Awkward (and other) questions about MNers jobs-following on from *Pinocchio's 1st thread.

Hello I'm a midwife! I'm not sure if anyone has already answered the question up thread but here goes!!

No we don't mind you swearing at us, no we don't mind the mess, no we don't mind anything, in fact we enjoy it! We have been known to say to each other, "I wish my lady would have a bloody good vomit to move that head down" despite us being the ones to clear it up!

Ok! I have also found a massive local choir that takes anyone!! Sounds really fun. I have been walking past the singing teacher's house on my way to soft play for the last year .

NCT teachers - do you inwardly grin when you hear the unrealistic plans parents to be make in your classes?

Jimmy, bel canto is a good way of establishing a great vocal technique. Ask the teacher about it.

Good idea Thumb. I'm hoping Pinocchios original thread is in there too as it was her idea.

VERY pleased to wake up to this being in Classics now - hurrah! NOw it won't be lost.

Gertrude I assume that happens in semi-private as it would immediately tell the other officers of the court what had happened.

TheHouse I'm a Solicitor-Advocate - as a barrister or a solicitor your overriding duty is to the court. It would be a breach of our professional conduct rules to mislead the court on a matter. If a client told you that they were guilty then you would not be able to present a not guilty plea to the court, you would have to withdraw on the basis that you are "professionally embarrassed", shorthand for "my client is a lying little scrote".

TheHouse - I am not a criminal lawyer so will say this with that caveat, but you cannot represent someone on a not-guilty plea if they have given instructions they are guilty to you. If they insist on pleading not guilty in those circumstances, you are obliged to cease to act, but not tell the court why. If they maintain innocence, you can act on a not guilty plea.

Thumb Okay will ask.

thanksamillion very late coming back, I think I messed up my threads I'm on, but thanks for answering about your missionary work. It sounds really fulfilling and busy to be doing so much varying community-building work.

This is all so interesting. Need to go back and read previous thread too.

Just reading through both threads but am very sad to see they're both in Chat! As they will disappear in 90 days.

Mignonette and Pinocchio - could you each report your own thread and ask for them to be moved somewhere more permanent please? Employment would make the most sense, I guess, even though it's usually fairly low-traffic. But at least they then won't disappear! :)

Thanks for the GP/hospital answer - that makes a lot of sense. I think I just watch too much TV and think the hospital side looks so exciting!

Bums are not a problem for me - I wear gloves and wash my hands, it's just part of the job. Most doctors and nurses have seen it all before, there's nothing to be embarrassed about. Definitely not a heartsink moment for me (still a fairly junior doc so rotate through a few different specialties)!

And also a q for the same people - does your heart sink when someone comes in and you have to look at their bum eg piles?

To the GPs and any other doctors or pharmacists - another question I'd find hard to ask in real life.
Ds has tonsillitis and his throat was very pus-y. He's 10mo and has been given antibiotics four times a day for ten days

Dd had a daily prophylaxis for two years so I thought we knew every trick in the book at getting medicine into a baby. But ds is so string willed and determined. He can taste is mixed in milk or yoghurt, won't open mouth even when we try to force it and if we do manage even if we blow in his face to make him swallow he somehow keeps the medicine in his cheek and spits it out a minute later. Day five now and I reckon he's had about 1ml of each dose that should be 2.5ml. Also we're running out because we try again if he spits entire thing out so only enough medicine to take us to, my guess , day 7 of 10.
His cough is throaty especially in the evenings but he no longer seems ill or has temp. Do we need to get more medicine and also is there any benefit to such a reduced dose or is he likely to just contribute to antibiotic resistance and risk it coming back stronger and what should we do.

Doctors - what makes you choose being a GP over working in a hospital?

I chose GP for several reasons. The primary one is that general practice involves seeing lots of patients and I like people! In many hospital specialties the more qualified you get the fewer patients you see and the more you're supervising or managing other people, and I didn't want that. I also avoided hospital medicine because these days being employed by a hospital as a consultant, with huge responsibility but no control, constant restructuring, no flexibility etc is my idea of hell. Frequently in my training posts I was asked to manipulate waiting times, cancel booked holidays, work unsafe hours and was expected to care for an unsafe number of patients or with an unsafe level of support. Who wants to spend their working lives in that environment where they feel impotent to change anything?

However I've now left the NHS altogether. The same things are now happening to general practice. We were being asked to do the impossible - looking after more patients, with increasing morbidity an depmands with fewer GPs for longer hours with reduced pay. GP is now at breaking point unfortunately.

Thanks Herisson. I think I've found something now.

I'll stop hijacking the thread now with my XFactor dreams!!

Doctors - what makes you choose being a GP over working in a hospital?

My uncle (who could not sing in any usual sense of the word) joined a choir specifically for non-singers and improved out of all recognition. There might be something like that near you?

Well, waddya know? There is a professional singer who teaches people who think they can't sing 10 mins walk from my house. If that's not a sign...

Oh Boffin thank you .

I had a friend visit me yesterday and she was talking about a choir convention (ladies barbershop?) she was going too and it all sounded so much fun.

I will definitely check out the teachers. I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to do an mp3 but I really am grateful for your reply and encouragement .

Jimmy, the answer is highly likely to be yes. A lot of children are told just to mouth the words at school, around the age of 7, when most of the others have worked out the singing in tune thing. Instead of them being taken to one side and taught how to sing in tune themselves, they seem to miss the theoretical window I was talking about. I have taught a lot of people to sing over the years and I have managed to improve pitch dramatically in all but three isolated cases. Of these, one had hearing impairment after having measles as a kid, one did improve a bit but was never going to be consistently in tune, and one (a best friend of mine, and someone else had also had a go before I got to her) had absolutely no clue, and I think may be a dead loss , as she freely admitted.

The way to start yourself on the path to enjoyable, confident singing is to sign up for 6 x 30 minute lessons once a week for 6 weeks, and practise religiously 10-20 minutes a day between lessons (not an hour the day before in a fit of guilt, because that doesn't work). You'll learn how to train your muscles and your brain to sing a lot better. 6 weeks is the minimum amount of time you have to do it to make any progress. After that, if you continue, there will be a bit of a plateau from time to time, and then sudden jerks upwards in terms of improvement. If you join a choir at the same time as starting to take lessons, this will accelerate your general progress as well.

Qualified and experienced teachers can be found here:

ISM Directory

Expect to pay roughly £12-£20 for a 30 minutes lesson, depending on the part of the country you live in and how experienced the teacher is.

I am happy for you to send me an mp3 of your singing and give an informal opinion about where you might be going wrong musically, if I can tell from listening to it.

Great threads - this has been my Saturday night entertainment!

I'm a SAHM but was a primary school teacher. To the person who asked ages ago if teachers change once they have kids...I haven't returned to the job but I'm about some of my homework ideas/suggestions at parents' eve. I was well meaning but had NO concept of how hard it is to fit in the basics of childcare without my 'fun' activities to do on top. Also I used to (inwardly) judge think badly of parents who grumbled about the length of school holidays and wonder why they had kids if they didn't want to spend time with them. THAT has come back to bite me on the bum BIG time googles boarding schools for pre schoolers.

My question returns to the singing in tune bit (thinks it was Boffin?)

If 98% of people can sing in tune or be taught to sing in tune, how do you go about this? I would love to sing but was told from infant school that I couldn't (one of only 2 children not allowed in the choir). Can I be taught now I'm nearly 40? I am good at remembering words and I get the timing of songs but what comes out of my mouth is not great!! I can hear that it is wrong but don't know how to make it right?

You said that people who can't sing in tune missed a childhood window of opportunity to change this. Was my 1st singing rejection responsible for this? Can I pay a singing teacher to help me?

Ziggie, I was a chef for 4 years and so I know a bit about that swearing like a trooper to fit in ;D I then went into the police service which again is very male dominated. The office I work in now was the first time I worked in a female dominated environment, I was like a fish out of water !!! I found it very difficult to work through the office politics, it's only after 5 years that I feel I have really mastered it.

Give me men to work with any day, they're as transparent as water and so easily to manipulate

I'm sorry if this has been asked before although I can't see it anywhere.

Solicitors, what's the protocol when you're defending someone accused of a crime and he's pleading not guilty but you believe that he's guilty of the crime or worse still he admits to you that he's guilty?

oohdrdarcy again sorry it's taken me a while to answer, it is quite a physical job but it's probably worth phoning the course tutors at the university you'd apply to and asking the question.