Floating down to Camelot

So I bought a new kitchen timer...

In light of the my previous post, I am now awaiting the results with great interest. What do YOU think will happen?

[Poll #2000369]

EDIT: In the final option, "something unforeseen" was intended to "something which you (i.e. me) haven't foreseen and listed above, but which I will suggest in comments," hence all my wibbling about paradoxes. I realise that, as written, it really doesn't make such sense at all. And even as I originally intended it, it made no sense. Oh well. Blame the trauma of having to take a kitchen timer back to the shop for the 95th time.

( Rant about potentially unsafe modes of traffic calming )

Anyway... while I was driving through our estate yesterday, I gave way to someone as I was directed to, and she thanked me by waving energetically and cheerily, with a manic grin on her face. I don't think I knew her, and there was nobody else in sight whom she could have been waving at instead. But it caused me to muse on thanking habits.

( Poll for drivers about thanking people when they've given way to you )

Apparently it's Children's Book Week this week. I'd failed to register this fact. (Oops!) To celebrate it, Booktrust have produced a list of their 100 "best" children's books of the last 100 years, 25 per age group, and asking people to vote for their favourites. This has prompted quite a lot a thinking and debating at work.

Here's the list. I definitely dispute some of the age classifications. Yes, yes, I know that many people here were reading things like The Lord of the Rings at 8, but there are books in their 5-8 category that I think most children wouldn't really appreciate until 10 or 11. There are also some books in the 12-14 category that have content that's distinctly older teen. However, here they are, if anyone wants to vote on my LJ. (Official votes can be cast here.)

Obviously nobody will have read all of them, so skip any categories in which you've only read a tiny number. Please don't bother telling me that you're far too clever and important to read such silly things as children's books. If you don't like children's books, don't bother clicking on the below list.

( The 100 books, arranged as an LJ poll )

Inspired by talk about pints and litres in my previous post, here is a rather enormous load of polls about weights and measures. I do have a vague feeling that someone on my Friends list once did something similar, but if they did, I can't remember who, so definitely can't track down the poll, so can't see what the answers were.

( Weight and measures: many polls )

I need resolution to some terminal dithering. Which cider pun should I use for my next Booze Banner? The aim of the banners is to make people chuckle, but the slogans also need to be easily illustratable in felt. Simple stylised images in only one or two colours are easy; realistic-looking human figures are very hard indeed. (See examples here, out of which the knight and the tiger were a complex "never again!" experiences, whereas the tart was lovely and quick and easy.) The reference should ideally be understood by both of the banner's target audiences: folk festival attendees, and a horde of live role-players.

( Cider pun poll )

I quite probably won't end up going along with whatever answer this poll suggests, but instead will use it as a tool to reveal my own preference. If I find myself reacting with disappointment to one particular answer's low score, then it will reveal what my preferred choice was all along.

Inspired by sally_maria's recent poll, I thought I'd offer up a similar poll inspired by recent misunderstandings. Two colleagues at work have very different and very unshakable views on what "next Friday" means, which inspires me to find out which one of them has the weight of Friends-list opinion on their side.

( Poll behind the cut )

I just responded to a Council consultion on a proposed budget reduction, and I did what people never normally do: I said I was all for it. It relates to refuse collections and kerbside recycling. At present, we have a weekly collection of general waste. If we want to, we can request a black recycling box which is collected fortnightly, but the only things we can recycle in this is glass and some paper. Newspapers, white envelopes and stapled magazines are fine, but not brown envelopes or glued magazines. We can also request a green box for food waste - both cooked and uncooked - which is collected weekly. Garden waste can be collected, but we need to buy special green bags for this at £1.25 per bag.

The proposed changes are to continue to have a weekly collection for food waste, but to replace the fortnightly collection of a limited amount of recyclable stuff with a wheelie bin that takes all recyclables - glass, cardboard, Tetra paks, cans, glued magazines etc. etc. We won't have to sort these things out, just chuck 'em all in. General waste will be collected fortnightly instead of weekly, but will presumably be much reduced in quantity. In addition, we will be able to pay for garden waste collection. (The cost cutting comes not just in reducing the frequency of collections, but cutting down on the landfill tax.)

I responded that I was in favour of the plan, as long as provision was made for people who live in places that can't accommodate a wheelie bin. I've certainly got the impression that the Isle of Wight recycles a lot less than most other places. At Wightfrag, our black box tends to accumulate piles of cardboard packets and plastic bottles, put there by people from other areas who automatically assume that such things will be recycled. I'd be interested to see if I'm right in believing that the island provides more limited facilities for kerbside recycling than most other places. ( Poll behind cut )

On this week's list of new books, there was a book that claimed in its blurb that at any one moment in time, half the world's population is wearing blue jeans. I am therefore inspired to do a poll.

( Blue jeans )

This is a poll just for people from Britain. Sorry, everyone else!

Having nothing pressing to do tonight, I decided to say "yes" when the BBC website asked me if I had a few minutes to evaluate the bit of it I was on. The survey went on to ask me what my nationality was, offering me a list of options that included "British" as well as "English," "Scottish", "Welsh" etc. It made me wonder how many people would select the country-specific answer, and how many would go for the general. I would imagine that English people are more likely to select "British" than Scottish people are, at any rate.

[Poll #1611063]

(This all reminds me of the chap who filled in our library user survey, and in the ethnic origin section, disdained the "white - English" option, and angrily wrote "I'm white Anglo-Saxon (not on list!)"

EDIT: Curses. I just accidentally voted as Pellinor, who is currently in a wet field in Yorkshire and nowhere near a computer. Since I seem to use the laptop for LJ a lot more than he does, perhaps I ought to change the LJ login manager to default to my login, not his.

Here's something I've been idly wondering for a while. It's always bothered me when watching films or TV, when the heroine stops her car in order to fight the demon who's popped up on her back seat, and there is immediately a torrent of angry car horns. In my experience, car horns are a thing almost never heard. I've watched poor learner drivers take over a minute to manage to start up and leave a junction, and the queue behind is always entirely silent. So I thought I'd find out how people used their car horns, using the age-old scientific method of an LJ poll.

If you don't have a car at the moment, but had one in the past, feel free to answer in the past tense.

( Behind a cut, because polls always double in size as soon as you reply to them. )

EDIT: One comment to this post included a word that caused the entire post to get blocked by my work filter. I did a second post asking if the comment could be edited, but it wasn't possible to do this, since it had replies. The only thing to do was to delete it, but this took the replies with it. So if you posted a comment which has now disappeared, this is the reason. Sorry about this!

This is the latest in my series of trivial polls conducted out of idle curiosity. This time it's about Christmas working hours.

I realise that this poll is irrelevant to many people on my Friends list, but I thought it would just muddy the waters to include a "this is not relevant to me" option, so if it isn't relevant, just pass on by. Though you can, if you like, answer with reference to any previous job(s).

I'm asking about what days you're officially working, not what days you personally are actually working. If you aren't working on Christmas Eve, for example, but it costs you a full day's leave to get that day off, then answer as if you're working on that day.

( Christmas working )

At work, there is a kitchen about 20 steps from my desk, and at any time I like during the day, I can wander in and make myself a hot drink, and bring it back to my desk to drink while working. I was quite horrified to discover the other day that Pellinor has to buy any drink that he consumes from the staff canteen, and can only do so at designated break times. I'm curious to find out if his situation is normal and I'm just very lucky, of if I'm the normal one, and he's horribly deprived.

( Poll behind a cut to save space )

Yup, it's trivial poll time again. What can I say? I'm ill, and you need to cut me some slack. ;-)

( Dunking - behind a cut for space )

I just saw a reference to someone who is "undoubtedly the most famous character in literature." Who do you reckon they were talking about?

I think it's time to answer this age-old question in a conclusive, scientific way. Since it's a rigorous scientific study, I'm not allowing such wishy-washy, evasive answers as "I like them both equally," or "I hate the lot of them!" or "it depends on whether you mean 'better at climbing trees' or 'better at barking at postmen.'" My fervent attachment to subjectivity meant that I was very tempted to frame the question as "which do you prefer," rather than "which are better" but soon realised that the issue is one that can only have a firm answer. While such vague questions as "which is taller: an adult flea or an adult elephant" allow space for those "it depends", and "it's more complicated than that" sort of answers, this issue is clearly a black and white one, with no possible shades of grey.

[Poll #1420964]

I was reminded today of a conversation I overheard a few weeks ago that caused me to question something I've always thought unquestionable. And so, in order to judge whether my reaction to the conversation was unusual, I will conduct the deeply-scientific research that is normal for LJ - a poll of a totally non-random selection of people, in the certain knowledge that this will answer the issue once and for all.

[Poll #1330333]

One of the stories I regularly read at the moment involves a rather rude monster. At one point in the story, he goes for a drive in his big red car, and sings a merry song along the way. "What song do you want him to sing?" I ask the children. We then sing the chosen song to teach it to the monster, and then the monster sings it in his own inimitable fashion. ("RAAAAH! RAAAGH! REEEEGH! RAAAAH!")

After about a hundred different renditions, the results are as follows:
- c. 50 percent: Twinkle twinkle little star
- c. 35 percent: Baa baa black sheep
- c. 10 percent: Row row row your boat
- c. 5 percent: One-offs - Wheels on the bus, Wind the bobbin up etc.

Today the monster was asked to sing the Mamma Mia soundtrack.

He didn't.

( And now for a meaningless and unrelated poll )

Oh, and back to the subject of music: I think it should be illegal for any piece of music to include a siren sound effect. It is very distracting when driving. However, if I was a radio DJ, I would be rather tempted to recruit all my fellow radio DJs, so we all played the song at the same time, placed cameras at busy road junctions, and sat back and watched all the drivers look around anxiously en masse.

And, also: Songs that start "see the little..." and involve nosey-woseys and little feet are evil. They put claws into your brain and won't let go. *glares at the culprit*

Um... *looks sheepish* I found my hardback LotR. It was... er... next to my computer, where I now remember taking it a few weeks ago for reference while writing something. Pellinor has admitted that perhaps his old single volume copy never made it out of his parents' house. So it seems as if we're just a two Lord of the Rings household, after all, and that both copies are accounted for. Either that, or the person who stole our other copies has given us false memories to cover his tracks.

It occurs to me that most normal people would probably think that having two copies of The Lord of the Rings is a bit excessive. However, I am confident that, compared with many people reading this, we class as total lightweights.

( Poll beneath cut )

I just spent ten minutes queuing in the local shop, behind a dozen people who were all buying lottery tickets and scratch cards. It got me a-wondering how common, or uncommon, various forms of gambling are.

( Gambling poll )

Take two hypothetical people: person A, and person B. These people live together. Person A currently has a book on the go. It's obvious that person A has said book on the go, since the book migrates daily between bedside and coffee table, and has a bookmark in it that is moving steadily through the book. Further, the following conversation has recently taken place between person A and person B:
Person B: I want to read that book.
Person A: Wait till I've finished it. I'm only half way through at the moment. I've only just reached the pingwings.

Now, on the hypothetical day in question (let's call is Maundy Thursday), person A goes to get the book from her (or his) bedside, in order to take it to work so they can read it during the lunch hour they are forced to spend in a seafront carpark in a place that we'll call, for the sake of argument, "Shanklin", in between two hypothetical storytimes on the south coast of an imaginary small island. Person A finds the book gone! Without asking, person B has taken it to work with him (or her), to read on the hypothetical mode of transport (let's call it "a ferry") en route to... ooh... plucking a name at random from the air here: Southampton.

[Poll #960892]

Outraged edit: Oi! wellinghall! Wrong answer. Don't forget I know where you live. There's still time for you to tell me that your finger slipped, and you meant to select the first answer. *menacing look*