AMLinington

Having also suffered a head injury whilst ski-ing I can empathise with this situation. He was wearing a helmet - a very wise investment and this story only serves to promote slope safety. I imagine if he has not been wearing a helmet we would be reading an obituary - ski-ing accidents can be horrific with a goodly portion of less experienced skiers literally knocked off their feet by flying snowboarders (I've been taken out myself a few times despite being moderately competent with lower-reds) or each other and this early in the season the snow cover can often be icy and patchy so I imagine these factors will have affected his accident. Broken legs and arms are common sights apre ski and one memorable year my partner was treated to the glorious view of a woman's shattered tibia as it protruded out of her gore-covered trousers. Risky business Ski-ing but all skiers understand and accept the risks inherent to strapping yourself to one or two bits of plastic and throwing yourself down the side of an icy mountain. Unfortunate but sadly commonplace and if the plight of a celebrity might raise awareness of piste safety then mores the good.

Aye indeed. Although it is proving it that is the issue. Not everyone will have the same documents we do as I assume their copies of the deeds are still kept by their mortgage provider - ours aren't.

I'm curious why you would choose to have two products when your Smoothwall can manage both firewall and web filtering - what advantages does Lightspeed have over the Smoothwall Web Filter product that are the major draw for you?

The fence between us and the noisy neighbours came down on Xmas Eve. LeBoyfriend has braced it up but now it's sagging the other way. According to our documentation, said neighbours are responsible for that fence line. That'll be a fun conversation to have...

LOL indeed. We have a battery operated Smoke and CO alarm and when it goes off a strident female voice orders you about: "WARNING! FIRE!" or "WARNING! CARBON MONOXIDE!" She is very loud and aggressive XD I may nickname her Prudence

Eurgh. I clicked the link to try to see what the latest was. I feel soiled now.

He is a cautionary tale about rising too fast and unchecked. He's turned into a monstrous little oik and retiring until he grows up a bit sounds like the best solution all 'round. The only thing that bothers me is how insane people get about their favourite pop stars and we've all heard of suicide lines set up when bands break up - it is such a terrible tragic waste of life when a teenager kills themselves over a worthless 'celebrity' that doesn't even know their name. I just hope that the rabid 'beliebers' snap out of their obsession with him before one of them does something silly.

^ This. It has to be said that one school I taught at had a wonderful, inclusive atmosphere and the Science Teachers and Science Techs were one big happy team and it was lovely. Another school was a high achieving school in an affluent area and there was almost open hostility between the science techs and the teachers - it was awful and intimidating. I guess the atmosphere is what you make of it.

Condescension. And no, there isn't. Some people are just douches. Don't tar all teachers with the same brush.

I was doing the usual compare the market thing but I discovered that these much lower quotes were low because the excesses were crazy-high, NCD wasn't protected and the cover was minimal. When I started tweaking the quotes to match my current level of cover the perceived savings disappeared very quickly. In the end I gave my current insurer (Aviva) some earache and got a fairly good renewal deal (their original quote was a bit pants). It helps to have the information in negotiations though.

Wow teacher bashing on edugeek. Groundbreaking. Having been a teacher, it was a lot of hard work and long hours and tbh I pretty much slept through the first half of any holiday. I've done this job and I hated it. I'd much rather work a nice solid 37.5 hour week with weekends and bank holidays to myself instead of spending my weekends marking coursework or lesson planning. 2 days at Christmas instead of two weeks? Ah well, at least when I leave the office at 5 and drive home to my Cat and Rabbits the evening is mine to do with as I please. If I feel like sewing or watching TV or doing housework or baking I can. I don't have to make sure I'm home by a certain time at the weekend to make sure my marking is finished for Monday. I rock up to work at 8.30am ready for a day of meetings and reports instead of having to deal with the bad behaviour of Jack in year 8 and worry about differentiation for the statemented kids in year 9 and the hormone overload of the year 11s. There are no half measures where teaching is concerned - if teaching is not your LIFE then it isn't for you. Personally, I think the concept of the school year is flawed anyway - it was invented around harvesting needs when kids actually did manual labour too. IMO the school day should be structured like a work day - 8.30am-5.00pm. With Schools manned all year and pupils booking a set amount of annual leave (that way parents can co-ordinate holiday booking). That is not to say that pupils must be in structured curriculum classes for the entire period, but if we filled in time in the timetable for supervised study periods, pupils wouldn't need to do homework at home - research and report writing can be done during 'study period' in a designated location. I think pupils ought to have life skills classes - being taught about household budgeting, banking and money management, pensions, tax, rudimentary DIY, cooking and 'domestic skills'. There should be room in the school day for vocational courses so pupils can learn non-academic skills in IT, Manual trades like carpentry, electrics, plumbing etc, nursing, child care, mechanics etc etc.

Naked Noodle Ramen Noodle Soups are quite nice, as are the flavoured Uncle Bens Rices (The mushroom one is my favourite). I think the bigger issue here is the quality and storage of canteen food being served to students - have you reported your experiences to SLT?

LOL That would be cool. Our Zombie Apocalypse plan is to take over Portchester Castle and refortify it - there is enough room in the grounds for modest crop growing and animal grazing - some cows, horses and pigs. It'd be really draughty and cold though...

Am I the only one that finds it all a little bit sad? It always makes me sad to see derelict or disused buildings - especially historical ones that have fallen to ruin when you consider how impressive they probably once were (LeBoyfriend and I are English Heritage members and enjoy touring ruins and learning about the history of the place).

I'm sure someone somewhere could write a raspberry pi program for it... The problem would then become that people empty and do not refill said kettle - LeBoyfriend does this every day and it drives me potty.

Oh I how wish this could be applied here in England. You can only stop people knocking on your door and prosecute them if they do by writing to the company and revoking their 'implied right of access' to your property.

The Addictaballs are going down well this year - someone got one in the secret Santa and I thought it was so awesome I bought one for my partner and one for my brother in law.

@garethedmondson is still 289 up with 2 mins to go

Indeed, the audio driver/output situation was causing us some headaches with many customers thinking there was a filtering issue. The worst part about it is that the 'error' is so useless - if a video won't play due to not detecting an output I wish it would say so! 'Tis a bit like the Sophos Intelligent Web tool - doesn't actually tell you when it's blocking a site or indeed why leaving it to you to try to work out what's wrong.

Am on the edge of my seat now! Denise Day: 2294 @garethedmondson: 2522 With 13 mins to go!

I voted too - it will be tight if the other front runner gets more votes!

I liked the commonwealth one

We have our own tiny tree. It even has pressies under it now.

I've seen this meme a few times and I always get a bit teary at the thoughtful Halloween dad. The WiFi password thing is genius - I'll defo be using this. I fully expect to see myself turn up on one of these memes at some point in the future when someone takes a picture of myself and the future sproglets doing our food shopping in princess costumes...

I bought a tablet with my birthday cash.