We had an AI-facilitated company-wide brainstorming session yesterday. It was predictably crap. AI still can't distinguish between a considered answer and an oops-fat-fingers one-letter response.

My daughter just started teaching at a Paris university (where she also did her undergraduate studies). I don’t think she sees any major differences in her students vs her own (2019) cohort. Of course some adjustments to assignments since then - but in France most assessment is in person anyway.

I feel your pain. We had a similar saga of repeated fault codes followed by plumber visits during which we couldn’t replicate the problem. Eventually turned out the max water temp was set too high. Has to be said that both the fault codes and the boiler manual were spectacularly unhelpful.

The problem is that when it’s bad it’s catastrophically bad. Until recently my mum, age 89, had not seen her GP since before Covid (and not for want of trying). At one point she gave up even trying to get an appointment and just resigned herself to waiting until really sick and then calling 111.

Mine was far more random. Pitched up as a temp on the trading desk, got taken on as a junior analyst, a year later someone dumped a heap of CIA (no kidding) reports on the Russian mining industry on my desk and a new career was born. I look back fondly on 1980s recruitment practices!

How long does he think it will take to rejoin? Much as I agree with him on the principle of rejoining, believing that is a near-term solution to the UK´s problems is also magical thinking.

I read regularly just don’t post much!

I would always vote tactically if necessary to avoid a right-wing party getting elected. But while I am the Green by name and by politics, I have major issues with the UK Green Party (nimbies, anti-nuclear plus I will never get past the ghastly boob thing).

Agree, this is a deal breaker for me - and I am a natural Labour supporter with no other obvious home for my future vote.

Yes - don’t disagree with the point about what is a high income (in London) but I grew up in an extremely middle-class family in London at a time when property was still affordable and I had exactly one friend with a five bedroom home (and her dad was a Tory politician FWIW).

Crazy. Been incredibly sceptical about reading tests for young children since my oldest, already a fluent reader, flat-out failed a reading readiness test in her French primary class...

Yes, she would actually like to do more hours! (Her research contract means her teaching hours are limited).

Sitting too much is bad for adults, let alone 5 year olds! My adult daughter says one of the things she likes most about being a teacher rather than a student is that she can stand up during classes.

It’s so they don’t have to employ check-in staff. I’m almost at the point of no longer using the central London Premier Inns because of this. If the booking is made through a third party eg a work travel agent, it’s almost impossible to check into a room you have paid upfront for.

My almost caricaturally Parisienne French daughter speaks a foreign language at home. Admittedly she does sometimes use her foreign language if talking in public about assholes, which is probably why assholes object to having neighbours who talk furrin.