The Bluestocking Women’s Pub: definitely full of ludicrous halfwits who refuse to get a grip (with unionised gerbils)

[MyrtleLion]

Welcome to The Bluestocking: convivial by design, opinionated in the best way, generously stocked with excellent food and drink that complies with whatever it’s meant to comply with, and any calories, gluten or alcohol are entirely virtual.

Staffed by impeccably trained, unfailingly polite gerbils who run a tight bar with plenty of enthusiasm and good intentions. Quick with the drinks, but terrible spillers spellers and liable to turn an idle thought on existential existence into a full blown musical with Busby Berkeley routines. You have been warned.

All women welcome, just in case that isn't obvious. Men can go to The Staunch Ally round the corner.

Previous thread here: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5477133-the-bluestocking-your-local-womens-pub-warm-friendly-and-not-at-all-unusual-in-any-way

After the meeting with the parent I spent bloody hours at home Googling and highlighting a photocopy of the coursework.

That’s it, it takes up far too much of your time, but the parents wouldn’t admit it otherwise.

I’m an occasional A level Maths tutor now, no longer a class teacher. I had an exceptionally dedicated student during the past two years who would do all the past papers for all the exam boards, not just our syllabus. It was easy to find worked solutions for all but the most recent, which she used to mark her own work, and then she’d just ask me about what she couldn’t understand. The textbooks (Pearson) had worked solutions to all the questions in the books too, so what chance has a teacher of a less motivated student to find out what they can do on their own?

Thank you. Self taught. Sewing Bee has no need to worry!

@WearyAuldWumman I had another mother who threatened to sue, etc. Mummy was a solicitor.
I found the essay as a sample on two of those websites where they write essays to order. Mummy then stated that the kid hadn't thought that it was plagiarism because it had been copied by hand. No it hadnae...The lazy so-and-so had produced not one single handwritten copy.

Really? Also, really again?
Watching recent employment tribunals has illustrated how legal people don’t need to believe anything they say, just make the best case for their client/child.

Beautiful fabric, Fuzzy. Will you show us the finished articles when they are done? No need to model them if you’d rather not.

Thank you so much for my warm welcome.

That there The AI is surprisingly inaccurate, but we all live a hallucination. I’d have the fabric the dress is in though.

Thank you gerbils for all your cucumber related hard work. Have one for yourselves.

They're lovely.
I'd happily wear the ones at 9 o'clock, noon and 3 o'clock and 6 o'clock too.

Where did you get them from? One reason I don't do much dressmaking is lack of fabric.
(Though I have had a length of cotton for a top sitting around for > a year.)

AI is getting very clever. Excellent choice of dress, and good shoes to match.

@ThisIsMyGCname watch out for Glenda when she's had a few.
Rather raucous, and doesn't know when to stop.

I got them from a company in India called Sanskruti. English website, delivery in a few days, massive selection, inexpensive.

Where did you get them from? One reason I don't do much dressmaking is lack of fabric.

My fabric stash doesn’t match my yarn stash in any way. However, most of what I do have is beautiful. There’s a factory shop in Lancaster which used to print Tana Lawn for Liberty, and sold their seconds (in none of which I’ve found the fault) for £4.74/metre. If you’re paying a flat postage rate it makes sense to stock up, yes?

It sells their own designs printed on a fabric similar to Tana Lawn now.

<Runs off to Glad's fabric shop...>

Oooooh it's them Glad . I bought some beautiful Sanderson curtain fabric from them a couple of years ago. Excellent shop.

My spray-dyed velvet curtain fabric came from there, too. It’s taken me several years of looking at them to find the fault 😉 which is only apparent if you compare it with the £100/m originals.

Have you ever visited the bricks and mortar shop, Fuzzy?

I've had similar.
It's not plagiarism because...
I typed it word for word but I didn't use copy and paste
I referenced the website I copied it wholesale from
I changed one word in every sentence (usually with a word that isn't quite right)
I've changed the font

Some of them started much earlier...

I've changed the font

😀😀😀

I went out with an academic whose field was a slightly obscure form of economics.

He was able to spot plagiarism easily. Students who couldn't string a sentence together would suddenly write something very erudite. One student turned in a PhD thesis that only had even numbers in the tables. And he was really exasperated with one student, saying, do they think we don't read the literature? I am good friends with the man who wrote that paper!!!

That made me laugh too!

I used to tell students that if they saved up all the cleverness they put into trying to circumvent the plagiarism rule, they could apply it to writing something decent in their own words!

Love the fabric, Fuzzy!
The grey one at the front is gorgeous - v elegant. Have fun making lovely things out of them!

Swash how weird that you got all that christmas post - they even missed Candlemas!
It has made one little rodent very very happy, because she can return your season's greetings, while wearing her red and white Christmas hat😄

I love that you recycle images, Marie! And Harriet's red and white hat.

I'm watching Secret Genius on Channel 4 on catch up. And I'm just furious that so many brilliant minds have been so badly let down by the British education system. It is absolutely obvious that the class system also has a lot to answer for.

What a waste of talent. I hope the participants are able to become more confident in their abilities.

I'm also annoyed that the contestants seem to have been deliberately chosen to be a selection of working class people in relatively unskilled jobs. Because that's also playing into "working class thickos who are actually quite clever" as entertainment.

@WearyAuldWummanyour story reminds me of the sways when English GCSE was almost totally dependent on coursework marked by the teacher, some of which had to be done under classroom controlled conditions. I was an examiner at the time for Edexcel, and we used to get a sample from the schools in order to moderate the teachers’ marking in line with the standards of other schools. One private school in London that I marked submitted a beautiful piece of writing describing an old tramp found in a doorway by a police officer. Sadly for the candidate concerned I have a good memory for things I’ve read and I recognised it as an advert from the Metropolitan Police. This was before the days of Google, so I called the appropriate agency and got them to send me a copy of the ad, which was indeed copied word for word, supposedly under classroom conditions. I had to call in every coursework folder from that centre and re-mark the lot, which I didn’t mind because it boosted my income a bit!

Days not sways! My iPad loses any posts I try and edit.

Absolutely. Too many pupils and parents now just want 'the answers', but without the understanding.

I have to resist. I'm trying to cut back on my stash.

Unlike my mother, I'm not a good seamstress. However, I can manage simple curtains and so on.

A year ago, I needed a new blind for the wet room and nearly did a lap of honour when I found the perfect colour and size in my stash - only needed a bit of hemming and that was it.

It's a small blind for a small window, so I just stitched it by hand whilst watching telly. Quite soothing.

@MyrtleLion One student turned in a PhD thesis that only had even numbers in the tables.

What? How?
I know that PhD students are only lightly supervised, but what had they told their supervisor over the 3-4 years?

I’d quite enjoy how they explained that at their viva, or didn’t it get as far as that?

Had it been me, though, if the original value were not whole numbers I would have said I’d set the table to ‘round even’. That avoids the bias you can get if you always round 0.5 up.