Whaaattt?

A local supermarket is now loaded for Easter.
They are selling Hot Cross Bunetone, who thought this was a good idea.

 

I bought a packet of hot cross bun flavour shortbread the other day, not bad really.

 

So cinnamon flavoured shortbread, that sounds good. I like cinnamon on a cappuchino, but I don't call it hot cross bun flavoured cappuchino.

 

I have never liked shortbread for some reason and we can't get hot cross buns here so I make my own. We have them on Good Friday and there are enough to last till Easter Sunday by which time I'm done.

I even have to make our own crumpets! No bad thing really.

 

For antone else thinking Trump's move on Iran can't backfire any further:
https://www.wsj.com/world/russia-is...agery-and-drone-technology-with-iran-0dd95e49



Something to consider every time your fill your car's tank for you next road trip @redstar

 

Never enough cinnamon in buns these days I have to sprinkle more on after the butter, but it would be better if they actually put more in the bun along with some mixed spice.

 

Making my own means I can up the spices @pete

 

@NigelJ When I was at Grammar school we had a brilliant Biology teacher who wasn't allowed to teach 6th form because he didn't have a university degree. He had 'only' been to teacher training college. A number of us had to re-sit our Biology 'O' level, but were considered by the school to be in the 6th form. The Head of Biology was without doubt the worst teacher we had ever experienced, so a few of us sat in on the 5th form Biology lessons, taught by the great guy. That was OK when only a few were missing, but when his whole class failed to turn up the HoB realised something was up. I can't remember how we managed it, but we were allowed to stick with our method, and we all passed 2nd time around.
I can't speak for the others but the reason I failed first time round was nothing to do with the quality of the teaching. For me, the loss of grandparents at the start of my 4th year destroyed my interest in everything for a long time.

 

You weren’t the only one, @NigelJ, OH hadn’t been told he was sitting the 11plus. All his class were bundled onto a coach and taken to another school, where they were seated in a tiered lecture theatre with exam papers plonked in front of them. It was all too weird for most of them, OH spent much of the time staring out of the window and wondering where on earth he was and what he was supposed to be doing. Ended up at the local secondary modern, where luckily, they had a brilliant maths teacher. Most pupils left the school at 15. When OH and a few others turned up for the beginning of the fifth year, no one was expecting them! There was a bit of a scramble to organise a classroom, and some teachers to provide lessons!
I don’t know if courses like HNC in engineering topics at colleges of further education still exist, but he was able to get onto one of those, and from there to university.

 

Apparently yes they are, including by Exeter College.

 

I did my best to flunk the 11 plus and managed it, the thought of going to grammar school or the technical school was like being doomed, as it was I ended up at just a secondary modern were I tended to do well.
Had I gone to the other two I'd probably been the class idiot, so best not to get involved was my attitude even at that age.

I knew my place.

 

The school I went to was outside the city boundary, i.e. a 'county school'. As a result of that only 2 boys and 2 girls would be given Grammar school places, no matter how good their results. I was fortunate to go to the Grammar school as was one friend of mine. Another good friend had to go to Secondary Modern. Thankfully he did really well, and ended up moving to the Grammar school in the 6th form, and went on to university. I suspect he was one of a very small minority who managed to do that.

 

Being brought up as a catholic, we all went to the local catholic school, where the nuns didn’t put up with any nonsense, and we all got a pretty good education. I passed the 11plus, but still had to sit an entrance exam for the catholic grammar school. By then, my insatiable appetite for reading meant that I had spent hours reading books by Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh, and felt I was almost on speaking terms with Lord Peter Wimsey, so my vocabulary was pretty good. I was quite sad to give up English language classes after O level, as I was consistently top of the class. A level sciences took a lot more work!

 

When I sat down to do my gcse english literature paper I was a bit bemused because it asked about texts we hadn't studied. A slightly fearsome English teacher suddenly looked pale when they discovered she'd order the wrong papers. We were bundled out of the room and into the dinning room where we had to stay, in case we tried to message any friend at other schools taking the paper. I think we were there for over an hour before the correct paper was delivered. In the end we weren't entitled to any special consideration because it was the teachers mistake.

 

When I sat the 11+, all planned and no surprsies and with a teacher who prepared us well and got a good pass rate, I was at a primarys chool in West Didsbury and the options were grammar, technical or secondary modern. I went to an all girls grammar school ifor the first 2 years then we moved to Cheshire, just south of Warrington which was then in Lancs and you had to pass an entrance exam to go north to their boys of girls grammar schools.

I ended up in Lymm which was a very good school with loads of facilities but mixed so I found less drive for girls do exceed expectations. However, any girl or boy who was clever enough to do Latin or German dropped "domestic" science and metal/woodwork which I'd have loved to do but girls weren't allowed and I was doing Latin anyway. The only other option then was a secondary modern and we regularly had new intakes at 3rd, 4th and 6th form of children who'd been at the secondary modern and done well.

No such streaming in Belgium. All secondary schools open to everyone, even the RC run schools who could choose to accept pupils or not. Studies there are streamed so pupils can follow their interests - academic with sciences, maths, arts, sociology, accounting or practical such as plumbing, floristry, shop management, electrician, carpenter. That group got work experience and formal training in accounts management and tax returns plus recognised qualifications so they could run their own businesses.