Co. Name on van "Luga Baruga"

Whilst on holiday in Wales I overheard another motorist say that Gwasanaetha is a big place (referring to mention on the various M4 junction signs)

Surely the most bizzare is 'Kircudbrightshire'

Hatfield converted to a University just after I left (Electronic Eng BEng H.), and they offered to upgrade my certificates.

However I never really followed a line of employment that made any fancy use of Fourier or six-dimensional phase space. For me programming was far more interesting, but the course had more humanities and economics content than that - they were trying to skill up business managers rather than engineers.

I should have gone straight to tech industry from school.

Student union left wing antics, yes :(

That's what we knew Warwick for.

Looking back on my career as an electrical engineer, whilst I would not have been able to get the jobs I did without a degree, and for one post Chartered status was required, in truth I can't think of much academic knowledge above A-level physics that I personally made use of. The most accurate view I heard from one of the senior engineers was that you needed "Ohm's law and 25 years' experience." It worked for me.

I took a "thin sandwich" degree, which was (probably still is) a pretty good way of combining academic study with industrial experience. I worked at what was then AEI (later became GEC, finally, after I left, Alstom) at Trafford Park.

Their apprentice training school was large and comprehensive. We only had an accelerated passage through the various disciplines, but it was a valuable introduction to the realities of heavy engineering.

Salford had just gained university status, having previously been the Royal College of Advanced Technology, and the teaching method was pretty much indistinguishable from school, no dreaming spires for us. I never was a good self-motivator, and I left with a third.

On my course (a thin sandwich) a fair proportion of the students were from industry, which also had a distinct affect on the atmosphere of learning. One guy had turned up for work as usual, only to be informed that he should actually be down the road at college, hadn't anybody told him?

One thing I never realised beforehand was how much of a university engineering course is actually maths. There is just so much that I never understood, and even the bits I did grasp are lost in the mists of time. I remember my disappointment, having chosen a "machines" option, to be presented with a large matrix and being told that, for the purposes of this analysis, the design details were pretty irrelevant, all large machines reduced to this grid of numbers.

It was also clearly my personal ceiling for physics - I had to re-sit in my first year at university.

I believe I had managed a grade A at A level on what (to me) seemed like common sense, and managed to avoid too many proofs. The university focus was rather different, and additionally I suppose I allowed myself to think I could get away with less revision than it actually needed.

We did have some sessions timetabled as "tutorials", but that was just the whole group doing (or not) worked examples.

As for personal development, in all honesty that passed me by too.

Chris

One of the good things that 'Luffy' taught me was how to be very systematic in investigating the cause of a problem. Identify what does and what does not have an effect on the problem, then follow the path(s) indicated. At work, I was often amazed and annoyed at people who would just blindly throw out ideas as to why some piece of equipment was not working, when a moment's thought would surely have made it clear that they were totally off the mark. "For every problem, there is a solution. The hard part is finding it."

Our tutor had an aircraft's three-person-wide seat for his students to sit in. Different.

Outside in the 'Hall' was the first Percival Provost to be converted to be a BAC Jet Provost, still with the tall undercarriage from its propellor-driven days.

It's actually "Kirkcudbrightshire" - but yes, now you mention it!

When I was involved in problem solving, I took the view that the competent front line people had failed to fix it, so it must have a more obscure cause.

Others started from the assumption that the front line people hadn't even bothered to investigate, and were both ignorant and incompetent.

It must stem from some deep-seated need to feel superior - therefore everyone else is incompetent.

Did anyone mention Slaithwaite, 'sloughit'?

I meant to, but I forgot.

I was once on a train from Leeds to Manchester and the guard came over the Tannoy:

By this stage, the whole carriage (and probably the whole train) was in hysterics at this bit of blatant Southerner-bashing.

A sage told me concerning SNAFU situations, when very much younger. Don't assume anything, as ASSUME makes an ASS of U and ME

I once got on a train at Portsmouth and Southsea rail station. A bloke got on and enquired loudly to the people in the carriage. " Can I get off at Fratton" At which point half the random collection of people in the carriage , within hearing distance,roared with laughter. Poor soul was wary of getting on board , having this mighty strange reaction.

Woman gets on London train at Woking. "Excuse me porter, does this train stop at Waterloo?"

"I f****ng well hope so, Madam!..."

I too was making an assumption, based on experience with the people involved, and knowing that they were switched on and capable.

The tube train lurched, and this woman steadied herself my putting her hand on my stomach. She said: "Excuse me. Is this Maida Vale?"

(I wonder how old that one is?)

In message <ttofho$27am$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me, N_Cook snipped-for-privacy@tcp.co.uk> writes

Thanks for that. So true. I hadn't heard that particular adage before.