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[Simons] Thanks for the advice btw.
Ooh, don't count on the animal making a special trip to another room just 'cos it wants to sharpen its claws; remember, they're lazy as well as contrary. A sacrificial rug or toy cat pyramid in the living room is probably still a good idea.
Saw this recently and thought it might amuse:
The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will become the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other contender. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and, as a result, has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that will become known as "Euro-English". The 5-year plan will be implemented as follows:

- In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. Also, the hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konsiderable konfusion, and keyboards kan be manufactured with one less letter.
- In the second year, growing publik enthusiasm will be anticipated, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.
- In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil sertainly agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and should be done away with.
- By the 4th yer, people wil be mor reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".
- During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" resulting in a more sensibl riting styl.

By ze end of ze fifz yer, zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis; evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand evrivun els and ze drem of a united Urop vil finali kum tru bekos ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas!

Hello all, back from Paris with only a small hangover. Happy New Year 2008 to all and sundry - hope it's full of laughter, sunshine and cake.
being catty
[rab] I suspect that it's the luck of the draw. I have two moggies and have attempted to get them to use two varieties of scratching devices. Neither of the cats took to either of them. One contraption was a pole (wrapped with rope) the other a flat, foldable, unit covered in a lighter grade of rope. Good luck.
going on a bit - as usual
I have to confess - before I did the sprogging thing, I was a cat obsessive so can fully understand the 'desire to acquire' cat-like ness. All I can advise is .... whatever you wish them to do - they will graciously and very politely do the opposite ... and whatever direction you may want to send them [ with the best possible intentions] they will go the other way with a beguiling manner encompassing charm, purposefulness and intention, which sumply leaves you in a place whre you simply wouldn't even deign to complain. Adorable little hussies, each an every one of 'em.
'sumply' is a fine word - but as you can proberBly guess, was a bit of a misstype.
sumply - in the manner of a sump; L. sumpus, some cat.
Cats are shifty, evil, nasty pieces of work. No-one has ever had one as a pet. Millions of cats have had humans as servants, though.
Well, I've never had much time for dogs - so there you go.

I was wondering if one of the US Presidential Election experts (Projoy, CdM?) could explain if there's any reason why the Republicans and Democrats have their first nomination quasi-election thingy on the same day. Presumably there's nothing in the rules that says that candidates have to be nominated in anything like a similar way, let alone at the same time. Is it simply to try and prevent one party getting more press attention than another?

[rab] You just made me google the answer to that, cos I didn't know, but according to this page, anyway, "there was a mutual decision in 1976 between the parties to hold the event [the Iowa caucuses] on the same day because they understood the need to make it a heightened media bonanza of sorts."

There has been some change this year because the Republicans moved their caucuses in Iowa forward to 3 Jan. It was only after that decision was made that the Democrats decided (presumably for reasons of not handing momentum to the GOP race coverage) to move theirs forward also. The two parties do indeed use separate caucusing methods in Iowa (I think the Republicans do secret ballots, whereas Democrats tend to use the non-secret "go stand in the corner of the room relating to your candidate" solution. There has been quite a bit of shuffling this year of the primary calendar, mostly with different states jostling to put themselves earlier on in the process. I expect this drives up the cost for the candidates.
+)
*eats curry at her desk and waits for someone to say something*
hmmm, curry
Mmm... absence.
ramblings
My brain was definitely on half-cock yesterday. Today, it seems to be on full-power again, with no discernable reason why.
As an aside, it's mild and windy here today in Grantham. And instead of being the last person on my cul-de-sac road occupied by mostly pensioners to put my bins out onto the roadside this morning, I was the first. Hurrah!
Bins
[penelope] The last time I managed that it turned out that I was putting them out on the wrong day. Something about holidays and skip-days, I don't know. Everyone hated me because the bins got knocked over, either by their kids or by the backwash from a passing vehicle. Great neighbourhood. Not.
Communal refuse collection for the building. It's magical.
In it to bin it
[nights] Yes, we have that too, due to the sheer density of people living in the area (4 storey flats). The downside is that it means there are big wheely-skips on the streets, which don't do a huge amount to improve the look of the place. Preferable to bin bags being ripped apart by birds, though, which would be the alternative.
shhhh!
shhhhushes
I was going to say, (before I whacked the wrong key) I'm really busy today...
Reynard
(rab) You can't leave binbags out round here because the foxes just rip them apart leaving the rubbish scattered everywhere. I had thought of splashing a little white spirit around the inside hoping the smell would put them off but the foxes will probably evolve rapidly into actually needing the stuff to stay alive (cf. Warfarin, now a dietary essential for rats).
Yes, but my bit of town looks like shit 93% of the time anyway, so it's not so much of a concern.

On the way back from rehearsals this evening - well actually the pub after rehearsals - I was charmed by the man who got on the bus and was absolutely mystified that he had to buy a ticket. The driver and our interlocuter went back and forth on this one for about three stops, before the gentleman found the 1,30€ needed. And then got off. Marvellous.
[Rosie] So long as you don't use dogs, it's still perfectly legal to hunt and kill foxes.
Tally-ho
(Phil) So it ought to be. I am the least likely huntsman, thinking it distasteful to set one animal against another but I was very much against the ban purely on libertarian grounds and after all it's only bloody foxes, which are pests. I find it staggering that some people in the suburbs actually leave food out for them, which is a bit like leaving food out for the dear little flies and wasps. I do feed the dickybirds but they are a Good Thing.
Extinction
[Rosie] The quantity of species that became extinct long before intelligent bipeds trod this earth is simply staggering. I think our impact is over-rated and, unless we don't believe in evolution, we should stop saving species that obviously don't have the necessary means to survive on their own. Also, I wholeheartedly agree with you on the matter of the naïve townsfolk who put food out for the most wiley of scavengers, so that the cute little feckers don't have to go and find food for themselves. I wouldn't mind getting rid of a few robins at the moment - either that or persuade them somehow to shut the hell up at night.
Thinking about birds
(Phil) Robin problems? Bar them. Employ crows.
Robins calling
They switched to singing at night because modern noise pollution is so bad during the day that they can't hear themselves chirrup. If you want to Do Something about that, you'll probably have to join the Black Ops Arm of the Noise Abatement Society.
Puzzled about Rats & Warfarin
I was aware that rats were growing immune to many poisons, but this is the first I've heard about them needing a blood thinner to survive. Which begs the question: If warfarin is now an essential dietary additive for healthy rats, why don't we simply stop giving it to them?
(S M) I think the story is true though there's a possibility it may be a scientific urban myth. Without Warfarin the rats presumably will rapidly evolve back to what they were before the introduction of this substance although a number will perish in the process. Something more subtle is needed.
Rats
Dad always swore by a cricket bat during the bad old days.
I see idiots have dropped by (see elsewhere)...
Hmmm
Not my day. A casual chat over coffee led me to realise that flights I was booked to take next week have been withdrawn. The service email got swamped by spam, and though they tried to call me, it turns out they did so on my old office number during the Christmas vacation. Ho hum. The original booking was perfect: nice leisurely departure, direct flight out to a meeting; meeting finishes, evening flight back, airport easily makable after the end of the meeting. Then I could go to a course I was enrolled on the next day. Now, the outward is early morning, involves a change at Birmingham. Then I had a choice of either leaving the meeting before the session in which I was scheduled to speak, or missing the course. I went for the latter in the end.

And now these guys show up.

I think I missed it.
rab's Trip
Well where's the fun in that? You are supposed to get the only available flight that puts you in the night before your event, a train ride away from wherever your meeting is to take place. Said train should break down, stranding you overnight somewhere with no accomodation so that you have to sleep on the (open-air) platform where you get molested by stray dogs and policemen. When you get to the meeting you should discover that your powerpoint slides have somehow been erased from your laptop, at which point your wireless connection should pack up. The return journey should see you travel by coach and hovercraft and deliver you into the arms of a UK customs official who is going through a bad patch in his or her personal life. You should return home after 15 hours of point-to-point commuting to discover your pipes burst approximately one hour after you departed.

On the other hand, you are changing at Birmingham.
Actually, crisis averted. Having rescheduled my course, I realised that a different airline could offer me direct flights at better times, and for a few quid less than my original ticket. So, back on the phone to get the original ticket refunded (which I must make sure actually happens), and less cost to the taxpayer.
Flight
[rab] All's well that ends well, then.
Not a criticism of anyone here, or anyone at all really, but I do wonder how many air/car/train/hovercraft(?)/coach miles of unnecessary travel to and from meetings are covered per annum. Also, how much money is spent on travel and accommodation that could be done much more cheaply with minimal discomfort to the person (who is, after all, getting paid to travel in many cases).
Business Travel
[Phil] As a fully paid-up member of the business tralling set I have had those thoughts occasionally, but, if you do it all the time then the level of comfort becomes a significant issue. You'd sleep in a capsule hotel for one night, but not 4 nights a week for 6 months.
Also, speaking for myself and most of my colleagues, my traveling is almost exclusively outside normal office hours, so I dispute that I'm being paid to travel. I think there are a lot of myths around this area.
That's 'travelling set' of course.
On the travel theme, how do people commute to and from work/university/knitting lessons?
I personally dislike travelling, particularly on my own. Most of the meetings I go to involve a bunch of people getting together from all over to present talks to an audience. Although this can be done by videoconferencing, much of the most useful time is that spent discussing with individuals in ad-hoc discussions etc. I think that could well get lost without the physical presence. I get paid the same whether I stay put or go somewhere. Also, this all being paid by your (and my) taxes, means that we always have to go the cheapest, most unglamorous way possible.
(INJ) You are being paid to travel, it presumably being a part of your job specification, unless you're self-employed. (nights) Car, once I'd got one (1965). Distances 2, 27, 10 and 6 miles.
[nights] Lots of jobs, several parts of the country involving several house moves. It goes thus: 1. Walked, then car 1.5 miles. 2. Ditto. 3. Car, 10 miles. 4. Car 1.5 miles. 5. Car, 17 miles. 6. Walked 600 yards. 7. Car, 20 miles. 8. Car 11 miles, then 2 miles (I moved). 9. Car 2 miles.
Oh, [nights] Walk, 2 miles.
Shuffling along
[nights] For many years around 50 miles - 80 Km - each way but these days a leisurely stroll of around 10 metres from the kitchen to workshop.
(rab) What, even when it's chucking it down? (everybody) My niece and her hubby commute respectively to Cardiff and Swindon, from Chepstow. This is among the reasons that CO2 emissions are high, and will carry on getting higher. Should I tell her? She claims to be Green-ish, after all. At least they don't fly.
Carbon Footprint
Currently - a quarter of a mile into the city centre. Takes about 6 minutes. *smug green face*
When I was doing a proper job, then that would be a train every day. Now I'm freelance, it's that occasionally plus a lot of lying in bed, thinking.
[Rosie] Well, I don't own a car. There is a bus, so when it's totally dreadful I might get a bus. But for the rest of the time, I have an umbrella.
travel
[Rosie] My job specification says I have to do 5 days of 7.5 hours each (as if!). My base location/normal place of work in tax terms is about 45 minutes away. I am currently working some 3.5 hours away from home, am still expected to do the same number of hours once at the client site and get no extra money. Where's the payment for travel in that?
[INJ] Blimey. No wonder you go walkies whenever you have some time off.
I am currently juggling TV companies' and radio stations' requests for t'interviews. And then I'm off on hols to Holland tomorrow :oD
My commute is even shorter than Dujon's: 6m from kitchen to office. Music lessons are reached by tram. Tram or train to the city, or bicycle are the other ways I usually get around.
[INJ] Do you get paid travel expenses? If not, I'd be having a word with my employer, if I were you. Also, are you really out of the house for 15 hours a day (presuming you take 30 minutes for lunch), 5 days a week? Also (Take 2), do you need to be at the client site for all of those hours/days?
My commute these days is a flight of stairs. In my last few jobs it's been: a flight of stairs; a flight of stairs; 27 miles each way by car; 30 miles each way (1 mile by car, the rest by train); 8 miles each way by bicycle; 20 mins walk; 17 mins walk; 25 mins walk etc.
For several years at one time in my life I had a 60-mile each way commute. Now it is 18 stairs.
(That's 18 stairs each way, mind you.)
[INJ] Please ignore the apparently aggressive style of my previous post to you (which was unintentional). In fact, just ignore the whole thing, as it seems rather silly now. I was NES (Not Entirely Sober) at the time of writing.
[oblig]
[flerdle] Six miles from kitchen to office? How big is your house?
casa del tardis
[Tuj] If I were to tell you, I'd have to kill you.
I should contribute. Bus for ten minutes then tram for twenty, then feet for five. This is why strikes throw me so - I live out in the suburbs, and while it has its advantages - calm, nicer people, very few sirens - if I want a late night, or to go and see Mlle Nights on a whim, it's a touch difficult. I keep on having dark thoughts about buying a car...
[nights] I can understand going to work on a bus, going to work on a tram, but going to see Mlle Nights on a whim is new to me. ;-)
tired old yolk
[Phil] I prefer to go to work on an egg.
[Phil] No bother: I didn't read the first message until after you'd posted the second. To clarify: I get travelling expenses, but not payment for time spent travelling. Also, given the distance, I don't commute, but stay away for the week (and, yes, I do get my hotel bills paid). However, the situation in the past, and with many of my colleagues now is that a couple of hours travelling time is regarded as normal and is unpaid.
Do I need to be at the client site all that time? NO! Does the client agree? NO!
Vin de pays d'expenses
Regarding payment - one certainly doesn't get paid extra to get up at 4 or 5 in the morning to sit in an airport for three hours.
[rab] Hmmmm....if it's required by your job, and you're not on an hourly rate, then yes you do get paid to do that, but not paid extra. Or perhaps, if your job didn't require you to do that, you wouldn't get paid so much? I'm just arguing for the sake of it really, so don't take any of this to heart :-)
[Phil] Oh you must try it. But I'd rather you visited someone else's girlfriend...
Hello everyone,so lovely to see you're all still here. Last posted a couple of years ago, (then got new job, husband and baby, just about remembering who I am again). Have just had first glass of wine in about 18 months, so apologise now for the possible poor standard of postings!
[Ella] Congrats! And welcome back! I haven't noticed anything untoward yet.
[Penelope] Thank you! And on the horrendous errors front; there's still time :)
[Ella] What pen said!
Ella! How nice to have you back with us :-)
[and Ella] Please come and join my Animal Vegetable Mineral Abstracty thingy - it seems to be taking a bit of time....
*waves from Paris*
[Ella] Nice to see you again.
Good news: just received my first official rejection letter from a major U.S. periodical. I feel like a real writer now. =)
[J] congratulations!
Yawn. Another quiet night.
[nights]

WAKE UP!

shhhhhhhhhhhh!
I am surprised by the intensity of my loathing of Gillian McKeith tonight on telly. She is the most tasteless, boorish and annoying silly moo.
Then why did you persist?
I am quite sure that I have missed some entertaining programmes over the years but, these days, I do tend to pick and choose what I watch (as opposed to sitting in front of the damned thing 'flicking around').
Gillian 'not a real doctor' McKeith
[pen] it was my turn to buy the Sunday newspaper for our usual afternoon crossword get-together in the pub - we generally do the Mail on Sunday general knowledge one because it's quite challenging and good for sharing. Anyway - on the front page was THAT woman who had already stated that "every woman hates their bum" - [er, actually, NO - not true - I quite like mine]. So she's now promoting the Great British Bum Diet. Needless to say I refused to buy the paper and we had to do the Times crossword instead.
Love your bum
(Chalky, pen) Ignore it; it's actually an elbow diet.
un-elbow-like bum
I prefer the advice from here: The Health Institute for Nutrition
[Chalky] Do I detect the presence of a "Millenium Project" reader?
Ouch, me eardrums. Not even been to a gig.
Millenium Project & Eardrums
[Sierra Mike] You mean her?
[nights] Wassup chuck?
[Chalky] No, you. The author of the MP website used the "Not a Real Doctor" middle name for quacks too. The congruence was striking.
[Sierra Mike] Aaaah. Now I see :-)
Tom & Jerry
Having been accosted by a mouse whilst wiping down the stove on Saturday night - silly thing was hiding behind the recycling and would have gone unnoticed had it not decided to dive for the cover of its bolt hole whilst I was still in the kitchen - we set a trap baited with a peanut butter/Waitrose Biscuit for Cheese canapé. Amazingly the stupid thing didn't notice the suspicious enclosure and #1 has been dispatched. Presumably there will be more. In the fullness of time we still intend to exercise the nuclear option (Codename: Tiddles) but are still building up the necessary kit and looking for someone who'll supply us the goods.
little blighters
[rab] Bait. That's the only way to do it. I had an infestation in my flat (which was a conversion of 'the poor house' - ie the workhouse into six flats) and I caught 11 or 12 in traps, then got fed up of the traps going off while I was relaxing and watching telly. So I called in the council who put down bait everywhere in the building and we got rid of the whole lot. If you have them, the other flats will have them too - am I right in thinking you have a flat in a fairly old building?
Bait
Um, if they take the bait and then die somewhere inaccessible you'll have to put up with the smell while they decay. If you can't cover everywhere they might be, and/or can't access the places where the blighters might go to die, I'd stick with putting traps in the areas you can access and view it as a long-term war of attrition until Project Tiddles comes online.

Best approach depends on your house design. How well-ventilated it is and such. Bait worked badly for us (at my orkplace) because the mice died in inaccessible places and smelt. Plainly pen didn't get that problem, but we did.

Neither poison nor traps will ever get them all, of course; making sure they can't get to any of your food is the most reliable way to make them lose interest.

Squeak
Well, just about everyone in Edinburgh has mice. The majority of the buildings are 3 or 4 storey tenement flats constructed around 1900. Chances are the blighters moved in during building and have been endemic ever since. I'm also sure they can get between buildings if they try hard enough so if you were going for the total obliteration approach, as pen suggests, it might not be enough to restrict it to just one block.

I work on the principle that since they have access to a range of habitats we need to make ours as inhospitable as possible. Unfortunately, the age of the joinery is such that there's gaps and holes everywhere so getting these all mouse-proofed would probably cost more than moving to somewhere that's in a better state from this point of view. On the plus side, the number of poos I've found has been pretty small, which is suggestive we're not getting more than a few visitors. But if we catch more than four or five it'll probably be time to have a chat to the council to see if they have any wholesale slaughter solutions.

Bluebottle season
I dealt with my infestation during spring. The smell lasted about a week, after which I got two hatches of bluebottles every day for a week or so. I used elementary biology to interpret what had happened to the cadavers.
Mice
I got infested once (well, my garage then basement then house did). I tried humane traps to no avail (They came back faster than I could transport them to another place). I tried spring traps to no avail (they proved expert at getting the bait without suffering a crushed skull). Then I reluctantly put down glue traps (which require one to figure out a humane way of ending it for the trrapped animal). When I caught and euthanised my eleventh or twelfth mouse I gave up and called in the pros, who put down some sort of poison with the singular property of making the doomed mouse very thirsty. I was advised to check the bath before showering each morning. That did the trick eventually. I imagine they died in the crawl spaces, but I didn't notice any smell. Perhaps the corpses mummified and now await discovery (whereupon they will doubtless put a curse on their discoverer). I don't think I'd waste time with traps if it happened again.
[SM] That sounds very similar to the situation at my old flat; I tried traps and poisons, none of which worked. But then Dave came round and dispensed the hard stuff, and never a squeak after. But that was a modern flat, and filling the holes with expanding foam was straightforward. After our first visitation we called Dave in straight away, and it took him three attempts to get rid of the first batch; and expressed doubts that given the way the plumbing had been done in the kitchen that he could offer anything like a permanent solution.
SM being Sierra Mike, rather than Simons Mith, in that instance.
I caught one of the little dears in a humane trap some weeks back, also using peanut butter. He died in it anyway, for reasons that aren't clear to me. He was only trapped overnight, perhaps six-eight hours, so it presumably wasn't hunger or thirst. A broken spirit, perhaps?
[Dan] peanut allergy?
Mice
I've dealt with mice in two properties - each time by setting half a dozen traps at a time, baited with cheese. On each occasion they'd given up visiting within a week, and a dozen or so deaths. Perhaps the smell of mouse death lingers in the air?
One bit of information I was given at the time was useful - a mouse can get through a hole the width of a pencil.
Of Mice and McKeith
Clearly the solution is to stop jabbing those pencils into the walls. Or at least stop pulling them out afterwards. A pencil blimey. I bet those mice don't hate their bums... [Chalky] Maybe she meant that every woman hates her bum? I say why stop there, obnoxious pseudoscientist that she is...
[Phil] I couldn't resist it. Google reveals 65,500 Results for 'Can a mouse squeeze through a hole the width of a pencil?'. (0.44 seconds) Amazing stuff.
[Chalky] It's worse than that!
Clicky
[Dan] Murderer! You done for that animal with your inhumane "cholesterol trap". :)
Well, #2 has yet to be caught. I can't believe for one minute there was only ever one of them, so either this one's cleverer or less intrepid. Let's keep on the lookout for those poos.
[Raak] eeek! For a real treat why not try our Speciality Cappuccino flavoured with rodentessence and topped with bright pink froth. Chocolate sprinkles [mouse droppings] optional
[Chalky] I only just spotted your reply to my eardrums complaint and can't for the life of me remember what the problem was.

Hello, Middle Age.
[nights] Never mind. Middle Age comes to us all - but I must admit - it's really bloody annoying most of the time.
As some wise person said, growing old sucks, but it is better than the alternative.
Both good points. However I feel especially aggrieved about what this all means for me, as I'm not yet 25.
*ducks flying objects which always seem to materialise every time nights' age is mentioned*
I was interviewed by Jim Naughtie on the Today programme this morning. It was absolutely terrifying. It was at 6.52 in the morning, when all sensible people would have been asleep. I think I was too.
Oh, and #2 has crawled out of the woodwork. A small thing, very actively tried to escape the (humane) trap.
[rab] I just checked it out on Listen Again. The item on New Zealand accents? So, how does a physicist get involved with that? Do I sense the words "spin glass" in the background?
RabRadio
ooh, I must have a listen. All I do is set up these interview thingies... just trying to track down a rogue woodlander right now for one of the regional BBC stations who wants to talk to 'someone'. And firing off feature ideas to BBC programmes...
Early starts
I've often marvelled at the coherency of interviewees on the Today programme, or (particular) Five Live's Wake up to Money, which is at 5.30am. Rather them than me...
[Raak] Yes. That's the one. Involvement via knowing a suitably numerate (or semi-numerate) linguist. No spin glasses as such, though voter models are relevant.
Rising at the crack of Dawn
I get up at 6 on the days I have to be teaching at 8. And those days are rubbish, except when I can watch the sunrise from the tram. That's rather nice. On the other hand, that department is on holiday from next week, so I get a week of lie ins until the following week, which is my department's holiday. Wheee!
Huzzah for our beloved leader!
[rab] as a matter of (professional) interest, how do you alert the media to an interesting academic study? Was it published somewhere?
[pen] Traditionally, you would have a big-bang type discovery published in Nature or something like that, and their press team would do the business.

This case is a bit of an oddity - the work's been going on for years and has been presented in various forms at conferences, referred to in somewhat specialist publications and so on. Our press office got wind of it, I explained the situation, and it was generally felt that cos we were submitting a paper (which could take a couple of years to complete the review/publication process) and presenting it at the same time at the main linguistics conference in the US, it was reasonable to put out a press release. I was expecting it to go unnoticed, but was picked up by Radio New Zealand, the New Zealand Herald (front page), the Telegraph, the Glasgow Herald (page 5, above the fold), BBC Radio Scotland, Today, BBC Radio Wales and the World Service. I'm shattered, and generally want now to crawl under a stone.

[rab] Noooo! You were great. I guess it must be difficult to explain mathematical modelling to laymen, and for a presenter to pick up the gist of a study involving lots of people over several years and squeeze the right questions into a five-minute interview. I guess you're dealing with a lot of variables, but you summed it up pretty well. If I do my job properly, I get to put a lot of Woodland Trust people on the radio, and usually guide the presenter into asking the right questions: "You might like to ask why XXX happens, and what it means in the long term" etc. I didn't realise universities had press offices and the fact that it got picked up by so many publications means yours wrote a good press release and sent it out to the right media, with a view to possibly attracting the interest of potential funders...
[pen] The press officer I spoke to - for about an hour - is an ex-journalist, so he distilled it into a newsy-sounding story. (The version on the BBC website is basically the release verbatim). The presenters' briefs/scripts seemed to be cobbled together through informal chats with researchers/producers a few hours ahead of broadcast. 'Twould have been nice to have seen a copy myself beforehand, but I guess you can't have everything.
You're right about funding though. Probably the most useful thing about all this is that I can stick it all in the case for support to demonstrate interest beyond stuffy academia.
yay rab!
[rab] Cool interview and work - well done, and well explained. New Zealand is nice and small, making it a lot easier to study than its behemoth of a neighbour, even though exactly the same process happened in Australia (albeit some half a century earlier) and it's been developing in interesting ways ever since. I'd be interested in the publications to date, if you've got a list somewhere. I have an interesting documentary about the australian accent, too, if you're interested.
[flerdle] So that Google doesn't link my uni page to this one, perhaps I should suggest you type my name into the venerable search engine, click the first link (at least, the first link in our part of the world), and towards the bottom of the page you can find a link to the relevant preprint. I heartily recommend the books by Gordon and Trudgill if you really want to get into the details of the empirical data, as opposed to our modelling.
Trudgill rings a very faint bell. But well done you - I enjoyed the interview.
[nights] He is one of the more notable names in dialect research, especially in the UK; it would be hard not to have heard of him at some stage if you've looked into this field much.
[rab] Thanks very much.
Ah yes. I did a study of dialect changes amongst adolescents for A Level English Language. It was good fun. Got an A and everything.
Ah, A-level English Language. How long ago it seems now ;)
A level English Language didn't exist when I were a lad. I had to make do with English Literature, and I failed that. So now I don't read much. But I do write for a living. :oD
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