombone, the latter fantastically enjoyable in some of the Gilbert and Sullivan music we played.  Highlight of that time a duet with Alan Moore (who ended up with a music career) 'Holiday for Trombones' that sent the house down.  Even now still 'play at' brass but have never managed to get to grips with piano or keyboard.

[DaveF]

After lunch I decided I should be sensible, at least for a few hours, so I lay down on my bed and went to sleep for an hour or so.  After that I sort of dozed, looking out from time to time at rain showers, the sunlight patterns and the antics of pigeons and jackdaws on nearby house roofs.

 

I've now had a large mug of tea and a small piece of cake.  The greenhouse plants and tubs have been watered - or at least a very few were, most were wet enough.  Even the tomatoes had not managed to drink the water I gave them yesterday.

 

I've put a load of cardboard and paper in the wheelie bin to go tomorrow, a day late this week

 

A list of photos I need to get together to send to an author has been compiled, I'll leave actually sorting them out from a hard drive until tomorrow.  Later on I may get another batch ready to go on here and flickr.  I can't find anything I want to watch on broadcast TV and may give streaming a rest and quietly read with some music in the background and then have an early night.

 

David

[TheQ]

A proper Bank Collie Day

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz6xnqwz94go

 

Pity they didn't hold that there, when we lived less than 5 miles away.

 

School subjects

I enjoyed woodwork and metal work, but the middle of my three schools didn't do them, so on moving to the third school I'd lost the subjects.

Music was not pushed at any of the 3 schools and also missing from the middle school. The last school had a music teacher who really liked the song Jerusalem... Went down really well in Inverness making the locals kids sing it..

 

I was useless at French, was glad they didn't do it in the middle school ... They did English and Gaidhlig

 

[TheQ]

[tigerburnie]

I did French(doing being the operative word) at school, forgot all about it until I found myself in Paris for a few weeks in 1970, I remembered enough to get fed, get some ciggies, get drunk and got laid.........................thank you "Froggy Griffths".............................

[Barry O]

I was lucky at school. Always enjoyed Mathematics, only had woodwork and Art to fight with in my first year at my free Grammar School. After that..  I liked most of the subjects.. dropped German but failed French and Russian at O level.

 

Later I had to relearn French (I had two very good French technicians working for me at JET. Took an Institute of linguist German course (helped with working with scientists at IPP attaching in Germany) one of the French techs spoke Russian so we did have a bit of Russian if other people could only speak French or English).

 

Should have learnt a bit of Italian.. 2 days every 3 weeks I worked at Fracatti).. but they spoke brilliant English!

 

I did use my Russian at one job when we had a preSALT check by British Forces personnel (they wore Russian Army clothes and spoke with terrible accents).

 

My A level Maths teacher was very good.. so good that I had no problems with the maths courses in years 1 and 2 of my Engineering degree. Engineering degrees then were very focused on Mathematics.. in fact I could have done another year at Uni to gain a degree in Maths.. couldn't be bothered... so I went off to become a Rocket Scientist..

 

Baz

[polybear]

4 hours ago, tigerburnie said:

Maths was always a struggle for me after that, thankfully higher education at college saved my career prospects and I was able to attain the required knowledge and qualifications to have a career as an engineer, however I do wonder if I might have attained higher qualifications had I not been an Guinea pig for a ill conceived idea.

 

And if you had then perhaps you might've been able to do something deep and meaningful.....maybe even an HR Rep......

 

1 hour ago, DaveF said:

I've now had a large mug of tea and a small piece of cake. 

 

A classic symptom of the dreaded "Back to Front Disease";  very serious - get help quickly, before it's too late....

[DaveF]

For the first three years at grammar school I couldn't see the point in learning Franch, in the fourth year I found I also had to do German.  What a waste of time I thought.

 

Then I went to France in the Easter Holidays to stay with French friends who I had met sailing.  I had to get from Dieppe to Paris, then on to Albi, and later back as well as talk to the family - who while I was there pretended not to speak English.

 

Then I noticed very small children speaking French and realised it probably was not that difficult.  By the time I came home after a month I could hold a conversation with people I hadn't met before and didn't know I was English.

 

The hard bit was remembering to speak English once I was back in the UK.

 

As for German it proved handy at University as a number of papers I needed to read in my subject (Biology) were in German.   It had been same in my gap year before uni when I worked in a cancer research laboratory and my boss used to ask me to tell him the gist of some papers.

 

Much later both were useful in a hobby to do with electricity, wheels, steel strips etc and which involved visits to Switzerland to learn about the things I wanted to make.

 

David

[Peter Kazmierczak]

My year for Eng Lit we "had" to do Wuthering Heights and Julius Caesar. I remember us all piling onto a bus to Nottm to see JC on the big screen - it didn't come to Derby... Think WH put me off fiction for many years.

I also recall that in one of the questions we had to write something descriptively. I wrote about the rundown B'ham Snow Hill station (as you would). Obviously the examiner was a railway enthusiast as I got an A.

[polybear]

Bear here....

 

A W/H Day.  Tick.

Busy as usual - no D's or C's though 😢.

The day was spoilt a little by some T0sser who thought it clever to block the entrance/exit to a service road behind some shops, parking on double yellows in the process; we were about to unload when a car decided he wanted to exit, meaning we'd have to exit first to allow him past.

So Bear goes down and politely asks him to reverse a little so we could all sort it - only to be met with "So?  I don't give a Sh1t" from Neanderthal Man in the driving seat, who decided he wasn't moving, full stop.  So we shifted as best we could to allow the car sufficient room to get as far as Grunt - who then suddenly decided (after clocking the size of the guy driving the car) to move after all.  We didn't have any problems after that....

It seems the Van Driver (who's a retired Senior Plod) has had "issues" with the Guy before;  I've a sneaky feeling that Grunt might just be having problems before too much longer.....

 

I also spotted this donation in the W/H that's now looking for a good home - which might interest certain ER'ers:

 

 

 

Presumably the autographs are those of the England Team (is it a full set?) - if only they printed their names next to the signatures....

 

ION.....

 

It seems that Bear has been summoned to London for a Scan in a few weeks .....at @ 08.30.....oh Poo....

 

BG

 

[PupCam]

Evening

 

6 hours ago, Sidecar Racer said:

 

  In the five years of secondary school education I HAD to spend four years taking

lessons in music, french and art .

 

Guess what , since leaving I have never had to interact with a French person in their language ,

I have never had a desire to play a musical instrument and any attempt at art just produces

something akin to  that  a five year old does .

 

Do I think this has had an adverse effect on my life ,absolutely not .

 

 Some people have a natural aptitude for those subjects and some don't , criticizing those that

fall into this category can sound elitist and for the want of a better word posh .

 

I may have mentioned that I didn't get on with languages at school.  In the last 20 years of my employment I had a lot to do with French people and, to a lesser extent, Italians.     This experience proved with out a shadow of a doubt I have absolutely no aptitude for languages.    The saving grace?    All technical discussions were conducted in English so a bullet dodged there.   

 

A colleague and I often wondered why our Italian colleagues were exceedingly quiet in the meetings.    We eventually twigged; The chairman/lead was a Frenchman whose command of English was good but unsurprisingly he had an incredibly heavy French accent.   The reason our Italian chums were quiet?     They hadn't got a clue what was going on as our French chum prattled on speaking 'allo 'allo technical English 🤣

 

4 hours ago, TheQ said:

The play with the " fat bloke in it" are 3, Henry IV part 1, Henry IV part 2 , and at QE1s request The Merry Wives of Windsor.

The part was written for Will Kemp, who was fat but wore "fat clothing" to emphasise the fact. Will was "The lord Chamberlain men"s  resident comedian. Originally called Sir John Oldcastle in the first play, a genuine historical character also known as Lord Cobham. When a later lord Cobham became lord Chamberlain, the characters name rapidly had to be changed to Falstaff, so everyone at court called  the new Lord Cobham "Falstaff" behind his back.

 

I say that man Q, you can't go around saying things like that!     Someone will be bound to be dreadfully offended!

 

1 hour ago, TheQ said:

 

That won't be a system problem of course ....

 

ION

 

Coincidental with all of the discussions on Shakespeare we've been to the Globe today.     Although in this case it was a walk along the tow path to the Globe Inn on the Grand Union Canal at Leighton Buzzard.    We did lunch.      This was not bad when it eventually turned up although having waited for ~3/4 hour the manager came out to apologise to say that the meal we had (all) chosen could not be provided because the Chef wasn't happy with how it turned out and wouldn't serve it.  She then asked if we would like to chose alternatives and any difference in cost would be refunded.   This was duly done and another 35 minutes or so passed and we'd almost got to the stage of being "past it" when the alternatives appeared.  

The replacements were OK when they did turn up but it wasn't quite the same!

 

Slow progress is being made getting the two rotary encoders for the MPCB to talk to the processor but it's been hard going and it's not completely there yet.     It shouldn't be this tricky.   It's only 5 wires and 2 of those are power!   At least there is some communication now although they are not behaving/responding as they should so still WIP.   Why I'm having so much trouble with these I don't know.  I've used the same devices on various astronomical gadgets and the first MPCB before with little or no bother.

 

It's "Down the Tube" with Siddy tonight I think so I'll stop banging my head against the wall for a bit.

 

TTFN

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Coombe Barton]

... original Gertrude Jekyll has been joined by Lady of Shallot, Summer Song and Sceptr’d Isle ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2024/08/27/postcards-from-home-2024-07/

[Tony_S]

10 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

original Gertrude Jekyll

That is Aditi’s favourite rose. 

[Coombe Barton]

20 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

That is Aditi’s favourite rose. 

This is the nursery

Good coffee and cake as well

Edited August 27 by Coombe Barton
addition

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon/evening all from Estuary-Land. Done a bit of shopping this afternoon after which Arthur Itis started doing a clog dance on my hip and knee so I took a couple of pills and went to have a lie down. I'm now going to watch Freddie Flintoff's field of dreams.

[monkeysarefun]

2 hours ago, polybear said:

Bear here....

 

A W/H Day.  Tick.

Busy as usual - no D's or C's though 😢.

The day was spoilt a little by some T0sser who thought it clever to block the entrance/exit to a service road behind some shops, parking on double yellows in the process; we were about to unload when a car decided he wanted to exit, meaning we'd have to exit first to allow him past.

So Bear goes down and politely asks him to reverse a little so we could all sort it - only to be met with "So?  I don't give a Sh1t" from Neanderthal Man in the driving seat, who decided he wasn't moving, full stop.  So we shifted as best we could to allow the car sufficient room to get as far as Grunt - who then suddenly decided (after clocking the size of the guy driving the car) to move after all.  We didn't have any problems after that....

It seems the Van Driver (who's a retired Senior Plod) has had "issues" with the Guy before;  I've a sneaky feeling that Grunt might just be having problems before too much longer.....

 

I also spotted this donation in the W/H that's now looking for a good home - which might interest certain ER'ers:

 

 

 

Presumably the autographs are those of the England Team (is it a full set?) - if only they printed their names next to the signatures....

 

ION.....

 

It seems that Bear has been summoned to London for a Scan in a few weeks .....at @ 08.30.....oh Poo....

 

BG

 

 

 

 

That is Lords Cricket ground and the top  title agrees with that, yet the 2001 test series was held in Sri Lanka, and the lower title implies the same?

 

Confused, of Sydney.