[Prev][Next][Index]
INKYTEXT 188
***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****
III N N K K Y Y TTTTTTT EEEEEEE X X TTTTTTT
I N N N K K Y Y T E X X T
I N N N KKK Y T EEEEE X T
I N N N K K Y T E X X T
I N NN K K Y T E X X T
III N N K K Y T EEEEEEE X X T
***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****
ISSUE No 188 ESTABLISHED 1993 FRIDAY 6 DECEMBER 1996
LANCASTER - LONDON - PARIS - VIENNA - NEW YORK - TORONTO - MELBOURNE - TOKYO
Vancouver Oxford Cambridge Bristol Nottingham Brighton Sheffield Leeds Berkeley
Keele Loughborough Port-Moresby Blackburn Marburg Casuarina Bangkok Olympia(Wa)
Guildford Bradford Boulder(Co) Ambleside Urbana Wellington(NZ) Preston Perpignan
Stoke Stamford(Ct) Milton Keynes Rastatt Liverpool Trieste Canberra High Wycombe
Northwich Wollongong Jersey Cowes (IOW) Ripon York Edinburgh Middlesbrough Derby
Northampton Portsmouth PaloAlto Derby Exeter Cambridge(Mass) Brasilia Wetherby
Drayton Valley Bangor Wilmslow Southampton Reading Glasgow Stanford Basingstoke
Farnborough Coventry Hong Kong Manchester Wolverhampton Stevenage Johannesburg
Riyadh Ormskirk Guangzhou Dublin Sacramento Hobart Birmingham Ingleton Durham
Mauritius Isle of Cumbrae Oslo Malvern Pisa Hull Norwich Montserrat Miami Geneva
Sydney Heidelberg Palmerston North Stockton-on-Tees Washington (DC) Rennes
Toowoomba Ferrara Auckland Cheltenham Cardiff Kyoto Bracknell Pittsburgh Hawai'i
UNSEASONABLY HUMOURLESS
1109 SUBSCRIBERS
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please address all correspondence to InkyText@lancaster.ac.uk
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
AGENDA
1. News: Council, Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman, Evening Standard
2. Mark Easterby Smith (Management Learning): Another 1.7m income?
3. Images of Pomland, Part II: Foreigners, Service, Humour and Death
4. The Fiona Frank Ad Corner
5. Readers' Letters
1. NEWS
-------
THIS YEAR'S JACOB MARLEY AWARD goes to whoever told the Pre-School
Centre that it could not spend money on a Christmas Tree. Happily the
Student Union has been able to help. At least one college principal is
also understood to have paid for a tree from their own pocket.
THE UNIVERSITY COUNCIL MEETS this afternoon to consider the latest
version of the recovery plan (see the Planning Office Web pages if you
are on campus). The Pro-Chancellor, Sir Christopher Audland, has warned
members not to expect to be home in time for tea.
ADDITIONAL COUNCIL PAPERS detail proposals for a new severance / early
retirement scheme. The maximum sum available is not to exceed 15 months
salary (1 year plus employer's 'on costs') as opposed to a maximum of
20 months last time.
FURTHER PROPOSALS to reschedule certain debt repayments are rumoured.
These may well provide, if achievable, a desirable bonus, but do not
seem an essential contribution to mere survival.
CHRIS KAIGHIN, Continuing Education's 'Green' professional development
coordinator, wrote to Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowmn MP asking for her support
in the pay campaign. His letter said, inter alia:
"I have not chosen to strike today, as the work I do at Lancaster
University is the provision of professional development courses for
industry, which bring in additional revenue to Lancaster, and given our
current financial difficulties it seemed to me counterproductive not to
work. I do , however support our campaign for a fair pay settlement and
I wish to draw your attention to the following facts:
Over the last ten years we have coped with a massive expansion in
students numbers, while our pay has fallen behind every other
comparable public sector group. We have made efficiency gains in many
areas, inter alia through decreased staff/student ratios, more
efficient use of buildings and use of new teaching technologies. In the
face of this to be offered 1.5%, effectively a pay cut in real terms,
is an insult."
Dame Elaine's reply included the following:
"I very much appreciate your decision not to strike for the very
sensible reasons you outline
I don't see why the offer of a pay increase should be considered an
"insult". Many of those employed in the private (underlined) sector
have had to choose between pay cuts (underlined) or unemployment, and
would have welcomed a 1.5% pay increase (underlined).
The latest figures I have been able to obtain from the House of
Commons Library indicate an increase by almost a third in real terms in
public expenditure on higher education since 1980. Education and health
are top priorities for the Govenment, BUt I don't believe that it is
possible to devote a higher share of the national income to higher
education.
Nevertheless, expenditure in this area will no doubt rise as our
output increases.
I am indeed aware of the excellent work done at Lancaster University,
and take every opportunity on the floor of the House and to colleagues,
to sing its praises. I have been following the current state of affairs
very closely and very much hope that the proposed measures will rectify
the situation."
RADIO 5 LIVE BROADCAST YESTERDAY at 7.35pm, a programme entitled "On
The Line" (about corporate hospitality in football stadia). It featured
an interview with Sarah Kempster and Paul McGarr, two Part II
Independent Studies students who in 1995/96 completed a BBC project
supervised by David Allan.
THE EVENING STANDARD BUSINESS PAGE last week published an article by
Jonathan Ford (Thursday 28 Nov) in its Capital Markets column. The
article had a photograph of the Chaplaincy Centre with the caption
"Capital crunch: Lancaster University is facing a deficit".
_A PFI Lesson to be learned in university's bond problem_
"Rather like Mr Micawber waiting passively for something to turn up,
the government is placing its faith in bond investors to kick-start the
Private Finance Initiative.
Kenneth Clarke returned to the theme in his Budget. Asserting that 2.5
billion pounds would be forthcoming to fund PFI projects next year, he
suggested the capital markets were now champing at the bit to get
involved.
This may yet prove an optimistic assessment, not because investors do
not want long-dated bonds (which they do), but the possibility of
default and the quality of security they enjoy.
Recent events at Lancaster University illustrate this well. Lancaster
was one of the first universities in Britain to turn to the markets to
finance capital projects, issuing 35 million pounds of 9.75% 30 year
debentures through BZW in April 1995.
Now, less than two years into the life of the bonds, investors are
facing the possibility of default after reductions in Government
funding forced the university into a 5.8 million pound deficit. A
refinancing is currently being attempted.
"It suddenly makes you think. What the hell would we do with a load of
university buildings in Lancashire? Turn them into a hotel?" says an
angry investor.
While Lancaster University was not a PFI deal, it does share many of
the breed's characteristics -- long dated, dependent on revenue
estimates that may prove inaccurate, and bearing other risks that are
inherent in infrastructure projects. One of the examples often cited by
PFI fanatics to illustrate the coming wave of infrastructure bonds is
the recent 165 million pound 24 year issue for the Docklands Light
Railway.
But this had special characteristics, most notably the presence of
Japanese giant Mitsui in the construction team. Without Mitsui - seen
as a guarantee of the project's ability to pay construction penalties -
that deal wouldn't have gone ahead.
PFI bonds remain a shallow and nervous market."
2. ANOTHER 1.7 MILLION INCOME?
------------------------------
by Mark Easterby-Smith (Management Learning)
--------------------------------------------
Readers of the THES might have noticed the recent analysis by Peter
Knight (V-C at the Univ of Central England) of the variations in
funding allocations per student fte across English universities.
Naive observers might have expected, say, an engineering student at
Lancaster to bring in around the same amount of government funds as an
engineering student at Brighton or Kingston University (or perhaps a
bit more if we consider ourselves to be a cut above such institutions).
Not a bit. In practice, funding within the same subject area varies
alarmingly between institutions, along lines that cannot be accounted
for by any indicators of quality, efficiency or reputation. In 1994/5
the funding for full-time & sandwich students in science varied from
24,666 down to 917 per head.
Peter Knight's's analysis combines funding rates for different subject
areas to provide an average funding figure per student in each
institution. When subtracted from the average across the country this
provides a league table of variances. At the lop of the recent league
table are Oxford Brookes (+649 per fte), Sheffield Hallam (+490) and
Leeds Metropolitan (+404). At the bottom of the table are Keele (-510),
City (-493) and Luton (-489); Lancaster is close by (-342).
A colleague has taken this analysis further by multiplying up by the
number of students in each subject area to produce an aggregate figure
per institution of over, or under, funding. His results, based on the
previous year, produce a similar ranking. Sheffield Hallam, Oxford
Brookes, and Cranfield come out with aggregate funding between 4 and 6
million over the average; Luton and Derby come out at the bottom with
aggregate funding between 4 and 5 million below the average. The
equivalent figure for Lancaster is that we are under-funded by
approximately 1.7 million per annum.
HEFCE is reported to be trying to eliminate these variations, but
annual comparisons of funding levels show convergence to be very, very
slow. Perhaps when senior members of the University get a breather from
their meetings with NatWest they might consider putting pressure on
HEFCE to expedite this change in the funding mechanism. In this respect
they could make common cause with nearly half the universities in
England, including Keele.
3. IMAGES OF POMLAND by Ian Wilkinson and Louise Young: Part II
---------------------------------------------------------------
Foreigners, Service, Humour and Death.
--------------------------------------
5. Attitudes to Foreigners. This deference to authority has another
quality. Authority in Britain expects deference. Not only from their
own but others too. The mad cow madness has revealed this most
recently. How dare those Europeans tell us what to do and ban our beef
from the world? And if you don't play our way we wont play the game at
all and veto everything.
Britain's destiny is as part of Europe but many Brits are still not
sure if they are part of Europe. There is much more evidence of dealing
with other European countries than ever before. Business people
regularly travel to and from other European countries. There is much
more tourist travel to Europe (and farther afield) and not just to the
English replicas in sunny parts on the Mediterranean. Academics
collaborate with and conference all over Europe quite naturally it
seems. But then there is the person who called in to a chat show about
the beef crisis and said they had nothing against Europe in fact they
had been there often and even last week. The presenter was made to
comment that he thought they were in Europe.
Attitudes to the colonies are another example. I got the impression at
one time that the Oz election was being fought on the issues of
allegiance to the Queen. There was a lovely broadcast interview between
the BBC reporter reporting from Sydney and Malcom Turnbull. MT made him
look and ass and I am sure the reporter saw it as a victory for him.
The questions betrayed a kind of benevolent arrogance about those
colonials.
I can't help thinking that this arrogance is behind the messy way the
Ireland thing is being settled. Britain expects others to do what they
tell them. After all they know best and have history on their side. But
the rest of Europe and the Irish in particular have their own views. Of
course I am aware of the political balance in the British parliament.
With a majority of one and the chance of winning the next election slim
to none a few eurosceptics or Northern Irish members can hold John
Major to ransom.
6. Pathetically grateful for poor service. The Japanese say good
service is not having to ask for service. Brits don't ask and don't
often get. In pomland the service can be genuinely good. In the smaller
towns and villages we had the experience of having spectacles and
watches repaired for free because - we couldn't charge for that. They
could and in other countries they do but how refreshing.
Even the car salesman that sold us a car and a promise to rebuy gave
us no hassles and made us feel a little guilty of anticipating him
using various excuses to bargain down the rebuy price. We had done more
miles than planned and agreed to. But no, everything was fine and he
even gave us part of the money up front so it would clear before we
left. That took five working days and is perhaps long but they did bend
the rules a little so we got our traveller's cheques.
But against this is the fact that you cannot pay your telephone bill
by credit card and not over the phone, despite being able to open the
account over the phone with a credit card deposit. The lady said they
were working on it. Then we had the free dry cleaning service offered
when we developed our films. It applied to suits not trousers. I had
two pairs of trousers to clean. When I said I didn't want the
(fictitious) jackets dry cleaned he said the offer was only for suits.
I offered to throw in my rain jacket as a jacket but no. What if I gave
him a suit and said not to dry clean the jacket? His riposte was
immediate - we always advise our customers to dry clean both together!
I ask you. But the story had a good outcome we did even got express
service for the trouser (hold the jackets). You see I asked for service
and eventually got it. I suspect most Brits would not.
The quintessential example was of someone overheard in a bank. They
were obviously withdrawing some of their money but they were so overly
grateful for trivial service. Would you like this in an envelope? Shall
I break this note into something smaller? Oh really, would you do that?
Oh thank you so much. The bank is making money out of using her money.
It reminds me of my first impression of banks that they were austere
places where they acted like parents in letting you have your money.
Maybe this excessive appreciation of small service is a counterpart to
the US excessive servicing. There is so much choice there and everyone
is concerned about your welfare and how your day will go. The US is the
art of overstatement. The English is the art of understatement in
personal service but overstatement in appreciation. When the two
cultures meet the dynamics can be fun.
As my wife says, she would take insincere polite service over sincere
poor service any day. I get the impression that in the UK in buyer
seller relations the buyer tends to assume a lower status position. In
Australia they are equal. In the US the buyer assumes a superior
status. Britain needs more assertive buyers who will not easily accept
"we don't do that here" excuses.
7. An Upside down World. During the 80's and for as long as I can
remember the South has been the prosperous booming part of the UK and
the North had the problems. Maybe the North thought differently. In the
18th and 19th Century industrial revolution the North was the heart of
it and the grand buildings we see today are the product of that. But
when the coal ran out and the industries ran off-shore after a century
or more, a whole social structure was solidly in place. And was
constantly propped up. But the band aids couldn't last and Maggie
dished out the bad medicine. The result was a major restructuring of
industry and commerce and wealth in the North. The South looked good
with booming financial markets and moves into Europe.
But now there are signs of a resurgence in the North. The sheer beauty
of the place - the Lake District (notice only one lake! all the rest
are meres or waters), the fells, the Forest of Bowland, York, Chester
etc. and the residues of the past are creating opportunities. I clipped
out an article on Derby becoming a new centre for the car industry as a
result of Japanese investment followed by growth in supporting
industries and labour force. This is a large move away from coal mining
and totally unbelievable 10 or so years ago.
Then we went to one of the new cinema complexes - multiplexes I think
they call them. This one was outside Liverpool and we went to another
outside Chester later. It must have been built on the remains of an old
industrial site. It was brand new, spacious and plenty of room for
parking. It reminded us of complexes in Southern California. Now you
don't get that sort of thing in London. There simply isn't room amongst
the rows of semi-detached suburban houses that were built from the one
winning design submitted. So there are signs of economic progress in
the North as it emerges from post industrial revolution and
convalescence.
To cap it all off the North is warmer. I could not believe the weather
forecasts in January to March when invariably Lancaster was warmer than
the South East and London. You are supposed to freeze yer bum off up
North. But they all have double glazing, central heating and even
warmer temperatures.
Of course you cannot summarise the weather in England simply in terms
of temperature. Britain has so much weather. They give weather
forecasts down to virtually each suburb - certainly by Australian
standards. But they also get it wrong all the time. Not by much because
it doesn't vary that much and so much can be packed into one day that
you have got to be right about something. Still I liked the nice little
whitish cloud that seemed to appear often on the weather map over
Lancashire with that yellow thing sticking its head out behind and all
the South and other parts with the grimy black clouds and no yellow
thing in sight.
8 The Humour. I touched upon this before and my wife's and daughters
training in the use of irony. It was nice to feel a muscle in my mind
that had atrophied somewhat get a better work out continually. Everyone
uses it. You have to have a second sense which puts any incoming
messages through the irony filter before responding. To take people at
face value and to be naively unassuming is someone ripe for the picking
for a pom.
It comes close to sarcasm in many cases. Winding people up and
mischievously misleading them is par for the course and part of your
upbringing. They eat naive impressionable yanks for breakfast. But at
heart they are a genuine and caring mob and it was a delight to be able
to "iron" with all and sundry. Whether it was in the shop at the office
or with me mates. You have to laugh a lot if you're a pom and its good
for you.
9. An obsession with death as revealed by the prominence of the
obituary pages of the daily newspapers.
10. Realising their place in the World. Britain is just beginning to
recognise what its place in the world really is. It hurts the pride a
little but others have known it for a long time. Roy Hattersley's piece
in the Guardian at the beginning of the Beef crisis summed it up. When
Egypt banned British beef that was a watershed. In the past the army
was sent to settle the lot of upstart Egyptians. But no more.
All said, we had a great time during our study leave at Lancaster Uni
- both academically and otherwise. We want to go back regularly.
4. THE FIONA FRANK AD CORNER
----------------------------
Having just bought a new bed and then seen exactly what I was looking
for for sale in last week's Inkytext (damn!) I thought I'd advertise
for the next things I want and see what comes up:
I'm looking for a nice chest of drawers (reasonably soon), and a
Captain's Bed or Cabin Bed (not so much rush for this one). Fiona
Frank, F.Frank@lancaster.ac.uk, tel x2901 or 381263. Thanks!
PS - I've got a completely shot-away piano which anyone is welcome to
have, now or any time in the future - would do for a film or play set,
to convert to a cocktail cabinet (!), or to practice breaking up and
putting through a small hoop (used to be an Its a Knockout event I seem
to remember). Any ideas welcome!
Also a Sideboard - brown, 3 drawers and 2 cupboard sections, little
legs, 5.00 or lunes or offers of anything else.
--------
LAWRENSON'S: WAITRESS SERVICE ONCE AGAIN
From 8.00 am to 14.30 each weekday Lawrenson's again provides
freshly cooked and waitress-served meals by popular demand.
Christmas Lunches all next week.
-------------
FREE CAROL CONCERT
WEDNESDAY 11TH DEC
University Choral Soc and Orhestra
7.30 GREAT HALL
----------------
THE GLADLY SOLEMN SOUND and Friends present an evening of harmony
singing at St. John's Church, Lancaster, on Friday 20th December at
7.30 pm.
Tickets can be obtained, at a concessionary price of 2.50, from
Barbara Hargreaves in Music Department (Ext.2614 or email
B.Hargreaves@lancaster). Proceeds of ticket sales are in aid of St.
John's Hospice."
-------------
VET WANTED: Can anyone recommend an excellent vet in the
Carnforth/Lancaster area who specialises in small animals, particularly
cats? Please contact Sue Wise on ext 4114 or wise.s@lancaster.ac.uk.
5. READERS' LETTERS
-------------------
Reference InkyText 187 Editorial, Paragraph 4:- "When Harry met
Sally". Who is this Sally met by the former VC? What bearing has it on
the current situation? I think we should be told.
A.G.Evans
Head of Security
-------------------------
Pierre Victoire's has changed hands - last Sunday Rob (waiter) and
Sebastiane (chef) now own it.
------------------
It is truly amazing how last year's financial report to Court gave no
hint of the multimillion pound nightmare debts in the pipeline! We
could have a competition to find the best names for the bankrupting
concrete white elephants which confront the main entrance roads with
such megalomania.
[NOTE: Afraid the report did indeed give ample and obvious hints of
the potential debt problem. Even two years ago. Few mentioned it, other
than here of course, and, unfortunately but understandably, people in a
position to do something then didn't thank us for having done so.
(Ed.)]
------------------------------
My Oxford Writer's Dictionary ("The Essential Style Guide") does not
seem to require the word 'music' to be capitalized - indeed it suggests
that when in doubt, use lower case. However, any kind of aggrandizement
is welcomed at this end of the campus - even the most cursory nod.
Stella Birchall - MUSIC
------------------------
It has been worrying, in a journal which normally cultivates reason
and good sense, to see more than once in recent issues that people in
the news were described in terms of their Zodiac sign. Universities are
here to wean people away from that sort of thing!
Geoffrey Sampson
University of Sussex
[NOTE: Twice is indeed more than once... but I thought the whimsy
needed no comment. Sorry - a private joke with a colleague who
suggested astrology might be as good a way as any other of trying to
select officer holders, and who commented on the melange of Libran and
Taurean behaviour that characterizes current management. Curiously, we
do seem to keep having talks on Renaissance astrology, and I confess to
sharing with the likes of Balzac a passing interest in the crackpot
sciences (e.g. phrenology).
Where birthdate is concerned I am persuaded that the correlation with
personality is less than totally random. Perhaps we could attribute
this to differential sunlight and nutrition patterns affecting the
mother's body chemistry during gestation. Pre- and post-maturity affect
the actual birth month so the date of conception is prolly more
significant. (Ed.)]
---------------------------
I know that Professor Legg has already written a piece on working
days, but just a few queries:
- Does the 260 days figure include bank holidays? I seem to
remember that I nearly always had lectures on these "public" holidays.
- Does the 260 days figure allow for exams that are held on a
Saturday, or does this no longer happen?
- Seeing as the number of working days per year is at issue, why
not look at the number of working hours per year? It would be
interesting to see if the 260 working days contains 8, 9, 10 or more
working hours per day, and whether such stats backed up by
time-and-motion studies (or is this opening a contractual can of
worms?).
Chris Rogers - Usual Disclaimers Apply, the productivity of a working
hour can go down as well as up.
[NOTE: No such precision required really. Reports that Steve Rouse of
UCEA (the Employers' body that issued the original and suspect advice)
is leaving his post next year to become a student. (Ed.)]
----------------------------------
Thanks very much for mentioning that Lancaster Physics came second in
the UK (first in England!) for the number of citations per physics
paper. Further details about that analysis and another one are
available from the magazine Physics World's web site
http://www.iop.org/Mags/PW/ .
Paragraph 2 seems to suggest that Glasgow gained its top position in
physics by virtue of having a Interdisciplinary Research Centre, and
that Leicester gained its top place for physics plus atrophysics
because astrophysics papers generally get more citations. Thus
Lancaster's excellent showing in both categories is even more
remarkable.
Chris Bowdery
-------------------------------
Just a note re buying video tapes. If you don't collect Sainsbury's
points, the best place to buy good quality, long-lasting video tapes is
Radio Rentals on Penny Street in Lancaster (I have over 100 of them
bought over the last 3/4 years). I bought 4 x 4 hr tapes there a week
ago for 7.99, a reduction of 1.00 on their usual price. They sell 2 3 x
3 hr tapes at, I think, 8.99, so they are much cheaper than
Sainsbury's.
Linda Cook
----------------------------
May I first notify your readers that the SCAN Office phone number has
changed to a direct-dial code and is now 59-2613...
Secondly, on the matter of the recent SU elections: yes, they were
poorly attended; yes, there were electoral irregularities; yes, the
final separation between myself and Emily Lomax was slim.
However, a re-match would probably have an even worse turn-out; the
electoral irregularities were annoying but I take note of the fact that
Emily Lomax's vote was higher than mine on first preference - this
probably reflects the rising political activity of post-grads and it
seems appropriate for post-grads to have a voice on Council. I've never
felt a great need for direct power, I enjoy playing the role of grey
cardinal. In addition, I have larger fish to fry...
Nick Bardsley.
------------------------
Minute CSSB 96/23.4 of the Colleges and Student Support Board meeting
on 24 April records that "Introductory week should be extended on a
trial basis for two years, with a review after that time."
I'd always thought a week quite long enough to get new students
acclimatised to the University. Isn't two years a little too long for
this purpose?
--------------------------
TOPICAL CHRISTMAS CAROLS ALWAYS WELCOME