Today I've mostly bin...

[Biscuit]

bit worried that the other day we asked my son about revision and he said it was english lit - you cannot revise for english lit. - i hate to think what august will bring.

[Scurra]

What's wrong with To Kill A Mockingbird? It's one of the best books ever written. (Then again, people tend to hate any book they were made to study at school. I'm always grateful I was able to discover Jane Austen for myself...)

[Bunnylump]

bit worried that the other day we asked my son about revision and he said it was english lit - you cannot revise for english lit. - i hate to think what august will bring.

Well, if he was doing the WJEC english lit, the questions were quite kind! (I reckon I could have probably passed without having read the book since 1977. I know that sounds conceited, but I'm pretty good at this sort of stuff having had 11 years' worth of English lessons... )


And there's nothing wrong with the book, it's just SURELY there's been something equally noteworthy written since? I have the same issue with Shakespeare, to be truthful...

[Biscuit]

the WJEC english lit, - havent a clue what wjec is - can you enlighten me

[giraffe]

Watford Junction Education Committee?

[clvrlad]

the Welsh Joint Education Committee???

[Bunnylump]

Clvrlad gets the cigar.

OMG my husband is fuming. He's just finished spending hours painting the outside windowsills on the house. Like a twit, he left our bedroom window open, and the cat's just walked out there (like they do), got paint all over her paws, and walked it onto the stained wooden windowsills inside.

[eirian]

a friend's boy did his Eng Lit today and was worried he hadn't written as much as he wanted... But then he admitted that he'd answered all the questions and had finished with 1 min to go, so that sounds pretty good to me!

Bunny - that's what cats are for aren't they?

today mostly bin... getting frustrated with my laptop. Finally got a new powercable, being pretty sure that was what had gone wrong, only to find that nope, it was just the bit where the cable enters the laptop. I know the battery isn't dead as it will switch on (briefly - managed even to get to fully log on when I first tried it today after a week's rest, but just as I was getting really hopeful, it switched off again, so at least I know the harddrive is still ok), and the cable is new, so it must be between the cable socket and the battery. No idea how to get that fixed, so it looks like yet longer without being able to check my emails, unless I remember all the settings and download them onto Sigur's machine (where I am now).

Anyone know any good (cheap) laptop repair places in the North Manchester area?

[LAT]

Well done Phoebe cat!

I have a slightly similar issue with my computer at work. It is a laptop but is plugged into a docking station in the office. The monitor is connected to the laptop but for the past 2 or three months I have to unplug and re-plug the monitor cable each time I switch on before the monitor comes to life. Sometimes several times. I await the day when it won't work.
I know of a good local repair chap but that's not going to be much use to you Eirian. Best of luck in getting it sorted!

[Wulfruna]

Gradually coming back to earth and sorting things out after my two-week absence..... By good luck we were due to fly back (with BA!) on Sunday - clear of volcano problems and before the start of the strike
As Scurra mentioned, it was unseasonably cold and damp in Munich, and the sun only came out for one day (after he had left!) - and then disappeared again for the rest of the week. Whilst there, I met a friend from Finland who told me that it was warmer in Helsinki
Unfortunately, for the second week I also came down with a horrible cold, which was not helped by the chill and damp..... Sod was clearly imposing his law with a vengeance

However, we still had a great time visiting some amazing Baroque churches and palaces and pretty towns and villages. We ended up for several days in a lovely village in the mountains and were rewarded with a last day with brilliant sunshine and fantastic views. We rode up the mountain in a cable car and were entertained by a group of Alpenhorn players in traditional Bavarian costumes - great fun!

Needless to say, we arrived home to find that Devon has been enjoying fabulous sunshine and blue skies....... I can hardly complain when we are blessed with being able to enjoy another holiday straight after the last one!

p.s. sorry to hear about the laptop, Eirian - but at least I can still send you messages via here (and work..... )

[Bunnylump]

Shame about the weather, Wulfruna. Still, it sounds like you had a good time anyway!

[MBH]

so it must be between the cable socket and the battery.

At least it's not between the seat and the desk [I KNOW - it never would be with you ]

Today I'm in one of my UK Online Centre Libraries looking after a mixed crowd of public doing different things. Just sneaking on here to check threads till I'm call on for help.

One guy is doing the "Literacy Assessment" which needs to read out all the questions and instructions. One question was to indicate the action in the sentence "The children often wash the dishes"... to which I heard the muttered answer "The don't in my flaming house!"

Also - why do I keep hearing the very dodgy instruction "Dragon Drop"??? Sounds dangerous to me.

[LAT]

I have to say that if I picked up a dragon I would probably drop it pretty quickly!

Unless, of course, it was our old Dragon computer languishing somewhere in the loft.

[Scurra]

That's presumably like all those people who keep pointing out that there is apparently a show on Radio 4 called "Cross Incontinents"...

[Bunnylump]

One of our English teachers today who was teaching year 7 about A Midsummer Night's Dream was trying to get the words "Fitting Puck" out. Unsuccessfully. I don't THINK the result was that she became a cross incontinent, but it might have been a close call...

[Redfraggle]

That's brill

We had a child get her arm stuck down a radiator A bit of soap did the trick though so we didn't have to resort to amputation.

[Bunnylump]

I just can't believe this, Fraggle, but today, one of the year 8s got her finger stuck in a radiator!! (There must be something in the air...) The thing which really made me laugh was that the teacher called me over to the back of the class. I could see he was trying hard not to laugh. The girl had got her finger stuck, but, instead of putting her other hand up to ask for help, she'd continued with her writing about minarets, but had added, in brackets (sorry sir, my writing's not very neat, but I'm using my left hand because I've got my finger stuck in the radiator).

I ended up having to squirt hand cream into the radiator to manipulate her back out. That should smell nice when it's on next...

[MBH]

,,, having a day off work for Jennie to get a haircut this morning, and to meet a guy this afternoon who is able to draw up the plans for an extension on our house.

With regard the latter, I may well be asking advice as I've NEVER done anything like this. I'm in the catch-22 of needing to source finance, but not able to find out how much I'll need until 2 or 3 steps down the path - What I figured to be around £20k is looking more like 30 (which is a heck of a lot harder to get), and he gave me a quick list of the 'fees' that need paying that have nothing to do about putting one brick on top of another

We have had trouble with tradesmen ALL our adult lives, and the logic runs "If we can't get a toilet installed without hassle - how the heck can we add an extra 20% to the back of the house?"

Most of the houses in the street have an extension on the back - that is both our side and the houses we back up towards. The first 'frown' came when he mentioned one of the planning rules that an extension shouldn't come within 21m of another building.... this is problematic in that the original houses (without any extensions) re not 21m apart back to back.

[giraffe]

If all the others have had it done it shouldn't be a problem with the planners, you're just making your house fit in. Planning permission should be passed fairly easily. You will also need building regulations approval and they will come to inspect it at varios stages along the way.
Could you perhaps speak to someone else in the road who has had it done in the last few years and ask them what pitfalls they fell into. 21meters is a huge distance I'm sure that can't be right.

[eirian]

I must admit I thought the planning rules had been relaxed recently - we didn't need permission for our extension, although we had the plans drawn up so they would pass anyway. Not sure about the 21m thing - ours is more like 21cm from the neighbours! (well, slight exaggeration, more like 1m total).
What we did was work out how much we could borrow by remortgaging, get plans drawn up where the architect suggested it would cost approx what we wanted. We then got builders to submit quotes, then discovered it would cost around 10k more than we thought. Borrowed the extra, and took someone on to start building. Be prepared for the price to go up while they are building though - we had unforeseen drainage issues, so that added some.
Our architect submitted the plans for building regs approval and then the builders did all the liaising with them for inspections. If you go to your Council's website you should be able to find the costs for planning and building regs approval - I don't think it's all that expensive in the grand scale of things.

It's definitely worth talking to people on your street who have had it done - they'll also be able to recommend builders to you and give you an idea of the pitfalls.

Good luck!