You are never too old to learn

Now and again I trot out the statement:
'There are 4 classes in Britain: the upper class, the middle class, the lower class and the evening class.' Alas it was not my turn of phrase, I read it in a newspaper many years ago.

I love the evening class brigade. They are indomitable, optimistic and open to learning. Age poses no barrier in their quest to learn.

It turns out that Adult Learners Week is the 15th-21st May this year. Why not celebrate it at work by teaching colleagues something you are good at? Or ask your employees to organise some taster classes. May be it is time to dust down those origami skills.

Another Caroline

I had meant to get back to my theme of evolving into a luddite, but things have been hectic. And if you are a regular visitor, an not updated blog can be a source of irritation.

So I am handing you over to another Caroline to have a peruse of her website. She does a blog on weightloss and IBS. IBS seems to becoming more prevalent, especially amongst young women. A doctor friend says it is because their eating lives are all over the place. The poor old stomach wants a bit of order in its life. It wants to know when the next meal is likely to come and that it won't be starved one day and then deluged the next in alcopops. It may be a stomach but it has its needs and habits.

Happy wandering!

Bring back the Steamie

I think I have reached my tipping point with technology. Poor Harry will despair. I know that technology is a great thing but there's too much and it's moving too fast for my brain to cope with.

Today I had another visit from my washing machine man and again we discussed the advances in washing machines and actual customer behaviour. It turns out his wife even adds extra water to her machine because she doesn't believe that the amount used is enough to get the clothes clean! So while the washing machine companies tell us that you need less water, less detergent and less temperature; customers are actually adding water, putting more soap in than they are advised and washing at much higher temperatures.

I know I am in danger of being labelled a luddite, but why don't we step backwards but take with us hindsight and a bit more comfort. My first proposition would be to bring back the steamie and public washhouses. You can see a great photo of a steamie here. To be continued ...

Worrying time for non-fiction

The report in The Bookseller about more job losses at non-fiction publisher New Holland is symptomatic of the book publishing climate. Non-fiction (in other words information books which cover interests such as gardening, cookery, nature, dictionaries, maps, guides to language, etc, etc) is losing out to information on the internet. Browsing online comes much more naturally to the new generations than finding the information in a book.

The only trouble is that students probably just skim the surface of a subject and tend to home in on the information they need without being drawn into the webpage and the hinterland of the subject they are researching. If the average visit to a site is 60 seconds there is a lot of wasted time hopping from place to place and then retracing clicks to note what they found on a website many clicks before.

Hopefully this is just a glitch in the history of non-fiction publishing and somehow people will rediscover how useful a book with real rather than virtual pages is.

I even had a book published by New Holland. One that should be recommended to all screen slaves!

Washing machines

The long silence is in part caused by my washing machine. After less than 2 years it decided to conk out and I had to call in the washing machine engineer. After 2 sessions with him and another one later this week I feel there is nothing I don't know about washing machines.

In the world of washing machines you may think you can step off the technological super highway, but I am afraid it is not so. If you are like me, you bung your dirty clothes in the washing machine, put in the detergent and press a button. Hopefully they will emerge clean and whites will remain white. Now and again you might look at the gunge on the soap dispenser and give it a clean. And that would be the end of keeping your relationship fresh.

Well, dear reader, according to my friendly engineer we should be cleansing the wretched things. Now wouldn't you think clothes being cleaned would automatically cleanse the machine itself? Advances in washing machine technology means that washing machines have been built to use less water and run at much lower temperatures. The result is that a lot more gunk builds up within the machine and its parts so you need to cleanse them every month or so. Well, I had never heard about this and nor did any other members of my family.

So along with ebooks, ipods, podcasts and the like, we need to keep abreast of our domestic appliances. It won't be long now before a plain old paperback and a bar of soap will be revered for their simplicity and ease of use.

Sleep revision

Regular readers will know that our Nod off series is the equivalent of a multi-tasking revision aid. It does all the following:

1. Relaxes you and your brain
2. Allows you to take in information during your brain's down time (during sleep)
3. Breaks down old barriers to learning something you always considered boring or beyond your brain's level of comprehension - grammar
4. Shows you how to move your tongue and your mouth to get the right foreign sounds
5. Condenses all the audio element into a 48-page booklet of pure information
6. Gives you a booklet for those non-listening moments
7. Gets you to sleep in no time

Of course, there are sceptics among you, but scientists are only just now catching up with the secret in The Cupboard. Read about it here.

ps Don't forget to buy Nod off in French for anyone you know about to study for exams.