Laxative
The new term for our IT students opened yesterday. Today there were about twenty students in the lab during the time when the server lets them browse. Who can blame them, they have not classes. Word is out that school doesn’t start when it says it will. So the staff don’t turn up, and don’t prepare the timetable until the first week because they know from experience that “the students won’t be there anyway”. The students don’t turn up because they don’t like being at college and, anyway, classes don’t start until later. The whole thing is very lax.
Yesterday an old man with a brace of adjustable pipe-spanners came to my house to make the tap work again after it abruptly stopped about a week ago. After spraying myself and Johnson, the cook from the convent, with water he reassembled the tap and, behold, it worked… Until the evening when it abruptly stopped again. Now life is the same as last week except that I paid someone 100 bob to spray me and Johnson with water. Sounds a bit like Burning Man.
This morning I had a man come and put some wire mesh up over my chimneys to keep the rats from falling in, as they have done in the past. He came yesterday and guessed that we’d need 2M of mesh. I went and bought the mesh and a kilo(!) of binding wire. Today he hauled himself up onto my roof and we discovered that we really needed about 2.2M. The gap, he claimed, would not be a problem because he would fill it with the binding wire. After his first attempt (spiders being fed caffiene spring to mind) he claimed the rats would not be able to pass.
“What about that big hole?”, I ask.
“This one?”, he answers pointing at a hole as big as his own hand.
*sigh*
I think I’m seeing a pattern developing.
Drew Says:
:LOL: I like this post about taps and rats, I don’t think that things work any differently here.
August 31st, 2004 at 4:25 pm100 club last night was groovy - London swingfonia and a lot of birthdays.
Cookies swing classes start up again tomorrow
boing boing
Drew
Mark Says:
Don’t tell me what a great time you had with the big band.
thsppp!
September 1st, 2004 at 10:09 amChris Mungbean Says:
[ Derek and Clive voice]
I would like to complain abuot the use of the word "brace" in the context of the collective noun, veez-ah-vee the aforementioned adjustable pipe-spanners.
Trout, yes. Pheasants, yes. Spanners — no.
However. At this particularly moment in time I find myself unable to supply a satisfactory alternative.
Yours sincerely, etc. etc.
ps: I’m surprised they let you breed tap-dancing rats in a school.
September 2nd, 2004 at 1:42 amMark Says:
What is the collective noun for a pair(sic) of spanners then?
I’ve just been there and opened said tap with my Leatherman. It might be fixed again now (probably not for long) but there is no water to test it with. Life in Tala continues same time tomorrow. Don’t touch that dial!
September 2nd, 2004 at 12:57 pmjames Says:
Correction: To avoid the timetable being used as an alibi for laxity it was made and released on tuesday a day after the actual day that the students were to report.
Otherwise Ali mazruis thing is great.
September 2nd, 2004 at 1:36 pmjames Says:
Correction: To avoid the timetable being used as an alibi for laxity the timetable was made and released on tuesday a day after the actual day that the students were to report.
Otherwise Ali mazruis thing is great.
September 2nd, 2004 at 1:37 pmMark Says:
Thanks James, and welcome to the blog.
September 2nd, 2004 at 5:36 pmI can see my life is going to be different now you can see what I think as well as what I say!
I wasn’t trying to blame you or the timetable for late start. Just observing the state of flux around term start.
Lydia Says:
I wish my students wouldnt turn up for the first week!
September 6th, 2004 at 2:09 pm