Early Risers.

[laurenceb]

9 minutes ago, tigerburnie said:

Some people in this day and age seem to think they are more important than they are, some seem to think their opinion is the only one that needs to be heard, I ignore those people and continue on my own way, it irritates the hell out of them usually. Long live the ER's irrational look into peoples lives, long may people continue to post what they think is part of their day they like to share, some times a burden shared is a burden lessened, I think of this place as a virtual listening ear, even if no-one is actually listening.

That's the thing about ER's there is alwats someone listening.

[BokStein]

6 minutes ago, laurenceb said:

That's the thing about ER's there is alwats someone listening.

A very understanding and supportive thread!

[Coombe Barton]

18 minutes ago, BokStein said:

A very understanding and supportive thread!

It's been there for me for nearly a decade.

[brianusa]

6 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

 

On the Home Front the number of customers passengers through the House of Fun has risen again this week

 

Another PC item that is bothersome these days; the use of 'nicer' descriptions.  On a railway, they are of course passengers, have been for ages.  Not customers, they belong in shops and they are certainly not 'guests' as is the current term.  Hotels may have guests as that is their business.  Similar to the railway/train station; if it works, don't fix it!

     Brian.

[AndyB]

Evenin' all.

 Birthday greetings to the honourable ER member for Sidcup. 

 

And a mention for Tony - you may not realise it but each time you recount tales from your neck of the woods it brings back nostalgic thoughts of where I grew up;  please do keep it up! With all this cultural ingestion Aditi will be dragging you to the Southend Musical Festival next year!

 

Meanwhile 2 nights of very bad sleep hopefully won't deliver a hattrick. Covering for a colleague at work this week coming so most likely I'll be doing some work over the weekend.

[Chris116]

Like most railways now, the London Underground calls those who travel "Customers" but the nice new barriers at the platform ends say that "Passengers" must not pass that point. I pointed this out to a manager a few years ago and asked if the sign meant that my "Customers" were allowed on the track and only "Passengers" were not allowed? He didn't see the funny side when I suggested that the signs were right and that the people who travel are "Passengers" and the sooner we were allowed to call them that the better. What I did not tell him was that I always called those who travel "Passengers" and they were not going to stop me doing so.

Edited July 25, 2020 by Chris116
Spelling

[Gwiwer]

1 minute ago, Chris116 said:

Like most railways now, the London Underground calls those who travel "Customers" but the nice new barriers at the platform ends say that "Passengers" must not pass that point. I pointed this pout to a manager a few years ago and asked if the sign meant that my "Customers" were allowed on the track and only "Passengers" were not allowed? He didn't see the funny side when I suggested that the signs were right and that the people who travel are "Passengers" and the sooner we were allowed to call them that the better. What I did not tell him was that I always called those who travel "Passengers" and they were not going to stop me doing so.

Officially we are told they are "customers" although any who fail to pay their fare most certainly are not.  Passenger they may be but not customers.  

 

I usually use a rather cheery work-around.  Announcements are prefixed "Ladies and Gentlemen - the train arriving ....... " or "Ladies and Gents your attention please.  This announcement is for those travelling to XY or Z.  The 09.20 train to AB and C is unable to run today so please cross to platform 9 for the next available service".  Among that wording the discerning ear might also note that I never ever announce a cancelled train.  "Unable to run" is my preferred term; "cancelled" sounds so final and dramatic and usually produces a flood of hapless souls asking more questions than can feasibly be answered in a short time.  

 

Other versions are available including mumbled sub-continental accents and chronic cases of verbal diarrhoea which leave you none the wiser.  

 

The train now arriving is the overnight service to Morningtown.  I wish you all a comfortable journey.

[Coombe Barton]

... almost ready ...

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2020/07/24/being-sniffy/

[TheQ]

Evening awl,  

A dry warmish evening but the MhRC was too hot,  so Ben spent the evening,  lying on the floor facing the open door catching the odd cool draft. 

Me, I assembled what I've built so far of the tiny radar to find I'm happy with the smooth ness of the aerial,  but found one side had dried streaky gloss/  matt the other full gloss,  and the flat sections joining, all Matt.. That's from the one tin of paint, the colours right though.. 

The other failure tonight was flat batteries of the static grass gun,  after I'd loaded it with the new colour, and glued the destination.... 

 

Ben the scrounging collie has had bit of my supper,  and is now asleep on the floor at the foot of the bed,

I will now depart this space,  to read some thing Ngauging,  which arrived in the post box today. 

 

Goodnight Awl. 

[AndyB]

6 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

 

In other news and knowing that logic and railways seldom sit comfortably together I was approached by a couple who alighted from the Alton train.  They approached me with puzzled looks and the words "We think we got on the wrong train.  We want Alton Towers but it doesn't say it stops there".  "Alton Towers?" "Yeah - we're going to Alton Towers ........."  

 

I can see the reasoning.  Alton train - Alton Towers.  But nowhere does anything suggest Alton Towers might be in Alton, Ampsheer.  I referred them to platform 17 for the Milton Keynes train and advised they change there for Stoke on Trent.  And buy a new ticket first because a return to Alton won't get them where they want to be.  I suspect they just went home.  

 

 

Rick. You're a model of restraint.

I'd have sent them back down the line to rural 'ampshire with "directions".

Although having just seen the Alton Tower's gardens on Gardeners' World, the local municipal gardens might not quite cut it! 

[Dave Hunt]

Harking back a few pages to lawyers, why is it that there has never been a recorded instance of a lawyer being attacked by a shark? Answer at the bottom of this post*.

 

I just want to add my two pen'orth about the subject matter on ERs. I have a few times admitted in my posts to being in a poor place and the overwhelmingly supportive responses have been incredibly helpful so when someone else is having problems it seems the right response is to be supportive in return. That, I would suggest, includes anyone who received support when going through a messy and costly divorce....

 

And I'm glad that Tony is back.

 

My bike is now up and running again with its new inner tube, which arrived sooner than predicted . I would have tried a puncture repair kit but I don't think that it would have coped with a tear at the base of the valve. The grand plan was to go out this evening for a ride; until it started pi**ing down that is. Maybe tomorrow? Also on the arrival board today were some more bits and pieces for parallel metal transportation at a scale of 1:43.5, which I hope will be applied in the next few days. All in all, not a bad day really.

 

Have a good weekend folks.

 

Dave

 

*Answer to question - professional respect.    

[PeterBB]

3 hours ago, Coombe Barton said:

This, however, does not take into account that I've randomised both the order of the questions and the order of the answers. Some questions come from a question bank, which has, say, four or five similar questions of which one or two are randomly selected for each student.

 

RTFQ ***applies.

 

 

*** Read The Flamin' Question, or something like that.

 

 

 

 

Have done the same but quite some years ago now ... and then go through them to make sure the 'result sheet' was correct because automatic 'computer marking' was unavailable at the time.  Finding incorrect answers that were plausible took the time as there were no similar ones available.

 

Listened to some of the music on 'second go' - normally these days I do not ... after a time a message comes up that stops my proposed comment or addition to the blog and then after an hour it cuts me off.  Consequently although I still read most (unless I have been unable to attend for a few days) but cannot add to the responses.  My AV does not like the site and also will not let me add RMweb as one to allow.  Getting quite used to it but have also noticed that a number of former 'regulars' do not seem to be posting ... unless of course they have similar problems. 

 

Enjoy reading most topics but, as you know I eat because I have to so the culinary aspects are skimmed rather than read, but nevertheless the variation in preparation of 'the 'same' recipe is extremely widespread.

 

Keep going Tony!

Edited July 24, 2020 by PeterBB
Had to 'forget password' to continue to read ER.

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Another day nearly over and bu@@er all done. That is unless you count the Sudoku in the last couple of days papers. Glad to see you back Tony here on ER's and I hope to see GDB back before very long. Tea has been drunk, now to tackle and catch up on Farcebook. Be back later.

[Erichill16]

Evening All,

Sat out in the garden despite it getting dark, just finished a bit muddling. Went for walk the the boys this morning and bit of gardening and lawn mowing has happened. Even watered the pots as they looked a bit dry and rain is not definite until probably Monday. 

I sometimes mention my health issues but it’s only to add context to what it’s alowed me to do or not. I think quite a few of us have mentioned health problems over the last few weeks, after all we’re not spring chickens, well except for Florence Loco Works, and even he’s mentioned his teeth! As I’ve said before I’ll read it if you post it.

Goodnight 

Robert

[iL Dottore]

A last few words of nonsense from yours truly before bed,,,

 

reference was made earlier to the use of the term “customer“ in reference to what “properly should be called “passengers“. The difference between a “customer“ and a “passenger” Is that a passenger purchases a passage from A to B on a means of transportation, whereas a customer is someone who purchases items or services. Obviously, and to be pedantic, a passenger is a very specific subset of customers. It’s interesting to note that although, to take the SBB as an example, we have things like “Kundendienst” (customer service) which is provided specifically to fahrgaste or passagiere (the latter being a specifically nautical/aviation term for a passenger). Clearly the continentals regard a “passenger” to be a completely different beast to a “customer”. And whilst we are on the topic of the bastardisation of proper terminology, what’s with all this “train station“ nonsense? 
 

No POETS day for me today, I had a teleconference with clients in the US which lasted from 5 pm to 8:30 pm local Swiss time.

 

Still, I did the necessary housework on Thursday and apart from having to walk the dogs tomorrow, I can dedicate my weekend to cooking, playing music and (psst, is Debs offline? Yes, good....) even do some m o d e l l i n g!

 

Good night all

[Barry O]

53 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

... almost ready ...

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2020/07/24/being-sniffy/

Music enjoyed by my recorder teaching and playing her indoors John!

Excellent  music.

 

Baz

[Tony_S]

Evening all.

 Flavio’s mention of Sumo wrestling reminded me of when Matthew won the junior sumo event at his karate club weekend away. Most of the other juniors being athletic and graceful could usually defeat Matthew at karate but he did quite well at sumo. Only the senior beat him. Matthew was quite difficult to knock over.  When he did rugby at secondary school this proved advantageous as well. Despite his dyspraxia the games teachers always praised him for effort. 
Tony

[Barry O]

Goodnight good people!

Baz

[Chris116]

I took "O" level Physics the first year they had multi choice questions. Not one of my best subjects but having gone through the paper carefully I had answered about 50% of the questions and was happy with those answers but the rest of the questions all had two answers that seemed right to me. Having gone through the whole paper two or three times I noticed that there appeared to be a pattern on the answers so I went through using the pattern and found all my either or choices fitted into the pattern! Got an "A" in Physics much to the surprise of my teacher.

[Tony_S]

John mentioned the packaging on handkerchiefs. I had to buy some when we were on our cruise to the US and Canada. They were similarly wrapped. I have loads of handkerchiefs but they are all embroidered (is that the correct term) with “K”. This isn’t one of my initials. Aditi’s Dad used to have a relative who sent him lots of handkerchiefs as gifts. Aditi’s Dad never used them, only paper tissues, so I got them. Their surname began with a K. 

[Tony_S]

2 minutes ago, Chris116 said:

I took "O" level Physics the first year they had multi choice questions. Not one of my best subjects but having gone through the paper carefully I had answered about 50% of the questions and was happy with those answers but the rest of the questions all had two answers that seemed right to me. Having gone through the whole paper two or three times I noticed that there appeared to be a pattern on the answers so I went through using the pattern and found all my either or choices fitted into the pattern! Got an "A" in Physics much to the surprise of my teacher.

By the time I was writing multiple choice questions that technique wouldn’t have worked. I have mentioned before my student who when we were talking about testing said “What class is Mark Scheme in?” “ He always gets 100%”

Tony

[Erichill16]

Physics was my favourite subject at school and up to A level I was quite good at it but I realised that from then onwards my mathematics would let me down so did opt for it at university. Since then I have read quite a few ‘popular science’ books on physics and have really enjoyed them. In one of them I even got to know why the square root of -1 was important!.I particularly like books on quantum mechanics, absolute mind blowing.

Anyway getting late,

Robert

[tigerburnie]

Funny old day, started like it was going to rain, but it was announced "we" were going out for a drive....................................... as it happened the weather improved as we drove north of Montrose, not been up here since February, it's an odd sensation going out isn't it? We called in at the RSBP bird reserve, no hides, just cliff top walks with few folk about and all kept their distance as did we. We then went to Stonehaven with the intention of visiting an award winning chippy, followed by an award winning ice cream shop next door, the place was mobbed, queues everywhere, so Pizza out of the freezer instead, oh well we enjoyed the trip out.

A Razorbill enjoying the afternoon sun.

G'night all

[Chris116]

6 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

By the time I was writing multiple choice questions that technique wouldn’t have worked. I have mentioned before my student who when we were talking about testing said “What class is Mark Scheme in?” “ He always gets 100%”

Tony

Two years after I passed, I finally told my teacher what I had done. He congratulated me and said that the first year on one examination board was the only one where that would have worked but he said I had done well to spot the repeating pattern so he thought I deserved the grade I was awarded. Sometimes there are advantages in being the first to take a new exam or syllabus! I have for the rest of my life referred to them as Multi Guess exams!

 

Edited July 24, 2020 by Chris116

[Dave Hunt]

In the early 70s when I was on a Phantom squadron in Germany, one of the guys got on of our squadron cleaning ladies, who spoke hardly any English, to take one of the multi choice papers for the written part of the RAF Germany ground defence training test. She passed.

 

One of the best teachers I ever had was my sixth form physics master. He used to tell a story that when he was marking some external exam papers once he saw an answer to the question, " Give the definitions of transparent, translucent and opaque with examples," that read, " The windows in this exam room were once transparent; they are now translucent and if somebody doesn't clean them they will before long become opaque." He gave the answer full marks.

 

Goodnight everyone.

 

Dave