• Dyson vs Mitubishi
    I’m probably turning into a nerd, but I’m a big fan of the Dyson Airblade hand dryer. I first came across one at the Louvre Museum and thought it was brilliant, although I’ve often seen people trying to rub their hands in the air stream when they don’t understand how they work.

    We went to Cardiff today, Christmas shopping. The new shopping centre is wonderful and the new pedestrian route through from the station almost makes it a pleasure to visit. It really was the pits at that end of town before.

    The new John Lewis, their biggest store outside of London, is rather fabulous and they have Dyson Airblades in the toilets – Hooray! the only problem is the yellow gasket, arrowed in red. They are net being cleaned properly and look a bit grubby already even though the store is only eight weeks old.

    However, Marks and Spencers have Mitsubishi Air Towel hand dryers. A little research reveals that the Mitsubishi predates the Dyson by quite a few years.

    But the Dyson wins hands down in this simple comparison. The Mitsubishi isn’t as powerful and doesn’t really scrape the water off. Worse, it blows down the drain and blows back and evil smell of drains. maybe it isn’t installed properly, but I’m with the Dyson.

  • I spent the morning with my year five class at Whitchurch School, yesterday (notice that “my” class!). We tried to get this blog up on the whiteboard, but wordpress.com is blocked at county level – so is YouTube. Beth, the year five teacher, told me they can’t even access BBC wildlife videos.

    We all know that there is a lot of unsavoury stuff out there on the internet, but at least the teachers should be trusted to choose appropriate sites to put up on the whiteboard. Block the sites, but at least give a password key for teachers to access the complete network.

    Man’s ingenuity has created the greatest educational resource in the whole of history – so what does the educational establishment do? It bans access to it!

    I know that children should be kept safe on the internet but to ban them from the source of knowledge… when you think about it, it is really quite scandalous.

  • I was explaining just how famous Rudyard Kipling was in his day, to a group of primary children. I likened him to JK Rowling and how famous she is today.

    But she isn’t really famous to primary school children any more. Well, not like she was. To the new generation she is as famous as Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl still are. For my daughter, who grew up with Harry Potter at the perfect time, JK Rowling was a force of nature, a tsunami wave that she rode (and read) for several years – waiting t’il midnight to get her new copies, reading all weekend to finish the latest instalment.

    This means nothing to current primary school children. They are hungry for something to fill that Harry Potter slot for their generation. Will anything come along? Can anyone come up with something so new and fabulous that will catch their imagination.

    Harry Potter was a craze more that anything. The next craze could well be a robo yoyo. It could well be another twenty years or so before another literary phenomenon comes along like Kipling, Blyton, Dahl or Rowling.

    We shall see..