ADs deflower male cucumbers for the Greater Good. All phallic aubergines welcome .

[BogRollBOGOF]

Because bitter male cucumbers don't bring joy, but phallic aubergines can raise an irreverent smile.

AD chat continues about life, the universe and everything. We know the answer is 42 but what is the question?
6x7?
How many roads must a man walk down?
How many unsadly reincarnations have PHE put into the database?

Lots of people who didn't feel safe suddenly lost the fear around here when they could save a tenner on their dinner . I am in Yorkshire though

Worried about Christmas and the lack of corporate singing work and carol services - it’s a major chunk of my yearly turnover and I can’t see companies willing to take the risk. They may well not return as a pro choir is not cheap.

Hanging on to the guidance changing which means small choirs can sing during church services again from today. Also Declan’s research (the Voice Doctor) is due next week. I know some of the pro musicians who were involved and they were impressed with the research protocols.

The choirs/ singing thing : there seem to be plenty of buskers & church singers spreading the joy in the street in our city centre. I know they're outside so the risk is supposedly lower, but they are stood close together & belt the songs out. I can't see how it's ok for this to be allowed & not church or school singing indoors.

Walked past some yesterday & they'd attracted a crowd. Wasn't sure to feel joy from hearing singing again or sadness at the ridiculousness

@Ghostlyglow

Lots of people who didn't feel safe suddenly lost the fear around here when they could save a tenner on their dinner . I am in Yorkshire though

Same here! 'Flocking' in their hundreds every fecking day for a half price breakfast or fish and chips. Funny how saving £3 mitigates "the fear" Happy to queue within inches of each other despite staffs best efforts to make them space out (we have to or we get it in the neck) Obviously an enormous plate of fried food ( biggest one is a heart attack on a plate🤣🤣) is the cure for covid🤣🤣 who knew? Someone tell Boris!

What are the new rules on choirs @Weneedmusicandtheatre ?

Just come back on-line to order the school shoes - we knew the sizes and they matched the measure with shoe gauage we have sizes - quickly some everyone liked - and the website connect to my bank went though and then kicked me out of the session and log in.

The orders definely not gone through with the shop - but I've no idea if it been twice put on the credit card or not so don't want to keep trying.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-guidance-for-the-safe-use-of-places-of-worship-during-the-pandemic-from-4-july/covid-19-guidance-for-the-safe-use-of-places-of-worship-during-the-pandemic-from-4-july

Still woolly and contradictory but Westminster Abbey has taken it as a green light to start singing (lay clerks only) from today.

I've just tried to reassure someone on a thread about Greece and been pmd someone telling me I'm being irresponsible and don't know what I'm talking about as they have read x newspaper....
I reported it obvs, but I couldn't help but laugh that I know nothing about Greece.

Can I bring back "MALAKA!"?

Please do! I was explaining to someone the other day that it was one of the good things I had learnt from MN in the last couple of months...

@LivinLaVidaLoki

I've just tried to reassure someone on a thread about Greece and been pmd someone telling me I'm being irresponsible and don't know what I'm talking about as they have read x newspaper.... I reported it obvs, but I couldn't help but laugh that I know nothing about Greece.

Can I bring back "MALAKA!"?

Please do

MALAKAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Total malaka.

@Ghostlyglow

Yes, it feels like we've stopped moving forward I think quite a lot of people have settled into life as it is now. All the talk of the "new normal" and "that's just how it is now". I want to give them a good shake (if I was allowed to, of course )

Yes this

In the beginning (March) it was all quite optimistic in that many people expected/hoped we’d be pretty much back to proper normal, (not this new normal bollocks) by now. Maybe it was unrealistic, who knows, but we could deal with the lockdown because we could see light at the end of the tunnel.

Unfortunately now it feels like every time we get closer to the end of the tunnel, someone, a specialist firm of tunnel building dementors maybe, extend the tunnel, and shout doom and gloom down it.

And if it’s not the D’s declaring we are all going to die, we have the conspiracy theorists declaring it’s all a big hoax by big pharma/Trump/Putin/Bill Gates/aliens etc to microchip us and control our brains.

Thank fuck for this thread and normal people
Rant over

A lot (in fact, the vast majority) of the guidance for religious services is just guidance. There is very, very little that is mandatory. So churches will presumably be deciding what parts to follow with differing levels of caution.

(Our church is being cautious to a level that makes me want to ask tart questions about to what extent they do in fact believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. But in the spirit of Christian charity, I've managed to refrain so far.)

@Justgivemewine yes, I can’t be doing with the hoax brigade either, just as bad as the dementors.

Went for a walk today and was surprised to see a huge clutch of people near the Welsh Assembly building. Turns out it was a group of parents and kids protesting the shambles that is the A-levels results. Some of the kids there looked so angry and devastated, it made my heart break. The algorithm-grading is a scandal, but in a year of scandals it has the most impact on the young.

I only hope, as as result of this, they never ever again mess with exams and gradings.

It was heartening to hear of protests of students on the news headlines.

From what I can gather of the methodology, based on my A-Level predictions, my naice school might not have been hit so badly on reputation, but when we had the spring Parent's Evening in y13, my teacher said that I was C/B borderline, B if I got the right questions on the day. So I went away and studied hard and ended up getting an A. I got the predicted B in another subject. In languages, I had a horrid teacher that shattered my confidence and anounced that I'd be lucky to scrape an E. I got a tutor behind the scenes worked really hard and got a D. So instead of my actual A, B, D this system would probably have granted me a C, B, E or potentially worse.
I got the y13 school prize because I had worked so hard to exceed my predicted grades. It's awful that this cohort has not had the chance to prove themselves and then had their teachers grades slashed by an algorithm.

Agreed @BogRollBOGOF
It was bad enough with teachers grading you, because you just needed to be stuck with one who had taken a dislike to you to be marked down, with lifelong consequences.
But to add an algorithm based standardisation is just horrible. It's seeing the cohort as statistics rather than as individuals with hopes and dreams.

Friend of mine has posted from the A level demo in London. She and her husband are both retired teachers so no skin in the game now but he is recently retired and was teaching some of the affected kids a year ago.

I cannot for the life of me see how anyone thought it was a good idea to apply an algorithm to this. As you say, it treats kids as statistics not individuals.

I'd be beside myself if this was dd's A-level year. Though it IS hers next year and heaven only knows what a balls up they'll manage to make of it then. The mind boggles. I'm bracing myself already.

I feel so angry and sad for the poor A-Level students. They’ve lost so much this year. It’s one thing to miss your grades and have to reevaluate when you actually sat an exam, and there’s a direct connection between something you did and the grades you get, but how are you meant to cope with being caught in a statistical moderation? It’s appalling. (My DD and my friends’ children are younger, but a colleague’s son is caught up in it and dropped two grades on one subject. Happily his day ended well as his first choice university accepted him anyway even though he’d missed the required grades.)

And what happens now? If they reassess the grades, will they do all of them? Including the people who are happy with what they got, and may be planning their next step, but might get different grades and get their plans smashed to pulp? What an almighty fuck up.

The algorithm-grading is a scandal, but in a year of scandals it has the most impact on the young.

DH isn't involved with the acceptance onto courses bit but still got contacted by a desperate student who gone down 4 grades in one subject- though by time he'd spoke to them they'd accepted their second much lower offer at another university. They and their school was putting in for a re-grade but it wouldn't be known till after deadlines.

Second offer univerity isn't as well regarded but they wanted to move on to next stage.

We're waiting for DD1 English Lit GCSE grade - not sure if were lucky it's only one GCSE or if next Y11 will be screwed over in other ways.

DD1 is a birght hard working student in a deprived area school with bumpy year on year results - hence the concern.

Its got Dominic Cummings written all over it.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/11/genetics-teaching-gove-adviser