I guess Mumsnet has got a bit too boring so technicallyinept came over here.

Sorry. £5 second hand. Used once.

My anecdata is: the only pedals I’ve ever broken were XTR SPDs. The pedal slipped straight off the axle. They were replaced by Shimano very quickly. My brother’s using my hand-me-down Wellgo platform SPDs. Red and black ones from ~1999. Still going strong. They spent their first decade being used in Devon sandstone/mud.

Thanks again for all the replies.

I don’t know if I’d say he’s under the care of a cardiologist. He has bi-annual check-ups after surgery aged 6 months. We’re off for a check up next week which is why the op. has come to the forefront of our conversation.

I worry about his next school, of course. It’s equally expensive and ‘nice’ but I think worrying is a parents’ natural state. Kids can be mean despite great staff and a wonderful school ethos.

As teacher/parents, I think we’re both acutely aware of ‘normal’ both the students and the environments. Our son is quirky more than autistic. We wouldn’t bother with a diagnosis but we also see he can be a little socially unaware, sensitive, unhappy with change and other ASD traits. His personality is a factor but relatively small.

Again, lots to think about and thanks for the interesting replies.

Alex – because they’re £5 and get good reviews.

I love the way the first two replies so nicely sum up my to-and-fro about a gravel bike.

Win-win vs two compromises.

When I think about 99.99% of my riding in the last 2-3 years, a gravel bike would have been the one-bike-to-rule-them-all.

For the gravel bike I want (definitely not ‘need’), I can have an XC hard tail and a cheapish road bike so the decision was easy. When I’m next in a position to “invest” in a new bike it’ll be harder to decide.

Thanks. Don’t know how I missed that.

Are SH51 the ‘normal’ cleats?

Thanks all.

Lots of food for thought.

“Did the people you spoke with give any specific reasons as to why they wished they’d had the procedure earlier in life?”

Yep. They unanimously said it was because they wished they looked more normal (I can’t remember the exact phrasing). They didn’t like standing out and by the time they were more aware of it, they were stroppy and hormonal teenagers who struggled to communicate their feelings as well as they might have.

Very true, Rachel.

Scotroutes – We also notice his eye more when in a mirror. Very ‘weird’. Amazing what the brain ignores or recognises.

Fossy – We’ve had surgeons (admittedly private and different culture) talk about it being a quick operation we should just have done. Not about it being necessary but risk vs benefit. Plenty of surgeons are happy to perform LASIK eye surgery when glasses or contacts do the job.

It doesn’t both me as such but having spoken to others (young adults in the same position), they wish they’d had the op sooner. I think that the longer they left it, the harder it was for them to bring up and it did have an effect.

It doesn’t worry our awesome little son but that’s a combination of his personality and his friendship group. Peers in the future might not be so kind and, as I said, he’s acutely aware and also quite soft. A potentially difficult situation.

As I said, he’s had a major and critical operation. I’d ‘put him through it’ if it had a big, positive impact on his future.

Castles On the Hill, Ed Sheeran. A really good song.

Thanks to all of you.

I’ve just signed up to a Udemy Excel / Sheets course too. So much more useful than the years of coding at Uni!

I’ve got it.

=IF(D2 = "Pre Level One",H4, IF(D2 = "Early Level One", I4))

I can lengthen the code with the extra IF statements.

Just one question.

How do I reference Sheet2 A1 instead of H4?

Thanks a lot for the help.

The can and next are both copied over from sheet 2. The only data I’d want to enter is the stage.

Can I make a long and ugly (but functional) IF and ELSE formula?

=IF sheet1D2 = Pre Level 1, Sheet1 C2=Sheet2 D4 and Sheet1 D2 = Sheet2 D4, ELSE Sheet1D2 = Early Level 1 etc.

Thanks for any help you can offer but please don’t waste too much of your time. I can copy and paste.

Thank you very much.

Here are screenshots of my two sheets.

Would it be a big ask to share the sheet with you and ask you to take a look?

makecoldplayhistory@gmail.com

vlookup seems more complex than I was expecting.

I’m not sure index is exactly what I’m after… maybe it is. I’ll have a play with it at lunchtime (the exciting life of teaching).

I want a three column sheet with three variables. Name, level and next steps.

If I type 1 into the level cell (say B1), I’d like the next step (C1) to auto-fill with the text.

Thanks a lot.

Out at the moment but will give it a try later.

“We are not close to achieving equality of opportunity.”

That’s the easy bit of the post.

Why don’t you write the difficult bit which is explaining why?

“I wasn’t necessarily sure what point you were trying to make so I just thought I’d join in.”

The perfect beginning of a pub conversation!

I’m theoretically privileged, yes. White. Straight. I come from (relative) money and this was leveraged throughout my education and networking beyond university.

In the last decade or so, I think I have witnessed this privilege come to an end. I have recently applied for a new role and had an eye-opening conversation with the boss including acknowledging that the Asian woman also applying for the role ticked more boxes for us than I did, all other things being equal. My white maleness which benefited me is now holding me back!

I think (and there are stats that show) that in quite a few roles, a woman with the same experience and qualifications as I do will get a job over me. Affirmative action and not meritocracy.

Females do better in school, universities and graduate jobs. A plain fact and almost entirely down to meritocracy. You can argue that the examination system could be changed to favour a gender but that’s [in my opinion] nonsense.

I think there’s a balance. We mostly live in a meritocracy. Equality of opportunity is pretty much there and equality of outcome is stupid.

“You didn’t offer an opinion as to whether women do better in those circumstances because they work harder or because they’re favoured in some way.”

Both. See above. We need to deny human nature to pretend that there is any such thing as a complete lack of bias. I don’t think that bias favours white men though.

As I don’t know you nor your oppo (nor what oppo means), I can only argue so much re. your specific example.

My question remains though. Why toxic masculinity? Why is internationalmensday for the knuckle draggers? I never want to tell my sons to be ashamed of their masculinity.

In the nicest possible way Pyro, I don’t know what point you’re trying to make.

That your oppo at work is female. Not nearly as educated as you but in a similar role. She’s a few (not too many) years older. This seems to support my stance that outcome is largely based on ability, doesn’t it?

<div class=”bbp-author-role”>squirrelking -</div>
Of course Wheaton’s Law is simplistic but at its heart is much more complex ideas. Do what you would do only if society would be its best if everyone did it, for example. Following your Hitler example, Hitler’s a dick as is anyone who does bad. In such a binary system, you’ll struggle if you think bad jokes are the same as genocide. I guess that Kant and Wheaton rely on a little more intelligence.

gobuchul – the Fawcett Society. A “leading feminist charity”. 81% of women aged 18-24 wouldn’t describe themselves as feminist.

More than 25% of women said that the first word they associate with feminism is ‘bitchy’. 7% aligned their views on equality to feminism.

Acceptable? It’s strange you made a thinly veiled insult when all I did is mention widely-accepted stats. Why was that? I understand that there a lot of people in the public eye who wouldn’t dare question feminism, but why wouldn’t you?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/only-7-per-cent-of-britons-consider-themselves-feminists/

Pyro – I’m a non-bearded, non-axe-owning 30-something. A pale, stale male. Nice middle class parents, expensive education, now working in independent schools; perpetuating privilege, some could say.

We live in a society where [usually] people are financially rewarded for competence. Of course there are instances where one section of society will do better with the same grades (FYI, it’s women who benefit) but as a man, I need to accept it. Women do better in schools. Better in university and better in graduate employment.

What sbob said.  THere will be bargains in the next 10 weeks. Then I’d re-compare but probably go referbed.

sirromji

It’s more than a suggestion. The issue I have is twofold.

1. no one in a role which requires public approval would have the balls* to say they aren’t a feminist

2. anyone** who meets the definition of feminism as I see it is hard of thinking.

I asked why you need to be a knuckle dragger to think mens’ day is a bad thing. Care to answer?

*irony intended

**people are deserting feminism in their droves. It’s become a nasty, man-hating, sub-par branch of neoliberalism. Men and women are deserting this label in their droves. 80% of women distance themselves from the label. 45% think the term is an insult.

“The research on the other thread basically said there is massive overlap between both genders and don’t generalise. ”

Generalisations can be useful especially as explanations. It depends on their application. If I look at employment statistics for tens of millions of men and women then I’d expect to see male and female ‘jobs’. We see it in Scandinavian countries. They fit ‘equality’ measures yet there are distinct differences in sex-based outcomes re. employment.

In my classroom (of 13), I treat every child as an individual and encourage them to be their best selves. However, if you tell me in 35 years that my students went on to work in ‘gendered’ jobs, I wouldn’t be surprised or disappointed or feel like I should have done something differently.

You say that we need to consider social conditioning. That’s true. But, feminists and others who are hard of thinking buck every application of logic when they try to blame social constructs for sex-based differences. There are so many observable and provable physical differences between the sexes that it seems entirely moronic to suggest that they end above the adam’s apple. Especially moronic when we know the brains are physically different before birth.

Given that brains are different for males and females from mid-gestation, why should we expect the same outcome?

There are 3 questions here.

Could a sober Thomas of kicked the boys’ arse? Probably.

Would it have solved the larger problem? Probably not.

Does a hard man like Thomas coming out and saying he got a kicking for being gay help other less tough gay guys, show how idiotic the assault was and do the largest amount of good? Probably.

The immature part of me would like to have read how some kid shouted ‘oi, faggot’, attempted to assault the Welsh winger and got his nose broken but Gareth is clearly a bigger (metaphorically and literally) man than me and good on him.

If he’d given the assaulter a kicking, the only lesson being shown is that might is right. The homophobic &^%$ would pick on someone smaller.

But, squirrelking, absolute adherence to anything is stupid.

There are male traits and female traits. Men are more likely to have more male traits. Women are more likely to have more female traits. There’s nothing wrong with celebrating them.

I think we we disagree on the premise. Why toxic masculinity? If I were a beard-wearing, wood-chopping, hunter-gatherer type, why am I toxic? These are masculine traits but there’s nothing inherently bad there.

Do you believe in toxic femininity? I’d say that many typically feminine traits are ‘toxic’. Would you?

Thanks. Seems like it’s a training / practice / muscle memory type issue.

I think I just surprised myself (and my face) with how different it all was.

“Equalising outcomes is a rdiculous construct and all the evidence shows that it’s not what people want.”

It’s sad to think of girls being forced into STEM (frequently seen as the measurement of equality) at the altar of feminism. I see it happening.

I remember the back story. Delighted to know things are going well. It’s great to know you and your family saw the good side of humanity as well as the not so good.

Will I get flamed for a ‘Happy Christmas’ in November?

I had a BBQ and a week day (week evening) beer. Did it with my boys and showed the 6-year-old how to use matches for the first time. I thought about how to be a positive male role model to my boys and class.

Yes, white male privilege exists. However, as an educator, I see female privilege in action daily. Financial privilege (I work in an expensive school). Aesthetic privilege.

The notion of toxic masculinity, stale, male and pale etc make me frustrated as does the idea that celebrating or acknowledging or thinking about men’s day is for knuckle draggers. Pussification is a real issue. Celebrate your masculinity. Celebrate your femininity. Celebrate your nationality and race and sexuality and dietary ‘requirements’. Wheaton’s Law will suffice in all situations; Kant’s Categorical Imperative if you want to be a little fancier.

@Kerley

The UK.

As I said, women are outperforming men in school and post-grad employment.

It basically comes down to (I think) what kind of equality people mean when they say “I would prefer equality over efficiency”.

Equality of outcome or equality of opportunity. We have equality of opportunity or, at least, we’re extremely close. Females outperform males until they decide to have children which is a free choice of theirs. Women who don’t have children perform equally as well as men. The change is taking time off work and deciding to be a mother. We can’t change biology.

It seems foolish to suggest that men and women are the same and against best practice (Ocam’s Razor) to suggest that the millions of year of sex-specific evolution won’t mean that given large data samples, there will be differences between the sexes.

Men and women have different:

eyes / sight

ears / hearing

skin / touch

hair

bones (density)

joints / skeletons

gonads

reproductive systems

chemical make up

responses to stimuli

brain structure (chemical and physical)

voices

metabolisms …

With all these observable differences, you have to be a bit of a moron to think that the brains of the sexes must be the same. Especially when we know that the brains are physically different. Remarkably so when we know that the brains are physically different from mid-gestation (before society can be blamed) and this is due to a ‘dump’ of testosterone by the mother.

We don’t have equality of opportunity between the sexes. We should be worried about males and should be addressing the issues. The problem is the mindset of some who think that men and women are the same and women are dealt the bad hand.

Really interesting. Our families probably know each other.

Did you @fadda

My maternal grandparents were Bowden of Bowden & Sons. Bolt’s house was my Great Grandmother’s home (Bowden nee Bolt).

Paternals lived in Mill End House before it was a hotel and moved to Westcott, just down from the graveyard. The same graveyard that functions really well as a family tree!

Small world!

I really have dived in Muff (N. Ireland).

The best places I have dived are either the Gili Islands or, in the Philippines;

Tubbataha reef (live aboard)

Malapascua (thresher sharks)

Puerto Galera (several amazing diving spot – probably dived (doved, dove, divin) 20+ times around there)

Apo Island (sea turtles)

Apo reef – live aboard. Another world class location.

Donsol – mantas and a whale shark if you’re lucky

Anilao – micro stuff. Pigmy sea horses, nudibranches etc

Coron (I haven’t been there, my wife has) is amazing. You fly to Busuanga and go to Coron. Truly world class diving there.

If, however, children visited a church and saw some sort of observable manifestation of what that belief means, then they can at least come away with a sense of the people involved and how their belief affects them.

I’ve seen the effects of the beliefs. Frightening opiate for the masses. No one trusts a junky!

@daern

No.

50% caps.

Token Northerner? All the women were Northern, except the strange Irish / Scot / American woman.

I remember the contestants in the first series or two being vaguely admirable. Now they’re simply a shower of c$%^s

From what I remember, there’s an admissions cap of 50% on faith schools. 50% must be admitted with no reference to their faith.

There are also other rules such as an undersubscribed school accepting anyone regardless of faith.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/389388/School_Admissions_Code_2014_-_19_Dec.pdf

As an educator, the only thing I’m sure about is the further I can keep my children from religion, the better. Faith schools are simply pervasive division in our society. I think the Catholic Church took umbrage with the Tory introduced caps on admissions policies and refused to fund schools until it was removed. I’m yet to meet someone who attended a Catholic school who thinks they were pleasant places to be. Failure to meet a pretty basic bar.

I agree with the basic premise of your questioning. Unfortunately, religion still holds a slightly revered place in our society. An all roadie / heterosexual / single-race school would rightly not be allowed.