Foreign Perspectives

Most people are still in search of their ideal holiday spot I’m sure. But what is “ideal” anyway?

Obviously it should take into account your interests and those of the group which you’re travelling with. But is it enough to consider each of those individually? What if there was a single spot that took account of all possible interests?

Argueably, orlando vacations would be very close to allowing for all possible interests. Granted, not quite in a single spot but in a fairly compact region you can take in theme parks, beaches, wildlife, museums and just about everything else that you can imagine.

Does that make it “ideal” though? Not for everyone certainly but it is very close to ideal for an awful lot of people.

You probably associate binoculars almost exclusively with birdwatching and indeed there are loads of people running around with “bird watching binoculars”.

What you probably don’t consider is that binoculars are ideal for a whole lot of different types of astronomy too. In fact, if you’re starting out with night sky observing, chances are that you’d be better off getting a decent pair of binoculars than a telescope. Every year, without fail, I get a little e-mail from the chief publicist in our astronomy club pointing out some massive saving to be had on Meade binoculars (that pair at the left is what I bought).

With the long nights, this is pretty much the ideal time to make your purchase, buy a nice warm coat and enjoy the night sky.

It’s hard to believe that Hogmanay is just around the corner. Obviously for such a popular event much of the accommodation has already been booked months ago but there’s still a chance of finding somewhere decent if you don’t hang about.

What’s it like then though? Think of Mardi Gras only in a colder climate and you might get some idea of the sheet quantity of activities that are going on throughout the city at that time. Street theatre is thick on the ground as are shows in venues all over the city. Although there are lots of venues, it’s also worthwhile booking somewhere for the New Years Eve party well in advance as just about everywhere is pretty much overflowing with people.

The celebrations run over four days so you’ll need to pace yourself to take it all in!

First off though, don’t hang around if you’re thinking of going as all the Edinburgh hotels book out very, very quickly.

Although they can be annoying, it does seem to be a good sign that the people trying to sell you credit cards are back in the shopping centres again and those annoying teatime calls trying to do the same have restarted too.

I imagine that there are all kinds of grand things that the economists are saying these days about when we should be starting to get out of this recession but I think the banks trying to push more credit onto us must be amongst the clearest and most easily understood sign of them all. Not only does that show that the banks have money to lend once more but it also shows that they’re at least prepared to consider lending it too. You might think I said the same thing twice in the last sentence but I didn’t. They always did have money to lend, what they wouldn’t do was actually lend it.

Moreover, this isn’t like them lending via mortgages (which also seems to have restarted, going by the number of “sold” signs going up lately). With a mortgage they have some security (ie they can take the house off you). With a credit card, they are taking a real risk that they could lose the money so overall it’s more encouraging to see people trying to sell you credit cards than it is to see more mortgages being approved.

Now, I’ll grant you that they are probably going to offer you a lower limit than you might have expected in the past, if they offer you a card at all that is. However, that they are trying to actively sell credit cards now seems a very clear sign that an upturn is on the way.

In normal universities you expect to meet loads of other students but the perception is that it’s a different matter in the OU.

However, if you’re following one of the recognised paths to a specific qualification you’ll often find that you’re with the same group of students for a fair number of years. For example, I was with pretty much the same group for the three years of my Diploma in French.

Where you can find yourself more on your own is if you’re not going along the normal sequence of courses to a qualification. For example, in my case I did the second course of the psychology degree first so my next course for it will be the first course in the sequence and therefore it’ll be a new group of people that I’ll meet.

Having said that, even in odd sequences it seems to be quite common to run across the same people through online forums though that never seems to be quite the same as meeting them in person. If you do want to go through your degree with a group of people that you’ve met in person it’s definitely better to go through the courses in your degree in the normal sequence.