Tag Archives: Oxford University part time

Sunday 18th October 2009 – In another major departure …

tiling back wall attic
… from my usual schedule, I have been working on a Sunday morning.

Well, sort-of morning, because it was somewhat late when I heaved myself out of my stinking pit. And after breakfast, there was a little bit of morning left so I decided I would tile the back wall behind the concrete base I laid yesterday.

You can see that tiling is yet another one of the things that I’m no good at and it doesn’t help not having a wall that’s perfectly upright and straight either. But then again, it’s done and a blind man would be pleased to see it. And it’ll probably look better when it’s been grouted. But that’s not going to be for a while. At least all of the wood that will be stacked up in here to burn when the stove is connected won’t damage the wallpaper and the tiles will be easy to clean.

There’s a story behind these tiles too. When I was living with Laurence and her daughter Roxanne, Roxanne’s class at school decided that they would make some mosaics out of broken tiles and the teacher asked all of the parents to send their kids to school with some broken tiles. I didn’t have any in those days so I rang up a tile fitter I knew to see if he had any.
“Come round and I’ll give you some” he said.

So I went round and he loaded up my car with about half a tonne of tiles. Some were broken but many were undamaged and far too good to send to school so I brought them down here. And as my room is going to be light blue, I had a good rummage through the pile of tiles and found a load of light blue ones.

And here you are.

15:30 when I knocked off for lunch and then this afternoon I’ve been doing my coursework. I have to get back into this studying thing again.

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Sunday 4th October 2009 – Chomp chomp chomp

The noise you can hear is me eating humble pie (not Steve Marriott and Peter Frampton) . Pionsat weren’t playing last night – I was looking at the wrong week in the agenda.
fcpsh fc pionsat st hilare football club de foot pontaumurThere was a Cup match this afternoon instead and it involved a drive down to Pontaumur, where Pionsat were humbled a couple of weeks ago, 8-1. And they put in a much-improved performance this week, only losing 5-0.

And what a match it was too! Famous not for the performance of the teams but the performance of probably the most eccentric referee I have ever seen. “I warned you about that in the first half” he yelled at a player who had only been on the pitch for half an hour. And when he awarded Pontaumur a (hotly disputed but in my opinion quite rightly so) penalty, he booked the … errr…Pontaumur goalkeeper.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire pontaumurBut highlight of the game was the phrase that he uttered to one of the Pionsat players – a phrase that you will only ever hear once in a lifetime and only then if you are lucky so it pays to be in the right place at the right time –
“Turn round number 14, so I can see the number on your back!”
At this point, and for the rest of the match, the bewilderment was total.

After that, I went round to Simon’s to pick up my wood-burning stove. And it’s such a dinky little thing too but if it does its job I won’t be needing any more than that.

In other news, I’m now a student of Oxford University. I didn’t think I could keep out of education for long and I’ve enrolled in this course. Never mind the status of the University offering the course, have you seen the price? A 10-point course with the Open University costs £155 if you are a British resident, but a whopping great obscene and offensive £420 if you live in mainland Europe. £180 for 10 points at Oxford is a bargain.

There are many former OU students living in Mainland Europe. Many of them have given up their studies simply because of the spiralling fees that the OU has imposed upon them. A paper from the OU that I saw in February 2007 planning to use European students as cash cows certainly came home to roost as students deserted by the bus load.

And that has given me an idea for the practical part of this course. Raping looting and pillaging was always going to be on the agenda but what I’m now going to do is to round up a bunch of disenchanted European OU students, dress them up as Vikings, grab hold of an old longship and sail to Milton Keynes and ransack the Open University campus. I shall set Mike D. a special task – he’s the one who will be sent to carry off Turdi de Hatred and sell her in the slave market down at the Gare du Midi in Brussels on Sunday morning. He might get a couple of centimes for her if he’s lucky.

And in other other news, that well-known and legendary artist-cum-rapper Tracey Eminem has announced that she is to quit the UK in a protest against high taxation. Her admirable stand has been backed by the entire nation who has rushed round to her house to help her pack her bags. It reminds me of the time back in the 1970s when it was announced that Dolly Parton had a skin rash on her breasts and was looking for a volunteer to rub the cream in. Of course, being the altruist that I am, I immedately volunteered for the post and went round to see her doctor.
“Very good, Mr Hall” he announced. “Take this jar of cream and go to the United Nations Building in New York”
“I thought she lived in Nashville, Tennessee” I said
“So she does” he replied. “But the United Nations Building in New York is where the queue ends“

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Wednesday 30th September 2009 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

plasterboard attic wall les guis virlet puy de dome france… here’s a photo of the room taken in the other direction. You can see that the plasterboards have been strapped together and I’ve filled over the joins. I’m not going to go a-poncing just yet, though. I’m going to leave it awhile to set thoroughly and for tomorrow and Friday I’ll be putting the tongue and grooving up on the ceiling.

That’ll take me quite nicely through to the weekend when I will be buying the plain plasterboard and a sheet of 10mm hardboard, and that will be everything for the room, I reckon.

I was under the impression that this strapping that you use for binding the plasterboards together was adhesive – that’s what it says on the label. But it certainly wasn’t as far as I am concerned. It would have been much easier had it so been.

And in other news, just look at this. I’ve been out of education for a year now and I’m feeling rather bored. I could do with some mental stimulation. Many of you know that I have something of an interest in the Dark Ages (although that era wasn’t as dark as you have been led to believe) and although I’m a proto-Briton, I could well be interested in this course. I have already put enquiries into motion. I’m really looking forward to the fieldwork too. It’s a long time since I’ve been involved in any raping, looting and pillaging …“you graduated from the Open University in 2008”- ed

But never mind the fact that it’s studying with Oxford University, have you seen the price? An equivalent course with the OU would cost the best part of £500 these days and so £180 has to be good value in anybody’s money.

And I’ll tell you another thing too – have you noticed the pricing structure? It makes a total mockery of the OU’s system and shows up the OU for what it stands for – simply treating EU students as cash cows and milking them of however much money they can get.

European students have been deserting the OU by the thousand since the new pricing structure came into force. I certainly can’t afford to continue my studies there. But at this price, if it sustains I’ll be here at Oxford with a vengeance.

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