FO.RM

That didn’t exactly go according to plan. The weekend away was scuppered the moment I had to collect and sign for a package on Saturday morning. Inside were the contracts to sign for Monday, a massive great company handbook to read, along with all manner of forms that had to filled out in advance, and a list of the documentation to take with me.

Ordinarily, this would be easy. In the flat are three four-drawer filing cabinets filled with just about everything relating to my life and work, from the birth certificate and exam certificates to hard copies of script drafts and magazine articles and the published issue. Along with contracts and correspondence from previous companies, and even schedules from all the commercials, there is one cabinet dedicated to various reference on all manner of subjects from before the availability of the internet.

The material requested should have been an absolute doddle to find, especially since there’s a word document on the computer that lists the contents of every drawer of each filing cabinet. The bottom drawer of the middle cabinet should have provided everything I need. Except there was one tiny drawback.

When I moved flat everything had to come out of the cabinets and be boxed up for the journey. Once I was settled here, it took long enough getting five bookcases worth of books and DVDs back on the shelves. With the three cabinets I just stuffed the files back in the drawers with less care and attention.

By yesterday afternoon I had managed to find my school reports and O-level exam question papers rather than the degree certificates. The problem there is, having not cast an eye over them for a long while, I started sifting through them:

Section C

Fig.2 shows a vertical cross section of a Dutch barn 6m wide. The vertical pillars AD and BC, each 5m high, support a roof whose cross section is the circular arc DPC, where P, the mid-point of the arc, is h m above CD. The point O is the centre of the circle of which the arc is a part. Find an expression for the radius OC of the arc in terms of h.

If h = 1m, calculate:

(i) the length of the radius

(ii) the size of the angle COD

(iii) the area of the whole section ABCPD

Section D

An aircraft starting at a point A sets a course due north. Its speed in still air would be 360 km/h, but there is a wind blowing at 50 km/h from a bearing of 280 deg. It flies at a constant height for 2 hours to a point B. Calculate the distance from A to B and the bearing of B from A. (Assume that the velocities of the wind and the aircraft remain constant).

Find an expression? Will WTF do?

Of course if the sodding postman had actually rung the doorbell on Friday when he came to deliver it, and got me to sign there and then rather than stick a card through the letterbox – which I didn’t discover until after the local sorting office was closed for the day – I could have got all this done before the weekend began and been away.

Do I have an expression for that? FORM!