The Bluestocking: the one where AI finally learns what a blackbird is (we hope)

[Magpiecomplex]

Welcome all, New Year (nearly), new thread!

Unfortunately yes as you're the teacher!

Can you legitimately phone in sick/ be snowed in?

Are you supposed to?

Will something grump at you if you don’t?

Edit: there’s a lot of flu about. Save the NHS and keep yourself to yourself. And the Bluestocking residents.
If I remember correctly there’s something in the air that stops viruses being passed between us.

@Boiledbeetle @AsWithGlad unfortunately I can walk to work, and I'm invigilating exams tomorrow, so I don't really have the option. Put the bar gerbils on high alert for the hot chocolate bowser though, please. I'm invigilating quite a lot, this week. It's incredibly boring.

Oh, and could I request that the hot chocolate bowser is given a jolly good scrub and rinse before the hot chocolate goes in please? Horrible memories of Guide camps where the pans hadn't been properly rinsed after cleaning 🤢

Unbenorked implies no bosoms at all to me, even tiny ones, but it’s not a word I hear much outside MN so I’m probably wrong.

Subnorked vs supernorked?
Mininorked vs meganorked?

I like mininorked and meganorked.
That suggests a new MN username.

Yes, I was trying to imagine today how I could've fixed my (lovely furry) hood to my smock-type dress without it pulling the dress awry. Subtle tapes & clips to fasten to bra staps was all I could come up with, though maybe duct tape could be an option. Or that toupee tape strippers use - I think. Or (following the style of my everyday gown) just staple the hood to the gown.😁

Scantinorked & luxinorked?

I'm invigilating quite a lot, this week. It's incredibly boring.

Mitchell and Webb did three exam hall sketches on their show. They're on YouTube.

When I used to invigilate professional exams, I'd be so tempted to recreate them, but the room was too small and the rear row of chairs were right up against the wall.

About as exciting as it got was introducing one fellow invigilator to Bored Panda, and helping another to find a bottomless brunch venue for her sister to get drunk in go to for some refreshment. (We had computers, but were supposed to be keeping an eagle eye on the candidates and be alert to respond to queries.)

I've just made a broth with rice noodles, chicken & TEN vegetables (stretching a point to include fresh garlic & ginger).

Finished off the meal with the regulation 2 squares of dark Lindt which, as we all know, is a salad because chocolate is made from a plant.

Coupled with my doing a bit of Northern Soul dancing while cooking, I'm confident I'll live forever.

Scantinorked does it for me 😂

Mitchell and Webb did three exam hall sketches on their show. They're on YouTube.

Wasn't it Armstrong & Miller?

Whoppernorked.
Weenynorked.

I'll put the hot chocolate in the bowser that was used for the alka seltzer (which brought it up lovely btw). Although I will give it a scrub and, perhaps, release some tribbles into it to catch anything I miss. On second thoughts though, I'm a bit concerned that they might breed faster than I can take them out, so I'll probably just give it a second scrub.

Perhaps bosoms could have classes like boxing? Bantamnorks?

Sorry, yes, it was. Getting my comedy duos mixed up.

Relying on memory is no longer safe, it seems.

OMG that takes me back. Eons ago, a friend had a system on which a moose (really) head appeared & said whatever word you'd just typed in. Being a man, of course he tried to get it to say, "Bollocks," but it wouldn't. He had to compromise with, "Gollocks".

I didn't watch M&W but I remembered A&M's exam hall sketches.

Perhaps bosoms could have classes like boxing? Bantamnorks?

Love this idea, but having looked up boxing weight classifications, I'm not sure anyone would want heavynorks or cruisernorks. And welternorks would be 'moving in a turbulent fashion'. Or there'd be a lot of them, just lying about any old how.

Ok, that's given me an idea. I want dreadnorks.

Chocolate is made from several plants, unless you're seriously hardcore and eating 100%. Therefore definitely a salad!

Thank you @Chersfrozenface and @ifIwerenotanandroid, I've just watched all three! I think I will actually have space at the back of the hall...

I remember those A&M exam hall sketches. Highly amusing.

I didn’t invigilate other than for my tests in my own classroom, but the restrictions on what exam invigilators could do got increasingly severe. For external exams invigilators could do almost nothing other than sit, and occasionally walk round the hall. No doing the crossword or scrolling on a phone.

Now it’s all done by people brought in and paid to do it. In my opinion a miserable job, but it suits some.

If yours are internal exams, @Magpiecomplex , will they be followed by piles of exam marking?

@AsWithGlad a mixture of internal and external, so the piles of marking will be moderate, fortunately. You're right about the external ones, I'm not allowed to do anything other than sit and occasionally pace. And I have a clicky toe so try not to pace too much in case I put the students off!

Hyponorked and Hypernorked?

You have to make you own fun while invigilating... e.g. have one of your fellow invigilators do charades at the back of the room where the students can't see them

To have, or not to have. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune because of one's lack of norkage, or over-generous norkage, is a question devoutly to be wished.

Also, the whole norky norksize discussion reminds me of Diana Rigg:

(From The Guardian, March 2019)
"When I appeared nude in a play on Broadway in the early 70s, a nasty little critic said I was built like a brick mausoleum with insufficient flying buttresses. He should have seen me after the menopause, there was no shortfall then! It was devastating at the time."