Tony_S

I don’t think I can even see them on the Land Rover Ingenium 2litre engine. I did prepare for our trip to the Midlands tomorrow. I filled up the washer bottle. I did check that the sat nav understands my auntie’s address. It does, unlike Google maps which thinks it is somewhere else! It also requested to update my maps. That requires a computer download to a usb stick. It is 33Gb which would be a lot of mobile data. The download is so slow so must be the mapping server. Once the usb is inserted into the car it takes about 30 minutes to update and the ignition has to be on. It can do it tomorrow, I think I can find the town I was brought up in still. Tony

I don’t think we need to worry too much about student literacy. In a few years everyone will be demonstrating their ability to use fronted adverbials as encouraged in primary school now. Did basic literacy tests cease during the COVID years? When Aditi worked at a college where they taught degree level courses many of their students had no GCSE qualifications and so had to pass equivalent literacy tests. All the staff had to do so as well. However for a couple of years Aditi was the UCAS coordinator for the college. She had many years experience of advising students about their personal statements. However she now had to deal with the college references. Traditionally a personal tutor would correlate these and assemble a reference, checked over by senior staff. However rather than use expensive lecturer time the college employed local people to come in and assemble the references. Aditi said the references couldn’t leave the college containing such examples like “He is good student” . After spending many evenings and a weekend rewriting them she just sent them back to the team, with suggestions. Then a complaint came back that they didn’t like her criticisms. Aditi said the college were not helping their students create a good impression with the establishments they were applying to. Aditi felt she was just about to be called out for unfairly criticising the mainly Asian staff when the team manager realised why that wasn’t going to work. Aditi was asked,to be more encouraging when asking for correct English. It wasn’t the report writers fault, they were not qualified and were employed to save money. When Aditi moved to the HE part of the college someone else had the job.

Dodgy insulation methods and installers are everywhere but after I had the solar panels installed and the fitters had long departed I upgraded the loft insulation from 1990 as built specification to whatever was current a couple of years ago. It wasn’t the nicest DIY task but it has been a very noticeable improvement. House is cooler in summer too. Cleared a lot of “stuff” from the loft too .

I didn’t see that…

He posted a picture of his helmet a few days ago. It didn't look dented.

I always thought K9 was the best companion.

As for the other ether or aether, I studied for A level physics from 1969 to 1971. Our A level text books were so old they had chapters on the propagation of light through the aether. We were told to ignore those chapters.

Nicely charred though.Back when I was an science teacher over forty years ago, Instead of disposing of significant quantities of petroleum ether properly the colleague who had used my lab before morning break had just poured it all down the sinks. After break I had what was rumoured to be the worst class in the school , and I was going to attempt to demonstrate something. I lit the Bunsen on my desk and there was a woompf sound and flames came out of the sink, quickly followed by all the other sinks producing flames. I just said “out, now” and amazingly they got up and left the room.. Except for one little lad, who was ecstatic. He was the local arsonist. I was his hero after that. In those days we had asbestos mats to protect the benches so I just walked round dropping a mat over each plug hole.

Your friend’s children have avoided “Horrible Histories” then?

Matthew did mention that.

My son had a business internship in Melbourne. He said your quote was a normal morning greeting in the place he worked. He really liked his time in Melbourne.

Today is one of those unexpected sunny days. We haven’t had lunch yet and have generated 7.8 kWh. The new battery is fully synchronised with the old ones now and they are all heading towards full charge. The new battery didn’t take up any extra space in my garage as it took up the empty slot in the existing rack.

It isa good time to be modelling 009, there are some rather nice loco models and quite a few kits (including 3D printed) for rolling stock available.

I didn’t really like tea until I left home to go to university and I discovered most people didn’t make tea like my parents. After pouring the boiling water onto the leaves (Co-op 99 tea was dust rather than leaf though) the metal tea pot was placed on the gas hob to keep it simmering for a few minutes. It needed milk and sugar just to disguise the taste. My Gran had a huge tea urn which she used to fill with tea, milk, and sugar and keep going all day.

Thanks to the lovely people at Google, text in an image can be translated. I tried it on an image of Whitechapel station showing Bengali script over one of the entrances . It translated to “Whitechapel Station”.

I rarely eat marmalade. Aditi likes toast with marmalade and so she usually makes enough for a year once the Seville oranges appear. Ours have been sourced for quite a few years from Waitrose. My only contribution was the year I had to rebuild the Kenwood Chef when smoke came out of it during over enthusiastic juicing.

If it is the one you mentioned before then no longer current.

As soon as something like that is claimed for science, it won’t be long before the mathematicians claim it.

Nice to hear from you @polybear. Did they install icebergs for you in your local pool? My BMI according to the various leaflets isn’t healthy and I need to get taller.

I thought with all the mention of sci fi novels and films I would have a look at some I saw years ago. I thought I would start with “ Alien”. I hadn’t seen it at the cinema and probably only on an old VHS tape version. Watching it on a modern TV was quite revealing, being able to see things helped along the plot.

We had our extra battery fitted yesterday by Greenscape who were the installers for our Solar Together system. Really good job, great installation team. They upgraded the inverter Wi-Fi link and removed a a software “bar” for export settings as well. Now all we need is some sun.

I did for a moment, just a moment, assume that the carpets were being shampooed, and some redecorating carried out before going out for the meal, which I thought was very impressive. We are going out for lunch tomorrow with friends in a village called Stock. It is halfway between our house and where our friends live. We normally meet more often but our friends have been taking it in turn to be incapacitated by illness and injury this winter. We used to vary our place eat but have been to the same place probably since Covid restrictions stopped. I know we are supposed to choose food places by the menu but the place we go to has a big carpark. As a bonus the food and drink selection is fine. Tony

If you know you know, bit like specialised cookery item descriptions.

That was what concerned me, but I can see a bungee hook wouid be useful.

What is the circled item for?