The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.

[Feanor]

I was impressed the nice people at the University of Edinburgh have scanned my thesis and put it online.

Oh, Lordy.
I hope they haven't done mine.
It was crap (and they agreed, and awarded a degree commensurate with that assessment)!

[ian]

It looks like they did them all (I'm a 1995 PhD vintage).

[JellyLegs]

Metropolitan Police, please do be fucking off and not circling overhead at this time of day in your noisy helicopter thing. Kthxbai.

Had the buggers at least three times last night

It parks up somewhere in Essex, not too far from your's.(ETA North Weald apparently)
So whenever it flies into Londres, it is likely to fly past Larrington Towers.

Pedantically neither his nor yours but ours - all police helicopters were transferred to National Police Air Service (NPAS) a few years back and their bases rearranged (aka about 10 were closed) in the name of progress (aka a 15% cut in funding).  The Met no longer has a helicopter as such.

[Mr Larrington]

As a tie-in with the "pretending you're not old" thread https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=87402.1225 I was suprised to discover recently that printed A level certificates are still a thing. And a thing that has to be collected in person by the student. In the week from Monday 12th to Friday 16th September. When said student has, guess what, already gone off to university in a far-away town.

Have they shifted the terms around?  I suppose they would, the shifty bastards. Anyway, my first term in Edinburgh started on 12th October.

I think they must have, MrsED seemed very skeptikal when I suggested term started in the first week of October, similar to No 1 daughter (Cambridge has shorter terms).  One of our nephews went back to Warwick this week or last.

Pretty sure Oxfod hasn’t started yet on account of Professor Larrington strolling off to Venice the other day.

[Kim]

Birmingham's non-FOREIGN PSOs seem to have arrived this last week.  I think BCU's arrived last week.

ETA: I stand corrected.  We must be surrounded by skivey arts students™ who only have two lectures on Thursday afternoons or something.  Unless it's just taken that long for their parents to find a parking space.

Oxbridge of course has shorter terms, so that their students can go on a grand tour of their friends' normal universities before they go home for Christmas.

[perpetual dan]

I got asked to show my PhD certificate when i went for a job as a uni lecturer.
That job also burnt a lot of goodwill moving terms around. Apparently two of them is more efficient. But the September start involved overlaps with several good conferences, post school holiday holiday prices, disconnects any Easter break from school holidays and puts exam revision across Christmas.

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[Cudzoziemiec]

As a tie-in with the "pretending you're not old" thread https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=87402.1225 I was suprised to discover recently that printed A level certificates are still a thing. And a thing that has to be collected in person by the student. In the week from Monday 12th to Friday 16th September. When said student has, guess what, already gone off to university in a far-away town.

Have they shifted the terms around?  I suppose they would, the shifty bastards. Anyway, my first term in Edinburgh started on 12th October.

Term at Edinburgh this year started this week (last week was freshers' week) - I think they rejigged their academic year a while back.

Does freshers' week not count as part of term? It certainly counts as part of last year's A level students no longer being around to pick up certificates!

[T42]

As a tie-in with the "pretending you're not old" thread https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=87402.1225 I was suprised to discover recently that printed A level certificates are still a thing. And a thing that has to be collected in person by the student. In the week from Monday 12th to Friday 16th September. When said student has, guess what, already gone off to university in a far-away town.

Have they shifted the terms around?  I suppose they would, the shifty bastards. Anyway, my first term in Edinburgh started on 12th October.

Term at Edinburgh this year started this week (last week was freshers' week) - I think they rejigged their academic year a while back.

Does freshers' week not count as part of term? It certainly counts as part of last year's A level students no longer being around to pick up certificates!

And accounts for a run on paracetamol at Boot's.

Certificates: I think ours (degree scrolls, if you please) are in the bottom drawer of the chest in the hall, along with old dog leads & son's size 48 slippers that he left when he moved out two or three decades back.  IIRC they're in Latin. The scrolls. The slippers are merely eloquent.

[Jurek]

Ordinarily, I pick up a copy of The Metro in the morning.
I complete the concise crossword by the time the train has reached it's third stop.
I then start on the cryptic one and usually complete that on my way home or when I get home.
The last couple of days, I have completed the cryptic one before I have reached my destination in the morning.
Leaving me little to do on my journey home.

[T42]

Ordinarily, I pick up a copy of The Metro in the morning.
I complete the concise crossword by the time the train has it's third stop.
I then start on the cryptic one and usually complete that on my way home or when I get home.
The last couple of days, I have completed the cryptic one before I have reached my destination in the morning.
Leaving me little to do on my journey home.

Origami?  You could make paper hats from the pages and pass them round, explaining that they're protection against smirking aliens masquerading as prime ministers.

[Jurek]

Ordinarily, I pick up a copy of The Metro in the morning.
I complete the concise crossword by the time the train has it's third stop.
I then start on the cryptic one and usually complete that on my way home or when I get home.
The last couple of days, I have completed the cryptic one before I have reached my destination in the morning.
Leaving me little to do on my journey home.

Origami?  You could make paper hats from the pages and pass them round, explaining that they're protection against smirking aliens masquerading as prime ministers.

I already have the carriage to myself on account of my mask.

[hellymedic]

I am pretty sure I was asked for my O Level Certificates as part of the university entry process. I'm not sure if A Level certs were needed or available in time.

There was an 'Application for Form R' that needed completion before you could enter Medical School at a Joint Matriculation Board university.

[Mrs Pingu]

Plumber got back to me today so hopefully we will have a working shower next week.

Why didn't I think of getting the bath taps replaced with a thermostatic bath shower mixer until now? Oh well, too late now...

[Kim]

Plumber got back to me today so hopefully we will have a working shower next week.

Why didn't I think of getting the bath taps replaced with a thermostatic bath shower mixer until now? Oh well, too late now...

Electric shower does at least mean you've got a backup in case of boiler failure.  (Though I must admit that I usually shower using anna daptor on the bath taps, because 24kW combi boiler beats 8kW^[1] electric hands down in the litres-per-minute competition.)


_{[1] Formerly 7kW, but the nice guys from Western Power Distribution dug up the road and swapped us to a phase with a sufficiency of voles.}

[Mrs Pingu]

Obviously the ideal case is having more than one bathroom and both types of shower as a back up. Which is handy if you have more than one bathroom.

The bath tap thing wouldn't have been ideal anyway cos the taps are at the wrong end of the bath (i.e. not the wall and screen end) so there would have been a realllly long hose.

[Beardy]

After 10 days of dancing under a shitlandlordelectricshower at my daughters I really enjoyed my own combi-boiler fed shower this morning.

[Mrs Pingu]

Git.

[perpetual dan]

...

I already have the carriage to myself on account of my mask.

Well, everyone's youthful good looks need help at some point.

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[Kim]

The bath tap thing wouldn't have been ideal anyway cos the taps are at the wrong end of the bath (i.e. not the wall and screen end) so there would have been a realllly long hose.

Yeah, we've got that problem. *rummages for photo*



Note cunning generation rent bodge using waste pipe (avec cable ties and old inner tube) to keep it out of the way.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Well you call it "generation rent" but it's reminiscent of "make do and mend lodgers" in novels of the 50s and early 60s.

[Mrs Pingu]

Oh very good, I approve! What is that contraption in the bath?

[Kim]

What is that contraption in the bath?

BFO digital clock.  Wacky races, for the timing^[1] of.  It's notoriously difficult to photograph (though generally looks okay on video).



Seen above with most of the electronics replaced by tissue paper, while the case undergoes a waterproofing test.

More in the fettling thread.  And a full write-up in issue 146 of Laidback Cyclist.



_{[1] Technically the jam-filled Babbage engine does the timing, and this is just a massive repeater display for the benefit of those who didn't bring bifocals, squinting through steamed-up velomobile hoods, etc.}

[Captain Nemo]

Oh very good, I approve! What is that contraption in the bath?

Obviously a Heisenberg generator.

[Basil]

Bloody hell Kim, you've mowed your lawn!

[Kim]

Bloody hell Kim, you've mowed your lawn!

I hacked it all back a few years ago, because reasons.  Since then I've been attempting to persuade it to grow grass (or at least moss or that clover-like stuff that's sprung up everywhere in the last few years) by selectively murdering the other weeds using a combination of agricultural-strength glyphosate and ultra-violence.  So far I've mostly concluded that grass likes daylight.