Education reform...

http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1722932,00.html - via rickbooth, who will no doubt blog on the subject in his usual erudite and correctly punctuated way later in rfbooth.

'Under the plans, no pupil would be able to get a C-grade in GCSE English without being able to "punctuate accurately using commas, apostrophes and inverted commas".'

What? You mean they CAN, currently?

Solar heating

It's only March, and we're already starting to see the benefit of our solar panels.

Thursday, when I got home from work (outside temp during day < 4 deg C)
- top of tank: 49 deg C
- bottom of tank: 43 deg C

after running a bath for James:
- top of tank: 48 deg C
- bottom of tank: 20 deg C

Anne ran the boiler for 2 hours at about 9pm - with hindsight, this was probably unecessary.

Friday, mid evening (outside temp during day < 4 deg C)
- top of tank: 53 deg C
- bottom of tank: 50 deg C

Saturday morning around 8am
- top of tank: 50 deg C
- bottom of tank: 46 deg C

After my shower
- top of tank: 49 deg C
- bottom of tank: 42 deg C

At 1 pm (outside temp 2 deg C) - first time either of us have been in during the day
- top of tank: 53 deg C
- bottom of tank: 50 deg C
- solar panels: 50-60 deg depending on cloud cover

In short, we're almost self-sufficient in hot water already, and it's only March.