Ketlane

See Africam - Go On Safari From Anywhere In The World On Any Device You Choose - I've just been watching elephants drinking at a waterhole......

Beware separated and estranged parents where there may be court orders preventing disclosure of mother's address etc to father and vice versa; this can get very complicated with half siblings and can go horribly wrong. I've had one very near miss - might have triggered a violent incident between the parents and might well have been contempt of court on our part, just prevented the document being posted. Tightened up procedures after that with quite scared secretarial colleagues! My record number of contacts is seven, all quite reasonably needed, and no separations/remarriages/etc involved!

New car. Clock on infotainment system seems to set itself - presumably via radio or smartphone Bluetooth. But clock on other part of dashboard has to be set manually. Irrritating. Fleet of minibuses; clocks need setting manually but also drift so they are not correct. Setting procedure buried ever so deep in some menus, and of course different for different makes/models. So clocks are always wrong as no-one does the +/- 1 hour and no-one adjusts them. Irritating.

Interesting other issue raised by the Spring Statement: the possibility of legislation requiring receipts for cash transactions thereby trapping at least some of the black economy and getting it taxed.

In the days of cash - the 99p bit (or for us oldies 19s 11d) meant that the cashier had to open the till and therefore register the sale - stopped them spiriting the £10 note away (or for us oldies the 10s note)

The elderly and ancient on here will remember the same kind of discussion when the 1/2p coin was abolished (and longer back the 1/2d and, as DaveP says, the 1/4d). At those remote times there was no electronic payment!

The evidence seems to be that cash is an endangered species: Why Sweden is close to becoming a cashless economy - BBC News Just a few of us on here remember the demise of the halfpenny (for the youngsters, they were 480 to the £)

The batteries may well not be good news. Lithium-ion as in loads of kit (and the Boeing Dreamliner, known to some crew as the Dreamlighter) https://www.thesun.co.uk/motors/4721171/terrifying-tesla-video-shows-unstoppable-electric-car-inferno-that-took-35-firefighters-to-extinguish/

This report gives an interesting perspective: https://www.thelocal.fr/20180102/increase-in-new-years-eve-car-burnings-across-france

Was on the M6 a few years back. The sign didn't for once tell me to check my fuel (if I am so stupid I need to be told that, possibly I'm too stupid to read the sign and obey it); instead in advised me to "Thin Bike" - so maybe Highways England can't spell, or maybe they think we should be squeezing bikers?

I was at a Companies House presentation recently where the Intellectual Property people also spoke. Pointed out that you need to be ultra-careful with copyright. If the contract says the contractor holds the copyright, then if you want out of the contract you lose the website design as well.

These links might help https://www.gov.uk/child-car-seats-the-rules/using-a-child-car-seat-or-booster-seat https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-child-car-seat-rules-no-change-for-existing-booster-seats

RMT Rule 4b: (b) to work for the supersession of the capitalist system by a socialistic order of society

I'm not at all sure the public vs private issue is the main one. The key point in all this is that all commuter lines run at a loss and have to be government subsidised in one way or another. The track and rolling stock are not efficiently used as they have to cope with huge peaks and troughs in demand. This isn't a Southern problem, this is universal. Now a consequent question is why someone here in Cumbria with no public transport should pay tax to subsidise a Southern commuter. Other points include the historical fact that our railways were all built long, long ago - which limits the height and length of trains and therefore track capacity: double deckers may work elsewhere but they won't work here. Engineering to fix some pinch points causes massive disruption and therefore suffers from political pressure both ways: "London Bridge is a shambles and the engineering makes it worse" vs "Why don't you sort London Bridge out?" And then there's signalling - with some improvements trains can operate with shorter headways, but installing the signalling is disruptive and expensive. I think that there is another factor as well - and that is ASLEF, RMT, TSSA are in a very powerful position and can take industrial action at will. This gives them vast political power which is not under the democratic control of the country as a whole, although of course they vote for their actions, and their leaders, democratically within the unions. There are I think two underlying forces here - a wish to assert and maintain their power, and a strong strand of Luddism and job protection which is clothed in righteous indignation over safety.

Strikes are fundamentally a trial of strength and part of the bargaining process. Where an employer is one of several competitors in an industry, a strike will mean real losses as market share goes to the competitors. In situations where there is relatively high unemployment and the jobs are relatively unskilled, the employer can effectively tell striking workers that they will be replaced, so a strike is perhaps risky. In the case of Southern, there is no competing railway line or company, so the employer does not suffer so much. And the jobs are reasonably skilled, with low unemployment. It is the customers who suffer, caught in the cross-fire.

Some random thoughts on this, part driven by the family using more long-distance trains than in the past: The DLR has no drivers on its trains.....as is the case with many more metro systems than I thought! ASLEF might well be worried as well as RMT. Ronald Reagan outbluffed the ATC unions when he fired the lot. I wonder.... And although there is a lot of overcrowding and delays and things, the railways are now carrying many more passengers than at privatisation: ORR quote: "Passenger journeys in Great Britain reached 1.69 billion in 2015-16, the highest recorded figure since the series began and an increase of 129.8% from the 735.1 million recorded at privatisation in 1994-95." Interesting data on subsidies at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rail-subsidy-per-passenger-mile

From a presentation I went to last week about Intellectual Property: check the contract when you agree or sign it. Ensure that the copyright rests with the school and not the contractor. The context was different, but the speaker from the IPO discussed an entrepreneur setting up a company and getting a contractor to build the website. When it came time to sell the company, the IP of the website was with the contractor and the company either needed to buy this out or was reduced in value.

One idea for fire extinguisher training. Synchronise it with the servicing of the extinguishers - those that need discharging and refilling as part of the service cycle can be used in training at an effective cost of zero. Need to talk with the fire extinguisher contractors.

Simply abandon the bells. I need to apologise in advance... that way you become the no-bell prize winner..... But a system where there are clocks and people can tell the time has been fine in schools I've worked in.

When I went on a school lab design course they recommended IKEA's online kitchen designer software.....

Worth checking the MIS. SchoolBase has just released a seating plan system.

Check the regulations on networking very carefully. They are on the JCQ website, ICE (Instructions for the Conduct of Examinations). I've pasted an extract here - see the 8th bullet: A word processor: • must be used as a type-writer, not as a database, although standard formatting software is acceptable; • must have been cleared of any previously stored data, as must any portable storage medium used. An unauthorised memory stick must not be used by a candidate. Where required, the centre must provide a memory stick to the candidate, which is cleared of any previously stored data; • must be in good working order at the time of the examination; • must be accommodated in such a way that other candidates are not disturbed and cannot read the screen. Where a candidate using a word processor is accommodated in another room, a separate invigilator will be required; • must either be connected to a printer so that a script can be printed off, or have the facility to print from a portable storage medium. This must be done after the examination is over. The candidate must be present to verify that the work printed is his or her own. Word processed scripts must be attached to any answer booklet which contains some of the answers; • must be used to produce scripts under secure conditions, otherwise they may be refused; • must not be used to perform skills which are being assessed; • must not be connected to an intranet or any other means of communication; • must not give the candidate access to other applications such as a calculator (where prohibited in the examination), spreadsheets etc; • must not include graphic packages or computer aided design software unless permission has been given to use these; • must not have any predictive text software or an automatic spelling and grammar check enabled unless the candidate has been permitted a scribe or is using speech recognition technology (the script must have a scribe cover sheet attached), or the awarding body’s specification permits the use of automatic spell checking; • must not include speech recognition technology unless the candidate has permission to use a scribe or relevant software; • must not be used on the candidate’s behalf by a third party unless the candidate has permission to use a scribe.

In principle they shouldn't be marking on school equipment....it's not part of their employment by the school.....but in practice...?

Seriously, though: the wife has had a sequence of work leased cars (so not quite the deal discussed above). We have been pleased with the convenience; we think it costs a bit more than owning, but the confidence of knowing exactly how much we would be paying with no unexpected repair bills was well worth it. On the other hand, handback time is stressful, though - need full valeting plus the tiniest scratches get looked for and charged for. One bill we had - for a car that was 4 years old and to my mind OK to go straight out for resale - was over £600.

Of course anyone being too boastful might find HMRC have been having a look and will put in a demand for tax.....