TSO [S. Worthen

Once upon a time in my life, TSO stood for the "Toronto Symphony Orchestra". Today, it stands for "The Stationary Office", apparently. The English alphabet needs more letters; or perhaps English should just make more effecient use of its less-well-used letters to avoid so many duplicate acronyms.

I have barely flipped through a few pages of the Life in the UK book, and already I am indignant. Part of its required knowledge is an NHS phone number which has two digits too few to be valid as a current UK phone number. *sigh* The booklet is right. I have now fact-checked. But I am now indignant that NHS is messing with the telephone system by having a phone number which does not map onto a standard length. Also, I had thought I would briefly skim the book; now I am deeply certain that I shall sink into a morass of fact-checking because of things like this which seem too improbable to be true. And I already know some of it won't quite be true thanks to ambient media coverage.

It is never possible to proofread too much.

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Jeez, what? That's ridiculous.

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I now wish the real exam were to be able to provide the government with a certain quantity of corrigenda to the booklet rather than be tested on its content.

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If only!

I should not have doubted. It is the wrong number of digits, but now that I've fact-checked the booklet is, actually, correct.

> two digits too few

why do you say that? We do have 999, you know. There is no reason why we cant have short phone numbers in particular forms.

But, yes, it really is a stupid book which does not serve its purpose,

Four digits are also an acceptable format for texting things to or for dial-around prefixes.

OMG, do we have to memorize the phone numbers? I am SO fucked.

No, no! I am certain you do not have to memorize phone numbers! It is a multiple choice exam which is designed so that at least 90% of people taking it will pass! It will not be that challenging or obscure.

But in theory - certainly not practice - we are responsible for the entire content of the booklet. And thus for its mistakes.

I have never needed to know those things, and if I did I could easily look them up. If it were up to me, the citizenship test would consist of practical examinations in rather more important aspects of Britishness, such as Queueing, Making A Nice Cup Of Tea, Grumbling About The Weather, and Going Down The Pub.

I will never be eligible for Britishness because I do not Drink Tea (although I can, at least, make it).

I almost never drink tea and when I do, it's usually fruit or herbal tea.

My Britishness is entirely fake.

Not drinking tea is allowed. But a British person may well, at some point, need to make tea even if they do not drink it. It is important to ensure that new citizens will not panic in this situation.

It has occasionally been a point of crisis in my household to realize that a builder is coming to Do Something and we have no milk in the house.

I am quite good at discussing the weather.

Well, if you haven't heard me rant about some of the history stuff, you're in for a treat. I was rather surprised to learn that the Irish were immigrants in the mid 19th century, you know, what with having MPs in Westminster and all. I also wonder what nationality all four of my grandparents were in these peoples' eyes: all four were bom UK citizens, three of them in what is now the Republic of Ireland.

This sounds faintly familiar, but I think I shall be all too happy to have sections of this booklet pre-critiqued for me, so I don't have to worry about doing it myself.

Doubt is so time-consuming!

Oh God yes, the history prelude is priceless. I have declamed part of it to Irish people and people from the Indian subcontinent, and the only reason the Irish didn't go all white and serious and trembling with ire is because they were Nicholas Whyte, who's seen worse.

On the bright - and hilarious side - I note that on the Life in the UK website (which I was just browsing), it advises, "You should study chapters 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 of the second edition 'Life in the United Kingdom' handbook very carefully."

I find it really funny (although, sobering on further thought) that this means you don't have to concentrate on knowing your legal rights/obligations, as those are covered in Ch. 7. (Of course it also means that they're not going to concentrate on history on the exam; just as well, given how contentious that section is.)

Not that, as a general rule, I want history left out of the curriculum more than it already is!

I think I remember reading somewhere that the history is not supposed to be something you're tested on, it's there just for your information (let's call it that).

If nothing else, it is a goldmine of trivia. Though I've managed to forget most of what I had to learn.

But is it all entirely true? *Does* every town or city in the UK have at least one public library? Is there some town out there which has none? Or had one when the booklet came out, but has had it closed due to funding cuts?

(I really thought I would just spend a quick evening browsing this booklet. It's very inconvenient to find myself doubting all of its nuances now. I do hope I get some good trivia out of it!)

http://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk/news/fullstory.php/aid/8126/Rallying_call_against_library_closure_threat.html
"A FORMER Wick librarian has helped launch a campaign to save the town's library from a threat of closure."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7189020/Libraries-could-shut-in-wave-of-spending-cuts-under-Government-plans.html
"The Government believes that the spread of the internet and other social changes may mean that councils should be free to close libraries.

Under 50-year-old laws, local councils currently have a legal obligation to provide comprehensive library services.

Ministers are currently reviewing this law and if it is scrapped, hundreds of libraries could be forced to close."

http://www.lochaber-news.co.uk/news/fullstory.php/aid/5047/Anger_at_Caol_library_closure_threat.html
"THE book may be about to close on Caol library as part of a major Highland Council savings drive, it has emerged.

Following a Freedom of Information (FoI) request, it has been revealed that the public library in Scotland's biggest village, along with five others in the Highlands, is at the top of the list for possible closure in a move that could save the council £93,686."

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I'm still looking although I just noticed that it says "have" a public library. Not "have an open, functioning public library".

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Limehouse no longer had a library when I lived there, it occurs to me. Surely that counts as a town? It had a town hall.

Edited Date: 2010-06-18 08:07 pm (UTC)

Of course when TSO was HMSO everyone knew what it was. But then they did the usual pseudo-privatisation rebrand on it...

Now I want an orchestral arrangement of this booklet.

With or without the vuvuzela?

And just to compound the confusion, what used to be the HMSO website is now the OPSI website. (*!$£%!* New Labour, rebranding everything....)

"It is never possible to proofread too much."
But perhaps it is possible to be too critical after doing so? I often wonder if I should have been a proof reader, as I am pedantic enough, and always seem to notice every error by others. (But, sadly, never my own). :)

The comment made more sense in light of my initial misunderstanding of the text (now crossed-out). But since the sentiment wasn't untrue, I left it in.

I know I'm being hyper-critical of this particular text; but now that I'm attuned, it's hard to stop.

Edited Date: 2010-06-18 09:37 pm (UTC)

Browsing through the sample test questions, it's a very pedantic exam. (For example, it would be possible to get the population question wrong if you only knew the current population of the UK, when what it's testing you on is your knowledge of the population of the UK in 2001.)

Surely an example of something that could not be done well but nevertheless needed to be done?

Once again, your posts and comments have left me thoroughly entertained and contemplative. :) Good to see the citizenship test is as confusing as the semantics and syntax of the driver's test I took in Florida in 2005. And by good, I mean sad...

S. Worthen | Weblog

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October