quizcustodet's Journal

The RSC was on the Today programme yesterday, lamenting the lack of mathematical rigour (and indeed science, they claim) in modern science exams. Reading a bit more about that story let me to this story, about a study the RSC ran last year setting modern pupils questions from a variety of eras. They did not do well - an average of 25%.
( Cut for geeky units analysis and pedagogy )

Current Music: Oysterband - The World Turned Upside Down

In other news,

shreena is awesomely fantastic and I like her lots and lots.

Current Mood: soppy

All righty then...
From the mathematics portion of the test specification for Northern Ireland's transfer tests (taken by 11 year olds before going to secondary school):

Pupils should have opportunities to interpret tables and lists used in everyday life, for example, those found in a catalogue or road safety accident report (Emphasis mine).

Life must be very different for 11 year olds in Northern Ireland.

Checking statistics...
The Economist has a tangential discussion on the government's failure to encourage people on to public transport this week, intended as a cautionary tale lest anyone get too excited by proposals to write carbon emission targets into law. This includes a graph of the cost of various forms of land transport which suggests that driving is the only form of transport which has gotten cheaper since 1980. I was surprised by this and did some more digging which I will discuss ( under a cut. )

Current Mood: geeky
Current Music: Simple Plan

House-husbanding
Much to

shreena's delight, I'm between jobs at the moment - my job at NFER finished a week ago and the Civil Service are looking for a job for me. (At least all the relevant paperwork and checks have now been completed!) Because I'm bored, I've been working my way through Delia's vegetarian collection (on loan from the library).

I may well buy the book, but just in case I don't - does anyone know whether the recipes featured on Delia online change? At the moment all of the recipes I'm most keen on are on the website, but if they're likely to disappear without warning then I should make copies of them before we return the book to the library.

Monday morning giggle..
... for those of us who spent most of our adolescence in the SF/Fantasy section at the library. Mightygodking with new, more accurate titles for popular books. My personal highlight: 'Mary Sue Gets a Dragon', by Anne McCaffrey.

Part One

Part Two

Final Part

Current Music: The Today Programme

Shoe irritation
I have big feet (size 12 wide). Do you know what men with big feet have? Serious issues finding shoes. I also seem to wear out my shoes at a slightly distressing rate - shoes that I wear frequently rarely last more than 6 months before the soles are worn through. Unfortunately, very few high street shoe stores seem to sell shoes that can be resoled, so each time it happens it requires further shoe shopping.

Until recently, I have been a poor student and thus did most of my shoe shopping at Brantano. I do not doubt that buying cheap shoes is reason number one for the short life of my shoes, but high street shops very rarely stock shoes that will fit me and even more rarely do so with any kind of shoe except boring black leather ones to be worn to the office.

My shoes are yet again wearing out, but this time I am gainfully employed and thus have some money! So I'm appealing to the wisdom of LiveJournal. Where can I find good quality, casual shoes that will fit me and can be resoled? I'm currently based in Slough, so can relatively easily get to London, Reading or Oxford - sources further afield will be considered based on the enthusiasm of their advocates. Please help!

Current Mood: footsore

Note to self...
'Nemesis' is a word that should probably be avoided in questions aimed at 10 year olds. That is all.

Book thoughts

shreena and I were talking about books over the weekend, and the topic of "books that made you go "Whoa! That was great". Tangentially to this discussion we were talking about genres, and wondering about how favorite books fall among genres, so I decided to sit down and write out my favorite books and which (approximate!) genres they fall into. I'm posting them here to satisfy your curiousity and possibly attract some recommendations! So, Ben's favorite books:

( Favorite book lists below )

Tigana and Just Wars
I just finished Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana. It was quite a fun book, and I enjoyed it - however, I found myself irritated by two facets of the narrative. I'm going to discuss them under a cut, to spare anyone who doesn't want to be spoiled about the novel.

( Here be spoilers )

Temping in London/Slough/Reading
I am currently waiting (and will possibly be waiting for some months) for the various bits of paperwork associated with new!shiny!job to be completed. Thesis, on the other hand, is looking quite hopeful: I'm optimistic about getting a final draft to my supervisor by the end of next week and hopefully submitting shortly thereafter.

So I'm about to have an excess of free time and a shortage of money, so the natural solution seems to be temping. Has anyone got any recommendations for temp agencies in London/Slough/Reading? Or questions I should think about before applying to them? Something that took advantage of a scientific background would clearly be ideal, but to be honest I'm just looking for something marginally better paid than pulling pints at Wetherspoons!

Good things

I submitted a complete draft of my thesis to my supervisor last night, so I can legitimately not worry about it for the next three weeks, in which...
I shall be married to shreena!
My parents are over from the US for the next week, with my siblings appearing at various points before the wedding
I spotted the fact that I'd failed to book a hotel for the first night of our honeymoon while I could still sort it out relatively painlessly
There shall be many friends at the wedding
Then there shall be two weeks of travelling around Vilnius and Talinn

quizcustodet in posting more than once a year shocker
I am intrigued - many of you probably heard about yesterday's discussion of the 11+ on the Today programme. They got a current set of 11 year-olds and ran them through some sample questions from the 11+. You can see the sample questions here.

Sorry, this isn't actually going to lead into a educational/political discussion of the merits of the 11+. Rather, I'm puzzled by question 7:

One of the numbers in the following line does not fit properly with the others Which is it? 1, 9, 16, 23, 27, 31, 34

Options given are: 16, 23, 27

Neither I nor my labmate could come up with a convincing rationale for any of these to be better or worse than the others. Anyone else have a convincing explanation? The BBC's answer is given under ( here )

Sorry, midnightmelody!
In my continuing quest to ~~actually have some income while writing up~~ improve access to education for all, I'll be helping some Sutton Trust summer school students as they attempt the first year optics practicals next week. By an unfortunate quirk of scheduling, I must go straight from doing this to London, to have a chat about my future employment. This means that I shall be showing students how friendly and unstuffy Oxford is by... demonstrating optics practicals in a suit and tie.

Folky Wedding Music
So

shreena and I have been thinking about music to accompany our civil wedding. Somehow, we have not been immediately won over by the Register Office's recommended pop music: "Love is All Around", followed by "(Everything I Do) I Do it for you" and finishing with "Perfect Day".

We'd quite like some music that we like and that fits into a wedding ceremony nicely. We're looking for at least three songs, one each for entrance, exit and signing the register. We've got some ideas already, which are listed below, but we're sure that there must be some perfect songs that we're not thinking of - so we're appealing to you for your suggestions! Any ideas for folky songs appropriate to a wedding?

To give you an idea of our musical taste, we both like Oysterband, the Levellers, and Julie Fowlis. Our ideas for possible songs so far are:

"I Promise You" - Show of Hands
"After Rain" - Oysterband
"Street of Dreams" - Oysterband
"(All I Have to Do is) Dream" - R.E.M. / The Everly Brothers
"Kathy's Song" - Simon and Garfunkel

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Agnus Dei from Faure's Requiem

NAO Application
Many thanks to everyone who helped out with my job application - I got an e-mail today inviting me to a preliminary interview at the NAO! I'm just a little bit happy about this. I spent a few minutes jumping around my room cheerfully after finding out.

Current Mood: bouncy

Pizza Recipe
In preparation for a family party, I got this pizza recipe from an Italian post-doc in the group. I haven't tried it yet, but he is very into his pizze so it should be good. I'm putting it here for my own reference as much as anything, but clearly if you're up for a pizza give it a go!

( Recipe below )

Current Mood: hungry

Irreverent Thought
I have "The World This Weekend" on in the background while I finish up the last lot of OU marking for the year. In relation to the death of Marcel Marceau, the BBC reported "... Marceau was a member of the French Resistance during World War Two ..."

Because I'm a bad, evil person, the first thing that came to my mind:

German interrogator: "Tell us where the Resistance is hiding!"
Marceau: ...
GI: "It's no good. He won't talk."

My address book is bare!
I am perennially rubbish at keeping up with addresses, with the consequence that I have very few addresses of friends. I would like to remedy this - and thus the poll below, with results viewable only to me. (I hope! Do check before you submit your answers..) If you'd like to give me your address but don't like putting such information on LJ, feel free to e-mail me at ben.fletcher@sjc.ox.ac.uk

Poll #1052524
Open to: Friends, detailed results viewable to: None, participants: 10

The first part of my address is:

Any part of my address that wouldn't fit above is:

I have a ridiculously long address, and the final bit is:

I am likely to be at a different address within the next six months

Yes
2 (22.2%)

No
4 (44.4%)

Not sure
3 (33.3%)

Thank you!
I just wanted to say thank you for all of your kind words and congratulations. You all rock. That's all.

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