I work in IT. In Dorset. This is quite appropriate!!

I have recently started teaching. Teaching ICT (that’s information and communication technology, in case you are not up on the latest academic acronyms) to 13 and 14 year olds.

Now, I have been teaching ICT to teaching staff since September. Teaching teachers is an interesting experience. They are all there because they are genuinely interested in what I have to tell them, and they have all requested this training, so they want to be there. This is a good start, and a huge advantage over teaching school pupils. However, teachers are notoriously bad pupils. They will sit there and giggle, chat, pass notes, poke each other, distract each other and generally do whatever they can to disrupt the lesson. I’m not sure that they do this on purpose, or whether it is simply an in-built response, a result of the conditioning they receive from spending their hours and days in classrooms surrounded by students who do exactly the same things.

I will give you an example of this that I was told about by one of the teaching staff. The school I work at is a boarding school, and during the summer months, they tend to hold a lot of barbecues, in order to keep the kids from being bored and causing havoc. Now, the powers that be in the school decided, in the spirit of health and safety madness, that all the staff who cook these barbecues needed to attend a barbecue safety lecture. I kid you not. So, the first session arrived, the teachers attended and havoc ensued. To start off with the instructor mentioned the word ‘baps’. Always funny, and even more so apparently if you are a teacher. When they then got onto the subject of using a temperature probe, I gather it all went downhill quite rapidly. Probes and baps – it is like a teacher’s idea of innuendo bingo heaven.

So, with this in mind, you will see what I am up against when I am delivering teaching sessions to the staff at work. They chat, they don’t listen, I then have to repeat myself and they claim that they didn’t hear, when I know darn well that they were really checking their emails, and not paying attention!

So, when faced with a classroom on 13 – 14 year olds, I actually don’t feel too bad. They do all the things that the teaching staff do. They chat, they giggle, they don’t pay attention, they check their emails when they should be working. However, the good thing with them is that I can tell them off, send them to the head of department for punishment, or put them into detention. Oh, the power. Generally, this doesn’t tend to work too well with the teaching staff though…

Well, then Fire Protection Online has the stuff for you…go to the Fire Warden page on our website, and check out the goodies.

And to whet your appetite, have a look at my amazing tag cloud which I created today – am so proud of myself!!

Now for those of you who read my bloggage last month about fire blankets, you should already know a bit about them. For those of you that didn’t read it, the basic function of a fire blanket is to starve a fire of oxygen. Without oxygen, the fire cannot burn, and therefore it goes out – hurrah! Job done.

So, carrying on from this, I was having a little roam around the world wide web, and came across a website which outlines the plans of a man with a patent. The patent is for a fire blanket for your home. Not one that you use in your home, one that actually protects your whole house. Quite nifty…

The reason for him coming up with his idea was forest fires. Now, fortunately in our lovely little country, forest fires are not a huge problem. However, in places like America and Australia, forest fires are a problem. A big problem. These fires are huge, all-consuming, and very, very difficult to extinguish, or even control. They cause extensive damage to the surrounding forest and properties, and take their toll on human lives too.

When homes are built close to forests, they are very vulnerable to forest fires. These fires do not discriminate between forest and home, and will engulf anything in their paths. So, the idea is that when a fire begins, the neighbourhood at risk will be alerted. The occupants of the vulnerable homes will have already had a specialised Fire Blanket device installed on the roof of their property, and by pressing a few buttons, the blanket will be deployed, enveloping the house in a protective layer of fire-proof material. The flames and heat cannot penetrate this layer, and so the fire won’t damage the house.

The proposed Fire Blanket would be installed on the roof of the house, at the peak of the roof. When deployed it would descend in two directions towards the gutters, and descend over the roof all the way to the ground. On the other two sides of the house, Fire Blanket cylinders could be installed under the roof overhang, and when deployed, they would descend to the ground.

Fires cannot burn without fuel, and the fire-proof material of the Fire Blanket would not be fuel, and therefore would not feed the fire. Essentially, the blanket is a barrier between the fuel (the house) and the fire.

Now, I think this idea has real merit. The logistics of it may require some sorting out, but basically it sounds like a really good idea, and possibly one that could save millions of pounds of damage, and, more importantly, lots of lives. So, good on this man – I wish him luck!

Further to my blog post on 17^th February, I have done it. I have summoned up all my self-confidence, put on my best brave face, and ignored the butterflies which were having a party in my stomach, and I have entered the doors of a gym. Oh yes.

Now, I work in a school. And the school has a gym. Not the musty-smelling sort of place that I had at school, where the most active inhabitants were the mice that snacked on the gym mats. No. I am talking about a proper fitness room, full of shiny new bleeping instruments of torture (or ‘workout machines’ as they are also, less accurately, called). One of those places where disgustingly fit people go to show off their gorgeously honed bodies, to other equally aesthetically pleasing specimens. Yes. One of those.

Now, I am not in any way fit. Or aerodynamic. Or honed. No. But my intentions are good, and with a bit of help and encouragement from my colleague, Simon, I trudged my way up to the gym last Monday to ‘have a look around’. Now, the guys in the Sports Centre must have been extremely bored, as it was half term, as the minute we entered the building, they perked up and leapt upon me to give me a guided tour. I was helplessly propelled around the centre, and I must admit, it was quite nice. The final bit of the tour was the fitness room, and Levi, my lovely tour guide, put me on the spot by offering to give me an induction right there and then. Si, sniggering in the background, said he thought it was a good idea and then scarpered, leaving me to face the torture machines.

Now to be fair, Levi explained everything really well, and was very encouraging. He booked me in for 8am the next morning for my first session, and it was with some trepidation that I turned up the following day ready to face the torture.

Well, torture may be overstating it, but it was jolly hard work. Never has one woman been so red, sweaty or out of breath. Thank goodness there was only one person there to see it. Although, it was probably one person too much! Still, I got through it, and he has written out a programme for me to follow. And I have been following it. I went twice that first week, and have been twice again this week. My motivation came when Levi suggested that I reward myself with a new pair of shoes when I had been six times. I can see them in my now – they are high heeled, pink and fabulous. Worth the effort? Perhaps. Or perhaps not. Time will tell…wish me fitness!!

Are you into fashion? Do you know your Galliano from your Gabbana? Do Gucci, Prada, and Armani sound like fashion designers or Italian waiters? Well, whether you are into it or not, fashion has a big impact on all our lives, even if you don’t realise it. From the clothes that you wear to the colour of the walls in your house, someone, somewhere has decided that those colours and those designs are the ones that you will wear. And – hey presto! – there you are wearing them.

Now, for the most part, the world of high fashion is one apart from ours. London Fashion Week has just taken place in, yes you’ve guessed it, our very own London town. The rich and beautifully coiffeured and styled ones have descended upon our nation’s capital, and have made it gorgeous.

One of these rich and beautiful people is Natalia Vodianova. This Russian model, actress and philanthropist (who, incidentally is a mere 6 days younger than me) is the founder and president of the Naked Heart Foundation. This Foundation is a philanthropic organisation that strives to provide a safe and inspiring environment for children to play in, for every child living in urban Russia. She was inspired to found this charity after she visited her country of birth with her eldest son, Lucas, and found that there were no suitable places for children to play. The organisation built its first play park in 2006, and has now gone on to build 38 more.

During London Fashion Week, Ms Vodianova hosted a ball, to raise funds for her charity. Roughly one thousand guests turned up at this glittering event, at the Camden Roundhouse. About half an hour into the event, the venue began to fill with smoke, and the alarm was raised. The guests, which included Kate Moss, Stella McCartney, Liz Hurley and Mario Testino were evacuated. Oh yes, even for the stellar rich, fire safety comes first. Forced to wait outside in the cold, a Blitz-style spirit broke out, with guests sharing their jackets and drinks in order to fight off the worst of the English February weather. So, for all that appearances may suggest that the fashion elite are an intimidating, cliquey, uber-race, it turns out that in sub-zero temperatures they are just like us – cold, bored and just waiting to get back inside to re-join the fun.

Fortunately, the fire alarm and chilly weather didn’t dampen the guests’ charitable urges – the event raised over $1 million for Natalia’s Naked Heart Foundation, ensuring that more playgrounds will be constructed across Russia and benefitting the youngest people in that society.

Now, although Fire Protection Online is a UK-based company, we are not going to stop there – oh no.As part of our attempt at world domination (one fire and safety need at a time!) our big giant boss man is flying out to the lovely San Francisco for a  two day seminar on e-commerce. Or at least, this is what he is telling us, whether it is just an excuse for a cheeky holiday, we don’t know. But we shall do out best to trust him, and see how much of a suntan he returns with!

His dedication to the job means that he will be flying out on a Wednesday, enduring an 11 hour flight, attending the seminars on Thursday and Friday, and then flying back to the UK on the Saturday – no time off for good behaviour! How’s that for commitment and devotion!

As jealous as we all are it is important to try and get better at your game. We know that we have the best products and great customer service. So, we need to make sure that all this succeeds and the best way to do it is to be good at SEO – a shiny acronym, designed to make me sound clever when I reveal that it stands for Search Engine Optimisation – in other words, ranking well in Google!

The best people in this sort of area are our neighbours from across the pond – so while we wave farewell to the boss man and admire his dedication – we hope he comes back bursting to the seams with great new ideas and tips to ensure we remain as the UKs largest online supplier!

Now, you can’t really have failed to notice that the Winter Olympics are currently taking place in Vancouver. Yes, the television is awash with downhill skiing, cross country skiing, slalom, figure skating, speed skating, curling, wheelchair curling, ice hockey, bobsleigh, luge and even skeleton (yes, that is actually an Olympic sport, and not just the bone structure that holds your body together!)

Now all of these sports are very impressive, but have you given any thought to the preparation that goes into the surfaces that they skate on? And also, the involvement of the humble fire extinguisher? No. I thought not…

Well, @NicolaJCook – who is one of our eagle-eyed followers on Twitter – directed us to look into the whole thing. So, as instructed, we have done, and I am now passing on my new-found knowledge to you!

Take figure skating for example. The ice that they skate on is relatively thick – between 4.5 and 5cm, and fairly soft. The temperature is about -3^oC, and as the ice is fairly soft, it helps the skaters to be able to dig in to it for jumps and spins. Now usually the same ice rink will be used for figure skating as for an event such as short track skating. The ice, however, needs to be completely different. So, after a figure skating event, the ice has to be shaved down and then built up again afterwards using an ice resurfacer.

During maintenance the ice resurfacing machine floods the ice with hot water, and shaves the surface of the ice with a blade that is over two metres long. For figure skating, ice patchers have to skate onto the rink and fill in holes on the ice before it is resurfaced.

And to the extinguisher part of things. Well, if emergency repairs need to be made, they use water and a fire extinguisher! Water and slush or snow is packed into any large ruts or grooves in the ice, it gets smoothed over with a trowel, and then it is sprayed using the pressurised carbon dioxide fire extinguisher canister to instantly freeze the repaired ice. Clever, right?

Now, ice repairs are not the usual use for a carbon dioxide fire extinguisher. In the usual run of things, you would use one of these little bad boys to put out fires that involve electrical equipment, and can also be used on flammable liquid fires. But, it is good to see that these life-saving pieces of equipment can also be used to win gold medals! From humble beginnings…

For anyone who has ever owned a cat, take a peek at this website http://www.simonscat.com/ – it is genius!