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MikeSh said:
Really? An "intense chance" to say farewell is obvious?
Once someone has died the funeral is pretty much the only opportunity to say farewell.
That farewell may be profound or intense for the person still living, but how the heck can an opportunity or chance be profound?
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All I can say is: have you been there? I'm not in the least religious, but the ceremonial seems entirely appropriate.

@trog: we can agree to disagree.
 
How Do They Do It? on Quest last night was looking at the production of clotted cream, for which they start by using a "separator" to split whole milk into cream and skimmed milk. The separator is a centrifuge-type thing, spinning at "1500 RPM", but (according to the commentary) the skimmed milk comes out at the centre while the "lighter cream is flung to the outside".
 
I never had cooking lessons, but I still manage to operate a microwave (and an ordinary oven, come to that). All you have to be able to do is read (but it seems universities are about to drop that requirement, because it is discriminatory!).

There are plenty of ways for kids to learn "life skills", if their parents really don't know / have the wherewithal to "parent" - cubs/guides/scouts/DoE Award scheme... Sorry, but from where I stand (as an old fart) all I see is laziness and lack of initiative/application.
 
I agree. Never had cooking lessons. Managing to whip up a batch of ratatouille for my lunch and freeze the rest for another day. Might have read a recipe once. Now do it from memory. Easy-peasy.
 
Exactly. Which is why "life lessons" at school ain't gonna work. Life lessons are what you absorb on your mother's knee (met.).
 
How many of those children are Jewish or Muslim?
In any case, the bacon I ate this morning came from Morrisons.
Seriously though, does anybody know where the majority of our fmeals come from? No idea what is in any processed food. It used to say (don't know if it still does) "mechanically recovered meat". Could be anything from anywhere. Even if you buy "fresh" fruit or vegetables do you know what chemicals they were grown in or had sprayed on them? It isn't just children who are ignorant.
 
@ EEPhil "mechanically recovered meat" is the crap that is left after butchery has removed everything it can from the carcass. No it isn't just children but educated children grow up to be educated adults and can then pass on their knowledge to the next generation. If kids had a better understanding of how their food was produced and the benefits and pitfalls of what they consume then maybe obesity would not be rampant and they could make wiser choices throughout their lives, the same goes for finances. If children are taught about how loans, mortgages, credit cards and bank accounts, pensions, saving accounts etc operate they can better manage their future. I defy anyone to explain how such information has less worth than knowing the names of Henry VIII's wife's or the nuances of Shakespeare's Macbeth.
 
You probably have a point. In my day I don’t remember maths covering accounts, loans etc to an adequate level. Those of us with some maths ability picked it up easily when required. Don’t know what is taught these days. I would have thought basic maths covering the topics you mentioned would be more important than Shakespeare or Henry’s wives. But I’m biased - I’m an engineer.
 
EEPhil said:
You probably have a point. In my day I don’t remember maths covering accounts, loans etc to an adequate level. Those of us with some maths ability picked it up easily when required. Don’t know what is taught these days. I would have thought basic maths covering the topics you mentioned would be more important than Shakespeare or Henry’s wives. But I’m biased - I’m an engineer.
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I took commerce as a chosen subject and we were taught about such things there along with some basic accountancy and I know it has aided me very much since, I learnt the value of money and just how easy it was to get into debt before I had a chance to learn the hard way. These days its even more important to know how to manage your funds as just a few clicks on your smart phone can start you on a spiralling course into a lifetime of seeing your hard earned wages being eaten away by interest payments instead of seeing your savings grow. BH says such wisdom should be learnt on your mothers knee but society has changed, mothers knee is more likely to have a laptop on it as she juggles a career along with being a parent and little Johnny spends more time with a child minder than with his parents. Instilling worldly wisdom through education at school gives a child a far better chance to succeed when they are released to fend for themselves into the world. Many kids do not have parents with that knowledge or parents who have little time to spend with their kids these days so spend that time on recreation rather than nurturing wisdom.
 
EEPhil said:
As one side of my family has a variant of that surname I can assure you that the pronunciation hinted at by that headline is not correct anywhere! As a teacher once said to my aunt “is that really your name?”. Even teachers get it wrong.
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The headline quoted is, as I recall, from the Evening Standard in 1957 and was 'Sir Vivian Fuchs off to the Antarctic'. Fuchs was an English (but originally Austrian) explorer whose expeditionary team completed the first overland crossing of Antarctica in 1958. Fritz Spiegl included it in the book that's been mentioned and said, as I recall, that the way the surname would be pronounced in Austrian German and the Scouse pronunciation of the swearword were the same. As he was a) also originally Austrian himself and a native German speaker (indeed spoke nothing else until age 13 when he came to England on the kindertransport) and b) was resident in Liverpool for around 50 years, I'm prepared to take his word for it.

Incidentally Fritz Spiegl, for many years principal flautist with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, was responsible for the theme tune for Z-Cars, an arrangement of a traditional sea song (NB not a shanty as it wasn't a work song) Johnny Todd.

Another Fuchs gave his name to the decorative plant (and paint shade) that, for some reason or another, is, in the UK at least, pronounced 'few-sha'.
 
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There was a letter in the paper which said the correspondent's homework used to have spelling mistakes underlined in red, and made to copy out the correct spelling five times, but now teachers say pupils are demoralised if there is too much red marking on their work. So much for modern education!
 
Black Hole said:
Which is exactly why the younger generation, with no exposure to BBC English, have trouble with spelling.
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Can't quite follow your reasoning here. Spelling is no longer taught as a specific subject in UK state schools (probably hasn't been for 50 years) but, in any case, there is no robust evidence that doing this resulted in better spelling performance. Spelling is examined in SATS1 and SATS2 (Age 7 and 11) and, contrary to myth, marks can be deducted for misspelling in any subsequent exams. The predominant method for teaching reading in English schools is phomnics which places stress on the correct pronunciation of words (something the Beeb is supposed to be good at). The Beeb is no longer the dominant provider of audio-visual material for learning that it once was and has been replaced as the dominant provider of children's entertainment by the likes of Netflix, Disney and Nickelodeon but it has done very good work over the last year in supporting home learning during the shutdown.
 
Black Hole said:
There was a letter in the paper which said the correspondent's homework used to have spelling mistakes underlined in red, and made to copy out the correct spelling five times, but now teachers say pupils are demoralised if there is too much red marking on their work. So much for modern education!
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Another myth. This happened to some people maybe. It certainly didn't happen to me (and I went to school in the 50s and 60s) The point is, however, that this is, almost certainly, not an effective way of improving spelling performance (there's a large volune of researxch on this) but will increase the chances that those subject to it will become alienated from school and disengage from the learning process. Which has been the real problem for many years now.
 
Hounddogman said:
Can't quite follow your reasoning here.
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Easy. Pronounce words correctly (as in BBC English, AKA Received Pronunciation), and they sound a lot closer to how they should be spelt. Eg the 'w' in write is not truly silent, and unless you've heard the difference you wouldn't know that.

Are you sure you are not just reinforcing your own bias against formal (as opposed to liberal) education?
 
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