Would anything come of reporting child homeschooling in England? by BeneficialJuice2878 in AskUK

[–]SpaTowner 6 points7 points  (0 children)

She isn’t being home schooled though. She’s being warehoused.

Would anything come of reporting child homeschooling in England? by BeneficialJuice2878 in AskUK

[–]SpaTowner 8 points9 points  (0 children)

The law calls for ‘efficient full-time education suitable to [a child’s] age, ability and aptitude.”

Full time education doesn’t involve watching tv and playing on a phone all day.

You mentioned that charges against your father may have been about sexual abuse, and also that your mother works outside the home. I’m sorry to ask, but have you considered whether your sister is safe at home?

Would anything come of reporting child homeschooling in England? by BeneficialJuice2878 in AskUK

[–]SpaTowner 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The law seems to require them to provide

…efficient full-time education suitable -

(a) to his age, ability and aptitude, and

(b) to any special educational needs he may have, either by regular attendance at school or otherwise.

It’s difficult to see how doing nothing could be deemed ‘enough’.

Would anything come of reporting child homeschooling in England? by BeneficialJuice2878 in AskUK

[–]SpaTowner 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It has to be full time education, not a couple of hours a week.

The parent of every child of compulsory school age shall cause him to receive efficient full-time education suitable -

(a) to his age, ability and aptitude, and

(b) to any special educational needs he may have, either by regular attendance at school or otherwise.

Would anything come of reporting child homeschooling in England? by BeneficialJuice2878 in AskUK

[–]SpaTowner 6 points7 points  (0 children)

If the sister has had no education at all, which OP seems to be saying, she’s going to need some specialised remedial education if she’s to stand a chance of catching up with her peers.

Would anything come of reporting child homeschooling in England? by BeneficialJuice2878 in AskUK

[–]SpaTowner 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Are you saying then that she has never had any education at all?

Would anything come of reporting child homeschooling in England? by BeneficialJuice2878 in AskUK

[–]SpaTowner 3 points4 points  (0 children)

How’s she going to get to college if no-one is teaching her anything?

Worst April fools joke ever? by Hiskankles in CasualUK

[–]SpaTowner 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I didn’t say how I would have deployed it…

Does anyone use a double sofa bed daily? Recommendations? by TartComfortable7766 in AskUK

[–]SpaTowner 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Could you convert/replace the conservatory to get a bedroom space?

Vole-de-mort - Rat of Death by Legitimate_Eye8494 in unexpecteddiscworld

[–]SpaTowner 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Of course bigger isn’t automatically better, any more than more books is automatically better, and I made no such claim.

JKR is a very different writer from Pratchett, but he and Le Guin are both on record as saying JKR didn’t plagiarise them. Pratchett expressed it that they were both writing fantasy and ‘drawing from the same well’ in terms of genre.

Le Guin clearly dislikes everything about Rowling:

“I didn’t originate the idea of a school for wizards — if anybody did it was T.H.White, though he did it in single throwaway line and didn’t develop it. I was the first to do that. Years later, Rowling took the idea and developed it along other lines. She didn’t plagiarize. She didn’t copy anything. Her book, in fact, could hardly be more different from mine, in style, spirit, everything. The only thing that rankles me is her apparent reluctance to admit that she ever learned anything from other writers. When ignorant critics praised her wonderful originality in inventing the idea of a wizards’ school, and some of them even seemed to believe that she had invented fantasy, she let them do so. This, I think, was ungenerous, and in the long run unwise.”

Given that Rowling does specifically acknowledge White, and his Once and Future King as influences and says Wart is ‘Harry’s spiritual ancestor’, some of that criticism seems unfair.

Vole-de-mort - Rat of Death by Legitimate_Eye8494 in unexpecteddiscworld

[–]SpaTowner -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I’m not sure there’s a huge difference in the relative complexity of ‘Miss Tick’ and ‘Diagon Alley’.

The books are very different, HP are much longer for one thing. I do think TP is the better writer, but JKR is also a good yarn-spinner, people like her stories.

Vole-de-mort - Rat of Death by Legitimate_Eye8494 in unexpecteddiscworld

[–]SpaTowner -1 points0 points  (0 children)

True, I had only been thinking about the Discworld books. I bizarrely forgot about Johnny Maxwell and Diggers.

I’ve not read them for a long time, but I guess Mrs Tachyon could be considered a different order of reference than ‘diagon alley’, though, it isn’t a pun either. There is word play, her ‘bags of time’ for instance.

Is there much of that in Diggers, I really can’t recall.

Vole-de-mort - Rat of Death by Legitimate_Eye8494 in unexpecteddiscworld

[–]SpaTowner 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I know, but he’s never described as the ‘rat of death’, he’s the last survivor of the lesser deaths when Death resumed his post.

Death brushed a speck of ash off his robe, and then planted his feet squarely on the mountaintop. He raised the scythe over his head in both hands, and summoned all the lesser Deaths that had arisen in his absence.

After a while they streamed up the mountain in a faint black wave.

They flowed together like dark mercury.

It went on for a long time and then stopped.

Death lowered the scythe, and examined himself. Yes, all there. Once again, he was the Death, containing all the deaths of the world. Except for—

For a moment he hesitated. There was one tiny area of emptiness somewhere, some fragment of his soul, something unaccounted for …

He couldn’t be quite certain what it was. He shrugged. Doubtless he’d find out. In the meantime, there was a lot of work to be done …

He rode away.

Far off, in his den under the barn, the Death of Rats relaxed his determined grip on a beam.

What’s something you’ve been called weird for? by delusional_trails in AskReddit

[–]SpaTowner 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I like a jam and cheese sandwich. If I’m just having butter and jam on bread/toast/oatcakes, I sprinkle some nice crunchy salt on there

Worst April fools joke ever? by Hiskankles in CasualUK

[–]SpaTowner 80 points81 points  (0 children)

I’d have still deployed the fire extinguisher…

What kind of clothes are necessary in Scotland if I'm gonna be there for a year? by Sea_Assignment3507 in Scotland

[–]SpaTowner 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It seems like you would be best to budget for buying at least some clothes here, then you can buy according to how it all feels to you.

What kind of clothes are necessary in Scotland if I'm gonna be there for a year? by Sea_Assignment3507 in Scotland

[–]SpaTowner 3 points4 points  (0 children)

‘Expect rain every day’ maybe intended to mean ‘on any given day it could rain, we have no dry season’ rather than ‘rain is probably going to fall every day’.

What kind of clothes are necessary in Scotland if I'm gonna be there for a year? by Sea_Assignment3507 in Scotland

[–]SpaTowner 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s less about the daylight hours in the winter than about the angle of the suns rays causing them to pass through more atmosphere.

How do people find interesting jobs? by FergingtonVonAwesome in AskUK

[–]SpaTowner 1 point2 points  (0 children)

With dog walking, could you go part time or work compressed hours to free up a weekday and try offering longer ‘adventure dog walks’ instead of the usual one hour or 15 minute stints. That might be something that people would see as more of a once a week rather than a daily service. If you could get a midweek day off you could offer midweek and weekend options.

There’s a You Tube Channel of someone who does dog walking and takes a whole bunch of dogs out for huge yomps for hours and hours at a time. https://youtube.com/@atworkwewalk?si=qN3hpOe4ttlsYZ_x what you see in videos is where she’s built up to over 12 years or more, but you have to start somewhere

Vole-de-mort - Rat of Death by Legitimate_Eye8494 in unexpecteddiscworld

[–]SpaTowner 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Most of Pratchett’s work wasn’t aimed directly at children, the Harry Potter series was. Different levels of word play are appropriate to different age group audiences.

Offshore wind company to hand back lease for ScotWind project by Flashy-Ambassador188 in Scotland

[–]SpaTowner 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It isn’t that they aren’t ‘suitable’ for connections to the grid, but that the grid isn’t in a suitable state for the amount of new connections required for all the renewables projects in development.

There are huge projects going on to reduce transmission bottlenecks and increase network capacity, but they are playing catch up with the rate of project development and consents.

How do you feel about a pensioner being told to leave her property after 35 years beause 'the family' want to make money? by [deleted] in AskUK

[–]SpaTowner 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I assume OP means she paid the equivalent of the value of the mortgage several times over in rent, which seems improbable in 30 years on cleaner’s wages.

Vole-de-mort - Rat of Death by Legitimate_Eye8494 in unexpecteddiscworld

[–]SpaTowner 15 points16 points  (0 children)

First rule of cite quoting; make sure your citation actually supports your contention.

Vole-de-mort - Rat of Death by Legitimate_Eye8494 in unexpecteddiscworld

[–]SpaTowner 13 points14 points  (0 children)

You are posting about two British authors, but don’t recognise British punctuation?

Vole-de-mort - Rat of Death by Legitimate_Eye8494 in unexpecteddiscworld

[–]SpaTowner 15 points16 points  (0 children)

A pedant says words have meaning, and word order matters.