HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: cc@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Chris Cooke)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: Classic-FM (was: VNS: Mon  7-Sep-1992)
Date: 10 Sep 92 11:58:20 GMT
	<CC.92Sep8183457@arran.dcs.ed.ac.uk>
	<1992Sep9.123845.8777@vax.oxford.ac.uk>
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
In-reply-to: wilcox@vax.oxford.ac.uk's message of 9 Sep 92 11:38:45 GMT

In article <1992Sep9.123845.8777@vax.oxford.ac.uk> wilcox@vax.oxford.ac.uk writes:

   Feeling bored? Just turn the dial to Classic FM and Name That Tune! 
   You'll be surprised how easy it is! Alternatively 

   Laugh! at the ludicrous Radio adverts! 
   Cringe! at Henry Kelly's appalling pronunciation!
   Smirk! whenever Susanna Simons says something you know is wrong!

   But don't forget---you've got to turn off as soon as you hear the tell-tale
   *click* *whirr* of a CD being put in the player. Don't worry! You won't be
   listening long!

My flatmate swears that a couple of times yesterday he heard the presenters
making cups of coffee while the music was playing.  Whoopsie...
--
	-- Chris. 	cc@dcs.ed.ac.uk   (on Janet, cc@uk.ac.ed.dcs)

		
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
From: tbrunner@Physik.TU-Muenchen.DE (Thomas J Brunner)
Subject: Looking for recording of TATOO
Organization: Leibniz-Rechenzentrum, Muenchen (Germany)
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 10:46:38 GMT

Hello,

last week I've seen a report of the military TATOO in Edinbourgh (Sorry for maybe writing it wrong. I know it's definetly has nothing do to with painting picture on human bodies).

My question is:
Does exist a recording on CD,MC.... of this event (It need not be recorded from
the 1992 event).

Bye and thanks in advance,
 Thomas

--
Thomas Brunner	                 
Physik-Department E17          : tbrunner@Physik.TU-Muenchen.DE
TU Muenchen,          
8046 Garching,Germany
From: smee@bristol.ac.uk (Paul Smee)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: Brit. Govt. begs for DM (was Re: VNS)
Date: 10 Sep 92 11:17:17 GMT
Reply-To: P.Smee@bristol.ac.uk (Paul Smee)
Organization: University of Bristol

In article <1992Sep9.124302.7721@rz-berlin.mpg.de> gray@rz-berlin.mpg.de writes:
>  Borrowing in foreign currency and using it to buy pounds works like
>this.  First they create an artificial demand for the pound, this boosts
>it in the short term.  Then they point out that in order to avoid the
>exchange-rate risk you identify they must keep the pound stable.  This
>makes the currency traders think that the Government is committed to
>long-term stability, reducing downward pressure on the pound a bit more.

Ish...  The problem I have with this is that while the boost will work
in the short term, surely it will be counterbalanced later.  When the
loan comes due, the Government is going to have to sell N billion
pounds and buy DM.  Seems to me that (since they announced they were
going to do this), the pound will rise slightly in anticipation of
their wanting to buy lots of them, so they'll get slightly fewer pounds
for their marks.  (Admittedly, that's part of the desired effect.)

But, when the loan comes due (also a known time) I'd expect the pound
to drop in anticipation of the British government being about to dump N
billion of them onto the currency market.  Hard to see how you get a
win out of that, sounds like a guaranteed 'buy high, sell low'.  (Yeah,
I know the old joke, 'we lose money on each unit, but we make it up in
the volume'.)

>The Government also believes that the current problems are largly the
>result of a short term anti-dollar panic, and that the pound can only
>rise, reducing the amount they need to pay back.

Given the current (and forseeable future) states of the economy,
British industry, balance of payments, ... (both my own opinion
thereof, and as derived from statements of people like the CBI), if the
Government does believe that, I wish they didn't.  It's beginning to
feel like Zaphod Beeblebrox: 'I've said it often enough, so it must be
true'.

-- 
Paul Smee, Computing Service, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1UD, UK
 P.Smee@bristol.ac.uk - ..!uunet!uknet!bsmail!p.smee - Tel +44 272 303132
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Oxford research
From: <JKDESIDE@MIAMIU.BITNET>
Date: Friday, 11 Sep 1992 15:15:50 EDT
Organization: Miami University - Academic Computer Service

Hello.  I was wondering if anyone could help me.  I have just finished my
third (yet unpublished) novel.  It largely centers around a young man at
Oxford University from 1906-1907.  I have done extensive research and have
visited the town of Oxford for a very BRIEF period (five hours).  I know where
the Mitre is situated (how could one not?), but I do not know where the Golden
Cross is located.  I also have to ask a very humiliating question.  Can one
"change" colleges at any point during one's career (eg. Magdalen to New
College)?  Also, does anyone know approx. how long a train ride from London
to Coventry or from London to Oxford would have taken at the turn of the
century?  (I know it takes about an hour to from London to Oxford now.)
I would appreciate any help that anyone could give me regarding this matter.
 
                       Thanks ever so much,
                                      Jennifer
From: neilp@cs.hw.ac.uk (Neil Postlethwaite)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: British Slang
Date: 13 Sep 92 19:45:24 GMT
Organization: Dept of Computing & Electrical Engineering, Heriot-Watt University, Scotland

In article <12SEP199217480222@sscvx1.ssc.gov> godfrey@sscvx1.ssc.gov (LAURENCE GODFREY) writes:
>
>In fairness it must be said that "gobsmacked" is not truly British slang,
>but was invented by Murdoch's appalling SUN newspaper in an attempt to
>describe the sensation, common amongst its readers, of being faced with
>an event which they had difficulty comprehending.  For example "when 
>asked to pay my Paris hotel bill in French Francs I was totally gobsmacked"
>or "when asked to pay 25 pence for 18 pages of SUN drivel directed at readers
>with a mental age of 8 I was completely gobsmacked" etc.
>
>This is also true of the verb "to bonk", and the noun "bonk".  This is
>used by the SUN to describe the sexual act between two persons of 
>opposite sex, for example a well-known Conservative minister and a very
>poor actress.  One can only guess at its reasons for inventing a new word,
>when the English language already contains a wealth of possibilities.

Rubbish. Murdoch's 'The Sun' claim just about every word invented.

Gobsmacked and bonk have been in use for as long as I can remember.

I suppose the sun will claim 'smeg' next, to bring the Thread full circle.

Neil


****************************| Sig' Time |*********************************
JANET: 	  neilp@uk.ac.hw.cs   *   Neil Postlethwaite, Rm G.25, 
INTERNET: neilp@cs.hw.ac.uk   *   Dept of Computer Science,  
UUCP: 	  ..!uknet!hwcs!neilp *   Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton Campus
                              *   Edinburgh, EH14 4AS, United Kingdom.
------------------------------*-------------------------------------------
Computer Science Account      *   Phone +44 (0)31 449-5111 x4174
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,rec.arts.tv.uk,rec.arts.drwho,alt.tv.prisoner
From: donnell@squid.micro.umn.edu (Your Heinous)
Subject: Re: Americanising of the UK, Now: British TV in North America
Organization: none
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 20:01:26 GMT

In article <1992Sep4.171221.301@dracut.keps.kodak.com> rbt@dracut.keps.kodak.com (Bob Tufts) writes:
>What has smegma & Gordon Bennet got to do with the Prisoner (he said one week
>later). I know!
>
>I am not a Gordon Bennet, I am a free smegma!
>
>Can we reduce the bandwidth by not shotgun blasting so many groups?
>This has got to be the most expensive smegma ever! :-) :-)
>
>-Bob T.
>
>

I agree. I love Dangermouse, Dr. Who, and lots of british programming, but they
have their own newsgroup. Sorry, but I think it is annoying to see "14 messages
unread in Alt.tv.prisoner", and when I read them, not ONE really has anything
to do with the Prisoner! Please!

Still waiting for an answer as to why some characters are wearing Negative
White-on-black Village badges? #6 and most of the "inmates" have the 
standard ones, but once in a while, someone is shown with the negative one.
Probably unimportant, but you never know.

					--Judex--

Xref: sparky soc.culture.british:12339 rec.arts.tv.uk:5370 rec.arts.drwho:5977 alt.tv.prisoner:1348
From: pd@x.co.uk (Paul Davey)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,rec.arts.tv.uk,rec.arts.drwho,alt.tv.prisoner
Subject: Tannstaafl [was Re: Americanising of the UK, Now: British TV in North America]
Date: 10 Sep 92 13:16:29 GMT
Organization: IXI Ltd.

>>>>> On 7 Sep 92 22:40:21 GMT, roy%cybrspc@cs.umn.edu (Roy M. Silvernail) said:

Roy> danaf@vccsouth28.its.rpi.edu (Frank R. Dana Jr.) writes:

> In article <H12oqB1w165w@cybrspc.UUCP>, roy%cybrspc@cs.umn.edu (Roy M. Silver
> |> 
> |> I can't absolutely attribute it, but the first time I saw 'tanstaafl'
> |> was in Heinlein's _The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress_.
> 
> Wonderful novel. I recommend it unreservedly. and, yes, I do remember him
> using tanstaafl, as well as some other undocumented phrases, written to enhan
> the feeling of this being a moon colony, sometime in the future. However, I d
> not remember Heinlein actually DEFINING "tanstaafl", so it may be that he
> assumed his readers would already know what it meant from some other source
> (like Niven?).

Roy> I'd like to give an exact citation, but I don't have a copy of the book
Roy> handy.  However, I'm sure it was defined in there.  I seem to recall
Roy> Wyoming Knott using it first, and expanding the acronym.

Nope, its Man(nie) who uses and defines it to Stuart Lajoie (sp?).

``There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch - and there isn't or these
drinks would cost half as much?'' (pointing at a Free Lunch sign in a bar).

A lot of the other Luna dialect words are Russian in origin 
	Gospodin = Mr, 
	Gospasa = Mrs 
	Spasebo  =  thank you
	Bog =  God
etc.

Great book - much more readable than Stranger In a Strange Land or
Time Enough For Love (Already). 

Everyone should read it.

--
 Regards,			  pd@x.co.uk           IXI Ltd.
	Paul Davey		  pd@ixi.uucp          62-74 Burleigh St.
				  ...!uunet!ixi!pd     Cambridge,  U.K.
 "These _are_ interesting times"  +44 223 462 131      CB1  1OJ
From: reese@vax.oxford.ac.uk
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: The LSE
Date: 8 Sep 92 10:17:18 GMT
Organization: Oxford University VAX 6620

In article <1992Sep6.181723.12765@dscomsf.desy.de>, hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phill Hallam-Baker) writes:
> I hope the Japanese hotel get the site.
> 
> Getting rid of the LSE to restore city hall would be impossible. Getting rid of
> a tawdry Japanese hotel no problem.
> 
> That site is reserved for democracy in London.

When/If democracy is restored in London, it can be housed in the old
LSE building.

Jason

> 
> Phill Hallam-Baker
Xref: sparky soc.culture.british:12286 soc.culture.celtic:5862 alt.beer:5277
From: coule@uctvax.uct.ac.za
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,soc.culture.celtic,alt.beer
Subject: Re: CAMRA Beer Festival in Edinburgh 8-10 Oct
Date: 8 Sep 92 17:23:57 +0200
Summary: n
Organization: University of Cape Town

In article <1992Sep4.183952.11554@rdg.dec.com>, cockburn@edieng.enet.dec.com (Craig Cockburn) writes:
> Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,soc.culture.celtic,alt.beer,dec.notes.worldwide,scotland
> 
> 
> CAMRA Beer Festival in Edinburgh
> Oct 8-10, Traditional Beer Exhibition, Meadowbank stadium (Main Concourse)
> Open Thu 4-11pm, Fri & Sat 11am-11pm
> Around 100 kils, wide range of beers from both sides of the Border.
> Commemorative glasses, live entertainment, variety of food stalls.
> For more info, contact Colin Young, 031- 228 6932
> 
> Craig
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>   Craig Cockburn, Digital Equipment Co. Ltd, Reading, England.     Suas
>   Internet: cockburn@edieng.enet.dec.com                           leis
>   UUCP:..!decwrl!edieng.enet.dec.com!cockburn                      a'
>                                                                    Gha\idhlig!
>   Views here are my own, and are not necessarily those of Digital










r

Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
From: morna@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Morna J Findlay)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: This England
Date: 11 Sep 92 10:05:44 GMT
Reply-To: morna@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Morna J Findlay)
Organization: Laboratory for the Foundations of Computer Science, Edinburgh U

In article <21780616@otter.hpl.hp.com> mjfm@otter.hpl.hp.com (Miranda Mowbray) writes:
>This is a very good example of how selective quotation can change a passage's
>meaning.  Most of the time when the speech is quoted the quote stops at "this
>England".  This makes the speech appear to say simply that England's Great,
>which is NOT what it says.


Couls someone maybe post the whole lot please?

Also - I'm interested - what's the advert that propted the question?



M

( A curious Scot)



--
Morna Findlay 					JANET:morna@uk.ac.ed.dcs 
	Thanksgiving For a National Victory (Robert Burns)
Ye hypocrites! are these your pranks? To murder men and give God thanks?
Desist, for shame! Proceed no further: God won't accept your thanks for murther.
From: tgg@otter.hpl.hp.com (Tom Gardner)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: The British Economy (was Re: VNS: Fri  4-Sep-1992)
Date: 8 Sep 92 17:45:15 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bristol, UK.

If the credit limit for the borrowing is 7Gpounds, and there are 20M 
people in gainful employment, then each wage-earner has just borrowed
350 pounds. 

I do not see how this will make me better off. But then I'm a simple 
engineer...
From: ag129@cus.cam.ac.uk (Alasdair Grant)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: What is a 2.1 equivalent to ?
Date: 15 Sep 92 18:26:42 GMT
Organization: U of Cambridge, England

In article <92259.164322EE117@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK> EE117@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK writes:
>Gabor writes...
>
>>Well, I have a honours degree from Cambridge in mathematics and I never
>>wrote a dissertation.
>
>that's nothing I knew a Cambridge graduate who was awarded an MA/MPhil
>without every doing a stroke of work for it - the only criteria for getting
>it was remaining part of the alumni and forking out the membership fee

If you had said MA only, I might have thought you were being satirical,
but it looks like you are confused. The Cambridge MA is gratuitously
awarded after 10 terms (i.e. 3 1/3 years) after graduation, subject to
traditional provisos like not having been in prison, not owing money to
the university or college etc. Some people say this is silly, but it is
not that strange when most professional qualifications (MBCS etc.) work
more on age and/or length of employment than on passing exams.

MPhil is usually a 1- or 2-year course involving a research component,
often in a subject that doesn't fit nicely into undergraduate courses
(fave ones here are International Relations and Speech and Language
Processing). It is a widely recognised qualification and nobody gets it
for nothing, unless you buy one from the back pages of the Economist.

The reason the Cambridge maths BA doesn't include a dissertation is because
the maths course is effectively 4 years for those intending to do research,
and 3 years otherwise, so everyone gets the degree after 3 years.
The 4th year does include a dissertation.
Xref: sparky soc.culture.british:12380 rec.arts.tv.uk:5396 rec.arts.drwho:6023 alt.tv.prisoner:1357
From: rmp@crashnburn.Eng.Sun.COM (Richard Pottorff)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,rec.arts.tv.uk,rec.arts.drwho,alt.tv.prisoner
Subject: Re: Tanstaafl (was: Americanising of the UK
Date: 11 Sep 92 18:55:25 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca.
NNTP-Posting-Host: crashnburn

In article <1992Sep10.141623.7870@rtf.bt.co.uk> fletcher@rtf.bt.co.uk (Catherine Fletcher) writes:

What exactly does tansnaafl stand for?
There are no such things as a free lunch?

Surely not...
-- 
 Catherine 
/*********************/

Catherine,

Nearly.

As I remember from _The_Moon_Is_A_Harsh_Mistress_, its:

There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

Rick

Black Orchid was a WhoDunnit, except, of course, he didn't.

rmp
Xref: sparky soc.culture.british:12217 rec.arts.tv.uk:5279 rec.arts.drwho:5879 alt.tv.prisoner:1313
From: roy%cybrspc@cs.umn.edu (Roy M. Silvernail)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,rec.arts.tv.uk,rec.arts.drwho,alt.tv.prisoner
Subject: Re: Americanising of the UK, Now: British TV in North America
Date: Sun, 06 Sep 92 14:15:28 CDT
Organization: Villa CyberSpace, Minneapolis, MN

ewm6965@venus.tamu.edu (The Guardian) writes:

> Then there's Larry Niven's creation, "tanj" (There Ain't No Justice), and 
> "tanstaafl" (There's No Such Thing As A Free Lunch") whose origin
> I don't know.

I can't absolutely attribute it, but the first time I saw 'tanstaafl'
was in Heinlein's _The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress_.

Might not be cyberpunk, but it's still my favorite Heinlein book (and
I've read almost all of them)
--
              Villa CyberSpace, virtually yours since 1988
                         roy%cybrspc@cs.umn.edu
       "In cyberspace, nobody has to clean the hot tub."
                                                       -- me
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
From: godfrey@sscvx1.ssc.gov (LAURENCE GODFREY)
Subject: real and virtual UK universities
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.4-b1  
Organization: Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 13:14:00 GMT

For those who want to distinguish between the universities and the so-called
new universities, I advise getting the UCCA 1992 book (universities central
council on admissions).  If it doesn't appear there, then it is a new
university and should be handled with caution.  I don't claim that all of
them are bad, but it is doubtless true that the average standard of edeucn
at the new universities is significantly lower than at the established ones.
One reason for this is because the staff at the new universities are exactly
the same staff who taught at the poly before it became a university, who in
turn are mostly the same staff who taught at the HE ccollege before it became 
a poly,and even before that at the Technical College 
 or FE college before it became an HE college.  In general these were the
lecturers who got poor degrees, mostly did not study for PhDs and could
not get jobs as university lecturers in established universities.  As time
passes, these people will disappear through natural wastage and be replaced
by better people.

One reason for the new universities is that Britain sends an embarrassingly
small number of people to university, and the cheapest way to solve this
problem was for the awful and shameless Tory government to allow almost
every non-university higher education establishment to call itself a
university.  My own opinion is that the problem would have been just as
effectively solved by allowing Kentucky Fried Chicken shops to give away
a free degree with every two pieces of chicken sold.

A particularly irritating example for those of us who got degrees and PhDs
from the old universities, is that of University of Westminster, which has
arisen from central Polytechnic in London, merged with harrow College of HE
(previously harrow technical College).  The name of this new university
has been carefully chosen to attract ignorant foreigners (who are charged
simply outrageous foreign fees) with the use of the word Westminster, implying
as it does an old and historical university overlooking the Houses of 
parliament and Big ben.  Nothing could be further from the truth, for a
Londoner the word Westminster means the London Borough of Westminster, 
dominated by a greedy bunch of England's worst and meanest councillors
and lead by an aristocrat who is notorious for having sold off several
of the Borough's cemeteries (including land worth hundreds of millions
of dollars) for 1 pence each.

Laurence

Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,rec.arts.tv.uk,rec.arts.drwho,alt.tv.prisoner,alt.usage.english
From: neuhaus@vier.informatik.uni-kl.de (Stephan Neuhaus (HiWi Mattern))
Subject: Re: Gordon Bennett! Re: No smegma please, we're American
Organization: University of Kaiserslautern, Germany
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 13:42:58 GMT

jac54@cas.org () writes:

>	Margrave is the Anglicized form of the German "Margraf",
>	which means a count with lands on the marches of the realm.

Uh, shouldn't that be ``Markgraf'', with a `k'?  I know that there
exists such a German word (in fact, one of our computers at the
University was once named ``Markgraf'') but I have never seen it
spelled without a `k'.  Could be my mistake though, I'm no expert on
the subject (although I *am* a native German :-).

-- 
Stephan <neuhaus@informatik.uni-kl.de>
sig closed for inventory.  Please leave your pickaxe outside.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
From: david@postman.gr.osf.org (David George)
Subject: Re: VNS: Fri  4-Sep-1992
Organization: OSF RI Grenoble
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 07:41:41 GMT

In article <1992Sep7.174049.8715@vax.oxford.ac.uk>, wilcox@vax.oxford.ac.uk writes:

|> > In article <Sep04.205948.2028@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> hg798502@LANCE.ColoState.Edu (Hugh Graham) writes:

|>> Bet the City wouldn't be too happy
|>> if I borrowed 7.5million sponduliks.

Problem is that the banks have run out of people to lend money to.
Can't give it to Iraq or Latin American Dirty Drug Dealing Dictators.
Home buyers are out, and they definitely wouldn't lend it to industry.
Bet they were more than pleased when the government came along.

|>>  Ho hum.  Wish I was a Tory.

Me too, or a failed Labour MP, both seem to get up to some pretty weird
financial deals.

|> but I'm not an economist

Neither are most Chancellors, you've got the job, old boy !

David
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british