Mike Cawood, HND BIT wrote:
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/...559786,00.html
Some people should have been strangled at birth.
Mike.

"Are there any lakes in the Lake District?" might seem silly, but "how
many lakes are there?" is a fairly common trick question.







[one, Bassenthwaite]


--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

On Wed, 3 Jan 2007, Mark Goodge wrote:

On Wed, 3 Jan 2007 17:22:16 -0000, Nick Pedley put finger to keyboard
and typed:

"Do those boatrides take you on the river?"

Well, they could be on a lake.

If the question were being asked at, say, Little Venice, it wouldn't be so
stupid at all.

http://www.canalmuseum.org.uk/boat-trip.htm

tom

--
Ensure a star-man is never constructed!

On Wed, 3 Jan 2007, Mizter T wrote:

out-of-work thespian

The term is, i believe, 'resting'!

tom

--
Ensure a star-man is never constructed!

On Wed, 3 Jan 2007 22:46:19 +0000, Ian Jelf
wrote:

In message , Chris
Johns writes
On Wed, 3 Jan 2007, Nick Pedley wrote:

As some of you may be aware I work on that big white wheel in central London
and part of the job includes answering questions as best as we can. Trouble
is that some of them are, well, tricky*.....

"What side of the river is Westminster Bridge?"
"Why don't you put a clock up on a big tower so people can see the time?"
"It's one o'clock. Why did the bell only ring once?"
"I never knew Paris was so close to London that we could see the Eiffel
Tower from the top of the wheel!"
"Do those boatrides take you on the river?"

I wonder how many times the tourist information centre in Leeds gets
asked "how do I get to the castle?"

That used to come up as a Tourist Board exam question every few years.

I'll bet no-one answers the question "Where are the 39 steps? bang!"
which ISTR being offered on a similar list of strange queries some
time ago.

On Thu, 04 Jan 2007 00:27:23 GMT, Olof Lagerkvist wrote:

"What side of the river is Westminster Bridge?"

I've had that about London Bridge.

Hm, but if they asked for the station with that name and not the bridge
itself?

Also, I've often heard the area around the station referred to as
London Bridge. As in, "London Bridge isn't a very nice area" or "Guy's
Hospital is in London Bridge".

So it's a perfectly valid question, and the answer is the south side.

"Colin Rosenstiel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
(Paul Terry) wrote:

In message , Tim Roll-Pickering
writes

Jonathan Morton wrote:

The one about the May Day demonstration is permissible. After
all, so-called "May Day" isn't usually on the first of the month -
and at the Universities May Week is in June.

Is it? I've never noticed a "May Week" at any of the universities
I've been at.

AFAIR, only Cambridge has a "May Week" - originally in May, before
the exams, but now in June after exams. Even there, some colleges
prefer "June event" to the more traditional "May ball". The Oxford
equivalent is the Commem. ball.

May week can sometimes start in May, if Easter is early enough. It can
also get perilously close to June.

Could you give us an example of a year when May Week begins in May, please,
Colin? In the table at http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/so/so_ch02.pdf, the
earliest date for the Friday at the end of Full Term (the Friday of the May
Races) is June 10th.

You talk of Easter being "early enough". The earliest date on which Easter
can fall is March 22nd, but that doesn't occur within the period of my
current list (between 1875 and 2124). A March 23rd Easter will occur in
2008, and Full Term that year will end on Friday 13th June.

Looking back I see that the Wednesday at the start of the May Races in 1958,
1969, 1975, and in 1980 was 4th June. If we go back to 1953, the Wednesday
was 3rd June (the day after the Coronation), and the 1952 May Races are also
recorded as starting on 3rd June (which would have been the Tuesday). 1951
was another relatively early Easter (March 25th) and the Mays started on
June 7th.

To add additional confusion, May Week lasts a fortnight, with the first week
being the week including the May Races (and the end of Full Term), and the
following week with the May Balls.
--
David Biddulph

asdf wrote:

On Thu, 04 Jan 2007 00:27:23 GMT, Olof Lagerkvist wrote:

"What side of the river is Westminster Bridge?"

I've had that about London Bridge.

Hm, but if they asked for the station with that name and not the bridge
itself?

Also, I've often heard the area around the station referred to as
London Bridge. As in, "London Bridge isn't a very nice area" or "Guy's
Hospital is in London Bridge".

So it's a perfectly valid question, and the answer is the south side.

The area isn't really called London Bridge - the area is the Borough,
just as Victoria isn't a place per se - it's Belgravia, Pimlico or
Westminster. I do however find someone saying they live "in London
Bridge" somewhat absurd, as if they actually live within the bridge
itself (though perhaps in the future they will! - see [1]).

Anyway rant over! I do often use these locations as a nearby reference
point - e.g. "I'm in Guy's Hospital, near London Bridge, recovering
from having been beaten up by the massed ranks of usenauts for being an
awkward annoying know-it-all."

[1] http://tinyurl.com/y6jugc

Tom Anderson wrote:

On Wed, 3 Jan 2007, Mizter T wrote:

out-of-work thespian

The term is, i believe, 'resting'!


Konstantin Stanislavski, another resting actor, had the right idea - he
used his time to write the de-facto textbooks on acting. Rather spoiled
it for any other resting actors who might've wanted to pull that trick
again though!

(I do, of course, jest somewhat.)

In article ,
uk (martyn dawe) wrote:

In England we think 1000 years is a short time, however only
native Americans have That much history , for the rest their
history is much shorter.

or ours, of course.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article , invalid@invalid
invalid (asdf) wrote:

On Thu, 04 Jan 2007 00:27:23 GMT, Olof Lagerkvist wrote:

"What side of the river is Westminster Bridge?"

I've had that about London Bridge.

Hm, but if they asked for the station with that name and not the
bridge itself?

Also, I've often heard the area around the station referred to as
London Bridge. As in, "London Bridge isn't a very nice area" or
"Guy's Hospital is in London Bridge".

So it's a perfectly valid question, and the answer is the south
side.

At London Bridge, maybe. But definitely not of Westminster Bridge!

--
Colin Rosenstiel