Uses for an empty red pen

More marking today. My red pen is nearly empty. When it runs out I'll have to decide what to do. I hate throwing things away. Even though we can't get refills and they cost nearly nothing. I kept a bunch of old pens for a while before realising that this was slightly scary behaviour and so now I close my eyes and drop them in the bin....

 

Welcome to Resit Country

Been marking resit exams and coursework. Some of it drives me mad. Not because it is so bad, but because it is so good. Of course, because the submissions are all anonymous I can't tell which is which, and some of the papers are first attempts because the particular student was unwell or unavailable first time round. But still, there do seem to be a lot of rather good ones.

People, if you can do this well, please do it first time when you can get full credit for your work. Resit marks are capped at 40%, even if you get double that. It doesn't matter for the first year papers, since these don't count for your final mark, but it does matter for all the rest.

 

Preston Foster Lite and the End Of The World

Meeting of the Preston Foster society tonight. Kind of light, in that there was just the two of us - but at least it made the rounds cheaper....

Conversation turned to impending doom, as it does.

 

Sets and Violence

Last week I bought a broken television. I didn't do this entirely intentionally. I am not the kind of person who strides into a shop and demands "The finest intermittently defective 32 inch widescreen 100Hz TV you have in stock please. Oh, and with 3 SCART sockets". That would be beyond even my level of stupidity. No, the purchase was entirely accidental. Last week a big white van drew up and they dropped off the aforementioned broken beast. At first, of course, the darned thing worked. Then it broke. Then it mended itself and worked again. Then it broke once more. Ho hum. Since I (and the entire family) really wanted a device which would light up every time the on switch was pressed I called the supplier. OK, they said, we'll sort you out.

What I thought would happen next is that the same, or even a different, van - I'm not that fussy - would turn up. They would carry away the broken set and swap it for a new one. Well, I guess we are half way there. Today a van arrived. Much excitement, unplugging and removal of old set, discourse on the best DVD to watch on the new box etc etc. Then I was told that they were only here to take the broken one away. Once they have convinced themselves that it is properly duff they will supply me with a new one. Or perhaps the old one back. As Han Solo says at regular intervals in any Star Wars film "I've got a bad feeling about this".

Oh well. At least the old set is working fine (and perhaps allowing itself the occasional electronic snigger).

 

Let's hear it for Tankersley Manor

Here's a tip. If you want a night in a four star hotel, with a slap up breakfast for two, in plush surroundings and with attentive and polite staff, you could do a lot worse than head for Tankersley Manor. Particularly if I tell you that the price of such a night is only fifty quid. We've just got back from there and it is a splendid place. I'll post some pictures when I get back into the office. I happened across the hotel via laterooms a neat little web site which offers a multitude of deals on hotels. "The Manor", as we've taken to calling it, is around 15 miles from Sheffield on the way to Barnsley. It is around 40 minutes from the middle of the Peak District, which is a truly lovely part of the world.

We've just got back, and now we want to go again...