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 Posted: Mon Mar 02, 2009 10:41 am Post subject: |
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From the PokerPulse Gambler's Study Guide - Best Bets for Success:
COUNTRY LIFE
Magazine Subscription
Gradgrind is no more
From kettles in the loo to poker and dead swans, a schoolmaster's work is never done. John Humphreys recalls his days in charge and reveals a few secrets
SCHOOL LIFE
Autumn, 2008
| Quote: | | George Edwards, the chief education officer for Cambridgeshire, once went to inspect a one-horse school out in the fen, arriving at lunchtime when the pupils were at play. Deciding not to intrude into the head's well-earned break, he strolled around the building, finding nobody on duty. Peering through a classroom window, he saw the head, his two assistant teachers and the caretaker, sitting round a school desk playing poker. As he gazed in disbelief, one rose, crossed the room and pulled the school-bell rope, four sonorous strokes ringing out across shimmering cornfields. As the echoes of the last one faded, the door of the pub opposite opened and the landlord emerged, bearing a tray with four foaming tankards, bound for the schoolroom. (-- p. 24) |
From Loaded Dice:
| Quote: | Win the bursary lottery
Called West and live in Twickenham: Congratulations - you've just won the bursary lottery. For everyone else, Janette Wallis investigates the Byzantine world of school bursaries and gives a guide on how to strike it lucky
| Quote: | ... what can the average family do to grapple with the fee burden?
Choose a minor, off-beat sport and major on it. ...
Consider smaller schools. ...
Force your child to learn to play the organ (or another instrument). ...
Join a religion. ...
If boarding is your goal, check out the State sector. ...
Get divorced. ...
Local boy can make good. ...
Change jobs. ...
Seek unusual bursaries. ...
Finally, don't be flattered into accepting a place at a school on the basis of an honorary scholarship - one that carries no fee reduction. These are becoming more common as schools struggle to offer more financial aid to the neediest families. Being a scholar can mean extra work and duties for your child, with little in return. (-- pgs. 10-12) |
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| Quote: | Exams under the spotlight
Your child may now face BTECs, IGCSEs or a Cambridge Pre-U - but do you know what they mean? Janette Wallis demystifies school exams
| Quote: | Time was when two Bs and an A on your A-level exams were more than adequate to win a place at the UK's top universities. Then came the Laura Spence row in 2000, when the girl with 10 A*s at GCSE and four predicted A grades at A level was turned down by Oxford. According to Gabbitas, Oxbridge now rejects more than 10,000 pupils a year with at least three As at A level.
To separate the wheat from the chaff, universities are allowed to see students' individual grades in each of the six modules that go towards an A-level result, and, from 2010, a new A* grade for those achieving more than 90% in A-level exams will be added.
Advanced Extension Awards (AEAs) can also help to identify high fliers, and, in addition, Imperial, along with Oxbridge, UCL and the Royal Veterinary College, require applicants for medicine and veterinary medicine to sit the BioMedical Admissions Test (BMAT).
International Baccalaureate (IB) the new gold standard?
The IB exam has been taken up by 131 British schools and is usually offered beside A levels. An IB is viewed as more demanding than A levels, as pupils are required to study six subjects, write a dissertation and take part in community service. Its increasing popularity could be because it boosts schools' league-table position, owing to the high points UCAS assigns to IB results. (-- p. 22) |
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editor
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| Posted: Mon May 11, 2009 11:37 am Post subject: |
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A Tale of Two Cities
Paperback
By Charles Dickens
| Quote: | "In short," said Sydney, "this is a desperate time, when desperate games are played for desperate stakes. Let the Doctor play the winning game; I will play the losing one. No man's life here is worth purchase. Any one carried home by the people to-day may be condemned to-morrow. Now, the stake I have resolved to play for, in case of the worst, is a friend in the Conciergerie. And the friend I purpose to myself to win is Mr. Barsad."
"You need have good cards, sir," said the spy.
"I'll run them over. I'll see what I hold. -- Mr. Lorry, you know what a brute I am; I wish you'd give me a little brandy."
It was put before him, and he drank off a glassful -- drank off another glassful -- pushed the bottle thoughtfully away.
"Mr. Barsad," he went on, in the tone of one who really was looking over a hand at cards: "Sheep of the prisons, emissary of Republican committees, now turnkey, now prisoner, always spy and secret informer, so much the more valuable here for being English that an Englishman is less open to suspicion of subornation in those characters than a Frenchman, represents himself to his employers under a false name. That's a very good card. Mr. Barsad, now in the employ of the republican French government, was formerly in the employ of the aristocratic English, the enemy of France and freedom. That's an excellent card. Inference clear as day in this region of suspicion, that Mr. Barsad, still in the pay of the aristocratic English government, is the spy of Pitt, the treacherous foe of the Republic crouching in its bosom, the English traitor and agent of all mischief so much spoken of and so difficult to find. That's a card not to be beaten. Have you followed my hand, Mr. Barsad?"
"Not to understand your play," returned the spy, somewhat uneasily.
"I play my ace, denunciation of Mr. Barsad to the nearest Section Committee. Look over your hand, Mr. Barsad, and see what you have. Don't hurry." ...
"Look over your hand carefully, Mr. Barsad. Take time."
It was a poorer hand than he suspected. Mr. Barsad saw losing cards in it that Sydney Carton knew nothing of. ... (From A Hand at Cards, pgs. 295-297) |
Barsad earlier on the witness stand:
| Quote: | | Had he ever been a spy himself? No, he scorned the base insinuation. What did he live upon? His property. Where was his property? He didn't precisely remember where it was. What was it? No business of anybody's Had he inherited it? Yes, he had. From whom? Distant relation. Very distant? Rather. Ever been in prison? Certainly not. Never in a debtors' prison? Didn't see what that had to do with it. Never in a debtors' prison? -- Come, once again. Never? Yes. How many times? Two or three times. Not five or six? Perhaps. Of what profession? Gentleman. Ever been kicked? Might have been. Frequently? No. Ever been kicked downstairs? Decidedly not; once received a kick on the top of a staircase, and fell downstairs of his own accord. Kicked on that occasion for cheating at dice? Something to that effect was said by the intoxicated liar who committed the assault, but it was not true. Swear it was not true? Positively. Ever live by cheating at play? Never. Ever live by play? Not more than other gentlemen do. ... (From A Disappointment, p. 75) |
Listen:
A Tale of Two Cities
Abridged, alas!, Audio CD
Narrated perfectly by Scottish actor Ian Richardson, who assumes a different voice for each character and with extraordinarily excellent diction throughout!
View:
A Tale of Two Cities
DVD
With screen legend Ronald Colman
A Tale of Two Cities
DVD
With actor/author Dirk Bogarde
Go mad!
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| Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 8:34 am Post subject: |
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Summer Moonshine
Hardcover
By P.G. Wodehouse
| Quote: | The terrace terminated in a low stone wall, along the top of which were dotted busts of the Caesars and other ancient worthies, placed there in the spacious days of Sir Wellington, when people liked that sort of thing. The one nearest Joe was that of the censor Cato, an unpleasant-looking man who suffered from having a long nose and no eyeballs, but had the saving virtue of possessing a very large bare upper lip, the sort of upper lip which calls imperiously to every young man of spirit to draw a moustache on it with a pencil.
Joe, fortunately, had a pencil on his person, and was soon absorbed in his work. So absorbed, indeed that it was only a moment or two after it had been uttered that he heard the curious, sharp exclamation in his rear. ...
He turned again to Cato. The moustache was coming out well - a fine, flowing affair with pointed ends, not one of those little smudges. Cato now looked like a Mississippi gambler, and Jane was not proof against the spectacle. Her dignity, always easily undermined, suddenly collapsed. She uttered a little squeal of laughter.
'You are an idiot!'
'That's more the tone.'
'It's no good being furious with you.'
'I wouldn't try. How does that strike you?'
'A little more body to the left side,' said Jane surveying Cato critically.
'Like that?'
'That's better. Oughtn't he to have whiskers too?'
'Whiskers most certainly. What flair you have in these matters. I will attend to it immediately.' (-- pgs. 144-149) |
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