Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

chris_m

PasturesNew wrote: »

I learnt to type at school, aged 14-16.

I'm self taught.
I can type with either hand, sometimes using more than one finger.
I can even use both hands at once - but can't guarantee that one hand won't sometimes overtake the other
Thank heavens for the backspace key and spool chuckers :rotfl:

ivyleaf

silvercar wrote: »

In my school you could only learn typing if you weren't up to studying any science or humanity subject!

Likewise - because I was deemed "academic" it precluded me from learning typing, sewing or cookery, all of which would have been a lot more useful later than most of the other things I learned.

German turned out to be unexpectedly useful, mind you and it was my favourite subject.

silvercar

ivyleaf wrote: »

German turned out to be unexpectedly useful, mind you and it was my favourite subject.

I was forced to learn German, as we had to choose one language for 'o' level and already realised I was bad in French. That was the one and only exam I ever failed. I can't do languages. Supposedly surprising for someone who can do maths, but I'm a one trick pony.

chris_m

silvercar wrote: »

I was forced to learn German, as we had to choose one language for 'o' level and already realised I was bad in French. That was the one and only exam I ever failed. I can't do languages.

If we wanted to do languages, Latin was the compulsory first one, French the compulsory second, then we could choose from German, Spanish or Greek. I went for German and, IIRC, it was one of my two bottom grades whilst French was one of my five top ones and Latin one of the middle ones.

Hardly used any of them in the best part of 40 years since.

PasturesNew

silvercar wrote: »

In my school you could only learn typing if you weren't up to studying any science or humanity subject!

Iz u sayin im fik den?? Iz u? Iz u?



I don't know what a humanity subject is, without looking it up.

In my school, if you couldn't read or write, you were sent away one day a week and learnt hairdressing.

I've got: Shorthand/typing, business studies, English business & professional use and commerce ... which, back in the day, round my way, was respectable as you weren't going into the local factory or to serve in a shop. Those were your choices, unless you wanted to be a nurse (5 O levels required).

Girls: Secretary, nurse, factory work, serve in a shop, hairdressing ... or get up the duff.

Boys: Apprenticeship or army ... or crime/Borstal.

PasturesNew

chris_m wrote: »

Just thought I'd check my facts before replying - to my surprise I found that Tom Champagne (who spent years telling me I'd win the Readers Digest prize draw) was actually a real person - he died in 2013.
I'd always assumed it was a pseudonym, especially as I never won a bean, let alone a penny

I like looking people up "a bit" ... so I keyed his info into a Births/Marriages/Deaths thing and there's one Thomas Champagne born in 1943 in the Reading Registration District. As he died in 2013 aged 70, this is probably him.

Mother's surname pre-marriage: Booty.


I can't tell if that is the one, it just looks about right-ish.

ivyleaf

silvercar wrote: »

I was forced to learn German, as we had to choose one language for 'o' level and already realised I was bad in French. That was the one and only exam I ever failed. I can't do languages. Supposedly surprising for someone who can do maths, but I'm a one trick pony.

Ah, well I'm not great at Maths!

chris_m

PasturesNew wrote: »

I like looking people up "a bit" ... so I keyed his info into a Births/Marriages/Deaths thing and there's one Thomas Champagne born in 1943 in the Reading Registration District. As he died in 2013 aged 70, this is probably him.

That tallies with the info in the Telegraph obit that I found, both years and birth location.

GDB2222

If you are marking a mock exam, are you allowed to mock the pupils? It's a pain to do all this marking and I strongly believe that the teachers should be allowed to relieve the tedium with a fair bit of sarcasm.

I made an absolute howler in the entrance exam to my uni, but they let me in anyway. I later attended a practical physics seminar given by the head of the laboratory. He majored on my howler, graphically describing the lab blowing up and his colleagues fleeing with nasty molten substances raining down on them.

Frankly, there was some exaggeration there. Whilst bubbling steam through molten sodium would probably have killed anyone standing nearby, it's fairly unlikely that it would have blown the whole building up.

GDB2222

I should add that it's highly unlikely that the head of the physics lab marked the entrance exam papers himself. So, it seems that my answer paper was copied and passed round the department to have a good laugh at.