HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: streater@unixjr.SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Tim Streater)
Subject: Re: Currency Problems
Organization: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 05:25:09 GMT

In article <1992Sep29.161657.14744@bristol.ac.uk> P.Smee@bristol.ac.uk (Paul Smee) writes:
>
>(We're even importing COAL, for heaven's sake.  Even after the
>devaluation, the government is planning to go ahead with the closure of
>another bunch of British coal pits, and the power companies are
>
Certainly it should be imported given how much cheaper imported coal is. That
will reduce the cost of energy to the consumer and to industry, which will
improve people's standard of living (a bit) and make British industry more
competitive. Isn't this a Good Thing?

tin.
From: mmh@cs.qmw.ac.uk (Matthew Huntbach)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: Runyards problem (Was: Help seeking flat i
Date: 29 Sep 92 08:20:21 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept, QMW, University of London, UK.

From: achin@math.tamu.edu (Andrew Chin)
>So I gather that Runyards is pretty bad news.  Should I avoid agencies
>altogether, or just Runyards?

I have not the faintest idea what this "Runyards" is. There are
hundreds of accommodation agencies in London, and many of them
can find you accommodation almost instantly. It is illegal for
them to charge you anything - the landlords are the ones that
pay for the services. As I said previously, things have
improved markedly in recent years, so the best thing is to shop
aropund, and - golden rule - don't part with any money until
you're completely satisfied.

Matthew Huntbach
From: mossop@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Antony Mossop)
Subject: Re: Abuse A Brit (was Re: Pardon my ignorance and such)
Organization: Stanford Univ. Earth Sciences
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 00:51:36 GMT

In article <1992Sep29.214033.1223@news.Hawaii.Edu> gerard@caliban.NoSubdomain.NoDomain (Gerard Fryer) writes:
>In article <1992Sep28.181734.4500@bnr.uk>, agc@bmdhh298.bnr.ca (Alan Carter) asks:
>|> Can anyone think of a derogatory term used by other nations (that the
>|> British can understand to be insulted by it), to refer to the British
>|> (or in my case the English)?
>|> 
>|> I don't mean things like 'Limey' or (from a Scot) 'Englishman' :-)
>|> 
>
>In Malaysia the usual word was "John."  I found that offensive, but I
>don't think it was meant to be.
>-- 
>Gerard Fryer  (g.fryer@soest.hawaii.edu)
>School of Ocean & Earth Science & Technology
>University of Hawaii at Manoa


Same in Jamaica, though Jack was also sometimes used, sometimes it was
obviously meant to be offensive other times it wasn't.

Tony Mossop, geophysics, Stanford
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
From: sewell@tsingtao.bnr.ca (Henry Sewell)
Subject: Re: Abuse A Brit (was Re: Pardon my ignorance and such)
Organization: Bell Northern Research Montreal, Canada.
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 14:43:08 GMT

An earlier posting on the Halloween thread pointed out that
England/Britain lacks homogeneity, with cultural identity
being more associated with region.
The same can be said on the abusiveness thread. 
I recall the following terms as derogatory to folk from
different regions: tyke, taffy, chinless wonder (perhaps with
added class connotations).
Henry Sewell       my opinion, not my employer's
 
From: tgg@otter.hpl.hp.com (Tom Gardner)
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1992 11:43:10 GMT
Subject: Re: Re: Halloween in England
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bristol, UK.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british

>My husband and I lived in Brandon, a smallish town in Suffolk,
>for three years (1986-1989) and got two (unexpected)
>trick-or-treaters one year.  I think it was 1987....

Isn't Brandon near the large US (oops, I meant RAF) Lakenheath and Mildenhall
air bases? If so, I can quite believe local cultural "contamination"
From: adam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Adam Hamilton)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: The end of society as we know it (was Re: Currency Problems)
Date: 6 Oct 92 10:21:35 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

In article <Oct05.180858.106433@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> hg798502@LANCE.ColoState.Edu (Hugh Graham) writes:
:
:As I recall, the University of Bristol was one of the centres of research
:into the nodding duck wave power project.  However, someone else had screwed
:up the wave spectrum measurements off the British coast and it transpired
:that the promising wave power project would be economically unviable.
:Since then (70's?) of course, energy prices have increased, but not in
:real terms.  A barrel of oil costs less in real terms now than it did
:in '73 so I doubt that wave power is yet viable.
:
	THE centre for "nodding duck research" was Edinburgh University.
The report on viability was entrusted to the nuclear power people!  They
distorted the figures (i.e. lied).
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
From: dbrooks@osf.org (David Brooks)
Subject: Re: Guy Fawkes night
Organization: Open Software Foundation
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 16:40:23 GMT

pleach@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Paul Leach) writes:
|> When I was a kid...in the days of yore....a penny for the guy added up to 
|> some decent money (I used to start as soon as school started.) What is the 
|> cry nowadays as I understand a penny won't take you too far.

"Bob-a-Job"?
-- 
David Brooks					dbrooks@osf.org
(who remembers slaving in the hot sun for 3 hours and getting paid a
shilling by a literal-minded old skinflint)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
From: jac54@cas.org ()
Subject: Re: Abuse A Brit (was Re: Pardon my ignorance and such)
Organization: Chemical Abstracts Service, Columbus, Ohio
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 13:39:27 GMT

In article <1992Sep29.130858.17852@osf.org> dbrooks@osf.org (David Brooks) writes:
>
>Napoleon called us a nation of grocers.  That was regarded as a mild insult
>until Maggie came on the scene.

	Shortly after Margarethilde took the job, I left the country
	(purest coincidence) and have spent about six weeks there in the
	past 11 years.  Enlighten me on how this Napoleonic gibe came to
	be received so many years later.

	Alec.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
From: james@syacus.acus.oz.au (James Smith)
Subject: Re: My wife's gon to the West Indies
Keywords: joke
Organization: ACUS Australian Centre for Unisys Software, Sydney
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 00:26:12 GMT

jackson@soldev.tti.com (Dick Jackson) writes:

>In article <1afjljINNnre@gap.caltech.edu> roy@willow.ccsf.caltech.edu writes:
>>I wonder if there are any jokesmiths out there? I'm sure everyone has heard the

	My sister is engaged to an Irishman !

	Oh, really ?

	No, O'Reilley !


Boom Boom !!


James Smith
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
From: nabil@cae.wisc.edu (Nabil Ayoub)
Subject: Name of the Royal family ?
Organization: U of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering
Date: 6 Oct 92 23:00:40 CDT

A friend of mine asked me about the name of the royal family
of the UK but I could not remember it. Is it 'Windsor' ? 
Please reply by email as I do not read this group. 
Thanks a lot folks.

Nabil
From: livesey@solntze.esd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: Currency problems
Date: 5 Oct 92 06:20:13 GMT
Organization: sgi

In article <ggm.718263266@brolga>, ggm@brolga.cc.uq.oz.au (George Michaelson) writes:
|> 
|> Jon, the reason many weedy smallbrains like myself see you as a poisoned 
|> shit is precicely because you love this roustabout style. 

Charmed, I'm sure.

|> 
|> If you wish to assert that there is no coal mined in the UK such 
|> that cheaper *equivalent quality* cannot be obtained from overseas, 
|> by all means do so. 

I assert that there is *some* coal mined in the UK which can 
be replaced by cheaper imported coal of equivalent quality.   
And it's this coal that should be replaced.

I've spelled this out in detail, by talking about closing
only uneconomic pits, so as to make the *average* competitive.
I've also said that it's not the whole industry that needs to be
closed, only the part that cannot compete.

When you close the most uneconomic pits first, the average of
the industry's competitiveness gradually rises, until British 
Coal can compete on price with imported coal.

|> My only intent in posting before was to suggest NOT ALL COAL IS 
|> EQUIVALENT and that dickwits like myself must suspect your lordship 
|> of not realizing this if you slavishly refer to overseas open-cast 
|> and its cheaper price.

I said that open-cast has a built-in cost advantage.    If you
can find *any* open-cast coal which is of suitable quality, and 
which is cheaper, that's your competition.

It doesn't matter if there is some crap out there that you
don't want to buy.   What matters is if *some* can compete
on both price and quality.   Sad but true.

|> 
|> But what does it cost you to do so without bruising my already 
|> peach-soft ego.

Well, we'll just have to replace the egos one by one, until we
get the average up, won't we.

jon.
Xref: sparky soc.culture.british:13691 rec.arts.books:17723
From: adolphso@mizar.usc.edu (adolphson)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Translate Shakespeare!
Date: 6 Oct 1992 09:28:56 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: mizar.usc.edu

In article <Bvp6t3.30o@fulcrum.bt.co.uk> 
igb@fulcrum.bt.co.uk (Ian G Batten) writes:

> I assume you've read the Folio and Quarto editions?  

Yes.  And I've also read unupdated editions of Jonson,
Marston, Marlowe, Greene, oh, who else, Middleton. 

> I'll bring a copy
> in tomorrow and key some in.  It's hard going.  

Have you ever read Chaucer?  Or Langland?

> Shakespeare has been
> translated into modern spelling in all published editions other than
> Folio/Quarto clones.

Yeah, and so what?

Arne

Xref: sparky soc.culture.british:13312 rec.arts.books:17302
From: cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Enforced Shakespeare?
Date: 1 Oct 92 00:41:45 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

In article <1992Sep30.121706.4893@epas.toronto.edu> sfysh@epas.utoronto.ca (Stephanie Moskal Fysh) writes:

>I don't call throwing
>Shakespeare at 13-year-olds who've never even read a whole novel an
>"invitation".  Seems more like a threat to me.

A Shakespeare play -- like any play -- is very much shorter than the
shortest novel. Not only do novels have available much greater length
than a play, but they can also deploy a much larger range of literary
devices than plays can. It is also very easy to see or hear
Shakespeare plays enacted.  Seems to me Shakespeare plays can't help
being _much_ easier to digest than novels.

Shakespeare thought so too. He _wrote_ his plays to entertain people
who not only _didn't_ read novels, but were _illiterate_! And the
illiterate and unschooled audiences of his day liked them!

Mind you, if I'd been taught Shakespeare by an English teacher who
thought they were more difficult than novels and only suitable for
novel-reading literary types, I might have had difficulty with them
too :-)
-- 
Chris Malcolm    cam@uk.ac.ed.aifh          +44 (0)31 650 3085
Department of Artificial Intelligence,    Edinburgh University
5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK                DoD #205
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,rec.arts.books
From: mcrosby@nyx.cs.du.edu (Matthew Crosby)
Subject: Re: Enforced Shakespeare?
X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University
	of Denver for the Denver community.  The University has neither
	control over nor responsibility for the opinions of users.
Keywords: Ya canna say that on the telly!
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 92 21:03:10 GMT

>A very effective way of selling Shakespeare (or other Lit) to
>the pubescent mind is to point out the racy bits. 
Hmm.  Last year in my AP class, we went and saw Prosperos Books when we
studied Tempest.  We paid attention ;-)

Actually, I personally really liked it, though my teacher complained that they
harped way too much on the biographical aspects of the Tempest.

On another note, I would just like to say that, of my AP English class, most
of us loved reading, most of us enjoyed Shakespeare, didn't find it problems,
etc.  So not *all* students have trouble.
(Of course, I was in general english my Frosh year, and that was a *whole*
different ballgame.  Teacher:  Now, I'll give you a month to read this...
Students:  A month!!  No way!! "The Old man and the Sea" is FAR too long!!!
you get the picture....)
--
-Matt
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the net!! 
mcrosby@nyx.cs.du.edu  or  crosby@ucsu.colorado.edu
From: w.p.coyne@newcastle.ac.uk
Newsgroups: uk.politics,soc.culture.british
Subject: Government discovers new censorship method
Date: 2 Oct 92 16:06:58 GMT
Reply-To: w.p.coyne@newcastle.ac.uk
Organization: Chemical & Process Engineering Dept, University of Newcastle, UK.


  In recent years the Government has tried to use the courts to keep 
things secret, but this has not always worked.   They are maybe now
adopting a different approach - call it by a different name so
nobody realises what it is.

   The thing I am referring to is the "Treaty on European Union" which
the Gov and media seem to be reluctant to use, instead they say the
"Maastricht Treaty".

   Normally (?) this form of censorship doesn't work because the papers/TV 
would reveal it, but this time the media are going along with the 
Government.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: tjo@its.bt.co.uk (Tim Oldham)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: Tory 'predictions'...
Date: 6 Oct 92 12:11:23 GMT
Organization: BT Group Computing Services, Birmingham, UK

In article <1992Oct5.164220.4431@osf.org> dbrooks@osf.org (David Brooks) writes:
>We could do with some of that over here.  Yesterday our beloved President
>once again said that business is poised for a recovery...

Quite right. You'd have to be a pretty useless to not be poised for
recovery: ``What, you all want to buy lots of products? No, we can't do
that. We're not ready.''

George Orwell knew the score.

	Tim.
-- 
Tim Oldham, BT Group Computing Services.       tjo@its.bt.co.uk
``Sounds good to me'' 
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
From: riaedwards@halls1.cc.monash.edu.au (AUDREY EDWARDS)
Subject: Return to UK - Queries.
Organization: Halls of Residence, Monash University 
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 07:03:52 GMT


I'm returning to the UK in December (yippie, Ipswich in deepest Winter!!), 
and would be grateful for anwers to the following queries:-

 1) What are the current duty-free limits, (when one is coming from a non-EC 
country), particularly for table wine, and general purchases? If one is over 
the limit, roughly what is the level of duty on table wine?

 2) (as I will be temporarily [hopefully!!] unemployed on my return), can 
one still get free dental treatment and eye tests whilst claiming income 
support? BTW (just to depress me further in my contemplation of real 
life!!), what is the current income support level for a single person?  

Regards,

Audrey.
From: sp@osf.org (Simon Patience)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: Currency Problems
Date: 30 Sep 92 14:04:06 GMT
Organization: Open Software Foundation

In article <1992Sep30.105410.4476@bristol.ac.uk>, smee@bristol.ac.uk (Paul Smee) writes:
> In article <1992Sep30.091937.12568@osf.org> sp@osf.org (Simon Patience) writes:
> >Of course if you pay way over the odds for something as basic as power
> >then you make *all* your products uncompetative and you haven't a hope of
> >exporting anything. 
> 
> True, but again there are gradations.  Huge subsidies (over the odds)
> will probably have that effect; if the required subsidy is small, on
> the other hand, other effects may dominate.  (It is also not necessarily
> the case that you lose just because all your goods are more expensive
> than imports.  There's a supply/demand argument that can be applied to
> show how this situation doesn't necessarily mean you lose out.  However,
> I'm not sure I can do it justice.  And, it DOES require free trade, and
> the possibility of free movement of both capital and workforce, between
> the areas involved, which is yet another reason why I like the idea of
> the EC.)

I take the point about supply/demand but if this was really an issue then
the imported coal prices would also rise if the demand was greater than
supply. I have been led to believe that much of UK coal is not in places 
condusive to being dug out, ie deep, and it is this, as much as anything
that makes it expensive.

Real free trade normally requires that subsidies don't exist, at least for
good passing within the free trade area. My big complaint with the EC is
that it allows (actually condones) governments to subsidise industries
left, right and centre thus completely distorting trade at the expense of
the consumer normally.

> Even if you accept your statement as 100% true in all circumstances,
> however, it still can't be used as a defense of Tory policies, as they

My statement was never intended to be a defense of Tory (or any other
party) policies.

> are artificially jacking up the price of power by subsidies to nuclear
> plants (which, in their own right, are no longer economic on purely
> cost per unit grounds), and they are encouraging the construction of
> gas turbine plants for baseload generation.  Gas turbine plants make
> economic sense as backup capacity for handling peak loads, but not for
> baseload generation.  

I have come to conclusion that it is extremely cost inefficient to leave
something as important as power generation in government hands.

> My guess is that they've still got a bee in their
> bonnet about the mineworkers unions, and that it keeps them from looking
> at the overall situation rationally.

Could be, and who can blame them.

Simon.

-- 
  Simon Patience
  Open Software Foundation			Phone: +33-76-63-48-72
  Research Institute				FAX:   +33-76-51-05-32
  2 Avenue De Vignate				Email: sp@gr.osf.org
  38610 Gieres, France				       uunet!gr.osf.org!sp
Xref: sparky soc.culture.british:13277 rec.arts.books:17250
From: stucki@retina.cis.ohio-state.edu (David J Stucki)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Enforced Shakespeare?
Date: 30 Sep 92 17:19:28 GMT
Article-I.D.: retina.STUCKI.92Sep30121928
	<1992Sep29.212802.4550@epas.toronto.edu> <qfk60pc@zola.esd.sgi.com>
	<1992Sep30.122234.5049@epas.toronto.edu>
Organization: Ohio State University Computer and Information Science
Originator: stucki@retina.cis.ohio-state.edu

In article <1992Sep30.122234.5049@epas.toronto.edu> sfysh@epas.utoronto.ca (Stephanie Moskal Fysh) writes:
   >In article <1992Sep29.212802.4550@epas.toronto.edu>, sfysh@epas.utoronto.ca (Stephanie Moskal Fysh) writes:
   >|> It's bonkers because Shakespeare's English is now 375 or so years old.
   >|> Why should we be expecting 14-year-olds to comprehend it?

   Almost none of my
   classmates had any notion of what the play was about.  They couldn't
   understand it.  They hated it.  They hated English class.  They
   resented reading.  *That's* the problem.

Amazingly enough, people learn what you teach them. Unfortunately,
most teachers aren't really teaching what they think they are. For
example how many hundreds of math teachers are there out there who
detest math? Or english teachers who don't have the slightest interest
in literature? Or even more, how many parents dislike the subjects
that their children are learning. Our school children are learning to
detest, hate, and resent school and learning from those who are best
able to prevent it.

   >What are we going to do next?   Excuse the little darlings
   >from listening to Mozart because it doesn't have a nice
   >solid disco beat?

   No, but we could try teaching literature that they *can* understand
   (and I'm talking about literal comprehension of language) *first*.

What happened to elementary school?

dave...

David J Stucki               /\     ____          /\ Department of Computer and
537 Harley Dr. #6           /__\   \ /\ /  /\    /__\       Information Science
Columbus, OH  43202        /\  /\   \--/  /__\  /_\/_\    2036 Neil Avenue Mall
stucki@cis.ohio-state.edu /__\/__\   \/        /\    /\      Columbus, OH 43210
                                              /__\  /__\    __
There is no place in science for ideas,      /_\/_\/_\/_\   \/  /\     /\
there is no place in epistemology for knowledge,                --    /__\
and there is no place in semantics for meanings.  -- W.V. Quine      /_\/_\
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,rec.arts.books
From: ag129@cus.cam.ac.uk (Alasdair Grant)
Subject: Re: Enforced Shakespeare?
Organization: U of Cambridge, England
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 12:11:42 GMT

In article <BHANAFEE.92Oct1110628@deimos.ads.com> bhanafee@deimos.ads.com (Brian Hanafee) writes:
>
>In article <1992Sep30.165806.20551@infodev.cam.ac.uk> ag129@cus.cam.ac.uk (Alasdair Grant) writes:
>>I don't know (wrt the original poster) whether there's a problem in
>>Canada with Canadian books being on the syllabus. It's definitely like
>>that in some ex-colonial countries, and I can imagine being turned right
>>off literature by being forced to study mediocre and parochial stuff.
>
>It's pretty bad here in this ex-colonial country.  I had to read all
>sorts of parochial stuff in high school: Huck Finn, Catcher in the
>Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, Native Son...it's a wonder I still read at
>all.  I guess the occasional bits of Shakespeare must have saved me.
>Or maybe it was the Dickens.

Yeah, that stuff is pretty dire ("Native Son" is unknown outside the US,
TKAMB and TCITR are known only through syllabuses) but I bet you never did
"Picnic at Hanging Rock", "Breaker Morant", "The Trial of Ned Kelly" and
the poems of Banjo Patterson. Our teacher apologised for teaching this,
and showed us Polanski's and McKellen's "Macbeth"s on video instead.
From: sandee@ds9.scri.fsu.edu (Daan Sandee)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: Pitiful limit on value of duty-free gi
Date: 25 Sep 92 19:43:29 GMT
Reply-To: sandee@ds9.scri.fsu.edu (Daan Sandee)
Organization: SCRI, Florida State University

In article <1992Sep25.092721.4689@aber.ac.uk> dpl@aber.ac.uk (David Philip Langstaff) writes:
=In article <19sc7hINNrk5@grapevine.EBay.Sun.COM> martin.baines@uk.sun.com writes:
=>... "punished" by being given a form to fill in itemising
=>*all* his purchases, and sent to the back of the queue,
=>he still got let of the duty and VAT, but was delayed
=>by about half an hour. Importer emptor.
= 
=[Classical pedant mode ON]
=
="Caveat Importer", surely
=
=[Classical pedant mode OFF]

  ... Make that "Caveat importator".

Daan Sandee                                           sandee@scri.fsu.edu
Thinking Machines Corporation
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, B-186
Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052  (904) 644-4490
From: Alan.Wigodski@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Alan Wigodski)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: London Penpal
Date: 5 Oct 92 00:57:17 GMT
Organization: Extended Bulletin Board Service

I'm a yank, but I was studying In Britain this summer and Lived in London
for a month(at the University of London)...

--
   The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of
     North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information
        Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service.
           internet:  bbs.oit.unc.edu or 152.2.22.80
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
From: sanjiv@projtech.com (Sanjiv Gossain)
Subject: Use of US phones and answering machines in UK
Organization: Project Technology, Inc., Berkeley, CA
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 18:02:35 GMT

A friend of mine is going back to the UK and
was wondering if he could take his American phone
and answering machine over there to use. Will they
work in the UK? Where can he get the adapter for
the difference in phone-socket sizes?

All help appreciated. Email answers preffered
as its difficult for me to read this group on a
regular basis.

thanks

sanjiv
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,rec.arts.books