aliceBB

Our problem is jackdaws. This year, they are hell bent on building their labrynthine nest under our solar panels. There are plenty of other places nearby they could go, but we really don't want them damaging the cabling to the panels with their beaks, ever-larger twigs, sticks, lumps of sheep's wool, old socks, feathers, etc. etc.

So, we put up my scaffolding and are clearing the nest out twice a day in the hope that they will get the message and give up. So far, they haven't. They just grumpily go off and find some more twigs and come back and shove them under with renewed enthusiasm.

The solar panel installers can erect some sort of guard around the whole lot, but it is expensive and has basic design flaws (can be removed by determined birds, and if they make a hole in it and shove nestbuilding stuff under, you cannot get at it to remove the nest!).

If anyone knows how long we will have to keep up this battle, or if there is a more effective deterrent, I'd be very glad to hear of it.

Sounds like a good balance.

(But what is bouldering?!)

You can't be intending to argue that a near 50% increase in size is NOT a room that is "a lot" larger?

Whether both rooms are still uncomfortably small isn't really the point...

I disagree. It is the point. It's probably one of the reasons people are being put off the house.

Most people want a guest room which can accommodate a double bed, these days.

3 ideas....

Research would suggest that the length of the marriage is typically in inverse proportion to the cost of the wedding.

Expect your feelings for each other to mature and change, not stay at the same heightened level of excitement you felt when you first met.

Children usually enrich a marriage, but should not be seen as cement for one which is cracking.

If the newbuilds have rooms that are 7 * 8 then it's 44% larger. That's "a lot" IMO..

But 44% of a poky little hole is still pretty poky. Believe me, if a house has bedrooms which are 7' x 8', it is going to be claustrophobically small for anyone over the age of about 11...and 9' x 9' doesn't feel much bigger. It is still smaller than the average single study bedroom in a University Hall of Residence.

When will the short poems about politics be posted?

I was wondering that!

It all works on trust - so the participants ultimately have no guarantee that their swap partner will do as they have promised, or any proof that they have done as agreed - unless I suppose they each take a photo of their ballot paper before they post it in the box...is that legal?

Even if it's so, many new houses have diminutive bedrooms in order to maximise how many there are.

It would nonetheless be delusional to believe that bedrooms measuring approx. 9' x 9' are 'a lot bigger' than bedrooms in newbuilds.

First world problems...

 

The current process of converting schools to academies would allows schools to set their own salaries, and offer incentives to the best teachers. But of course Labour and the Unions are against all of that.

Have you ever worked in an academy? Appalling places. Guaranteed to make you want to leave teaching. Seriously.

Sorry, is it the car or you that's postmodernly ironic (

I'll let you work that out.

[Good Old Pontefract, home of Yorkshire's best potatoes even if it is in the wrong part of the county

 

 

Really?! I lived there for 18 years but was never made aware of the fact! WE had good rhubarb and it's the only place in the UK where the soil is deep enough for licorice-growing...but spuds? Are you sure?

Well, Cyclone's about 4 years behind the times, as sadly, Fiat stoppped making Multiplas with bumps in 2011.

Bit of a Marmite vehicle, I guess...but I think they are a welcome antidote to all the willy-wavers' 9 million horse power machines. We had one (yes, with the bumps! Oh, how I miss it) when our kids were small. It was brilliant. Three proper seats at the front and at the back - we could go out as a family and still have room for Grandma or a friend...or separate three squabbling infants on long journeys so that nobody could poke a pencil up anyone else's nose. Now that's good design!

We don't have the squabbling infants problem any more, but I use it as my decorator's van (back seats removed and the exterior suitably embossed with my business signage) and it's fantastic - roomy, reliable, economical and quirky. Lots of people notice it and it's the only advert I need.

It is greed that undoes us all you say, yet the solutions you come up with all involve spending more money, the flawed logic of socialism

If you doubled teacher salaries would education standards be twice as good ?

Double teacher salaries and halve class sizes and you would notice a big difference. Most teachers are not greedy, believe me. Most of them effectively work for nothing for many hours each week. But if you recruit and retain a high quality teaching force (and paying professional salaries is the most obvious way of doing that), instead of allowing 38% of new recruits to leave, disillusioned, within their first 3 years, you would be on the right road.

The other thing which would make a huge difference to standards is parents taking more responsibility and promoting positive attitudes towards learning and towards school, at home.

---------- Post added 19-04-2015 at 17:21 ----------

And we appreciate every syllable with warm endearment..even though you're 2 strawberries short of a trifle.

And so say all of us.

That's easy! What you need for driving around Sheffield is:

 

Four wheel drive. . .for getting up Sheffield's hills and driving in our harsh winters.

 

A big, powerful engine for. . .safer overtaking

 

Traction control. . .for not skidding off the road when cornering at +1g

 

And a Launch control system. . .for sub 4-second 0 to 60 times.

 

So it's either a Porcsche 911 Carrera 4S or a Nissan GTR for me.

 

And since I can't stand Germanese bin wagons, it has to be the Nissan

So my postmodernly ironic Fiat Multipla wouldn't do it for you?

It's beautiful to me.

Actually, what you are describing is just powerful engineering...which is not necessarily beautiful.

If all schools were as "good" as the rest, they would all be average.

 

Surely "good" is relative to the rest? (In the same way bad is)

No, 'good' is only a useful descriptor in the context of primary schools if you can define what a good school is and what it is not. Otherwise, you're applying a label which means different things to different people, and hence is to be so vague as to be meaningless. Even OFSTED doesn't arbitrarily declare that is a school is 'good' or 'failing' on the basis of gut reaction. They have a list of identifiable and measurable objectives against which they judge the school's performance. You can argue with the criteria, but it is more objective, I suspect, than they way most parents judge schools.

Perhaps you could tell us what you think 'a good school' is or should be?

I'm fascinated to know what you lot think makes a car beautiful (or not).

Do explain.

It already is unless you have a certificate to hold them.

 

Criminals of course don't actually care about that, and can't get a certificate anyway even if they wanted to so I think this is rather a solution looking for a problem.

Er...I was being ironic. Never mind. Back to Scouting For Boys!

Cyclone too, over whose head it also went.

---------- Post added 19-04-2015 at 12:21 ----------

You make a habit of telling people to get off the forum .Two weeks ago you told "loraward" to "eff off" on another thread when your rage and frustration got the best of you.

Telling a tiresome multi-ID forum troll to eff off is not an indication of rage and frustration, merely irritation, which I am sure is shared by many members when said troll (loraward/aka ivanava/aka smithy) starts derailing threads left, right and centre.

All true. Owethemnowt, I salute you. #24 is one of the best posts I've read on this forum.

I actually saw some toy guns in Poundland yesterday. I thought even the sale of toy guns had been outlawed for fear of them being used by adults and mistaken as real guns.

I don't think the buyers for Poundland are quite up to spec on the English legal system.

Yes, which is why league tables are being published for their year 6 SATs results.

Surely it is the other way round. The problem exists because they are publishing KS2 results. The sooner parents stop worshipping at the altar of bloody SATs results, the better. If they want to compare schools, they should look at their 'value added' quotients. That will tell you more about just how good schools are likely to be. Even better, they should ask to be taken round the school during a normal day (not an Open Day) and get a sense of what kind of ethos it has, the relationships within the school and what it values in its pupils.

I would be interested to know what parents actually want from a primary school, which is enough to make them move house, feign religious conviction, pay thousands of pounds... What does 'good' mean, in their minds? Is it the same as most primary teachers' and Heads' definitions, I wonder?

Wait, haven't you shot all the naughty criminals yet, Harleyman?

 

All mouth and no trousers, that Harleyman!

Should gun law be tightened up? No, just make it a prisonable offence to sell or possess bullets/ammunition.

Problem solved. Next question?

It's not a question of bringing all schools up to scratch per se, it's the children that go to them. If the brighest children are being creamed off to go to the local grammer school or the school with the best results many miles away, who have you got left to go to the local schools?

Do you think the same problem exists where primary schools are concerned?

Don't have the gloss finish work tops. I had them in a previous kitchen because I thought they looked nice. They scratched and marked easily and also when I cleaned them with the wet cloth I had to dry them too otherwise they dried with blotchy marks.

They sound like a very bad idea, then. Life is definitely too short to dry worktops every time you wipe them.

Sop, neither useful, nor beautiful. Shun them, people!