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The Cambridge Chat Thread

Reply 9060

Craghyrax

OP

17

Well I've been on the X5 plenty a-time and it always managed 3.5hrs.

Reply 9061

db_cambridge

My worst X5 experience was when they swapped the standard buses for the old-school rickety ones with bench style seats. Not nice. I think the leather seats don't have enough friction, so you end up sliding about the place.

Reply 9062

alex_hk90

19

Craghyrax

Shame about the X5

X5 has been fine all the times I've used it to go back to MK from Cambridge. Worse thing I've experienced was a delay at St Neot's (sp?); who wants to go to or from there anyway? :p:

Reply 9063

fumblewomble

2

Ug don't even talk to me about the X5. I got it from Cambridge to Oxford a few times and was in a library in Oxford at 9am....the things you do for a good book....

Reply 9064

Craghyrax

OP

17

Ugh fumble! :s-smilie:

I tend to butter up Oxford friends and get them to photocopy/access stuff for me :s-smilie:

alex_hk90

X5 has been fine all the times I've used it to go back to MK from Cambridge. Worse thing I've experienced was a delay at St Neot's (sp?); who wants to go to or from there anyway? :p:

That doesn't count though, because you get off at Milton Keynes. You're not subjected to the full 3.5hrs of hell. Also the most stomach turning roundabouts and bends in the road happen between MK and Oxford, so you get off lucky.

Reply 9065

alex_hk90

19

Craghyrax

That doesn't count though, because you get off at Milton Keynes. You're not subjected to the full 3.5hrs of hell. Also the most stomach turning roundabouts and bends in the road happen between MK and Oxford, so you get off lucky.

That's what you get for wanting to go to the other place. :yes:

Reply 9066

smilepea

My gingerbread effort now seems very poor :sad:

Reply 9067

Craghyrax

OP

17

alex_hk90

That's what you get for wanting to go to the other place. :yes:

I can't help it that my family defected :frown:

Or that the Bod seems better than the UL for my subject :grumble:

Reply 9068

Craghyrax

OP

17

Woo!

Happy Christmas Eve everybody :teeth:

Just got back from the pub seeing an old friend from college who recently graduated from Bristol Uni and is now working for the NHS. He promises he'll finally visit me in Lent. The pub did good cider :yep:

I also filled out most of my Bristol Uni MSc application form today. Just need to construct the personal statement and then I'll walk to the department and pop it through the mailbox seeing as its two streets away from here...

Reply 9069

Tom

15

Not planning on getting any PS Helpers to take a look through it? :eek:

Also: MSc? Can you have arts MScs? I thought they were a science thing only :s-smilie:

Reply 9070

Craghyrax

OP

17

Tom

Not planning on getting any PS Helpers to take a look through it? :eek:

Also: MSc? Can you have arts MScs? I thought they were a science thing only :s-smilie:

Well yeh, but its Social Sciences. Its MSc because it will involve social science research methods training. Quantitative and Qualitative research training, etc.

And I forgot about PS Help :o:

But no I didn't really think of getting anyone to look. Maybe I'm a bit arrogant, but I am the PS Help specialist for Sociology, and my last two statements were a roaring success. Also, I'm in Bristol right now but leaving on Boxing Day, so I will probably want to walk to the department two streets away from here and put it through their letterbox either today or tomorrow to avoid paying postage. I doubt any PS Helpers will read through it for me at this time of year. And my Aunt said she'd look, and she's an academic in Social Anthropology (very related field) at Bristol, so she'll do...

Reply 9071

Zoedotdot

18

Oh god, I have had the most stressful few days. Trying to sort out the ski trip, myself and three of my friends agreed to have a girly room. Turns out the rooms were for six, and we've landed ourself with two guys we don't know. Following this, despite booking to be on the coach with a pickup in London, we've been allocated a coach to pick us up in Essex. Which is a different coach to the one all of our friends are on, but that's not the main problem - I live in the extreme west of London, and Essex is obviously the extreme east, and our coach stop is about a 2 and a half - three hour journey from my house. My friend is flying in long haul on the day to Heathrow, picking up her stuff from my house and then we're going, so we'll be pushed to make the coach, and if her flight is even slightly delayed then we will miss it. The other London coach stop is at Imperial, which by contrast is incredibly easy to get to from my house and would give my friend two hours flexibility for delay. So I explained this to the ski trip organiser in college, and she passed it on to the ski company, who have said that the booking can't be changed now because the details have been passed on to the shipping company and they're handing out ski passes on the coaches. Both the coaches start in Cambridge, so all they'd need to do would be to take two people off the Imperial coach who are starting in Cambridge and put them on the Essex coach. And surely amending a couple of mail merged lists and resending them to the shipping company the day after they'd been sent the first time can't be too much work? Particularly in order to ensure that two people who've paid in excess of £500 for a trip can actually go on it.

So anyway, I'm calling them tomorrow to see if I can present the argument any more convincingly. But being the worrier I am, I've spent the last couple of hours fretting to the extent that I feel sick and can't sleep :frown:

I hate this kind of unnecessary stress. And right before Christmas too. Oh dear.

Sorry for the mostly irrelevant rant, I needed to spill.

Reply 9072

scarlet ibis

^ Sounds stressful, Zoe! Hope you get it sorted!

We had a chimney fire last night! It was quite scary! The fire was going, and then started roaring in the chimney, even when we damped down the fire. We had to call 999 and get the fire brigade out, but they couldn't get to us very easily beacuse the road to our house was iced over and we live at the bottom of a hill. They eventually got to us, and put it out. We're just glad it dodn't happen on Christmas day!

Reply 9073

Tom

15

Wow. I'd never heard of chimney fires. Is it properly dangerous then? I'm kinda imagining a chimney is, y'know, kinda fireproof by design already and that there wouldn't be enough fuel up there for it to burn long (just the old soot on the sides?) but I guess flames roaring out the top might be kinda not good news...

Reply 9074

FadeToBlackout

15

Tom

Wow. I'd never heard of chimney fires. Is it properly dangerous then? I'm kinda imagining a chimney is, y'know, kinda fireproof by design already and that there wouldn't be enough fuel up there for it to burn long (just the old soot on the sides?) but I guess flames roaring out the top might be kinda not good news...

Hmm, I think it's not too dangerous, but I think the big problem is the draught- it's like a blast furnace, with air coming in at the bottom, and shooting up the two storeys and coming out the top. I think the biggest problem is when the chimney breast heats up, and then things around it would start to burn and spread the fire into the house.

The six-foot blue and orange flame coming out the chimney pot was worrying...