Today I've mostly bin...

[SparkOut]

It strikes me that if they have an Esme, then surely we should be allowed a SparkOut in return? It's only fair...

Hahahahaha! My contribution is more like you claim yours to be, distracting and annoying to the rest of the team. For me to be equated in Hunt value to an Esme is really, really amusing.

[Bunnylump]

Yeah, but we love you anyway...

...and if you're as rubbish as you claim (which I doubt) then maybe it would deflect from my random contributions... (What makes me laugh is that even Scurra was trying to be nice to me and not laugh!!)

...Today I've mostly bin

trying really hard to NOT wring the necks of AS physics students who were doing a controlled assessment*. Or as I call it an "UNcontrolled arse-essment".

*This is the new version instead of coursework. And a complete load or rubbish it is too.

Someone PLEASE tell me WHY I do this job? The pay is rubbish, I work about twice as many hours as I get paid for, and I am in danger of being arrested for child bashing one of these days.

[Laura]

Someone PLEASE tell me WHY I do this job? The pay is rubbish, I work about twice as many hours as I get paid for, and I am in danger of being arrested for child bashing one of these days.

Because you have moments where people buy you flowers, and get amazing results and Uni offers, and say and do things that make you drive at 90mph! (Just from memory of previous posts) And those are the bits that make the rubbish pay and hours worth it.

[Bunnylump]

Ah well, I suppose so. They do make me laugh most of the time. We had a year 9 history class today - one of the boys responded to the question:
"What kinds of problems did the German army face in Operation Barbarossa?" with
"There was a serious shortage of boxer shorts. This made the freezing temperatures even more of a worry for the soldiers." (Not quite sure where he got that one from, but it did make me and the teacher cry with laughter for several minutes!!)

[MBH]

Surely that was Operation Barebarearsea?

Thank you - that gave me a good chuckle.

Today I managed to get a look at a few of the answers to MUMS, and one certainly made me say "Huh?" I claim 1/10th of a mark for seeing that the question mark was very stylized - but I wouldn't have sorted that answer out in a milllion years

[Bunnylump]

Yes, you're probably right.

I can't believe anyone actually solved that one.

[gill216]

I got one these smart powergadgets FOC from npower the other day. It's frightening watching the cost of electricity stacking up. I'm becoming so obsessed with turning everything off I'll be sitting in the dark before much longer.

I was horrified at the cost of a shower, £1.67 per hour(OK, we don't stay in the shower for an hour but at least 2 per day happen in our house and I cannot make the cost any less than 28p per shower) but I was pleasantly surprised at the tumble drier. 33p per hour and I can get 2.5 loads dried in that hour on a rainy day.

Things I thought were relatively cheap are not- and things that I thought were really expensive aren't.

I've set myself a daily budget- I've yet to get under it

[Bunnylump]

All I can say is don't get like someone I know. He has fixed the central heating thermostat so that it can't be turned up above 15 degrees and has the downstairs lights on a timer so that they can't be switched on before 7 30 am.

I'm pretty hopeless but I'm very good at saving electricity by never doing any ironing...

[clvrlad]

have you worked out how much your fridge and freezers are costing you?

[gill216]

Less than 1p per hour clvrlad.

[tricia]

trying to do the Runes - looked in at cisra - PRINTED THEM OUT BUT FAILYD MISERABLY

[eirian]

keeping out of the way of doting grandmothers! We had a full family gathering - well, all but cousin Hannah (6) who was with her dad today and didn't know there was a party to avoid tantrums!

Here's the promised pic of Besotted Uncle keeping Thomas out of the way while we were getting ready first thing (no comments about the 'garden' please!):


We've had a really good (if tiring) day and here's a pic of the birthday boy who survived remarkably well considering he missed out on his afternoon nap.

[LAT]

Lovely photos eirian.
Looks like he is really enjoying his birthday. And glad to hear the jester was useful.

[giraffe]

What a beautiful garden baby. You won't be able to keep up with him soon, when he masters running!

[chazzie]

Brilliant photos Eirian (That is one BU!)

Glad to see the birthday boy enjoying his special day

Hope you now have the chance to relax.......

[Bunnylump]

Aw... isn't he a cutie?! Mine always got horrid and grizly when it was their birthdays and they had to miss out on their nap. Mind you so do I... Glad you managed to enlist Scurra for some useful Avuncular duties!

[LAT]

........trying (unsuccessfully) to complete a stage in the runes.
Though I did escape to the garden centre this afternoon and then spent some time gardening as a distraction.

[Bunnylump]

Just got back from 3 days in Suffolk with 4 girl friends. The weather was spectacularly rubbish (freezing cold, raining, blowing a gale) but we still managed to have lots of fun. Thing is I was totally unprepared for the freezing temperatures so ended up having to wear all my clothes at once, and was to be seen wandering around places like Great Yarmouth* (never been there before, typical kiss me quick seaside place) wearing a very fetching Bugs Bunny hat. We looked like a care in the community day out - especially when we decided to go on the ghost train (which is firmly aimed at the 7-10 year old market) just for something to do.

*Yes I know Great Yarmouth is in Norfolk, we drove there hoping the weather would be better. It wasn't.

As you can imagine this left us lots of scope to spend the day in various pubs and tea rooms... I laughed so much that I've got a sore chest, and probably need to detox for about a week!!

We stayed in a nice cottage, the only disadvantage being that we were surrounded by cocks, geese and peacocks which kept us awake for the half of the night when we weren't drinking too much and being silly. I need a holiday to recover now...

[eirian]

Bunny, you do have the most fun weekends away with the girls!

today.... work have given me their own little puzzle to solve.
Most of the staff in our office are 'fee earners' which mean we can theoretically claim back the hours they work from someone else. So they have to record the time they use on any particular file.

So, how on earth do they calculate that someone should have recorded 95 hours in April, when they are recording 5.42 hours a day? They've given me various methods of how those 95 hours are calculated, but none of them add up. And how they say "5.42 hours a day, but this is raising to a total of 1200 hours in a year", but there are 253 working days a year. Max leave is 30 days, so this gives 223 working days, at 5.42 hours a day, that's over the 1200 hours target already, even if you've reached maximum leave entitlement, let alone those who haven't. (it does work better if you include the 13 days flexi leave you can earn in a year (no comments please about half time council workers getting 43 days leave a year), but since to earn a flexi day you have to have worked 7 hours overtime, surely you should still have recorded the time)
Am waiting for someone to explain it to me. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone understands it themselves....

[Bunnylump]

Goodness, that's one of those sort of strange accounting anomalies which no doubt they had hoped that no one would ever bother to check...unfortunately they didn 't bank on having an Eirian with her head screwed on the right way round!!