scottsdad

I think it moved on quite quickly yesterday.

Excellent - this is what happens when you tell a show maker to produce 6 episodes every 2 years. High quality gubbins.

The missus utterly detests him - but that's a different story. He's in Australia now, doing very well for himself.

Don't be put off by this. Early on as a student my advisor asked what I got for Higher Chemistry. I told him and he said something like "Shouldn't you maybe think about another course?" 4 years later he was my PhD supervisor - and then afterwards my postdoc supervisor. He's been at my wedding, and we've published (at last count) 21 papers together. And I do still remind him of what he said to me.

Yep. Lecturers are contracted to spend somewhere between 30 and 40% of their time teaching. From the get go I tell my students that if they send me something, feedback takes at least a week. So long as they make progress and meet me regularly, send me new drafts regularly, all is good. But if someone sends me a draft days before a deadline - and I've not seen or heard from the student in a while - then it just isn't gonna happen

Simple enough question - what do students expect? I've had the whole spectrum, from students who disappear for ages only to show up at the last minute, feeling harassed and expecting me to drop everything else in order to pull them through, through to those who say to me on day one "I want a meeting every two weeks - let's set a time". At the beginning of the dissertation process I sit them down individually and tell them what works well and what doesn't. Mostly the students listen to me, follow my advice, and pass with a very good grade. Some, though, seem to think that Uni is school and that we're teachers sent to chase them up. You might be thankful you didn't have me as a supervisor. That's probably fair - I set my dissertation students to work hard from day 1. I am very critical in my feedback. And I expect the students to spread their work throughout the time allotted. If you prefer to spend your Christmas break on holiday, or decide that things can wait, you probably would have hated me. All I can point to are the students who've been through it with me, passed with a good grade and have ended up as independently capable workers with a good degree. Those who, come the last 2 weeks, have things all in hand and look at their classmates running around totally stressed. But, hey, thank f**k there are people who'll smile and pat you on the back out there instead of folk like me, eh? So back to my question - what do students expect?

My eldest is 7 months gone now. When she fell pregnant I was - to say the least - sceptical. But she and her boyfriend seem to have got their backsides in to gear and seem well organised and prepared. Excited, even. Hopefully this is a good sign of things to come. When I saw her 2 weeks ago she looked like she always did. Now suddenly she's huge.

Check your student handbook. With our students, the onus is on them to contact the tutor, not the other way around. And 3 emails in a week - so what? You've had 7 months to get in touch. Why should the tutor drop everything s/he is working on just because you've decided to leave it to the last minute to get your finger out? My own undergraduate dissertation students have until mid-April to submit. All have been told I'm on holiday for the last 2 weeks of their time. If they want feedback - send me stuff now. Amazing that students feel that supervisors just sit around waiting on their golden words arriving in an inbox. How long do students think it takes to provide meaningful feedback for something like this?

That was excellent - the new one.

Real shame. I remember about 2 years ago they did a whole episode on old John Schnabel. He was riddled with cancer back then, and I fully expected the episode to end with a black screen saying he'd passed away. But he didn't, and to be blunt his trips to see Parker have always been a highlight for me. Will be a real shame that he won;t be on next year's show.

Jesus wept. Some students...

A Sparrow Falls by Wilbur Smith. Nothing eats up your life like an old Smith book.

Season 2 of Line of Duty being repeated on BBC2...pleasing

Simon Scarrow's Brittania. Utter pish.

We ask for both - the physical copies and the online submission. Online is for checking plagiarism, standard paper for marking.

Slow burn start to season 2 - pretty much as expected. Waiting to see where it goes now. At one point yesterday (before Mike called Jimmy) I asked myself - so, what now? He has the job, the girl...what happens now?

I think it's probably about time. The show has certainly lost something - momentum, maybe? The loss of Will and Kalinda have damaged the show too much.

Cancelled - season 7 will be the last

Yus!

Could be worse. Matthew Perry on Graeme Norton a few weeks back was either a) pissed or b) in the middle of a stroke

My kids brought home a lovely vomiting bug from the germ factory*. Saturday morning, they were staying at my mum's, and my boy woke up and puked all over her house. She brought him back pretty quick and borrowed our vax. Sunday night, it was my wee girl's turn. Kept me up from midnight to 6 am. Took Monday off work to recover - I was utterly shattered. The wife caught it yesterday, and me last night. I really shouldn't be in work today. *school

I reckon the priest dobbed him in

I really liked Under the Lake.

Just saw this on the Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3416908/Barmaid-18-sacked-boss-suffering-miscarrriage-texts-saying-won-t-right-frame-mind.html

When I heard Moffat was stepping down, my first feeling was relief. I don;t know why - this series has been really good. I just think he's starting to lose the plot and his big story threads are way over complicated. I wasn't a fan of RTD's hoakey family guff, but it was much easier to buy in to than, say, the recent Timelords story.