I slept like a log, and unlike last night
didn’t get up at all during the night. I made toast and tuned in to the
Internet as I do where there was quite the squabble happening on Facebook’s “The
Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” page. Last night someone had asked how
Ford Prefect had got his name, and I made the schoolboy error of pointing out
the bit of the book where this is explained (towards the start of the very
first chapter!). Ford had mistaken the dominant form of life on Earth and
seeing motor vehicles everywhere he’d thought that “Ford Prefect” was
nicely inconspicuous.
Fifty years later
people in America who’d discovered “The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”
through the most recent film had the arse because this explanation only made
any sense to people who lived in the UK. The fact that it originated on an
obscure UK radio channel was neither here nor there.
I find this happening
more and more. Particularly with Star Trek and Doctor Who related Facebook
pages… people who’ve just discovered something which has been going since
before they were born (and who clearly don’t know the first thing about it)
are very quick to start arguments about that something; if only to show their
ignorance.
Not much else was
happening on-line, but our Munzee Clan had reached its target for this month. A
result… if sticking bar codes onto lamp posts does it for you.
I got the dogs onto
their leads and we set off. As we drove the pundits on the radio were talking
about home-schooling children. I can remember having home-schooled children
being brought along to cubs back when I was a cub scout leader. They were all
the same; the moment their parents left they either stayed at the side of a
leader (in stark terror) or physically clung to them (me!). They
were utterly unable to interact with the other children in any way at all;
flatly refused to join in with any activity that meant they had to deal with
the other children, and looked at the other children as though they were
dangerous wild animals. In more recent years a friend’s wife did home schooling
with her children. One of them did nothing but play tennis all day long. The
other hoped to get into college but had the disadvantage that at age sixteen he
couldn’t read or write.
We got to Kings Wood
and had a rather better walk than we did yesterday. There was mud, but nowhere
near as much as there had been in Orlestone Woods. There were quite a few more
people, but once away from the car park we walked for over three miles and only
met one other group; the young mothers and dogs running group.
With walk walked we
came home and went into the bath for paws and bellies to be washed. They were
grubby, but we didn’t need the intensive scrubbing we had yesterday. I did a
cuppa for me and “er indoors TM”, then wrote up some CPD and enrolled
on another
coursera course.
Suddenly Treacle went
berserk; the postman had dared to deliver a letter. The bank wanted to know
what to do with the money left in the account of the reptile club. That club
packed up in a particularly vicious argument years ago. I’m not sure how many years
ago but there is no mention of it in any previous blog entries so it must have
been sometime before September 2006. From what I can remember I thought I’d
resigned as Treasurer before the club folded? The nice lady at the bank
suggested I filled in the form they’d sent, and we might take it from there…
I went to bed for the afternoon. I woke to find “er
indoors TM” had gone to collect “Darcie Waa Waa TM”.
She’s babysitting tonight. So while I waited for mayhem to ensue, I cracked on
with the Coursera course I’d signed up to earlier. It’s about “quality
management”. For some years this has been the big thing at work… but I’ve
always been rather sceptical about it. Maybe I might learn something? I’ve
passed the first week with a score of eighty per cent, but I achieved that by
remembering certain figures that were given during the (frankly rather dull)
video lectures.
I know it is early days for this course,
but I enrolled because I’ve always considered “Quality Management” to be
a load of blah-blah-blah that gets in the way of doing my job, and for
years I’ve been wondering just what I’m missing. I must be missing something.
So far the course has been nothing but blah-blah-blah,
and all it is doing is confirming my preconceptions.
So… engaging “reflective mode”. Why
do I consider this Quality Management course to be a load of blah-blah-blah?
Because there are loads of words and loads of talk and very little practical
example of improvement.
Bearing in mind this was an introductory
week, the course might perk up. I hope so.
The girls should be home
soon; they’ve been in Asda for over half an hour. I’m off to the night shift
now. Ideally I wouldn’t have been doing one tonight. Ideally I would have stayed
home with the littlun. But there it is. Hospitals never close, and so I have to
work at all hours.
If I had my time again
I would work somewhere that periodically puts up a “closed” sign.
And in closing, today would have been my Dad’s
eighty-eighth birthday.
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