Life, the Universe and Everything

At the office we recently sent out a load of emails inviting people to a promotional event for a newish charity service. There was a brightly coloured PDF attached with a clickable link leading to an Eventbrite signup page. About 10% of the successful sign ups came via people emailing me to say they couldn't get the system to work and could I sort if out for them? I just went to Eventbrite and put in their details. The "audience" for this was people in Local Government, charities and businesses of all sizes. They could all receive and reply to email but for a significant proportion going one step further was a problem. I'm still not sure where the failure was. Were their systems set up wrong? Or was clicking on an invitation in the place where it said to click too much? This Internet thing really doesn't work for everyone.

It's quite easy to find information about the "Glass Ceiling" - the idea that high-paying jobs have very few women in them. Much less well known is the "Glass Cellar" - where men are disproportionately represented amongst prisoners, unemployed, dangerous jobs, low paid jobs and other undesirable situations. While I was looking for something else, I stumbled on some data about the "cellar" This shows GDP and earnings for men and women during the recent UK recession and that male earnings declined more and recovered less well than women's. A possible cause both of the ceiling and the cellar could be that men are on a riskier playing field than women. This still leaves open the question of why men are on the risky (and possibly rewarding) playing field. Does the way they act put them on the "risky" field - or does "society" push them there?

Photos taken near Elmstone Hardwick, Glos, UK Curious signs near the summit Towards Cleeve Hill Malverns

The Cheltenham Odeon was born in 1933. Originally, it was a one screen giant but in later years it was split into 7. This week, they are taking it down. There's a photo-history here . For pictures of this Art Deco masterpiece in life see here . Here's my pictures of the half demolished building. For the proposed, rather bland replacement, see here

I'm not sure if Dowdeswell Nature Reserve still exists. It's on the maps. and Geograph has a photo of a sign but the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust doesn't mention it and when I got to the site of the photo, I found the sign had been removed with a saw. The reservoir itself was still there. Its life has been undistinguished. Originally part of the waterworks for Cheltenham, it became redundant when the Mythe Water Treatment Works took over. The next job was to protect Cheltenham from flooding. It doesn't fulfil that mission particularly well because substantial tributaries off the Chelt join below the dam. The dry side of the dam The concrete overflow spillway is visited by local artists following a prolonged spell of dry weather Further down the spillway. The yellow sign promises deep water A curious tree by the old filter beds