h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

<< I was only four then and she wasn't even born.>>

I think you'll find the concerto itself was still in the birthing process in the year 1930. I strongly suspect, though, that you knew what I meant and are being mischievous, Douglas.

H

Your'e not wrong, HtoHe

Hello you lot, this Room's been busy today. I see that Andy's been up to more of his calculating tricks, H, and left you little chance of finding any for yourself! Thanks for the reminder for the concert - I'm listening now. Looking forward to La Fille du Regiment with the gorgeous Juan Diego Florez on Saturday night.

Hope you've not been slipping and sliding on the ice Douglas. Not very nice underfoot is it? Our children couldn't have any outdoor play today as the playgrounds are like skating rinks.

MJ

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I found two without too much trouble, MJ. You can see them on my brand new intro. Did you enjoy the Ravel? I'm listening to the Sibelius now. I can't say it's one of my favorite symphonies whereas you might remember his 2nd & 5th are very high in my estimation.

Have you frozen over where you are, then? It's been quite mild here despite the forecast. It must be the effect of the gulf stream which, of course, is made of warm scouse on this part of the coast.

bye for now

H

Yes, Douglas and I are in the grip of an Arctic blizzard...well, all right not exactly, but the snow which fell last night had frozen icily onto the car windows this morning and it took quite some scraping to clear it. My car's a people carrier and, being rather short, I can't reach the middle of my windscreen with the scraper! I don't like spraying those nasty chemicals to melt it as they're poisonous to animals. Hoping it's not too nasty tomorrow as we're taking the class to the Airport all day. A walk (or bus if it's raining but we think it'll be OK) to the station then a train ride to the airport. Should be good but on trips we teachers spend the whole time counting children and finding toilets!

Enjoying the Sibelius.

MJ

Three calculations of my own now, MJ. Andy must have been right about how easy my number is. I hope your trip to the airport goes well tomorrow.

goodnight all

H

Clever stuff H - I won't attempt to find any more!

Didn't realise that you're such an Archers addict that you'd post about Venetia's skiing trip!

Had a jolly - and jolly exhausting - day out today at the Airport. Lots of walking - my legs are aching as we teachers had to carry all the bags of stuff, lunches,drinks,wipes, spare knickers etc plus their coats as it was boiling in the airport lounge where we watched the planes. We'd paid for the Guided Tour, 2 hours in total, which was quite good though the poor kids were hungry long before our scheduled lunchtime. We'd walked from the school to the railway station (nearly a mile!) then had a lovely train ride to the Airport then loads more walking about so their little legs were weary. The walk back to school was a killer! They were very good - even our Special Needs children - so we were very proud of them all.

No doubt you've been on many a school trip, Mimi. Maybe you have some horror stories to tell! We once came back on a coach minus one of the children but her absence wasn't noticed till we were halfway back...not my fault by the way!

MJ

Good evening all

I'm glad you enjoyed your trip to the airport without too much trouble from the weather, MJ. It's a bit colder here today but by no means uncomfortably so.

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I've been listening since the mid 1980s on and off. Previously the 'off' periods have been due to circumstances rather than choice; but I'm beginning to find some of the storylines quite preposterous these days so next time I take a break from Ambridge I might not be back. I used to watch 'Dead Enders' on TV too but finally gave up on that when suspension of disbelief became impossible. I was a bit wary of posting on DTA because my first post there last year was pretty much ignored. But I did manage to get a few responses the second time around so I join in the discussion now and then. There is no truth in the rumour that I will do just about anything to get the odd bit of respite from the deadly-boring project I've got on at work right now!

bye for now

H

Good evening, MJ.

I've been trying to remember if you had told me where you were teaching and wondering if you could get a train direct to the airport or if you would have to change at Piccadilly.

Reading last night of your difficulty in scraping all the windscreen, I remembered that I have got just what you could do with. Unfortunately, I am not prepared to part with it and you might have to go to Canada to get one for yourself.
It has a wooden shaft about 24" long with a plastic scraper at one end and a brush extending for about 8" along from the other.
My daughter had a winter holiday in Canada some years ago and their hire car came equipped with one. They thought it so good that they bought several at a filling station to bring home for their own use and for presents.

As for the Archers, I gave up on them long ago. This might happen to you some day if you ask the right question. Marjorie once asked her class "What are archers?" and one bright lad promptly replied "Please, Miss. A simple tale of country folk."

Hello you lot,

It's taken me AGES to read through all the messages since I was last here!! Now I've forgotten what I'm supposed to be replying to.

MJ - thanks for your tale of the school trip ... don't think I'd be wanting to go on one of those at the moment! Yes, I have been on plenty and am glad to say that nothing untoward has happened (not counting the poor boy in my daughter's year who would be sick several times on every journey - the funny thing was, I went with his class for Games a couple of times when they had to go on a coach and he was fine, but on any school trip he would be doin' the old technicolour yawn within the first 5 mins.). Oh yes, there was also the trip to the British Museum with my daughter's class when a car clipped the side of the coach - that was quite exciting! They are exhausting, though, so I expect you will be having an early night.

Now then, on the subject of ID numbers and doing the calculation for the front page. I can remember mine because it was SO easy, so I want to do a more complicated one (or more). I don't think I mentioned to you that I am doing a Maths course at school (Learn Direct - can do some of it at home, we have 5 days of tutoring with a great teacher - the first was last week and the next one is next week. I get a qualification at the end of it ... but don't ask me what it is right now!!). There are 6 of us doing it, 3 on Level 1 and 3 on Level 2 - I am on the latter and racing ahead. I am really enjoying it as well - I can no longer say "I'm useless at maths" because I've discovered that I'm quite good - what a turn-up! I'm not bragging, just very pleasantly surprised!! However, looking through H's different calculations, I can't work out what the * means as a mathematical symbol (not that I've tried very hard, it just wasn't immediately obvious so I thought I would ask instead) - also any other useful symbols (I'm unlikely to be squaring and cubing and things like that, though - the words 'walking' and 'running' come to mind ...).

Son's birthday on Sunday was not quite as anticipated - he decided to go out for a meal with us, rather than his mates, and we invited his girlfriend along as well ... she is a lovely girl but we haven't spent much time in each other's company before.

Still have a few problems at work to sort out but there is always help at hand, thank God (ooh dear, wouldn't be able to put that on the WoM board would I? - the G word I mean!)

'Bye for now,

Love
Mimi
xxxx
xxxx

Posted: Tuesday 23 January 2007 23:27:02

>>I've been listening since the mid 1980s on and off.

I'm very definitely off at the moment, can't get interested at all. Mind you I've had off periods before so I might come back to it. I used to record the omnibus every week so I could listen when I was travelling on the omnibus but I've got lots of more interesting things to listen at the moment.

Hi Mimi et al

Glad your son's birthday went well. The girlfriend isn't called Venetia, is she?

* is used in Excel (and other spreadsheets, I think) for 'multiplied by'. I thought of using x but I had to use ^ for 'to the power of' because superscript doesn't work here - or should I say I can't get it to work here - so I thought I might as well be consistent.


Did you hear 'The News Quiz' on BBC7 today. There was a joke about your neck of the woods. Linda Smith said Hove was a nice enough place but very quiet with the sound of butter on scones being about as loud as it got! I'll have to LA for Ross Noble in York. I started listening but got interrupted. It sounded good, though. I trust you listened, MJ.

goodnight

H

Hi again


I just noticed you asked for any more useful signs, Mimi. On the assumption that the ones used in Excel are fairly common I can tell you:

/ division

< less than

> more than

<= equal to or less than

>= equal to or more than

<> not equal to

If I think of any more I'll let you know. Anyone know how to do roots?

Posted: Wednesday 24 January 2007 00:05:01

sqrt

Posted: Wednesday 24 January 2007 00:05:46

that's square root but if you want to do other roots u can just do
^ 1/3
for cube root etc

Hi Andy

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How does that work, then? I was just wondering if there is a way of typing, say, give me the cube root of a number. EG =2^3 means give me two cubed and returns 8. What would you put between 8 and 3 to do the same in reverse, returning 2 as the cube root of 8?

H

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I see. In Excel, though, you need to use parentheses as well. Your sqrt function requires the number whose root you seek to be in brackets:

=SQRT(9) will return 3

The fraction needs to be in brackets to get, say, the cube root:

=8^(1/3) will return 2

Sorry to be picky, but I suspect Mimi wouldn't have worked that out. Anyway, you've taught me something new; thanks Andy.

goodnight again

H

>>>> I trust you listened, MJ.

Think I must have been dozing at the time as I was shattered. Thank God (! - why isn't God allowed on WoM Mimi?) for LA. Also missed last night's Sibelius - oh bu**er I'm missing tonight's now!!!

Evening all

There's a bit of a Sibelius theme tomorrow, MJ. He takes up most of the Lunchtime Concert and Performance on 3 has no fewer than three symphonies (5, 6 & 7).

I'm also interested as to why God wouldn't be allowed on WoM, Mimi. Was the MB invaded by religious nutters while I was away? The WH board is prey to that kind of thing - fundamentalist Christians, evangelistic Muslims etc. I'm only a poor atheist but I should have thought the connection between Word and God was fairly well known - John 1:1 etc.

I'm up early for the dentist tomorrow (I always try to book an 0800 appointment because it's the first so unless the dentist is late it means I have a realistic idea of when I'll be seen) so I might not be back tonight.

goodnight

H

Good morning all

I'm back from the dentist; almost £50 poorer but at least that should be it for six months. I dread to think what it would have cost if I hadn't mahaged to find an NHS dentist when I moved back here. My dentist, the nearest one with vacancies, is over a mile away as it is.

I think I see why Mimi was joking about not using 'God' on the WoM board. I've just read through the 'God Knows' thread. I was rather surprised by Polly's bald statement:

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I don't know anyone who'd agree with that but I'm not going to get involved in an argument based on personal observation - especially with someone who opens with "as a fellow Christian, I.." and, in the same message (46) refers to "my fellow non-Christian". Best avoided as you say, Mimi.

I do share your liking for Brian Wilson's 'God Only Knows'. It was in my lost collection as the 'B' side of a single ('Wouldn't it be Nice?'?)
and it's my favourite memory of Elvis Costello's turn in charge of the South Bank's 'Meltdown' festival. He had the Brodsky 4tet and several of his regular backing musicians with him in the QEH and the effect was wonderful.

bye for now

H