The popularity of lip pencils and crayons is soaring, I suspect it’s because they’re just so easy to use. I’ve been trying out two new ones to see which I prefer. In the red corner we have MAC Patent Polish Lip Pencil and in the blue corner we have NARS Velvet Matte Lip Pencil. So let’s get ready to rumble while I put them through their paces…. Although the packaging of these two is quite similar the formulation and finish of the lip colours are very different – MAC Patent Polish is a light gloss and NARS Velvet Matte has a stark matte finish. So whether you prefer your lips sheer and glossy or pigmented and matte there should be something for everyone here. MAC Patent Polish Lip Pencil – this is the first lip pencil that I’ve tried from MAC (apart from lip liner) and I’m really impressed with it. As the name suggests the finish is a very shiny gloss that gives an almost patent shine, it has the feel of a lip gloss but it’s not sticky. The colour is called Spontaneous, MAC describe it as a ‘soft plum with pearl’. It’s definitely a plummy shade, although I can’t really detect any pearl in there. It looks quite dark as a crayon but as it’s very sheer it appears much more natural once it’s on the lips. It’s a great way to introduce darker lip colours to your make-up bag if you’re not used to them. MAC Patent Polish Lip Pencil is a bit like a fabulous giant tinted lip balm! The crayon itself is chunky and easy to hold, the nib is quite chunky and not great for precision application, but you could use a lip brush to apply it. I love to apply MAC Patent Polish straight from the crayon, it’s quick and easy, and as it’s very light and sheer it’s easy to wipe away any mistakes and re-apply. What does the narrator most likely think that MAC Patent Polish Lip Pencil should do with the plum color she bought? - Make it more pigmented and less shiny - Reformulate it to have more pearl in the color like it's advertised to have - Create a strictly plum color and a strictly pearl color - not enough information
Reformulate it to have more pearl in the color like it's advertised to have

(Question)
I end this small run of blog posts with the question posed by Professor Brian Boyd at the beginning of our evening: Do we want to close the achievement gap? We know we can close the gap. It’s been done or almost been done before in Scottish education, but the answers have been ignored as they pass us by. The simple clue is this: poverty is single biggest predictor of achievement, and according to research (Hammonds sic, reference required), aged 10, a child living in poverty is 60% less likely to get to university. Boyd borrowed from his own mother’s report card to ask us what kind of education we desire. Is it the academic success at all costs route, or is there another option we need to value as much, if not more? His mother’s report card, one that prevented her from becoming a secondary school pupil in Glasgow, is filled with G and FG, until the last point: Character and conduct - excellent. What kind of pupils do we want to develop in Scotland? What do we value in our assessment system? Opening up opportunity for all is a tough game to play when the examination system rewards only certain types of behaviour, few of them related to what the Curriculum for Excellence says we stand for. In his own small community in East Kilbride, three secondary schools enter a period of meltdown as the local rag sets about creating its own local league table of performance, with those three ‘teams’ in competition for the top spot (or at least not the bottom one). Therefore, we must stop basing “the gap” largely on attainment. First of all, Boyd would like us to remove the traditional, and non-sensical academic/vocational divide. Is the law or medicine degree we value not vocational? (Are all General Practitioners not Plumbers, as Dr Murray on the panel suggests?) Dr. Murray is probably a doctor in what field? - Social anthropology - Psychology - Social research - not enough information
(Answer)
not enough information

Question: My first memory of cooking was with my grandmother, Rosemary, in Sydney. She taught me how to make scrambled eggs on her electric stovetop, the kind with the coiled heating elements, in her small, linoleum-lined kitchen with cupboards that stuck a little when they closed. She was not an exceptional cook — I can remember plenty of bland and overcooked vegetables and custard made with powder to pour into pre-bought pie cases with tinned pineapple, her specialty — but she worked hard to put a balanced, home-cooked meal on the table three times a day, every day. The eldest of eight children, she dropped out of school during the Depression to help her single mother look after her siblings and work as a seamstress at David Jones. When the Second World War broke out and she was engaged to my grandfather, Aubrey, she started working on war-torn planes (“sometimes looking as if a steam roller has gone over them,” she said) as a sheet metal worker, putting them back together, when many of the men who used to do this work were off fighting the war. She said it was just like dressmaking, only using different materials. She had a twinkle in her eye and a distinct laugh that can really only be described as a cackle. She was a strong, incredibly smart woman with a fighter spirit who led her female co-workers out on the airport tarmac one day on a strike to earn equal wages to men. I am so proud that her story is taught as part of the Australian primary school curriculum. Her dream was to have a home with that electric stove. In 1943 when she was 28 she was interviewed for Australian Women’s Weekly magazine for an article on women in men’s jobs during the war, where there is a photo of her that is etched in my memory, dressed in white, wearing a white bandana tied in a knot at the top of her dark curls, a plane behind her. What was Grandmother, Rosemary's dream? - during the war to tell her story - before the war to have a great laugh - after the war to have a home with an electric stove - not enough information
Answer:
after the war to have a home with an electric stove