The Daily Mail has a story about penpals that met when one sent a message in a bottle. Not only is that a good way to communicate via desert islands ( whether you or your supervisor or both are on a desert island), it is a new tune to sing ( well, not NEW), yanno, the Police One.. '...message in a bottle, message in a bottle...'

that would be Pink Panther, not Pink Panter ( making him sound like a sort of deranged character...)

work avoidance is a great thing! Now I am off to read the Daily Mail!

Oh yes, Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants, I know those! But Gilligan's Island as an UNKNOWN??!!! How could that be??!!! ( this is tongue in cheek for those who might get offended!) Its a classic!

Still, kids shows today are rubbish compared to what there used to be. Today the cartoon drawings are crude, as if drawn by cavemen. Nothing was better than Bugs Bunny, the Roadrunner, oh, and the Pink Panter, and Scooby Doo, before they added Scrappy Doo and all kinds of nonsens.

Or alternatively, I wonder about going to LIVE on a desert island with millionaires, could pack in the PhD, and just pack up some evening gowns ala Ginger, and life would be swell!

Just start singing, "Skipper...! and Gilligan too! The Millionaire and his wife! The movie star, the Professor and Mary Ann, here on Gillligaaannnnn's Isle!" or however it goes...!

So, Smilodon, you feel like you are on a desert island surrounded by Gilligan, the Skipper, the Professor, Maryann, Ginger, and the Howells? which one are you? Perhaps your supervisor is there, in the guise of the Professor? Are all PhD students Gilligan?

I read where even one of the NASA astronauts is very certain that there are aliens! I too am a fan of the Daily Mail, its a great read whilst you do your PhD work!

Well, come to think of it there was an academic on Gilligan's Island! The Professor! He was always trying to make inventions so that they could get off the island. So perhaps the incommunicado supervisors are clustered under a palm tree on a remote island in the South Pacific, trying to get an invention together to get off the island and return to their universities, and they are so preoccupied with this that even when ships come by they forget sometime to send messages back.

You start to get the impression that PhD supervisors all are on a long ( years and years) holiday to a remote place, that has no electricity, no internet, no phones--they only get messages out once in a great while when they can prevail upon the kindness of some passing ship, that randomly and perhaps mistakenly passes their island--sort of a Gilligan's Island of academics.

What giraffes? Where?

LOL@ Smilodon's husband looking out the window and thinking that is how the weather will be all day! I do that too!!!!! and I am always startled when its different!

Its just sooo hard to complain about the weather though, its a culture thing, I am ingrained with the have a nice day mentality, where I think that I must say inane cheerful things, and this includes about the weather, so when someone in the UK complains and apologises to me about the weather, I feel compelled to assure them its great weather.

Rubbish weather, why this is not rubbish weather, its lovely! What a nice rain shower! And I just ADORE getting soaked to the skin without an umbrella or jacket--because you know the sun was shining this morning when I looked out the window, I thought it would be sunny all day!

When people ask me what the weather is like in the UK, I say its always 50F ( because I have not mastered C temperatures yet) and raining, that it never changes.

Even if August is the hottest month in the UK, its bound to be a rubbish month, hot and humid, and it will be miserable. And oh, it can be worse if it rains ( testing out my friend making skills!) =)

how frustrating that must be!!!! Can you seek out someone from another university that you might know of, through conferences or even their publications, and see if they could provide pre-submission assistance?

I just googled the theoretical maths modelling stuff in Google Scholar and it came up with some different universities that have this...I don't know anything about this at all, but am wondering if you could ask that a well known person in a non UK university, like a Canadian or US university, who does yout theoretical maths modelling, review your work!? Why not? Put it in your thesis submission work plan. Approached strategically you might find someone flattered and willing to do this--the international dimension of anything really seems to appeal to people, and academics in the US might be thrilled to make some contact with a British university.

If you cannot get what you need in your own backyard, go fishing world wide!

Is there someone familiar with your area within your faculty or even in the university that is not on tap for being an internal that you could ask to have review your work?! Could you tell your supervisor that you want Professor Blogs, expert in whatever, to assist in the review of your thesis? Better yet, can you make an entire plan for thesis review before submission, and provide it to your supervisor with dates, action plans, who is responsible, follow up and report back to keep everyone accountable to the plan, etc, and ask him to commit to it?

laughing @ Smilodon!
I am very interested in the Daily Mail today! ( demotivation? work avoidance? what?)

Did you know that Polish immigrants were advised to complain to the British about the rain in order to make friends? This was put forth as a sort of social icebreaker/bonding sort of thing.

I wonder what British people think of this advise? Anyone on here think that this would work to make friends? What IS the social ritual and rule about talking about the weather?