OneGuyFromBarlick

Not a quote but an interesting little story. Darah O' Briain (spelling?) on his science TV programme was discussing music and sound. As an aside he said we would remember how some years ago shopkeepers were fitting gadgets on their shopfronts that emitted a high-pitched sound to drive away teenagers from hanging around outside. The idea was that teenagers could hear the high pitch but it wasn't heard by adults and so didn't affect customers. He said that teenagers recorded the sound and then set it as their mobile phone's ring tone. This allowed them to receive calls while in school classrooms because the teachers didn't detect the sound of the ring tone!

Smart little buggers! You have to admire the ingenuity....

I like quotes that cut to the heart of the matter. Two I have read recently :-

"Don't waste your love on someone you cannot live with. Spend your love on someone you cannot live without."

And

"Live for a purpose...or you die for nothing."

Maz, quite amazing how many people never give any thought to why they were put on earth or what they are doing....

It has always seemed strange to me that in our endless discussions about
education so little stress is laid on the pleasure of becoming an educated
person . . . -Edith Hamilton, classicist (1867-1963)

Not a quote but a parable...Radio 4's `More or Less' fun economics programme covered Franci Galton's `Parable of the Ox' and what it tells us about the modern day financial system. Very illuminating! You can download that programme to play on your computer from this web page:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/moreorless
and read the parable here: http://www.johnkay.com/2012/07/25/the-parable-of-the-ox

Just seen this on another forum as someone's signature...
"The early bird gets the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese."

My version of that is "It's the early worm that gets eaten by the bird".

Pete Waterman music magnate, and railways fan,

"We're turning into a banana republic - but we don't have the sunshine, and we don't have the bananas".

An interview with Alexei Sayle noted one of his old lines, well-worth remembering, on the scurge of management speak and other nonsense. On attending 'worshops':

'Anyone in a workshop who is not a welder is a w****r'.

More a joke than a quotation perhaps? I don't know....

Richard Broughton

Whether it is or no it's still a pertinent comment. I often wonder at the choice of language used by 'trainers' to elevate the status of the techniques they employ. Workshop to me has an entirely different connotation, more to do with actual work being performed there.

Adlai Stevenson, governor of Illinois, USA, from 1949-53, twice nominated for the Presidency, in 1952 and 1956, and US Ambassador to the United Nations from 1961-65, in his final speech in Geneva five days before his death...

"We travel together, passengers on a little space ship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed for our safety to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work, and I will say, the love we give our fragile craft. We cannot maintain it half fortunate, half miserable, half confident, half despairing, half slave to the ancient enemies of man half free in a liberation of resources undreamed of until this day. No craft, no crew can travel with such vast contradictions. On their resolution depends the survival of us all."

From the Tesco website -

"When something is not on the label, it's not in the food"

"Warning! This product may contain nuts"
Seen on a date and walnut cake......

"Although Graham's salty and irreverent style put Professor Paas off at first he soon became a great colleague...and became an integral part of the programme until 2000"

From a commemorative piece about the Cambridge Seminar, an economics programme i taught on for 18 years. From 'The Voice', Carleton College's house magazine.
(I was a bit of a culture shock to them at first, they'd never met a Northern hard-case before! Bit of a contrast to the privileged world they came from but they soon got used to me.)

Did they give you an interpreter?

More seriously, did you speech change at all while you were there? Or on reflection did theirs?

Accents are fascinating - my son speaks to me in one way, but to his friends especially on the phone in quite another. My daughter in law has Scottish parents, but was born and brought up in Lancashire - both she and her sister have Scottish accents. Still can't work that one out.

I taught them while they were over here David and it was them that changed.... They were fascinated by my dialect, also fascinated by the different things they encountered. Spotted Dick was interesting.... One of my opening ploys was to tell them that they were in a country where it was quite permissible to knock a young lady up first thing in the morning.

Stanley wrote:One of my opening ploys was to tell them that they were in a country where it was quite permissible to knock a young lady up first thing in the morning.

Did any young ladies hold you responsible for the consequences?

No but quite a surprising number of couples formed relationships that led to marriage. The Cambridge Seminar got quite a reputation for wedding bells.

A perfect example of spreading dissent over the site. OG is not a democratic entity, it is a benevolent dictatorship and it works so stop sniping and reflect on the messages you have received from the moderators. You are not the first person who has attempted to disguise personal animosity as debate. They are all history.
You may not like the way we run the site, you may not agree but you won't be the first to find out that we will not tolerate anything which detracts from the enjoyment of other members, we have seen the site almost destroyed by this in the past. Please reflect on the fact that if you want the platform for your views you must modify your behaviour.

Commentator - Ireland v England Rugby Union.

"That's what international scrums are like - they're a complete farce, everybody knows it, no one does anything about it."

"Like all falling bodies it [history] accelerates"

Wallace Stegner. Angle of Repose.

Tripps wrote:Commentator - Ireland v England Rugby Union.

"That's what international scrums are like - they're a complete farce, everybody knows it, no one does anything about it."

Not tempted any Rugby Union buffs out - that's a shame. I spent some time this weekend with RU on TV in the background, and would you believe it, not a single scrum or line out, that I saw, was won by the side that did not put the ball in. The reasons for penalty kicks remain incomprehensible, (to me) but you must admire the referee, who gives instant judgments with explanations, which a High Court judge would be proud of.

I enjoy watching a good game of Rugby Union although I would be the first to admit that I do not fully understand all the rules. Never played it at school as our sports teacher seemed to have some fixation with cross country runs (even in Gym periods, but that's another story). I always admire though the way that decisions made by the ref are taken as final (as they should be), very few altercations on the pitch and no rolling about in agony even with bits of the players hanging off from time to time!

I had better get up to speed on the rules though, our youngest grandchild Finlay will probably be encouraged to play the game which will almost certainly involve us on the touchline. His dad played for Wharfedale and occasionally turns out for the charity veterans games that the club puts on from time to time. Its usually vets versus the up and coming young lads who tend to run rings round them. The vet team normally has a pool of considerably more players than the normal 15 and reserves. Most of the older guys only go on for 15 minutes and all that are still willing get a go in the charity match.