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Our school correspondent, has written in with the following comment on the Andronov Temperature scale. If you want to see the previous articles on the subject they are here: Let me take your temperature on this and Temperature rising.

A little learning is a dangerous thing or so it is said. So as a pedant I would first like to point out that temperatures are measured in degree fahrenheit, degree celsius and kelvin noting that the names are started with a lower case letter to avoid confusion with the surnames of the scientists. Also a redefinition of the triple point of water means that the boiling point of water is no longer 373.15 K!And so to a useful “scale” or rather a more practical conversion between celsius (the unit I use in my capacity as a teacher) and fahrenheit (my preferred unit in relation to the weather). I claim no originality for this rather state what I heard and then make a further observation. Instead of playing around with ±32 and 5/9 or 9/5 a reasonably accurate, and hence perfectly acceptable, formula is “take thirty from the fahrenheit temperature and divide the answer by two” as shown in the table below:

Perfectly adequate (±1° most of the time) for those of us who live in England. Our friends in hotter or cooler climates might consider whether a tweak to the constant “thirty” is worth it.

The other day, while walking down the street, I heard somebody say to their companion, “Sometimes I don’t want to spend an evening out with my colleagues. Sometimes, I’d rather be in my pyjamas.”

I was close enough to have said to him, “Why can’t you do both?”.

But I didn’t.

Two men walking on a bridge in Rome:

Man 1: The fortification here is quite immense. There are loads of cannons up there but you can’t see them because there is a statue in the way.

Man 2: Look at that statue over there.

Man 1: Yeah, that one’s a lady.