Bible verse of the day
Archive for September, 2004
The number 51
I just read a webpage listing 51 ideas for plenaries. Immediately I thought, 51: that sounds like an interesting number. Naturally, I flicked through The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers and discovered I was wrong (and right):
51
This appears to be the first uninteresting number, which of course makes it an especially interesting number, because it is the smallest number having the property of being uninteresting.
It is therefore also the first number to be simultaneously interesting and uninteresting.
A Painting
This is a photo I took of a painting at the Nasjonalgalleriet, Olso. I can’t remember the name of the painting or the artist. I found it rather scary.
GCSE Maths
I am an examiner for Edexcel GCSE maths.
I was surprised when I learned of the grading boundaries a few weeks ago. Friends (teachers and others) were incredulous when I explained that, on the paper that I marked, candidates scoring 45% earned an A grade and those scoring 13% earned a C.
This is now being talked about in the press: The Mirror, The Independent, and others.
Shadow Education Secretary Tim Collins said of the marking: “All those who sit GCSE maths will know that 45 per cent is not even half marks and therefore can’t possibly be the benchmark for an ‘A’ grade.”
Not true, Tim. I know from experience that there are plenty of students sitting GCSE maths each year who cannot convert between percentages and fractions.
Bowling it, sir?
“Bowling it, sir?” two boys asked me as I walked out of my classroom on this afternoon.
“Excuse me?” I enquired.
“How you’re walking,” one of them explained. “You are strutting like a rudey: lifting your shoulders and that - that’s bowling it.”
“Oh, I see,” I said and strolled off across the courtyard.
A few seconds later another boy (not privy to the above) called out: “Want some fruit to go with that bowl, sir?” I laughed.
Did I reprimand any of the boys for making personal comments about my gait? No, it was light-hearted enough: I took it all in my stride.
Bowl:
The way a ned/rude boy walks. Resembles a cross between a drunk and someone who’s just had their leg broken in 3 places.
Happy Birthday, Leonard
Happy birthday to Leonard Cohen: 70 on Tuesday.
The Guardian lists 70 things you may not know about him.
Petals Around The Rose
I was pointed in the direction of a little game called Petals Around The Rose. Apparently, the smarter you are, the longer it takes to figure out. I figured it out on the second round!
The computer will roll five dice and ask you to guess the score for the roll. The score will always be zero or an even number. Your mission is to work out how the computer calculates the score.
The Marx Brothers
I had a quick look on the net to see what people cited as their favourite Marx Brothers’ films. Here are the results of the first 50 that I found:
Duck Soup x19
A Night At The Opera x12
Animal Crackers x10
Horse Feathers x5
Monkey Business x2
A Day At The Races x1
The Cocoanuts x1
My favourite Marx Brothers’ film is Animal Crackers. “Make a slam. Make a big, big slam!”
Big Rob sums up the genius of Animal Crackers:
It’s a testament to controlled, pointed absurdity, a textbook example of how to insert yourself into ordered elegance and drive it straight off the tracks. Like most of my favorite comedies, the humor is all over the place: highbrow, lowbrow, musical, verbal, slapstick, parodistic, absurd.
