I want to deregulate more things

NigeCh

New member
Joined
28 Feb 2002
Messages
604
Location
Mortehoe
Visit site
Use a misdirected hosepipe

The neighbours had a garden party with a disco last night. At 2AM I got out of bed, fixed the hosepipe to a pressure washer and rained them out.

<hr width=100% size=1>
 

qsiv

New member
Joined
30 Sep 2002
Messages
1,690
Location
Channel Islands
Visit site
I thought places were allocated on the basis of schools and postcodes.

I know an acquaintance of mine whose daughter was told not to bother applying from her parents address because of the postcode. The parents solution was to be a studio flat in a depressed part of the country and use that as the application point. The daughter gained her place with no difficulty (well no more difficulty than is ussual for medical school).

<hr width=100% size=1>
 

Peppermint

New member
Joined
11 Oct 2002
Messages
2,919
Location
Home in Chilterns, Boat in Southampton, Another bo
Visit site
Re: Surely the joke is on all of us

HMG have found a foolproof way of keeping the young unemployed busy.

If any fool can get into a Uni, and you can arrange that by making poly's into uni's with less testing requirements, that means four years before they are looking for work. Who knows they may even learn some stuff that they missed at school like reading and sums.

The downside being the expense. Ho Ho why not make them pay for not being on the dole. Parents can pay up front tuition fees and then we'll hit the kids when they get a job.

So know we have the wonderous world where wonderful new subjects are studied by kids who would rather learn a trade and letters and fastfood are delivered by graduates. None of this has affected the usual business of university life where the elite and the gifted are educated as always.

Beware of the backlash when John Smith from the sink estate realises that his degree in Media Studies or Leisure & Tourism has equiped him for, well nothing.

Anybody know a good plumber?

<hr width=100% size=1>
 

Jacket

New member
Joined
27 Mar 2002
Messages
820
Location
I\'m in Cambridge, boat\'s at Titchmarsh marina, W
Visit site
Do the universities even get your postcode/ I know UCAS does, but I don't think that your home address is on the part of the form that gets forwarded to the universities.

I'm sure in some universities, and with some admission tutors things are biased. I can only speak from my own experience, but the admissions tutors I know here are from speaking to them seem unbiased. They do take the school you come from into account, but for two reasons:

i) They know that some schools write references that are better than they should be, while other schools tend to be ruthlessly honest.

ii) Secondly, a pupil from a poorly performing school who can get 2 B's and an A is probably better than a pupil from a good school with 4 A's. So in this respect, coming from a poor school can work in your favour.

Another point they make is that the workload here is very high (typically 9 to 12 hours a day, six days a week, which is hard going, even if the terms are only 8 weeks). Many tutors have found that pupils from poorer performing schools tend to continue to work hard throughout their university careers, whilst those from good schools, who thanks to good teaching didn't have to work so hard to get their straight A's, tend to lack the motivation to keep working hard enough for all 3 or 4 years.

Because of these factors, many tutors tend to pay little notice to both the details of your academic record, provided its good, and your background, and tend to base their decision on a combination of your extra curricular activities and how you come across in interview.

Yes, there is a large proportion of private school pupils admitted to Cambridge (about 40% I think), but only because the vast majority of applications are from private school pupils (around 60%).

<hr width=100% size=1>
 

Jacket

New member
Joined
27 Mar 2002
Messages
820
Location
I\'m in Cambridge, boat\'s at Titchmarsh marina, W
Visit site
Re: Surely the joke is on all of us

Yep, I think most people will agree that turning good Polys and Techs offering useful courses into bad universities offering nothing much was a bad move.

But I'm afraid your comment "the elite and the gifted are educated as always" really gets me mad. I get an earful of this whenever anyone finds out I'm a Cambridge graduate, and its a load of *@!~. Are you objecting to the 'gifted' being educated? Would you rather that the your taxes be used to force those with little academic inclination to go to university, when they'd be much happier doing something else? And by the 'Elite' I guess you mean that public schoolchildren will always get into university? They've got the same chance as anyone else. The only prejudices are in the minds of those who have a chip on their shoulder about the fact that they didn't go to university (despite the fact that they had no desire to go) and talentless newspaper journalists trying to make a living by filling up column inches.

Sorry about the rant. Its been one of those days. But I feel much better now. Thanks!

<hr width=100% size=1>
 

tcm

...
Joined
11 Jan 2002
Messages
23,958
Location
Caribbean at the moment
Visit site
regulation for part-timers.

The comparion of bikers and pilots is intersting.

A bike test is taken once only, i passed twenty+ years ago, promptly bort bike, drove all around, did despatch biking ful time for a year, did 70,000 miles that year, and 20,000 a year other times commuting. Had a try a few years ago, decided it was a bit daft to drive away from family at high speed, alone, to then consider having a drink at a pub before truing round and coming back.

A PPL is also taken once only, but lapses without constant use. The limit of "constant" is that you are not "in recency" after 2 weeks without flying. So then have to go up with instructor, and also have annual checkup, and also log a certain number of miles. If you don't fly out of a training club, then recency may not be as rigourously checked. If you a bit fortyish with a plane, you can get into all sorts of 3-dmensional trouble, during which slowing down isn't an option and clever-clever boaty things we all do to solve problems aren't an option cos the sort out the nav or the engine you'd have to slow down and have a think, at which point you drop out of the sky. When four people we knew crashed, three dead at bigin hill in one year, we packed it in.

I too would like to deregulate lots of things. With a fairly basic level of proficiency the frequency of use seems to be a major factor affecting safety, I think. And of course, the diversity of experience, so floating out of the same ports with the same boat won't realy build up that experience. Whereas er smashing up a few most certainly will...

<hr width=100% size=1>
 

BrendanS

Well-known member
Joined
11 Jun 2002
Messages
64,521
Location
Tesla in Space
Visit site
Re: regulation for part-timers.

There are many things I'd love to deregulate. There's too much paperwork and red tape everywhere, it bogs down business, it's strangling the health service

Flying is not one I'd think of changing. As I've mentioned before, Hang Gliding is self regulating - neither CAA nor FAA directly regulate it, as the various national bodies are regarded as doing it so efficiently that this undenably dangerous sports has one of the best safety record there are. However, you're unlikely to do that much damage to anyone else, you usually only hurt yourself if you screw up.

PPL is a different thing. People can buy a fast boat and belt off to sea with no training and no awareness of how to avoid obvious dangers on a chart, or an awareness of colregs. They probably won't do much damage to anyone other than themselves. They may even learn something in the meantime. If these same people were allowed to buy a plane, get a few lessons, then do their own thing, the lose it in a storm while flying over a residential area, they could cause huge loss of life. Never mind the associated skills with understanding the various regulations. None of that boating mentality of opening up the throttle to overtake the boat in front in hope of getting to a mooring first. If planes did that at airports there would be deaths.

Flying has to be regulated, it has far more ability to cause death to third partied

<hr width=100% size=1>
 

Peppermint

New member
Joined
11 Oct 2002
Messages
2,919
Location
Home in Chilterns, Boat in Southampton, Another bo
Visit site
Re: You should be bloody proud

to be "elite and or gifted" or even lucky enough to get in under the wire.

If we don't allow the capable to get the development they need we'll go down the pan faster than we are doing now.

When I went to school, I finished in 1970, I was in a class of 33. Most got a few CSE passes and went to work. Three went to teachers training college and one went to Uni. My daughters went to the same school and finished in the last 3 years. Daughter ones class had three who went to work and the rest went on to further education. Daughter two had nobody going direct school to work and only four are studying trade based subjects at college.



<hr width=100% size=1>
 

Jeremy_W

New member
Joined
23 Jun 2001
Messages
1,121
Location
Liverpool, UK
Visit site
Why is there only one Monopoly Commission?

I'm sure competition would be beneficial. On a similar theme:-

Why is "dyslexia" so hard to spell?
Why is there no alternative word for "synonym"?
What do "iccasional tables" do for the rest of the time?

<hr width=100% size=1>
 
Top