(flerdle) It's the first time I've ever seen it, and there were power cuts galore when I was a small child (say late 40's). The voltage here is allowed by statute to vary 10% (up 4 and down 6) but this was down 50%, at a guess. (Dujon) Can't be that, because everyone here is on single phase except industrial premises which have all 3. There were 2 more cuts early this evening. When the first (over an hour) ended it came back on (full voltage) for less than a minute, just enough time to put the candles out before going off again for another 40 minutes or so. Loud, pointed and profane were my exclamations to no-one in particular.

[rab] That's right, I'd forgotten that I changed from kt to Kathryn. That's how long ago it was.
Hi, flerdle! Sorry I dropped out of contact for a while there. Are you still in the middle east? Edinburgh's rather nice, actually, with more sun than I had imagined.
And hello Simons Mith also. It's amazing how stable the MC community is...

[kathryn] Welcome back - I'm an irregular visitor myself these days.

[kathryn] No, am now in Melbourne, and thesising too, fool that I am. But Melbourne is very pleasant.

Incredible the %age of MCers who have done or are doing theses. I have no plans to go within a million miles of one meself, but have a lot of respect for those who have the inclination.

(kathryn) Collectively, maybe.

[ISP] Ten years after my undergrad degree, I'm doing an MA. Think I might be ready to do the big one in another ten years! :)

[Projoy] Well, I worked five years between school and Uni, then another eight between BA and MSc, now I'm (avoiding) studying for my Oracle exams. Doing very well - been avoiding studying for two and a half years and counting.

Stable?? Us?

Hmm... I waited ten years between under-gradding and post-gradding, and have now resolved to study nothing but happy things that interest me, which is mostly food, conservation, art and historical stuff, not science or authoring. If all goes to plan, I'm off to Rotterdam next month to work for a day on a conserved windmill. And also to see a very nice man who happens to be the Miller. :o)

Well then, enjoy your Miller time :-)

[Rosie] Dad was an industrial electronics guru during that period. The reason for the power cuts was to avoid brown outs according to him. The national grid had been so badly compromised during WWII that power was in short supply. It was deemed safer to cut the power altogether than tolerate a severe voltage drop. They used to sound sirens around ten minutes before the power cuts in the local factories apparently, so that the machine shops could shut down gracefully. The good old days.

[blamelewis] hello!
[flerdle] Melbourne is indeed pleasant, despite lacking a proper harbour.
[ISP] There may well be a connection between people who put themselves through a thesis and people who take pleasure in playing a game like MC. An unusual relationship with reality could well be one of them.
[pen] How about the science of food (e.g. courtesy of Harold McGee)? That's definitely a happy thing!

[penelope] Watch out for clog-wearing mice in that windmill. The staircases are infested with them from all accounts.

I did have a plan last year to take an A-level every year for the next ten years. I think I've missed the deadline to enter for French this year, so maybe I'll start the mission next year and do two (to catch up). The plan is that if someone says to my daughter when she's 18, "oh, I've got 7 A-levels", she can reply, "well, my dad's got 14." The only extra proviso for this is that I don't attend any lessons/lectures in order to gain the qualifications - I'll rely on reading what the syllabus is, and a bit of common sense in terms of background reading. And, yes I've checked, there are still exam boards that do not require coursework :-)

(SM) Mine must have been a purely local problem due to malfunctioning switches or transformers and not insufficient supply. This was just one phase down or out over about a square mile.

[Sierra Mike] I have my own clogs for stamping on said mice - they came as a present from the Miller last weekend. Luckily they were filled with chocolate as a sweetener...

Hope there's good ventilation, in case he's Windy.

[IS,P!] Hmmph. He's a Dutch Miller. Have you got a pic of one of those?