Life in United Kingdom

  The 15 Global Challenges  from t he Millennium Project, a global participatory think tank. 1. How can sustainable development be achieved for all while addressing global climate change? 2. How can everyone have sufficient clean water without conflict? 3. How can population growth and resources be brought into balance? 4. How can genuine democracy emerge from authoritarian regimes? 5. How can decisionmaking be enhanced by integrating improved global foresight during unprecedented accelerating change? 6. How can the global convergence of information and communications technologies work for everyone? 7. How can ethical market economies be encouraged to help reduce the gap between rich and poor? 8. How can the threat of new and reemerging diseases and immune micro-organisms be reduced? 9. How can education make humanity more intelligent, knowledgeable, and wise enough to address its global challenges? 10. How can shared values and new security strategies reduce ethnic conflicts,...

 

The UK Government is divided up into departments. There are 23 ministerial departments. 1. Her Majesty's Treasury (HMT) 2. Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office 3. Home Office (HO) 4. Cabinet Office (CO) 5. Ministry of Justice (MoJ) 6. Ministry of Defence (MoD) 7. Department for Education (DfE) 8. Department of Health & Social Care 9. Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport 10. Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy 11. Department for International Trade (DIT) 12. Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) 13. Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) 14. Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities 15. Department for Transport (DfT) 16. Northern Ireland Office (NIO) 17. Office of the Secretary of State for Scotland  18. Office of the Secretary of State for Wales 19. Office of the Leader of the House of Lords 20. Office of the Leader of the House of Commons 21. Attorney G...

The  PROjected Completion and Employment from Entrant Data (PROCEED) is a measure that does what it says on the tin. It is an  OfS’ new metric aiming to help students make sense of career prospects of their choices on university and subject for higher education.

In England and Wales there are three government-approved tenancy deposit schemes (Scotland and Northern Ireland have different schemes). They are Deposit Protection Service (DPS) MyDeposits  Tenancy Deposit Scheme (TDS) Insured vs. custodial scheme Insured scheme: the landlord/agent can hold the tenancy deposits during the term of the tenancy. They need to pay a fee to the deposit scheme to register the deposit. At the end of tenancy, if the tenant raises a dispute, they must transfer the disputed amount to the deposit scheme until the matter is resolved by a free dispute resolution service provided by the scheme or a court.  Custodial scheme: the scheme holds the deposit for the duration of the tenancy. Custodial Schemes is free of charge for the landlord/agent. At the end of tenancy, both parties agree before the deposit can be released to the tenant/landlord. If there is a dispute, the release of deposit will be based on the decision of the free dispute resolution service p...

The most annoying advertisement that I have ever seen is a video ad of the game Dead by daylight . I was playing a game on my mobile, and came across this ad. The audio and visual nearly gave me a heart attack. I'm not a fan of horror genre. This unexpected ad, especially the audio, is so annoying that I turn off the audio completely on my phone to avoid any future nasty surprises like this.

Common beans and lentils in Europe and America navy beans (Europe), used in baked bean tins   red kidney beans (common in America and Europe)   chickpeas (Middle East, Mediterranean and India)   black beans (South and Central America)   butter beans, aka Lima beans (originate from south America and USA, now common in the UK)   lentils (originate from Middle East, now common in the UK)   cannellini beans, aka white kidney beans (originate from south America)   chili beans, aka pink beans (originate from South America)   pinto beans (common in Mexican and Southwest of the USA)   Common beans in Asia soybeans (common in Asia), called edamame when they are immature   soybeans  黄豆 ...

In most places the sun is most intense between 10am and 2pm and the warmest time of a day is between 3 and 4pm. If you are in a country which is lack of sunlight, the best time for a walk in winter is 2pm when there is still intense sunlight and outdoor temperature starts to rise to the highest point in the day. In summer, the best time for a walk is probably either between 9 and 10am or after 6pm. The reasons are to avoid high UVB radiation between 10am and 2pm to avoid hot temperature between 3 and 4pm to avoid heavy road traffic between 8-9am and 5-6pm Enjoy the outdoors!

gluttonous  / ˈɡlʌt(ə)nəs /  adj.  excessively greedy glutton n . a  person  who eats and drinks excessively or voraciously. a  person  with a remarkably great desire or capacity for something: a  glutton  for work; a  glutton  for punishment In Chinese culture, glutton is usually represented by Tao tie (饕餮), an ancient Chinese mythological creature that was commonly emblazoned on bronze artifacts during the 1st millennium BC and was a greed and gluttony monster in a few video games.  In English speaking culture, glutton is sometimes represented by the Cheshire cat or Lucifer. Both of them are fat, have a rather large grin and sharp claws. Lucifer is a spoiled, sour and gluttonous cat in Disney's animation. The Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland is more neutral. Their images have been commonly used in many games to represent gluttons. For example, in Animal Restaurant , the Cheshire cat is used as a mail box and a tra...

Constituencies (a.k.a. parliamentary constituencies): each electing one Member of Parliament (MP) every 5 years to the House of Commons (Parliament). There are 650 constituencies in the UK. Wards (a.k.a. electoral divisions or electoral wards) is the primary unit of English electoral geography for borough and district councils, county councils or city councils. Each ward elects either one or two councillors to be members of the local council. There were 9,456 electoral wards/divisions in the UK and each ward has an average electorate of about 5,500 people, but ward population can vary substantially. Local council is made up of a number of Councillors (Cllr) who meet regularly to make decisions about the direction of the council and the work it does for the community. As elected bodies local councils are responsible to their local community. Attending a council meeting is the best way to find out what they do and how they make decisions. Members of publi...

UK University league tables are unreliable as they are often closely bunched together at the top, middle and bottom. Don't read too much into universities placed 10 to 20 places apart – a university in 50th place is usually separated by the one in 60th by only a few percentage points. This is also why some universities ranking fluctuate from year to year – small differences in score can mean big differences in placing. For example, a small drop in the National Student Survey (NSS) may cost a university 20 places in league tables. It makes more sense to cluster universities based on similar criteria. According to DOI: 10.1080/03054985.2015.1082905 , there are 4 distinctive clusters of universities in the UK. A stark division is evident between the old pre-1992 universities and the post-1992 universities, with large differences evident in terms of research activity, economic resources, academic selectivity, and social mix. The difference between old and new universities with respect ...

Working from home is becoming the new norm during Covid-19 lockdown. Companies and education providers are using various platforms for video conferencing and teaching online. Microsoft Teams and Zoom are the most popular platforms in companies, Higher Education (HE) and Further Education (FE) sectors. I compared features of the best video conferencing and online class platforms and rank them below. - Zoom is more stable than Teams. Zoom allows the host to control many aspects from password protecting the room to admitting people in individually. Zoom is normally paid but has a limited free version. The limitation of the free version is that max meeting length is 40 minutes, though after that you can immediately restart the meeting. With careful setup Zoom could be used for remote music instruction. The video https://youtu.be/bFRHMy2GLMs shows how to set up Zoom to get the best out of online music lessons. Zoom has a few things that Teams doesn't support, e.g. annotation...

Finnish universities are the most effective in the world when taking into account national income levels, according to a ranking of higher education systems. Top 10 countries, adjusted for economic development, are Finland South Africa United Kingdom Denmark Canada Sweden Australia New Zealand Switzerland Netherlands The rankings are judged against metrics related to resources , environment , connectivity and output , based on 24 separate variables, including the number and impact of research articles produced, university enrolment and graduate unemployment, a qualitative assessment of a country’s policy environment, and spending on tertiary education as a proportion of gross domestic product. The development-adjusted ranking is measured by adjusting GDP in purchasing-power parity terms to compensate for different prices across countries. It shows that there is a strong relationship between levels of research funding and performance but the mix between public and...

Universities in the UK commonly form alliances or groups when they share common goals, visions or characteristics. University Groups can be a useful place to start when you are looking for a list of similar institutions. The Russell Group leads the league tables in terms of almost every traditional subject (classics, maths, English etc.) and tend to ask for the highest entry requirements. The University Alliance and Million+ groups contain new (post 1992) universities and provide some specialist or modern courses that you won’t find at the more traditional institutions. These newer universities tend to be more flexible in terms of the qualifications that they accept. The GuildHE Group represents specialist institutions that focus on particular courses. Finally, the Cathedrals Group share faith-based values.  The Russell Group is a group of 24 universities with a shared focus on research and a reputation for academic achievement and includes many of the UK’s oldest and most pr...

Modes of travel are ordered below from the most active, energy efficient and environment friendly to the least. 1. Walk 2. Cycle, including scooters and hoover boards 3. Buses 4. Streetcars 5. Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is faster than buses and streetcars due to their dedicated rights of way. 6. Light rail, e.g. metro, underground, tram 7. Heavy rail for longer distance, intercity transit 8. Private cars 9. Air travel.  For trips of about 300 miles, air travel begins  to be more effective than rail, a nd 500 miles is about the limit  before air travel becomes the preferred way of traveling.

HEPI  is short for the Higher Education Policy Institute. It is a UK-wide, independent organisation funded by universities. Its news and reports are in-depth and data-driven. If you have times to digest articles and reports properly, HEPI is a good source of info. You can follow it on Twitter  @HEPI_news Media FHE  provides news in the UK HE and FE sector. Its HEi-know daily and weekly newsletters are very useful one-stop-shop for briefing reports, news and events.  You need to be a registered HEi-know user to access briefing reports, stories and other information and services. The daily update newsletters are sent on e very weekday morning at 8am. You can request a 30-day free trial.  After that, the Newsletter is available on an institution-wide basis. Many articles are still available without a subscription. You can follow it on Twitter  @mediafhe Wonkhe  UK HE policies and debate. Subscription to the WonkHE daily is free, but the conte...

The Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown measures put in place in most countries provide a great opportunity to online studies. Below is a list of online course providers, many of them are offering learning content for free during Covid-19. Normally, verified certificates (after you complete a course) require a fee but some teaching materials are free. I rank them based on number of free courses they offer, the range of subject areas, and their reputation. 1. edX (US) is the best free online course provider and the second largest MOOC provider in the world. It doesn’t have as many courses available as Coursera, but all edX courses can be audited for free because edX is a non-profit organisation. It focuses on natural sciences and humanities. Popular subject areas are languages and computer science. 2. Coursera (US) is the largest MOOC provider in the world. Coursera offers over 1,000 free courses across 11 subject areas on beginner, intermediate, mixed and advanced levels. The reaso...