Vortex Cannon
Things to do with the recycling……
The Papershopcruiser
I got the Old Papershopcruiser out of the shed the other day and also found an unpublished video which is also posted. Seems ages ago that I made it.
http://videos.videopress.com/NXGmqfer/bike-build-july_-2011_x264_fmt1.ogv
Just Click the Link!
After hours of tinkering, trawling the internet for parts that fit that wretched Raleigh frame and consulting Sheldon Brown, the ultimate bike mechanic’s guru, the bike is now built.
Check it….
Classic One liners……….3
I can sometimes come out with these one liners in public that can be toe curlingly embarrassing for those that are with me. For example on Christmas Eve at the Coop I was checking out my shopping and packing it in carrier bags when the girl on the till asks “What is this?” as she holds up a butternut squash.
“Vegetarian chicken” I reply giving my best attempt at totally dead pan face. I winked at the ATC cadet who was helping with the packing for charity as the girl swallowed the bait.
After 30 seconds of searching on her screen for the product code the teenage girl twigged and just gave me one of those looks over the rims of her glasses – pure distain. Good times!
Those were the days……….. Part 22
Escape from INSET
My first ever September inset day convened in a small library that was laid out with rows of chairs pushed back as far as the bookshelves. I do not know where the venue was, being new to the school, so arrived late and had to tiptoe my way to the back where there were some spare seats. Little did I know that I had landed amongst the hardcore members of the tea club one of which was MM the music teacher with the optics. As the proceedings started the hubbub died down and introductions were made, notices given out etc.
As time went by I noticed MM who was sat near me start to shuffle his chair away from me towards a line of bookshelves. He did this in stages, sometimes coughing whilst shifting the chair of further and further away. As soon as he made the cover of the bookshelf he jumped up and stood out of the view of the people of the front of the meeting.
He then started gesticulating and pointing at me. One thing I did notice was that he pointed a fire exit which he now had direct access to. He beckoned me across to come and over to him, at this point in time I did not even know who this bloke was, and nevertheless I followed his instructions. He quietly popped the five door open whilst I shuffled across to join him. The last few feet I covered by crawling on my hands and knees using a bookshelf of periodicals as cover, but we got there in the end.
We both ducked out of the meeting via the fire exit went for a cup of tea in the music room until the meeting went for a break. I was later to learn that this is typical behaviour of MM, an old school legend.
A play and miss at baseball is still a………………..
There is a certain uniqueness about Billy Bragg. He is clearly no political giant, but well thought of enough to be invited onto Question Time by the BBC. Cannot see that happening for many other people who have played live on Top of the Pops!
It was interesting to hear his response to the question posed by a member of the audience at the live show which was along the lines of ‘what would you do to solve the current economic crisis?’ After suggestions from politicians to cut public spending, stimulate small businesses and ease pressures on world economies by essentially printing more money, Billy said “I would pay the ordinary workers a decent amount of pay by increasing the level of the minimum wage.”
I will leave you to think that how that compares with George Osbourne’s ideas on quantitative easing.
My mind goes back to Billy Bragg as I first saw him play during the miners strike. Strike is a word that has become metamorphosed into ‘industrial action’. Not too sure about that one.
A strike is still a strike in my book.
Those were the days part 21
Weirdest Parent Appointment
At some parents evenings you get some kids that bring Mum, Dad, Gran, the dog etc. Yeah, I have had dogs on leads, that were being puppy walked, introduced to me. As if Fido would be that bothered about what I had to say.
Sometimes you had an older brother or sister that rocked up to be the interpreter for the Mums and Dads who do not have a great command of English. On the odd occasion you could kind of tell that the brother/sister was watering down the bad news which you had to give when the folks nodded appreciatively and mumbled “thank you very much” to my comment that “I am afraid to say that Sunil has not done any homework this term.”
A Mum who will remain anonymous used to come and sit down at my desk regularly without making an appointment. I taught or had taught most of her kids over the years. But even if it was a night for a year group of one of her kids that I did not teach, this Mum would always park up with me for 5 minutes.
The reason being was that the rows of desks were set out alphabetically and my spot gave a prime viewing position at which to gaze at CJ (Clive Jarvis) This is precisely what this Mum would do. She had an enormous crush on CJ and would tell me quietly what a wonderful teacher he was and how she would like to repay him for his professionalism!
The weirdest entourage I dealt with concerned two families that had wife swapped. Both families were very amicable and in fact all four parents turned up for the appointment for the kid I taught. So extra chairs were brought out and it was always most confusing trying to talk to four faces about one student. Very weird!
And the molecule at the top of this post?
Well for a while a few staff used to dress up their desks in not quite a “Pimp my Ride” sort of style. One maths teacher covered his desk with green poster paper and put loads of pot plants on or around the work top. It looked like a display from the Chelsea Flower show. A CDT teacher rigged up some Christmas lights to his desk that pulsed all evening long in a really annoying way. I used to make Molymod© molecular structures and leave them on my desk. Ethanol looked like a little dog which caused much amusement, but little opportunity for teaching and learning!
Memories of my younger days
A few boys from school have caught up with me on Facebook and I still stay in touch with a few others. I saw John Lindsay in Abu Dhabi at Easter and am visiting Jim Dickens this very weekend.
Old photos get me thinking and I am digging some out to post as we speak.
However there is one blog that just “makes I laff!” and brought back some vivid memories of some nights out. It is the one linked below:
Enjoy boys!
Cannot resist a HD video on base jumping!
Found a new website……
vimeo.com = a sort of high end youtube.com
It is better than telly!
Next time you bitch about the internet being down on your Blackberry…………
When the lights go out, students take off to airport
When the sun has set in one of the world’s poorest nations and the floodlights come on at Gbessia International Airport, the parking lot begins to fill with children.
- Rukmini Callimachi, Associated Press in Conakry, Guinea
- The Guardian, Saturday 21 July 2007
It is exam season in Guinea, ranked 160th out of 177 countries on the United Nations’ development index, and students flock to the airport every night because it is among the only places where they can count on finding the lights on.
Groups begin heading to the airport at dusk, hoping to reserve a coveted spot under the oval light cast by one of a dozen lampposts in the parking lot. Some come from over an hour’s walk away.
“I used to study by candlelight at home but that hurt my eyes. So I prefer to come here. We’re used to it,” said 18-year-old Mohamed Sharif, who sat under the fluorescent beam reviewing notes on Mongolia for the geography portion of his university entrance exam.
Only about a fifth of Guinea’s 10 million people have access to electricity. Those who do experience frequent power cuts.
According to UN data, the average Guinean consumes 89 kilowatt-hours a year – equivalent to running an air conditioner for four minutes a day. The typical American burns up about 158 times that.
With few families able to afford generators, students long ago discovered the airport. Parents require girls to be chaperoned to the airport by an older brother or a trusted male friend and even young children are allowed to stay out late so long as they return in groups.
“My parents don’t worry about me because they know I’m here to seek my future,” said Ali Mara, 10, busy studying a diagram of an insect’s cephalothorax.
They sit by age group with seven-to-nine-year-olds on a curb in a traffic island and teenagers on the concrete pilings flanking the national and international terminals. Few cars disturb their studies.
The students at the airport consider themselves lucky.
Those living farther away study at petrol stations. Others sit outside the homes of affluent families, picking up the crumbs of light falling from their illuminated living rooms.
“We have an edge because we live near the airport,” said Ismael Diallo, 22, a university student.
The lack of electricity is “a geological scandal,” said Michael McGovern, a political anthropologist at Yale University, quoting a phrase first used by a colonial administrator to describe Guinea’s untapped natural wealth.
The country’s rivers, if properly harnessed, could electrify the region, Mr McGovern said. It has gold, diamonds, iron and half the world’s bauxite, the raw material of aluminium.
For 23 years the former French colony has been in the grip of Lansana Conté, a reclusive and temperamental army general who seized the presidency in a 1984 coup. Mass demonstrations this year called for his resignation because of his poor health and the deteriorating economy, but he instead declared martial law.
More on music
It was interesting to read today in The Independent on Sunday about the comeback of vinyl.
Peter Hook echoes my sentiments about buying an LP as opposed to downloading an mp3 file in the article.
Also of note is that it seems that youngsters are raiding lofts for their parents’ old rock albums and not knowing how to play them on a turntable, or even how to get hold of one! Bless!
Next goal wins laaaaaaads! 