Shine a Light

[Anonymous]

Oh dear Neil, that’s a real faux pas! Even though Oxford University does have some red brick buildings and sad to say the engineering department is white tile.

 

But here’s a little puzzle; Oxford and Cambridge are the two oldest collegiate universities in the UK, but which is the third oldest? Hint; it’s a proper red-brick university.

 

Oh, and I don’t need to worry about the SO either; the dining room is the tool and measurement equipment store, the kitchen is for castings and parts for the traction engines and the entrance hall is for work in progress.

 

Regards,

 

Andrew

[Anonymous]

Hi Sid,

 

I must admit that Canada is on the short list of countries I would like to visit. A friend of mine from Cambridge has just upp’d sticks and moved to Vancouver, to become technical director of a power electronics company there. It was a no holds barred move, he’s sold the house here, and taken the wife, kids, and the machine tools, but I don’t know about the dog.

 

He did offer me some work a few months ago, but I had to turn it down because I was too busy on other projects. In due course I hope there’ll be some more work available, so I can visit Vancouver and BC, and get paid for it.

 

Regards,

 

Andrew

[Gone AwayParticipant @goneaway]

Hi Andrew,

 

That’s about the same as I did, something over 40 years ago with £500 in my pocket . Of course I was just 25 then (most unlike me really). At that time it was pretty easy to walk into a job if you had decent qualifications (I had nothing arranged prior to coming here).

 

Canada’s been pretty good for me and I don’t regret it for a minute but I must admit to a slight hankering, now that I’m retired, to moving back to some small out of the way place in Cornwall or Devon or Dorset. (I have relations ^H^H^H^H^H^H relatives in Cornwall). Too many ties here now though.

 

One downside: living here does mean that you pay more than anyone else in the world for MEW. Gaddafi and the Ayatollah can get it cheaper than Canadians.

 

Edited By Sid Herbage on 24/09/2010 23:23:49

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

Andrew, did they name it after you (3rd oldest uni). Got a cousin in Vancouver the rest of the familys’ visited him , I’m waiting for him to come here. Perhaps he can’t escape. Ian S C

[Richard ParsonsParticipant @richardparsons61721]

 

One of my ‘long fathers’ went to Canada, or rather he was sent to Canada by his sons (as a remittance man) after his wife, their mother, died. It seems to have been because of his new hobby which was, by all accounts, molesting young ladies. He seems to have persisted with this hobby in Canada and got paid to move further and further West where (on Vancouver Island) he was forced to re-married and begat a new family. Some years later history repeated its self and he was sent to New Zealand (again on remittance) where in his old age he had to marry again – The grounds for divorce was that the shot guns (in Canada) were not properly loaded-. There the dirty old devil seems to have begat another tribe in the ‘Land of the Long White Cloud’.

 

Sid – My tribe got ‘hodded out’ of Dorset many hundred years ago for ‘Gross Evil’.  (this probably had somethig to do with either molesting young ladies or for flogging seawater as top of the range smuggeled brandy.

Edited By Richard Parsons on 25/09/2010 11:20:02

[Anonymous]

Hi Ian,

 

No, it’s not named after me! I agree that St. Andrews is the third oldest university in the UK, but it’s not the third oldest collegiate university in the UK.

 

Regards,

 

Andrew

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Sid,

 

Funny that you should mention that MEW costs the earth in Canada. I mentioned to my friend in Vancouver that I’d just had an article published in MEW, and he bemoaned the fact that he’d need a second mortgage to buy a copy locally.

 

I wonder why it is so expensive in Canada, and how does it compare with US prices?

 

Regards,

 

Andrew

[Gone AwayParticipant @goneaway]

Hi Andrew,

 

I was really referring to the subscription price. The US subscription price is a bit less than than the Canadian – which is odd considering that they’re both serviced out of Montreal.

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi There

Canada hs a purchase tax on magazines.

I think it was mentioned it is 11%.

regards David

 

[Gone AwayParticipant @goneaway]

…. it’s 13% but it’s calculated separately not buried in the price. That is, the quoted prices (the ones I was commenting on) are exclusive of tax and are still $10 more than ROW.

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi Sid

As far as I am aware the canadian price includes Tax.

Unless you can prove differently.

Then I can queery it.

I keep asking them to change the subscription advert to read ROW except USA and Canada.

It keeps falling on deaf ears.

At best it is misleading, at worst, it looks like fraud but is unintentionally so.

regards David

[Gone AwayParticipant @goneaway]

 Hi David

 

OK, I went to the ExpressMag website. The price is CDN$99 (no mention of tax). Added it to the shopping basket and went to checkout. It says:

 

Subtotal $99 before taxes

 

 so:

 

UK price £44.50

ROW (e.g. Iran) £52.95

US (US$89)  ~ £56

Canada (CDN$99) ~ £62

 

BTW, on the subscription page, there are separate buttons for UK, US, Canada and ROW which is quite clear to me. I don’t think it’s misleading as you suggest. The US and Canada buttons flip you through to ExpressMag.

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi There

I was going by subscription prices in magazine.

regards David

 

[Gone AwayParticipant @goneaway]

You mean the fact that it doesn’t make it clear that the ROW price does not include Canada and the US?

 

Yes, now that I look in the mag I can see what you mean about misleading.

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

Andrew,

 

I went to the oldest college in the country – Aberystwyth. Oh! you’re talking about England! Probably Durham then?

 

Neil

[NEIL SMITH 1Participant @neilsmith1]

ROW don’t need a middleman,why do we?

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

One thing that a profile does is tell us whether the other person has experience in the subject or not, so that replies can be made in a way that can be understood ie., if a non engineer, new to the hobby the answer can be made in simple language.Ian S C

[Anonymous]

Hi Neil,

 

Yep, got it in one! Durham is the third oldest collegiate university in England. I’m not even sure if there are any other collegiate universities in England. I assume that most of the red-bricks and white tile universities are conventional in their organisation. I vaguely remember seeing something on ‘Coast’ about Aberystwyth university recently. Wasn’t it started by private subscription?

 

Sid,

 

So which part of Canada are you in? After all it’s a big country. One of my fathers friends, from his apprenticeship days, emigrated to Canada, probably about 55 years ago. Montreal I think; he went to work for De Havilland Canada. Probably a bit late for me to emigrate now; and how would I ship several tons of machinery over! I gather than machine tools are relatively scarce on the secondhand market in Canada, at least compared to the USA?

 

Regards,

 

Andrew

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

I went to Durham once – the only place I’ve been with graffiti in latin – SEMPER PULCHRUM – could be my motto

 

My remembering of the origins of ‘Aber’ is sketchy. Thomas Charles Edwards was the first Vice-chancellor (I lived in the recently finished sub-Commonwealth games village building they named after him).. It was the first bit, then Cardiff and Bangor joined in. I never figured if the college in Lampeter was independent or not, though i hitch-hiked through it enough times!

 

Anyway, a fine place, if a bit stranger than Hogwarts.

 

Neil

[Anonymous]

Neil,

 

Ah, there you have me. You’ll have to translate the Latin for me. Despite going to a grammer school that had pretensions to be a public school, I was never subjected to Latin. Probably just as well, as I have zero ability for languages. I have enough trouble with English!

 

Regards,

 

Andrew

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

I too went to a grammar school, and like Andrew went down hill with languages attaining the dubious distinction of English Language (Fail), English Literature (Fail), French (Fail) and Latin (dropped after two years). Neverthe less I do remember something from my Latin days:

 

Latin is a dead, dead language,

As dead as it can be.

It killed the ancient Romans,

And now it’s killing me!

 

Regards,

 

Peter G. Shaw

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

My Latin is essentially what you pick up as a botanist/ecologist (the truth is out!) i.e. no grammar, no verbs just lots of nouns and adjectives from scientific names!

 

As far as I can recall I was told its ‘always beautiful’ ( I could give Plug from the Beano a run for his money)

 

Neil

[Ian AbbottParticipant @ianabbott31222]

Getting back to the Canadian price for ME.

 

Three years ago before we came back to England, the over the counter price at the bookshop for ME was an exorbitant $9.99, but if I remember correctly, magazines were tax exempt in BC.  Even at the worst gouging exchange rate the price should have been about £5, but this isn’t a publishers thing, the price is set by the importers/distributors.

 

Ian 

[Anonymous]

Neil,

 

Thanks for the erudite explanation. Ah, the Beano. Actually my brother and I weren’t allowed to have the Beano, unless we bought it ourselves. Our parents would only buy the more educational ‘Treasure’ and ‘Look and Learn’.

 

Peter,

 

I did pass ‘O’ level English language and literature (just) but I failed French, with a grade 9. At least that’s a proper fail; if you’re going to do something, do it properly. Mind you the teaching wasn’t marvellous. If you got something wrong our French teacher made you stand on your chair in front of the class and say it again. We did get out revenge though when it was discovered that he was a Morris dancer!

 

Regards,

 

Andrew

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

Hi Andrew,

 

Despite failing English all those years ago, I mean decades, er just over ½century ago, I must have learned something, because about 5 or 6 years ago, I got complimented by a PhD in English Literature no less who said, following a letter published in our Choral Society magazine, “This person knows how to write!”. She did not, initially, believe me when I explained my (lack of” success in languages.

 

There is one thing though about Latin which I do like. Some of the music we sing is in Latin, and some of the words are absolutely wonderful, and make a lovely sound when all the consonants are used. Mind you, I still haven’t a clue what I’m singing about!

 

Regards,

 

Peter G. Shaw

[Author]

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