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INKYTEXT 338: Death of Mrs Davina Chaplin
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Issue No 338 Thursday March 2nd 2000
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Editorial correspondence should be sent to InkyText@lancaster.ac.uk
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DEATH OF MRS DAVINA CHAPLIN
Shock news is just arriving about the sudden death last night of Mrs
Davina Chaplin, dynamic former lecturer in Italian Studies, wife of Dr
Bob Chaplin (Engineering) and lecturer in the Tourism and Hospitality
department at UCL. Mrs Chaplin, a mainstay of Lancaster Footlights,
recently submitted her PhD dissertation on the sociology of British
holiday home owners in France. All our sympathy goes to her devastated
family.
AGENDA
Minutes and Matters Arising
1. Editorial: Thirteen times thirteen, bis
2. News: 3-star restaurants, Computing, Russian Trip.
3. Guest Contribution: Branding and Profiteering, by Albert Schofield, Rtd.
4. Tips for would-be Proustians (I).
5. Readers' Letters: Austria, Alexandra Square, Vice-chancellors, Oxfam.
6. Small Ads: Science and Art Exhibition, Concert, Come Hear!, Fire-guard,
Car, Camper Van
MINUTES AND MATTERS ARISING
---------------------------
'Time Regained' is on at the Duke's Playhouse on Sunday 26th March and
the following day.
1. EDITORIAL: THIRTEEN TIMES THIRTEEN, BIS
------------------------------------------
It was after issue 169 that Inkytext announced a change of policy. Having
spent the previous years trying to persuade doubters that we had a
financial problem, the point then seemed adequately proven. "To labour
it", we wrote, "would be to lack finesse. Phase Two of our mission is
finding solutions. You wouldn't expect a Pele, a Keegan, a Rumenigge of
a journal like ours to hang about in defence."
An anonymous reader (Professor Picciotto) wrote: "Congratulations on
having moved from Phase One of your noble mission to Phase Two, which
let us hope will take somewhat less than 169 issues." There have been
many more than that, with Inkyflashes and two-part editions, but
nominally at least we have now reached that point.
Is the university saved? Hmm. Yes and no. In Mr McGregor we have an
managerial accountant of talent. In the VC we have a model of financial
probity and rectitude. In our lay councillors we have captains of
industry well-versed in handling larger turnovers than we are likely to
have. Our accounts are ahead of the recovery plan. It's certainly no
longer a question of mere 'survival'.
Even more importantly, we have, in Computing, Environmental Science,
Physics, the Management School, Linguistics, and countless more areas,
world-class renown and research grants pour in. And in most areas
students still seem to want to come and have a pride in being here that
was not always the case. The tables myth seems to work (though I would
quietly drop the 'top ten' boast for it's been a while since there
appeared a table when we were quite there... except for the one on
cheapness!).
However our budget is still not really in stable balance, and
adjustments to our staffing still have to be made, or could only be
avoided by _stable_ sources of continuing new income, which is hard to
come by.
It's all very well saying this is true of the whole university sector.
It hurts us more because we are anxious to remain in trhe big league,
where the other players haven't shot themselves in the foot financially
as we did and are more soundly based for future investments.
For example, we already need a new library extension.... and when is
someone going to tell us the final cost of the last one?
2. NEWS
--------
DELAYS OVER AGREEMENT ON RELOCATION and other expenses have meant that
the polymer group have not yet signed the new contracts which it was
hoped would be in force yesterday.
ENVIRONMENTALISTS point out that the new developments in ES will cost
us a number of existing parking spaces and create a need for up to 50
new ones. It's also probable that the Merlewood people will want the
free parking which they enjoy at present. (To be added to NERC's bill.)
NEWS OF A SUPERB AND THOUGHT-THROUGH last minute JIF bid in the social
sciences, masterminded by Professor Urry.
ANDREW NEAL was the guest speaker at the LAWTEC awards dinner attended
by Pro-VC Davies at Park Hall last Friday. He spoke enthusiastically
on the future prospects of e-commmerce and the consequences for those
who don't get involved.
PRPFESSOR DENVER gave a magisterial performance at his inaugural
lecture last night, which was as entertaining as it was authoritative
and clear. He spoke on 50 years of elections and election studies,
highlighting the de-alignment and increasing volatility of the
electorate, marked by a weakening of party loyalties. Prof McKinlay
made a neat vote of thanks. A buffet dinner party was held at his home
for family, friends and close colleagues. The VC was present and
enjoyed the occasion. Prof Denver's erstwhile mentor John Bochill was
unfortunately taken ill in the course of the evening and rushed to
Lancaster Infirmary.
WELCOME BACK TO THE RILEYS, who have have returned from their 4-day
trip to Paris and have promised a lengthy account of their highly
successful visit. (Many thanks for the bottle!)
WELCOME BACK TO EMMA BURROWS, who has returned from New Zealand and
rejoined the Resources Division as PA to Mr McGregor.
EXPECT MORE GOOD NEWS concerning the research grants in the applied
science area. The announcement is still embargoed but watch this space.
WITH THE UPGRADING OF GUY MARTIN at Le Grand Vefour, France now has 22
3-star restaurants. Seven of them are in Paris (dates of the award of
the 3rd star in brackets):
"Pierre Gagnaire", 8e (1998), "L'Arpege" (Alain Passard), 7e (1996)
"Alain Ducasse", 16e (1997) "Lucas Carton" (Alain Senderens), 8e (1986)
"Taillevent" (Jean-Claude Vrinat), 8e (1973) "L'Ambroisie" (Bernard
Pacaud), 4e (1988) "Le Grand Vefour" (Guy Martin), 1er (2000)
Those in the rest of France are: "Le Jardin des Sens" (Pourcel)
Montpellier (1998) "Le Louis XV" (Alain Ducasse) Monaco (1990) "Les
Crayeres" (Gerard Boyer) Reims (1979) "Le Crocodile" (Emile Jung)
Strasbourg (1989) "Le Buerehiesel" (Antoine Westermann) Strasbourg
(1994) "L'Auberge de l'Ill" (Marc et Paul Haeberlin) Illhaeusern
(Haut-Rhin) (1967) "La Cote Saint-Jacques" (Michel et Jean Michel
Lorain) Joigny (Yonne) (1986) "La Cote-d'Or" (Bernard Loiseau) Saulieu
(1991) "Lameloise" (Jacques Lameloise) Chagny (Saone-et Loire) (1979)
"La Mere Blanc" (Georges Blanc) Vonnas (Ain) (1981) "Michel Bras"
Laguiole (Aveyron) (1999) "Paul Bocuse" Collonges-au-Mont-d'Or (Rhone)
(1965) "L'Auberge de l'Eredan" (Marc Veyrat) Veyrier-du-Lac
(Haute-Savoie) (1995) "Troisgros" (Pierre et Michel Troisgros) Roanne
(Loire) (1968) "Les Pres d'Eugenie" (Michel Guerard) Eugenie-les-Bains
(Landes) (1977).
3. BRANDING & CAPITALIST PROFITEERING by Albert Schofield, Rtd.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Wright volunteered for a job which rightly should have been
shouldered by someone in Marketing. In the absence of a volunteer from
that department's current staff, would you consider a reply from
someone who has added 'RTD.' to the already too many letters after his
name? On the branding front alone: the over-value-laden, emotive,
question-begging, colourful phrase, capitalist profiteering, is rather
beyond my ability to answer.
You apparently consider that brands are created by advertising, which
is paid for by the consumer in the brand creation, or development,
stage of the product's life; and that, subsequently, branded goods are
able to continue to command a higher price than non-branded goods, and,
by implication, a higher price than they deserve, partly at least
because of that advertising.
While 'deserve' is another value-laden word, whose meaning is not
entirely clear, the standard marketing answer that a brand confers on a
product some nebulous guarantee of quality is not very convincing. The
alternative case, that consumers don't have to buy branded goods but
choose to do so, you would presumably attack as naive, in that it
ignores the fact that consumers are 'brainwashed' by advertising.
This latter is very hard to prove, and, in fact, advertisers generally
find that it is very difficult to persuade consumers to buy a product
which does not do the job for which they are buying it. Yes, you can
fool some of the people all of the time, or even all of the people some
of the time, but only once - they won't buy your product again simply
because you advertise. Similarly, (though you certainly won't like to
hear this), is that it is very hard to persuade someone (by advertising
or any other means) to do something they dont want to do - compulsion
works far better than persuasion. When the Government relied on
advertising to get people to 'belt up,' they failed; now it's illegal
to drive without a seat belt, most people use them.
Brands ARE created by advertising (and other parts of marketing), and
it is often the case that the price has to include the cost of
advertising (and other marketing effort) - although some manufacturers
will take a loss on launching a brand, in the hope of recouping that
loss from future profits. But, even where the price does include an
advertising allowance in the initial stages, the effect of advertising
(and of branding in general) is ultimately to reduce the price of the
product, by enlarging the market, and thereby enabling the manufacturer
to realise the benefits of scale of manufacturing.
Just one example: in 1959, I bought a fridge for about 67 pounds, at a
time when, I subsequently found, only 2% of the population owned a
fridge; nowadays, when fridge ownership has expanded to over 90% of the
population, the price of an equivalent product is nowhere near 1,400
pounds, or whatever would be the equivalent of 67 pounds in 1959.
Advertising undoubtedly played a large part in enlarging the market for
fridges, as it is now doing for other goods, such as computers and
Dyson vacuum cleaners.
[NOTE: Should we not distinguish between 'brand advertising' and
'generic advertising' (the objective variety of which I would prefer to
call 'news' and the consumerist varty of which I vastly prefer). Word
of mouth recommendation, envy and imitation all play their part, larger
than advertisers give them credit for perhaps. And innate conservatism
and unadventurousness is, alas, what makes people keep buying a product
which serves the purpose... and never discovering another which does it
cheaper. (Ed)]
But not all markets are growing, nor are all products newly developed.
Most of the markets that you probably had in mind are stable, or
stationary, markets, in which total sales remain about the same from
one month to the next, or one year to the next. In these, it is the
case that the purpose, and the effect, of advertising is largely
competitive: it does not produce any increase in total sales (which is,
incidentally, the case made by the tobacco industry against banning
cigarette advertising).
But it does not follow from this that the total cessation of
advertising by all brands in such markets would NOT result in a FALL in
total sales. Indeed, it almost certainly would result in a fall in
sales, which would drive prices UP; but one cannot prove this, because
no-one would be willing to make the experiment. Another point about
advertising in at least some such markets is expressed in the old adage
that 'if Anadin (say) stopped advertising tomorrow, half the population
would be in pain.' Advertising (and branding in a way) helps products
work. Faith works, and 'faith cometh by hearing.'
A further point about advertising, which to some extent contradicts
the last one (and one which you certainly won't like to hear), is that
it is very hard to persuade someone (by advertising or any other means)
to do something they dont want to do - compulsion works far better than
persuasion. When the Government relied on advertising to get people to
'belt up,' they failed; now it's illegal to drive without a seat belt,
most people use them. The definition of marketing, which I heard from
someone in the university many years ago, as 'getting people to buy
things they don't want,' is a terminological inexactitude.
But of course that definition did not spring from knowledge of the
facts, but from prejudice, which is also at the root of your assault on
branding. You are no worse than me in that respect. Most academics,
outside their own field, are as ignorant as the average member of the
public, and therefore rely on prejudice, just like your next door
neighbour, in forming their opinions.
Probably we all agree that
In this world of darkness
So we must shine,
You in your small corner,
And I in mine;
but we are also too ready to think that somebody else's small corner,
far from being an outpost of light, is part of the world of darkness.
Prejudice tells us clearly that I, when I was there, was teaching the
young and not too innocent how to get consumers to buy things they
didn't want, if not actually training parasites; and that you are
inducing innocent and impressionable young people to read the works of
a loathsome pervert.
[NOTE: I'd happily admit to that actually. I've never been able to
accept the argument that the creations of a loathsome pervert are
necessarily either loathsome or perverted. Happy people, as de Beauvoir
said, have no stories to tell. Nor by and large do happily married,
healthy and prosperous nine-to-fivers. (Ed.)]
As Robert B. Parker said on Woman's Hour some time back, 'Academic
quarrels are so vicious because the stakes are so low.' And because the
stakes ARE so low, why should we make the effort to correct our
prejudiced misjudgements of colleagues in other small corners? (I
appreciate that in this case you have invited a rejoinder, though not,
I suspect, correction.)
[NOTE: You suspect wrongly but I don't see that you have 'corrected'
anything, merely made debatable contradictory assertions. And I
entirely disagree with Parker. Nailing minor inexactitudes may be worth
no money and certainly brings little immediate reward, yet it is the
most important contribution most of us can make to scholarship. I got a
great kick from contributing a new entry (well - only a spelling form
and cross-reference really) to the new OED. An editor acknowledged it
and thanked me for my evidence. Totally trivial and I had no need to do
it. Maybe no one will look at it in a hundred years. But. (Ed)]
Some of those colleagues may have world fame, but their global
colleges are still small when compared to the glory of La France, or to
the might of the 'huge companies' for whom the marketing department is
supposed to be training slaves or would-be profiteers.
P.S. (All good mailshots include a letter, and all good letters end
with one of these.) Mike Wright's plaintive ending - that we (in the
Management School) are not a separate species, but are just like you
(not in the Management School) is correct in part (the first part); but
some at least are not like you, having previously worked as wage-slaves
of one sort or another, and having had to be at work from 9 to 5, or
other definite period, and to answer to a boss for their errors, or
even to be a boss.
P.P.S. (The better ones have one of these, too.) This has nothing to
do with the above, but I could not put my keyboard away without
thanking you for your no doubt overwhelming, but also overwhelmingly
helpful reply to Stuart Riley's innocent request. I'll treasure this at
least until my next visit to my favourite city. I thought I knew Paris
quite well; but your enthusiastic guide has shown me that I've been in
some of the places you mentioned without actually seeing what was there
because I had no-one to tell me what to look for.
Similarly, I have undoubtedly read your favourite author without
knowing what to look for, and therefore without seeing what was there.
Also, I've failed many times to get through more than 100 pages, given
up, and later started again, not always at the beginning. So there are
some parts of the great work that I've read repeatedly, and some I
still haven't reached yet. Without asking for, or expecting, any reply
on the scale of your reply to Stuart, could I be offered any guidance
about Proust (as distinct from how to remedy my stupidity, laziness,
lack of application, etc.), which would help me to 'do better next
time'?
[NOTE: Thank you, but I fear you have only reinforced my initial
beliefs. Advertising thrives on innocence, vanity, ignorance and
gullibility. Profitable brands such as Blue Nun give people reliably
what they think they want but really do not deserve to exist. Wines of
far higher appellation and quality can be found on the same shelves at
Morrison's and at far cheaper prices, if only one knows one's way
around Rhine rankings and vintages. Blue Nun customers don't and think
they would be a gamble. Same with other pure creations of Marketing men
such as Le Piat d'Or or Mouton Cadet, from which the public ought to be
protected, if only by education. (Ed.)]
4. TIPS FOR WOULD-BE PROUSTIANS (I)
-----------------------------------
Albert Schofield asks for help in reading Proust, and Fiona Frank
wonders if she should rush through 'Le Temps retrouve' before the film
reaches the Duke's later this month.
The answer to the latter question is 'no'. The book is an adventure
story and the last volume is the climax. It can only fully enjoyed and
appreciated (and indeed perhaps read) if you have followed the story so
far and know all the characters. The film _is_ intended for people who
haven't read it, so the director said, but it should make some want to
read the whole novel - slowly.
Before the film comes I'll try to do a Monty-Python 'Summarize Proust'
thing and certainly introduce you to the characters played by the
leading members of the cast. I'll also run through the 'events' and
highlight some of what's happening in the final volume, which the film
is faithful to while transforming it in a way wholly in tune with
Proust's vision.
An adventure story but a purely cerebral adventure, a quest but a
quest whose grail lies within oneself. Proust did not like Scott
Moncrieff's translation of the title ('Remembrance of Things Past'),
since it put the emphasis only on 'sentimental memoirs' which is what
early hostile readers said was all the book consisted of.
He himself insisted on the importance of the word 'Search' in his
title. The story is exactly that: a lifetime's search for the answers
to a few key questions. Why am I sometimes so intensely happy without
any reason, where does the past go to and does any of it survive, how
can one cope with love and why does it never last, why do works of art
matter, why am I writing this book?
Moreover the work is much more integrated than you might suspect.
Proust did indeed write the last volume immediately after writing the
first. He had the complete vision in his head a decade or more before
the final volume was (posthumously) published. Indeed the last four
paragraphs of Time Regained precisely take up again the very themes and
motifs of the first four paragraphs of Swann's Way, something of which,
amazing though it may seem, attentive readers are perfectly conscious
when they get there months or years later.
This is because the book does indeed have a musical, even a 'symphonic',
structure rather than a simple chronological one. Proust had been
taught to appreciate how Beethoven, Hadyn or Mozart announced themes in
the opening movement, developed and expanded them in the body of the
work, and returned to them, recognizable but now transformed and
triumphant, in the closing cauda or tail-piece.
Nonetheless the work is broadly chronological. But one of its subjects
is Time itself and the way we exist in it, the same persons, yet always
different because our experiences are constantly 'added' to us and
survive in our memories. Hence the constant flashes back and forwards
as he thinks of the different 'versions' of every individual he has
known for many years.
Our relationship with our own past he sees essentially as like that
between an ancient church and history. The church vanquishes time in a
sense, and is in any case focussed on something 'outside' it, perhaps a
fiction. It is a vessel which sails across the centuries, a monument to
a past era that shows us faces now dead, but it is also a palimpsest
that bears the marks of its 'life' of everything that happens to it in
intervening years, bullets and smoke grime. And it exists in the
present.
Thus in Proust's novel, as in Raoul Ruiz's film, even spatial objects
become a metaphorical embodiment of time, as Alexander Walker rather
brilliantly observed in the Evening Standard when explaining some of
the more startling surrealist effects of the film, like opening a
wardrobe and stepping into another era.
The answer to Albert Schofield's question however is easy, and in two
parts. First: read Alain de Botton's amazing little book (which
everyone says they wish they had written) 'How Proust can change your
life'. It's soon to be televised for BBC2, quite a thing for a work of
criticism! It's chatty and totally accessible, but also very scholarly
and admired by all the most high-powered and expert reviewers.
(Picador, 1997, 5.99.) It's also fun and an agreeably nourishing
read even if you don't want to read Proust!
Secondly, if you find Combray (the 'overture' of Swann's Way) a bit
bewildering or daunting, come back to it later. Try instead the 2nd
part of Swann's Way which is called 'Swann in Love' and develops three
of the themes announced in Combray: romantic love, jealousy, and love
of the arts.
This is, uniquely, a third person narrative unlike the rest of the
book, and a story that is complete in itself. It is the story of the
love affair that the narrator's childhood hero and mentor, Charles
Swann, had with the high-class tart, Odette de Crecy, before the
narrator was born. Presumably related to him later by Swann himself.
Typical love story really - agony and ecstasy. When he at long last
gets his way, after being tortured by jealousy, he realises he doesn't
like her after all. So they get married.... The last sentence is
excruciating. (Something like: "To think I had my greatest love, I
wanted to die, and all for a woman I don't like, who is not even my
type.'")
[To be continued ad nauseam. Sorry.]
5. READERS' LETTERS
-------------------
I think the answer to Nina and Martin's question might be that the
roots of such a tree would seriously incommode the passage of
double-decker buses in the underpass.
Hilary Waklett
DCE
--------------------------------
I thought it was important to hear a voice from Austria in response to
Gerd Nonneman's analysis of the situation. Hope you can print this in
your next issue. I fear that the rhetorical and moral implications of
Haider's rise in popularity (it's been an ongoing process now for at
least a decade and a half) merit attention and discussion, too. This is
what a friend of mine who lectures at Klagenfurt University had to say
(roughly translated):
Re. 'the interesting analysis from Lancaster'
'The man is right about many things, but wrong about many others. One
of the lessons of the demonstration in Vienna is that Haider was not
voted for by so many people because he was so good, but because
Austria's social democracy was so bad.
At the demonstration somebody called out to the social democrats:
"Throw away your golf clubs!', meaning above all Vranitzky and his
wife, who have long since been seen by working class people as no
longer one of them; Klima, too, as an oil-industry manager.
But the stuff about anti-Semitism is wrong. Of course, Haider has
never publicly made anti-Semitic statements - he's not so stupid as to
do so. He knows that you have to formulate it differently: 'certain
circles on the East coast of America', or 'the freemasons and the
socialist and Bolshevist Internationale', or 'a so-called enlightened
intellectual' or expressions of this kind. People know exactly what's
meant. There's a kind of anti-Semitism in which the word 'Jew' does not
get used.
The fact that he has a Jewish member of parliament (Sichrovksy) is
also rather ambivalent; Sichrovsky is constantly on the lookout for
American Jewish organisations to give Haider a clean bill of health
['Persilschein' denazification certificate], but so far with little
success. His cultural adviser in Carinthia produced a wave of phobia
over Carinthia's demography as being 'racially restructured'
["Umvolkungs"-Phobie] in his writings for the party's paper - shortly
after this one of the readers of the paper planted the bomb in
Oberwart, with the rallying cry: 'Romanies back to India!"
Publicly one must not make causal connections for fear of litigation,
but a connection does exist, even if you label the guy who planted the
bomb a 'madman'. There was a campaign against a Carinthian artist here
which was fought with all the means of a Nazi campaign against
"decadent art" ["entartete Kunst"]. It was the most repugnant thing to
have gone on here in recent years.
Mr Nonneman's "We don't know" does not apply to us. We know and we
have good reasons for reacting like this. And the other arguments -
that Turkey is just as bad and is nevertheless a friend of America etc.
etc. are not of interest or at least they aren't the standard we are
seeking to be measured by.'
Dr Allyson Fiddler
Dept of European Languages and Cultures
------------------------------------
I was rather surprised and disappointed by Gerd Nonneman'’s analysis of
Haider and the Freedom Party in Austria. Let'’s just see who was
pleased by the Blue-Black coalition. First and foremost, both Le Pen
and Megret in France were quick to seize the opportunity to express
their delight (despite Le Pen’s view of the ‘opportunist’ nature of
Haider’s coalition with the conventional Right - typical of Le Pe'n’
differences with Megret'’s strategy).
But it is Gerd’s naivety about Haider’s use of language which surpised
me. It does not take a semiologist to realise that Haider can send out
messages in different ways. Haider uses a set of euphemisms to display
his anti-semitism, which communicates with the hard-core but does not
put off the protest vote or soft racist constituency. This ‘dual
discourse’ strategy has been brilliantly analysed in a recent book on
the ‘Front National’ in France (P. Fysh/ J. Wolfreys, The Politics of
Racism in France, Macmillan 1998, esp. pp.129-32).
Haider is a fascist, he is trying to move the Freedom Party into a
fascist position, and this is the first time in 50 years that we have
fascism in a European government. The question is what to do about it
(300,000 demonstrators in Vienna last Saturday - the biggest
demonstration in Austria'’s history - have posed the question), rather
than be paralysed by Gerd'’s nive analysis.
There was a meeting this Wednesday (1 March - Cavendish Lecture
Theatre, 6pm) which proposed to set up an ‘Anti-Nazi League’ in
Lancaster. Other nasty groups around Europe - the BNP in Britain for
example - will be inspired by Haider'’s success. To the words of Stefan
Zweig in the 1930s who described how the Nazis slowly implanted
themselves across Europe last time round (quoted recently by Martine
Aubry in Portugal as a protest at Freedom Party presence) we can add:
‘NeverAgain!’ and ‘Vigilae now!
Andy Stafford, Department of European Languages and Cultures
---------------------------
Having never trained as a journalist (or anything else, for that
matter) I am a bit ignorant and must have conducted my
article-writing-process wrong, somehow. Because when I went to the
square again (with a non-intoxicated mind) I realised that the answer
to my question was quite simple: The buses driving through the
underpass would hit against its roots!! I have learned a lesson:
journalism (ranting/raving) or academia, whichever, one has to do
proper research! Nevertheless, my point (perhaps from between the
lines) stands as is!!! Maybe the concluding question should have read:
Why is camping on the square not allowed?
Nina and Martin
--------------------------
Your recollections of Lancaster linked VCs, Principals, Directors and
Presidents could be expanded to include LIN Jian, now President of WUYI
University, Jiangmen, Guangdong, Peoples Republic of China, but in the
early 90s a Ph. D. student of mine in the Management Science
Department.
He is also Professor of Management Science of Beijing University of
Aeronautics and Astronautics, also the Frankland Moore Professor of CBI
(UK) though I don't entirely understand that one. How all this works
out I do not know, but he was a determined hard worker and clear
thinker when here.
I would like also to offer a solution to the riddle of the tree that
never was in Alexandra Square. The answer lies in the soil, which was
moved to provide the underpass.
John Crookes
-----------------------------
Oxfam is asking to people to write to Tony Blair to urge him to take
up the issue of universal primary education on the world political
stage.
If the international community is to live up to its pledge of all
children receiving basic formal education by 2015, then of the 125
million children who currently receive no primary education at all,
22,000 would have to be got into school EACH DAY from January 1st 2000
onwards. This simply isn't happening and the target is in real danger
of being missed - depriving the world's already most deprived children
of a chance of escaping from poverty.
What's now needed is forceful international leadership on this issue.
The Government has already taken an impressive position on the question
of the Third World Debt, setting a moral example that other rich
nations are going to find difficult to ignore. It now needs to speak
out with the same fervour on the issue of universal primary education
at the World Education Forum (April 2000), the World Social Summit
(July) and the United Nations' Millennium Assembly (September).
As teachers ourselves, we should surely support Oxfam on this, so
please take a few moments to write to Tony Blair:
* asking him to make "education for all" his personal priority
* urging him to show world-class leadership, just as the UK has done
on debt relief
* asking him to launch a global campaign to get children into primary
schools
The address is: The Prime Minister, The Rt Hon Tony Blair, 10 Downing
Street, London, SW1A 2AA.
Tony Pinkney (writing in the middle of student One World Week).
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5. SMALL ADS
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Thursday 2nd March Great Hall, 7.30pm
EMMA KIRKBY (soprano)
ANTHONY ROOLEY (lute/theorbo)
England's Silver Poets
Shakespeare's contemporaries, Congreve, Donne, Johnson, Milton,
Raleigh, Simpson and Spenser set to music by Arne, Greene, Lawes,
Pepusch, Purcell and Storace.
Two of Early Music's greatest ambassadors make a welcome return.
Tickets 12.50 10.00, 7.50 (12.00, 9.50, 7.00 conc)
Students 5.00
BOX OFFICE 5-93729
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Toshiba Satellite 300 CDT notebook, 166 MMX, 32 MEG RAM, excellent
condition 550 pounds Tel: David 01524 423105
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REMINDER REMINDER REMINDER
The Peter Scott Gallery's most visited exhibition -
The Art & Science Exhibition is still on and
will run until 24th March for those who have
not yet seen it !
Mon - Fri 11 - 4pm & Thurs 6 - 8.30pm
Tel 593057 FREE ADMISSION
As seen on TV - Not to be missed !
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FOR SALE: Extending fireguard (Argos) hardly used ?10. For details ring Jenny
on 01524 412690 evenings.
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COME, HEAR!
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Venue: Jack Hylton Room (Great Hall Complex)
Fridays 1.10pm - 1.50pm, Weeks 6 - 11 (except week 10)
Week 8 (3 March) "ENVIRONMENTS"
Art? Science? Political statement?
The environment speaks out.
Come, Hear the Acoustic Ecologists.
All welcome! Bring your ears; bring your lunch - preferably without
crisps or cellophane wrappers! Relax or concentrate as you wish. Forget
Bailrigg; explore exciting new realms presented over a 12-channel
loudspeaker system!
[Come, Hear! is introduced and diffused by Lisa Whistlecroft and Steve Benner]
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1985 VW Camper, 1.6 diesel, High Top, 4 berth, tax and MOT, 2900
pounds. Tel: 01539 722221 Mobile: 07940 124129 Email:
swigmore@globalnet.co.uk
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OUR THOUGHTS ARE WITH BOB CHAPLIN AND HIS TWO DAUGHTERS