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INKYTEXT 82 - VE Day Edition
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ISSUE No 82 ESTABLISHED 1993 8 May 1995
LANCASTER - LONDON - PARIS - VIENNA - NEW YORK - TORONTO - MELBOURNE - TOKYO
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V E DAY ANNIVERSARY - FREE SPEECH CELEBRATION EDITION
814 SUBSCRIBERS
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Please address all correspondence to InkyText@lancaster.ac.uk
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AGENDA
1. News: Sir Alastair Pilkington, Financial indicators, SW Campus
2. Overseas Mail: Summary
3. What is Lancaster University? A Guide for Council Members: Part I
4. Academic Planning Board Agenda (Wednesday)
5. Gastronomy: Kirkby Lonsdale Revisited
6. Readers' Letters: Archetypes, Mail, Eating out, Disabled, Heating
AMENDMENTS AND MATTERS ARISING
------------------------------
Igor Hajek: a further obituary note from Professor McClintock, former
Cartmel Senior Tutor, appeared in Monday's Independent.
A hint that Internal Audit may be looking into the value-for-money
side of the overseas mail contracts in response to your letters.
The Debenture funds were received on 5 April and the surplus is being
'managed by BZW as part of a broad portfolio of investments'.
Most members of *The Escape Committee* live in Lancaster. The band is
available for bookings and ideal for large-scale events.
1. NEWS
-------
DEATH OF SIR ALASTAIR PILKINGTON, FRS. Sir Alastair, this being his
own choice of forename, was a research scientist, engineer and former
chairman of Pilkington's plc (although, curiously, he was not related
to the Pilkingtons who own the company). He was our previous
Pro-Chancellor and personally donated 250K to our Development Fund as
his parting gift, ear-marking it to reward good teaching. Until his
death he was Chancellor of Liverpool University.
Sir Alastair, the inventor of float glass, was, like his predecessor
as Pro-Chancellor, W D Opher of Vickers, deservedly respected. Both
were totally familiar with university values, less 'hands on' than
their successor Sir Christopher but more closely involved than Lord
Derby had been. His invention transformed world glass-making.
When presiding some years ago at a national HE conference in the
Faraday he pointed out that the last thing Pilkington's wanted when
recruiting scientists were people who thought they knew how to make
float glass. Rather than seeking to teach them something which his
company could do better, he urged, departments should produce sound
general scientists who were whole people: sane, literate, wordly-wise,
able to collaborate and communicate in their own and other languages.
Well educated in fact.
Although his audience included the then Secretary of State for
Education, Kenneth Baker, the present VC and numerous senior academics
we have still largely failed to promote the cause of degrees less
narrowly based on departmental 'disciplines'.
Our sympathy goes to Lady Pilkington and their family. A memorial
service will be held in Liverpool at a date to be announced.
LIQUIDITY: The latest table of financial performance indicators (see
last Friday's THES, p3) places us at the VERY BOTTOM of the table for
the numbers of days spending (SIX) we have in hand (i.e. LAST). (Our
actual position was pointed out to you here at Christmas in the
accounts issue. For a fuller look at last year's accounts see INKYTEXT
48.)
In fact this is an improvement from the previous year's table, which
showed us as having a margin of TWO days' expenditure. At that time
however there were other places below us and these have now leapt
ahead. Our post-debenture position should by now have somewhat improved
the safety margin and we are surely no longer lurching along in
overdraft.
To some of us this looks like living dangerously. Our own Finance
Committee appears not to find such a factor terribly significant, but
if that is so one wonders why the HEFCE bothers collecting and
publishing such data - which its new Statement of Accounting Practice
specifically requires.
THE SANDWICH COMMITTEE (Catering review body) met earlier in the week.
They tactfully had refreshments provided by the (franchised) Dean's
Diner in Gillow House (Management School).
THE EMPTY LIFTSHAFT COMMITTEE (Tower Avenue Project Management Group)
met last week. Things are reportedly still on schedule, the shop
windows have been reinstated and the building should still have a roof.
CARTMEL COLLEGE departmental areas (Education, Sociology, Politcs, App
Soc Sci) have been extensively refurbished over Easter. Newly-painted
doors and corridors, carpets everywhere.
MEETING OF THE SW CAMPUS PROJECT GROUP (Emmerdale Farm) last Thursday.
Some absentees. Main item on the agenda was the question of whether it
should be dry (alcohol free) or not. The meeting was chaired by Pro V-C
Finch. She is one of the forces behind the Health Promoting University
drive and believes that excessive drinking accounts for much campus
absenteeism.
Not sure of the evidence for this surmise. If it's staff she has in
mind then the absenteeism must be a University House problem because at
this end there isn't much. If it's students we're concerned with she
may well be right, but for the really big binges they're all officially
bussed off campus to commercial late-night venues. And one wishes she
had objected more forcefully when Council agreed to let SPAR get an
off-sales licence without even consulting the Bars Committee.
LEADING LOCAL ELECTION ANALYST and InkyText consultant Dave Denver
(Politics) was the expert commentator on last week's late-night Granada
programme on the NW results. Looking particularly dapper and
well-groomed (has he had a perm?) he spoke with enormous confidence,
especially when contradicting government ministers. The boy's done good
- come a long way since those early radio broadcasts to the
chink-whoosh of beer-can ring-pulls.
CURRENT STUDENTS' UNION PRESIDENT Paul Mcgreal was elected SU General
Secretary for next year. It is thought by some that this may cramp the
freedom of manoeuvre of the new president Liz Matthews. Questions about
the constitutional wisdom of allowing individuals to hold office for
two consecutive years. Though he is very good.
2. OVERSEAS MAIL (See also Readers' Letters)
--------------------------------------------
Some years ago departments were instructed that they must use our
private mail service for all overseas mail. This gave rise to some
protests from those hostile to privatisation of the Post Office. We
were assured that the savings to the university would be considerable.
In the end departments had little choice. We were told by the Finance
Office that the Post Office had been instructed not to accept mail to
overseas addresses for charging to departmental expenditure codes. This
meant that secretaries have to sort each day's outgoing post and take
all mail to the porters' lodge by 2.30. (Formerly 3.30 was soon
enough.)
Overseas stuff is taken separately to the mailroom in university house.
It has to reach University House earlier than other mail, or else it
doesn't leave until the next day. (Not that it mattered much!) Nor did
the private system seem to offer premium services (eg Swiftair or
Express delivery) which with some countries (eg Italy) are among the
only ways of ensuring that mail gets delivered at all.
We have used at least two different companies. In both cases people
for whom prompt delivery was important have quickly realised that the
time delays were unacceptable and silly. Just how unacceptable, and how
consistently so, has only recently become apparent to all, and largely
thanks to readers' letters here.
The companies in question usually blame delays on the domestic
delivery services of the destinatation country. Controlled tests to
various destinations have shown this not to be so, and a minimum delay
of _at least_ 7 days beyond the time taken by normally posted letters
seems routine.
(Nor is it necessary. Letters from LaTrobe University (Melbourne) are
sent by TNT (grrr!) and postmarked Southall, Middlesex. Thanks to the
time difference they sometimes seem to arrive the day after they were
written.)
While delays of 2 or 3 days beyond expected Post Office delivery times
might be economically justifiable, 10 days or a month is not.
Especially so if one is not aware that it is happening. By and large
people have assumed that outgoing mail takes roughly as long to arrive
as the corresponding incoming mail takes to reach us.
Those in the know have long abandoned use of the system for letters
that are urgent - and that category includes routine things like
applications for grant money, jobs and references, sometimes even
replies to would-be students....
Instead they go themselves, or send a secretary if they have one, with
single letters, to join others queueing at the Post Office. They delay
things further by requiring a receipt and then artificially increase
our cash needs by reclaiming the sum from petty cash (where it prolly
has to be disguised as something else to placate Finance - dunno
really).
The true cost of this, if costs include the time wasted by all,
including PO staff and other users, is enormous. How much the private
systems are alleged to save us has not been revealed.
3. WHAT IS LANCASTER UNIVERSITY?: Part One
------------------------------------------
A GUIDE FOR INTELLIGENT LAY MEMBERS OF COUNCIL AND THE AUDIT COMMITTEE
plus recently appointed administrators
together with an explanation of why it can never be run like a business.
Lancaster University is the name adopted by the University of
Lancaster in defiance of its Royal Charter, where Elizabeth R declares
that forever hereafter it shall be known as the 'University of
Lancaster'.
The University of Lancaster is a chartered, independent, residential,
liberal, self-governing, collegiate, post-school, co-educational,
teaching and research oriented, degree-awarding, educational community
that also provides some commercial services.
(This may take some time. Why not have a cup of tea? Relax and put
your feet up - stick with us and the significance of all these features
will be explained in later episodes.)
This strange and deviant community employs many multi-talented people
who could earn a living outside, sometimes a better living, if you
measure quality in money alone. These include plumbers and programmers,
chefs and administrators, teachers and lawyers, musicians and porters,
electricians and engineers, secretaries and technicians, cleaners and
chemists, accountants and joiners, librarians and bar stewards,
grammarians and gardeners, plus the odd clown.
The bulk of its membership consists of weird creatures who live on a
diet of pizza, chips or veggieburgers and have difficulty communicating
in English. Possibly they've been prematurely deafened by the supposed
'music' they permanently listen to.
These semi-nocturnal fauna are allowed to roam loose in urban or
parkland settings and practise their singular life-style, which often
consists of drinking copious amounts of fluid, deploying limitless
energy on silly games, gossiping all night then sitting in rows with
glazed eyes trying to pretend they understand what's being said by some
earnest, greying and shabbily dressed drone, both parties motivated by
the hope that the other will say something kind about the other at the
end of the year.
Although normally they graze alone or in pairs, every few years an
outbreak of mass indignation causes them to gather in stampeding herds
and celebrate their hostility towards their elders and the
establishment by holding moots or corroborees in admin offices.
Sporadic displays of irrational activity include falling helplessly in
love, writing so-called 'essays' and sheltering in libraries or
laboratories even when it's sunny outside. These are often suddenly
pursued in passionate excess to the exclusion of all other activity,
including eating and sleeping.
They creatures belong to a species called 'student'. Many are
extraordinarily ignorant about everything outside their own sphere of
interest and have sadly deformed views of how the world works. This
doesn't stop them getting wildly vehement about things they totally
misunderstand.
The depths of these confusions, especially where finance, morality and
politics are concerned, is truly gruesome. This is the fruit of English
secondary education. Students from overseas are usually better informed
on the same matters. To glimpse the full awfulness of their condition
try logging on to LUBBS (the student bulletin board) sometime and
following a few debates....
The unique characteristics of these 'students' are usually overlooked
by management consultants and auditors advising us on how to run the
show and lecturing on our defects. Contrary to naive claims, they are
neither raw material to which we add 'value', nor customers. They are
simply students, and the core of our community. One way or another we
are all students. Try to stay one yourself - there's no more fruitful
way to live and die.
What students acquire from being here is often not what we think we
are 'teaching' them at all: wives, warts, husbands, herpes, debts,
dreams - and if they are lucky a passion for some of the finer things
they might never have discovered. They learn from our example - and
their own - how difficult it is to run human communities while ensuring
their inhabitants live in prosperity and harmony. They learn someone
has to take responsibility for it all and that that someone includes
themselves. They learn from each other, often without realising it.
Professor Williams once pointed out that an agricultural analogy is
the best way to understand them: they are a crop, a vintage. Whole
harvests can be blighted and lost. If times are bad and things go sour,
if exams go wrong or teaching is inadequate, _we_ may plant new roots
and soon recover but they don't get another chance and bear the trace
for years to come.
In most cases our students couldn't earn much of a living yet, but we
hope that one day, with a bit of help, they'll all be rich. When that
happens, HM Government reminds them that it would be terribly nice if,
in a fit of sentimentally slobbish nostalgia, they could feel like
remembering Lancaster University in their Will.
Council members and administrators may feel like doing the same. We
feel no shame in suggesting it, for government policy explicitly urges
us to seek charitable benefactors. Begging for alms has indeed been
officially institutionalised by most public sector bodies, though, like
yourselves, some of us still find it demeaning.
Now Lancaster, like every university, is a degree-awarding,
educational community. All else derives from those essentials. Forget
them and you turn us into something else; add more to the definition
and you exclude some of the most famous universities in history. The
rest, be it teaching, research or selling beer, is almost incidental,
just part of the means currently used to achieve those ends.
A university is thus a bit like a warship, which is a sea-going,
military community. Organisationally the two have a lot in common. Both
are national enterprises with an international role. Both are publicly
funded, though in our case incompletely. Both have been entrusted with
a mission.
Britain used to think (rightly!) that it had the best Navy and the
best universities - and for over 700 years most of the rest of the
world could only agree. They sent their best to us, to Britannia
College (Dartmouth) and Greenwich, or to Oxford and St Andrews, as
appropriate. There they learn our way of doing it and set about
imitating the best of our practices in a local context.
It happens less these days. Successive governments have passed on to
the Royal Navy and to universities our share of the nation's financial
burdens. Strengths that once were uniquely ours are sometimes more
easily found abroad. Now only politicians and the newspapers that
support them pretend that nothing significant has changed.
Universities, like the Royal Navy, also have a responsibility to advise
government when they fear the latter has got things wrong.
So far not even our woeful recent governments have suggested putting
an accountant or a Marks & Spencer's executive in charge of a ship.
Wisely so, since navigation and crew-handling demand professional
skills and experience unlikely to be developed outside. The same
applies to universities.
The analogy ends there, however, for the Navy has been transformed by
shrinkage, we by sudden and underfunded expansion. The Navy does not
(yet...) have to beg for alms. And, most importantly of all, the Navy
is a centrally controlled and hierarchically commanded organisation
that operates under military discipline.
Such a structure may well have pedagogic benefits. It certainly
transforms and expedites some types of learning. There are some Middle
Eastern universities which do run on fairly military lines and the
great Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, where students' dress uniform
includes a plumed hat and a sword, is officially an officers' training
school. In Britain, Manadon and Shrivenham do indeed prepare for degrees
but are really more akin to the college sector.
Traditionally though, and until the former Polytechnics were
transmogrified in 1992, all British universities had, at least
nominally, some kind of quasi-democratic, 'parliamentary' mode of
government. How well do you know ours? Could you tell if our
'constitution' was being side-stepped?
[DON'T MISS PART II: How we are governed.]
4. ACADEMIC PLANNING BOARD AGENDA (Only 81 pp. this time - so far.)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING. Exemplary and luminous, elegant and
jargon-free. They highlight the cogent criticisms made at the last
meeting devoted to TRAM (Total Budget Allocation and Management). No
one need pay any attention of course. Some unusually hot stuff but the
cogent objections of members often appear to have been left unanswered.
A sample:
"Special concern surrounded the arcane methodology by which several
elements were calculated, not least the estimation of space costs
(including corridors) seemingly on the basis of student load. [...] it
was acknowledged that TRAM by its nature could not produce
intrinsically logical or rational outcomes and that there was therefore
a need to moderate its processes by the application of fundamentally
academic priorities and policy considerations". Which is roughly where
we came in.
MANAGEMENT SCHOOL REVIEW: Sensible, constructive, not too prescriptive
since HoDs see the problems, but surprisingly downbeat. Far less
eulogistic than the hard-sell Ashton era and the School's Grade 5 led
us to expect. The whole doesn't seem to be greater than the sum of its
parts, yet several of the parts would NOT (it says) have got a grade 5
individually. Paradox.
The review identifies the usual need to strengthen research and to
ensure that developments in departments (eg Economics) contribute to
enhancing the overall aims of the School. Problems since Economics is
heavily invoved with departments outside the school. Need for more Ph.D
students, external earnings, etc.
Surprisingly niggly about Accounting, traditionally the UK numero uno.
Big bouquet to Management Science (ex O R plus Systems), worries about
smallness of Marketing and Behav In Orgs. Possibility of slotting
Management Learning into some reorganised departmental structure too.
HISTORY REVIEW: Fulsome tributes, but worries about lack of innovatory
teaching methods, small MA courses poorly marketed overseas, urgent
need for more admin support - possible new appointment.
RESPONSE OF ENGINEERING TO THEIR REVIEW, plus a repsonse to that
response. Detailed strategy from Professor Dorey. Aims to get a
research grade 5 in 2000 and a graded profile score of 20/24 in any
future teaching assesments.
LUEL - Lancaster University Enterprises Ltd. Our new business holding
company that acts as an umbrella for existing business operations. Some
fear that one day we'll all be merely its teaching arm. Oral Report
from the VC. Pages 49-55 appear to relate and are headed 'Strategic
Business Planning Process' (document coded edh/LUEL/2.95/jai).
Gee. Oh dear! This appears to be a 7 page structured checklist of
things to do if one wishes to devise a business plan for a subsidiary.
It begins like the classic II2 essay: "Before any strategic or business
plan can be developed by a subsidiary, there must be a clear
understanding of the overall *strategic framework* within which the
subsidiary must operate."
All sensible stuff no doubt, though a bit obvious really. Well worth
itemising as a list of questions or imperatives, complete with bold
type and bullet points if your secretary can work them out, or
asterisks if s/he can't. Especially if you're doing the job or teaching
others how to. Goodness knows what's the point of giving it all to the
APB.
Anyhow - learned a new acronym: KSF - Key Success Factor, not to be
confused with USP (Unique Selling Point) in your SWOT (Strengths,
Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis.
BUDGETING POLICY: very sound paper from three Deans (Nick Abercrombie,
Terry Mansfield, Stephen Watson) and the Librarian reviewing this
year's budgeting process. Concrete recommendations, including the
addition of a Dean to the APB exec. Criticism of the way APB functions
as a Policy and Resources committee instead of dealing only with
*academic* planning.
RELOCATION OF FACULTY ACCOUNTANTS: As you heard last time. Concrete
proposals from the Director of Finance to place some of his staff in
the Faculty Offices. Rather misleadingly he claims a 40% increase in
our income over the past two years. Don't jump for joy! This is almost
all inflation, including our own increases in rents and charges. It's
really the increase in our turnover from 50+ million to 70+ million
that is involved. KPMG have been asked to assist (bad idea) and there
may be some extra 'transitional costs'.
BUILDINGS - Report on further appraisal of Estates Strategy.
5. GASTRONOMY: KIRKBY LONSDALE REVISITED
----------------------------------------
The pleasures of the table don't just concern the taste-buds and
digestive system. Dining out is an emotional experience, especially if
it involves parting with money.
Michelin offers only three stars for cooking but up to five 'couverts'
(crossed knives and forks) for the total aesthetic experience: decor,
service, comfort, luxury, porcelain, cutlery, view. It also prolly
helps if you fancy the waitress... or indeed the waiter, depending on
your tastes.
To be totally honest it's really more subjective even than that. The
weather, your mood, the location and your companion(s) are all crucial
and may well colour one's whole experience. With the right person and
in the right place a cold slice of burnt pizza washed down with Spar
cider in a car park may well imprint indelible ambrosiac memories on
your palate. And, conversely, dining alone on a grey day at the Manoir
aux Quatre Saisons is prolly not much fun.
That's why you needn't be too concerned if people quibble about your
fave restaurants. It may just be them! Consistency matters too of
course,and maybe that's a problem for our own Pierre Victoire. But the
chef can't be on all the time, so it's also a question of how well
trained and disciplined his deputies are. And great chefs are creative
- not every original combination will suit every ulcer.
However a usually reliable culinary source (W G Fuge) suggested that
Plato Harrison's was the place to eat up in K L, and that he had been
disappointed by a recent lunch at the Snooty Fox. The excuse to go back
for further anonymous inspection was welcome.
Plato's was an upmarket wine merchant and delicatessen that now has a
tastefully twee but rather costly restaurant. Never eaten there but
it's prolly very good. Not cheap! - although they also do pizza and
there's a lunchtime pizza and pasta type menu that seems good enough
value. Trouble is the gourmet dishes all look, well... unoriginal.
No reason to change our initial verdict. At the Snooty Fox even the
brisk and purposeful movements of the staff are revealing. Maybe too
it's just francophile snobbery, but a matching *assiette de base* to
protect the table has a classiness to which a mere place mat, be it
melanine, cork or coir, can never aspire.
Doesn't mean everything succeeds or everyone will like it. I earlier
tried the 'quenelles of smoked mackerel mousse with horseradish pate'.
Not entirely sure the combination worked, but it's not a daft idea, for
if anything can be tasted through mackerel it would be something like
horseradish.The menu said it was accompanied by pumpernickel, but I was
served a warm brioche. Pity - the moist and earthy sweetness of the
pumpernickel would have cut across the richness of the creamed smoked
fish.
The chilled Lettuce and Mint soup (2.00) created for last week's the
hot weather was thick and creamy yet with each flavour perfectly
distinct; its accompanying apricot and walnut bread delish as ever. The
platter of pan-fried smoked fish (4.75) - chunks of haddock, herring
and mackerel, I think, definitely an Arbroath Smokey in there - was
served with a mixed leaf lemon salad and new potatoes. And a couple of
Sundays ago a rarity like goose found itself dish of the day.
The NZ wine on the list is a Hawkes Bay Sauvignon (not Chardonnay as
stated here) and the Bollinger is a reserve but non-vintage. Forgot to
mention the yummy Ribeauville Alsace Gewurtztraminer, which is the
interesting white to try, though the Macon Villages and the
Muscadet-sur-lie look serious specimens. There is also a potent range
of the English country wines at 1.80 a glass. And the coffee (0.80) is
good too.
The *carte* says there is also a gourmet evening menu. Pricier one
imagines. For most of us the routine fare is fairly 'gourmet' already.
6. READERS' LETTERS
-------------------
You may be surprised to learn that at least one reader has never been
near your university and knows no one there. I only happened to see
your newssheet because my wife receives it and I once wanted to know
what was making her guffaw.
I nonetheless find the story compelling despite having doubts about
your existence. As far as I am concerned you are all, even the letter
writers, characters from a work of fiction - a kind of soap opera that
is part Trollope, part Dynasty, and a lot like Coronation Street. I
imagine only the libel laws stop you making it a bit like The History
Man too. [NOTE: Nah - just compassion. (Ed.)]
These fictional figures who inhabit your mythical campus fascinate
because of the literary archetypes of our time they unwittingly
recreate. I have spotted the thrusting young finance wizard eager to
shake the old place up, the ambitious female deputy, the blindly
conservative academic backwoodsmen (mostly scientists I expect), the
cynical wits, the moaning Minnies. (NOTE: And Mickies (Ed.)]
From time to time we hear awed mentions of menacing shadowy
characters, known only by name, who lurk in the background like figures
from some Gothic romance, by Bram Stoker perhaps: Sir Christopher, the
VC, Admiral Kerr. We don't however yet know who the hero is going to
be....
Do you all really exist are are you merely the products of a
sophisticated text-generation system and someone's vivid imagination?
PS: And before you ask, yes, our campus life is fairly identical.
[NOTE: Thank you. Flattering. Know exactly what you mean. I quite often
feel the place is fictional myself and yet I work here. I've never seen
Sir Christopher or Admiral Kerr either, but I'm sure they do exist. Not
sure I'd call the Director of Finance 'young' though. (Ed.)]
------------------------------
I am very surprised by all the correspondance about the slow mail
service from the University to the USA. I knew before I arrived that
nothing carried by the contract carriers to the USA ever gets there in
less than one month, because I was working in the USA immediately
before coming here.
For the last three years I have carried every piece of overseas mail
to the post office, obtained a receipt and claimed it from departmental
petty cash. This is the ONLY way to ensure that it gets there in a
reasonable time. As someone in our department pointed out, knowing that
the contract carrier is slow and caring about it, are two very
different things.
Sarah Andrew, Biological Sciences.
----------------------------------
I take back what I said about the Snooty Fox having pub grub type
stuff. I went at the weekend and actually looked at the menu, rather
than the specials blackboard. I hadn't realised it had changed quite so
much! I'm a firm believer in eating specials of the day where possible:
they're far less likely to have been prepared ages ago and frozen. This
was not the case for the Steak and Kidney pudding. It was suffering
freezer burn and over-microwaving, which didn't exactly do wonders for
the pastry.
The complaint was dealt with reasonably and a fair reduction was made
to the bill. (My salmon was fine.) Actually had a pud this time -
given the chef's Sharrow provenance, sticky toffee seemed a fair bet. A
particulary good specimen. Better than it was the last time I had it at
Sharrow, though lacking the ludicrous generosity of Sharrow: I was
toying between the sticky toffee and a chocolate pudding, and the
waiter suggested having both. I laughed politely and said I'd have the
sticky toffee. Needless to say both arrived!
I've not noticed any mention of Heathcotes at Longridge in your august
columns. I think I've been twice now, and it certainly stands
comparison with some of the best London has to offer.
[NOTE: I know - so they all say. Never been: can't afford it. Driving
back would be another problem and Longridge isn't really a glamorous
nightspot. Believe he does a 20 quid lunch on Fridays and Sundays.
Paul Heathcote was 1994 Chef of the Year, up there with Raymond Blanc,
Alastair Little, Marco Pierre White, Albert Roux, Bruno Loubet, Gary
Rhodes, etc.. Gastronome Ralph Gibson, whose innards are currently
paying for his excesses, has been there twice too. (Ed.)]
-----------------------------------
Re suicide. You should come to this department. Compulsory euthanasia
stands at the doorstep and suicide is encouraged.
[NOTE: The writer is in the Department of Continuing Education (Ed.)]
----------------------------------
Most members of ISS who would have to implement the security policy
had not seen it until recently. Their copies are covered in red ink
from just a first read.
The technical people in ISS would probably welcome a code of conduct
and a set of predefined rules of engagement to cover dealing with the
kind of intrusion which is often technically necessary. It is scary to
be left without a chair when the music stops. I would have thought that
this was a prerequisite to any security policy as they are the ones who
have the best access and are best equipped to breach it!
-------------------------------
Re the Students' Union Manager. Rubbish. Whilst Pete is very well
equipped to carry out his duties, I think it is somewhat silly to state
that he is 'uniquely' suited to do so. Seriously, what about other SU
managers, University Administrators etc.?
Jo Hardman
[NOTE: Quite. My point precisely. Not many of them I'd entrust with the
job. Our set-up is *sui generis* (singular!). You've not had much
chance to see how things evolve in peace and war. (Ed.)]
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Having held off any comment on the introduction of ramps which must
only make life easier for those travelling on wheels (covers a
multitude of course) I am forced to enquire through your pages about
the likelihood that we will not, after all, be getting even a covered
accessible route on the south spine, since hearsay has it (and I have
no-one to contradict me yet on this one - but please feel free) that
"lack of funds" (always a good excuse 'til now but how long can we
accept such as being good enough?) mitigates against the new
developments including any such "luxury".
Could anyone please give me a good argument as to why
a) we put up with this sorry state of affairs and
b) why the disabled (minority 'though we are) have not already
revolted?
Excuse much bracketing and parentheses - it must be force of habit due
to minority status. Reasonable comments would be most welcomed.
Berny Heresey
SECAMS
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Why is it that, on the hottest day of the year to date (4/5/95), the
radiators in the Environmental Science building are hotter than they
were during the depths of winter? No wonder there is global warming!
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