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INKYTEXT 340
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Issue No 340 Wednesday March 8th 2000
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Editorial correspondence should be sent to InkyText@lancaster.ac.uk
Subscription requests to Inkytext-distribution-request@lists.lancs.ac.uk
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AGENDA
Minutes and Matters Arising
1. News: Funeral, Chemistry, Appraisal of Senior Officers, Buildings,
E-university, Cumbria, Students' Union.
2. Tips for would-be Proustians (III).
3. Readers' Letters: Student numbers, Paris.
4. Small Ads: Euro research forum, Bowls wanted, Cultural History Seminar,
Brio Train set, Duplo bricks, Cottage to let, Fiat Punto, Computer,
Le Bal des Voleurs, Spotlight Club, Sheltered accommodation,
Iredell Lecture.
MINUTES AND MATTERS ARISING
---------------------------
For 'it's' read 'its'. Sorry. Sigh.
For "Andrew Neal" read "Andrew Neil"
1. NEWS
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THE FUNERAL OF MRS DAVINA CHAPLIN will take place in St Wilfrid'S
Church, Halton at 2.00 p.m. on Friday. Family flowers only please.
Donations may be made to the British Heart Foundation or St John's
Hospice. Funeral directors: Preston, Ireland, Bowker.
CARRY ON CHEMISTRY: Discussions between the VCs of Sheffield and
Lancaster have taken place, and there is agreement on compensation to
be paid to staff for disruption. Contract letters from both
universities incorporate details of these payments, and give dates for
response and contract completions. That date was supposed to be
yesterday but all parties are gathering to sign together on Friday
since two of the chemists are currently in Daresbury. Still doubts in
some quarters about whether all will go.
AN OUTLINE FRAMEWORK FOR CONDUCTING APPRAISAL OF SENIOR MANAGERS (UMAG
and Deans), prepared by the Director of Personnel Services, was
approved by UMAG. In discussion, concerns were raised about the
confidentiality and use of reports and the role of external referees,
the selection process for appraisers, and the difficulties of defining
the corporate and individual objectives and each individuals role and
responsibility for setting and delivering on these.
[NOTE: Inkytext's revolutionary 'upward appraisals' are more
informative and arguably more reliable. They will appear in due course.
(Ed.)]
DELAYS AND THE UNCERTAIN TIMING of external funding is creating
planning problems. As new funds come available, without much notice and
before implementation of earlier plans, they prompt revision of
projects already designed to a more restricted budget. It is herefore
essential to develop a range of options, prioritisation of which would
depend primarily on the timing of confirmation of external funding. A
further difficulty is that some decision is essential on siting to
support bids from certain academic areas and plans are having to be
finalised before the full range of options within the Estate Strategy
has been developed. (This concerns primarily the new Informatics building
and the additional research space that is requiered by Computing.)
As a result a number of areas for building alteration or development
have now been appraised and are to be made public for comment. Whilst
not committing to any project or allocation of funds at this stage,
these projects will be accompanied by a full financial and risk
appraisal. Support of UMAG, APC and the faculties is needed to complete
the appraisals in the areas specified.
It was agreed that final decision on the projects in Applied Sciences
would have to await decision on the JIF bid for the Informatics
Laboratory - but that in any event plans had to be agreed by mid June
to enable delivery in time to meet urgent needs in 2000/01; the
Management School project was added to the list.
AMEC, project managers for the Environmental Sciences building, take
up temporary residence on B-floor of University House next week.
Welcome back to Michael Haslam and his secretary.
THE REPORT OF THE CONSULTANTS TO THE ADVISORY GROUP FOR HE IN CUMBRIA
on HE provision was received; Professor Fulton is to attend UMAG on
15th March to consider particular aspects of the report in which
Lancaster could have a role, particularly in relation to part-time cpd
programmes; research and consultancy links with private sector
organisations (herobic initiatives) placement, project and teaching
company schemes; and IT-based teaching and learning particularly
through the Cumbria MAN.
E-UNIVERSITY: THE DEPUTY VC is to set up a working group under his
chairmanship to assess Lancaster's potential to associate with the
developments proposed in the HEFCE consultative document on the
e-University. The working group will report through HEDC and that HEDC
should take responsibility for a carefully structured audit of all
staff of the range of e-based teaching and learning activity engaged in
and the resources and facilities available. This information is seen as
essential to strengthening Lancaster's potential to develop bids within
HEFCE's Teaching and Learning Funding Strategy.
UMAG agreed an annual contribution of ca 2850 pounds as part of the
50% contribution from the 94 Group of universities to the project to
develop anministrative and management training and development
programmes.
STUDENT UNION ELECTIONS to appoint next year's sabbatical officers
take place tomorrow. They are accompanied by the first of the
'referenda' introduced as a means's of countering poor attendance at
union general meetings. These referenda are controversial and members
could commit the union to extra spending on sabbatical officers. Senate
must also approve any constitutional changes, but this is not likely to
prove problematic.
3. TIPS FOR WOULD-BE PROUSTIANS (III)
-------------------------------------
For a long-time that night of bedroom drama was the only part of his
childhood that the narrator could relive with almost entire recall.
Sure, the remainder of the place and the events of his childhood he
could remember objectively, but only in the colourless, factual way
that we remember, or fail to remember, most things, without the vivid
colour and emotion that he felt once again when he thought of the bell
and THAT night.
But one day, years later, depressed, cold, having a cup of tea with
his mother, he dipped into it one of those fat little veined sponge
cakes called petites madeleines, and suddenly he felt amazingly happy.
He struggled mentally to find why, some hidden memory was lurking at
the back of his mind and he couldn't dredge it out. What an agonizing
mental tussle, like St George and the dragon, like an anxious lover who
thinks he's been stood up... Finally it came: it had brought back to
him the taste of the similar madeleine his aunt used to give him in
back in Combray, dipped into her infusion, on Sundays before mass.
Smells and tastes survive more deeply and longer than other memories,
he recognizes, true, but it is not until the last volume that he is
going to understand fully why such instances of 'affective' memory
bring such joy. At any rate we are asked to believe that it is the
vividness of such 'affective' or 'associative' memories that enabled
the rest of the book to be written. "All Combray" as he put it "emerged
from my cup of tea".
Had he at the time understood why these memories mattered, he would
have known how to realise his childhood ambition of being a writer.
Alas he has to wait 7 volumes until the middle of Time Regained, when
he has in quick succession four experiences of collective memory in a
row and realises the significance of these vivid flashbacks (which the
film medium does so well)
Now there were two walks that the family normally went on. Usually
they went out the back way and along towards Swann's estate at
Tansonville. They called that one 'Swann's Way'. If the weather was
fine they would sometimes walk the other way, along the banks of the
river Vivonne towards the fabled and never reached chateau of the local
aristocracy, the Duc and Duchesse de Guermantes, the duchess even
rumoured to be a descendent of Genevieve de Brabant from his fairy
tales.
These 'two ways' acquire more than merely directional significance. In
the narrator's mind they become associated with the two different
worlds of the rest of the novel. Swann's Way, where he once caught a
glimpse of the daughter and fell in love with her instantly, he
associates with romantic love, but also with beauty and the arts. It
was there he is struck speechless by the beauty of hawthorns in
blossom. And had Swann not told him that his daughter was friendly with
Bergotte the writer?
The long walk, the Guermantes Way, he associates with society,
history, aristocracy and the past. In part he reveres the aristocracy
because their very names are part of French history, and in their faces
and genes you can see traces of the famous from the past. But they too
mix with famous artists, partly to have some of their distinctiveness
and originality rub off on them, and partly because art too is,
indirectly at least, a record of the past after it has served its
innovative purpose.
Thus it is that the two ways link up, symbolically at least, to form a
closed and meaningless circle, as he is going to recognize to his
despair at the start of Volume 8, before the events of Time Regained.
But they link up literally too, as he found out one extra-fine day when
the family went a long walk out towards the Guermantes and he thought
they were lost until he suddenly he realised they were coming back home
via Swann's Way.
This bi-directionality and metaphor of surprise at the discovery of
familiarity is a motif echoed elsewhere in the novel, especially in
connexion with following complex arpeggios and variations in music,
then suddenly being overjoyed by the recognition of their resolution
into the original theme. Happiness certainly seems to have more in
common with RE-cognition than with mere cognition.
It's for that reason that preserving the past seems to him to matter.
His whole family is rather in awe of the past and he too is brought up
to repect the aristocracy, a living past, and art as a record of
history.
It is thus that the church in Combray, with its painted statues and
uneven flag stones, has a special significance for the narrator. For
him it is a happy place. Because of the stained glass it always seems
sunny inside even when the sky is grey. In it's mediaeval gargoyles and
statues you can clearly recognise the facial features of today's
locals, eg Camus the baker's boy. Heredity and its laws are indeed an
important sub-theme of Proust's novel, simply because they seem to offer
one kind of transcendence, albeit not a personal one.
[Cheer up - only seven and 7/8 volumes to go!]
4. READERS' LETTERS
-------------------
The large increase in St Martin's College's HEFCE allocation is
because they were lead institution for a collaborative bid for more HE
places in Cumbria on behalf of four institutions - SMC (Ambleside and
Carlisle Campuses), Cumbria College of Art & Design (Carlisle),
University of Northumbria at Newcastle - Carlisle Campus and University
of Central Lancashire (through its Penrith campus and partner colleges
in Barrow and Kendal). This bid was highly successful and almost fully
funded by HEFCE - over 1,000 additional places over a three year
period, full time and part time.
HEFCE had themselves commissioned research by DTZ Pieda which
indicated underprovision of HE in Cumbria.
Once the precise details of the student numbers places and funding
have been agreed and re-allocated by HEFCE between the four
institutions, SMC's increase won't be anything like as great as it
appears at first sight (although they will obviously benefit
significantly).
A joint press conference was held in Carlisle last Tuesday 29 Feb by
the four institutions. See Cumbria County Council press release
http://www.cumbria.gov.uk/news/2000/2902a.htm (sorry, UCLAN press
release isn't on the web site yet). I understand it was covered by the
Westmorland Gazette and other Cumbrian local press but haven't actually
seen them myself yet.
While Lancaster U is a member of HEFCE's AGHEC (Advisory Group on HE
in Cumbria), they did not participate in the bid for additional places.
Mike Milne-Picken
Head of Planning & Performance Review
University of Central Lancashire
-------------------------------------
Many thanks to everyone who took the time to visit the
Print Room Open Day. It was appreciated.
A special thank you to all the people who made a donation
for mouse mats & T-shirts.
This enabled us to send a cheque for £100 to Cancer Care.
Thank you
Denise, Christine, Matthew, Jean & Lesley.
-----------------------------------------
Joan will be sending you a Parisienne diary so I thought I would write
in a different way. First, thank you for what you wrote for us. It was
fun to read, made us minor celebrities, and added immeasurably to our
experience of Paris: an experience that we plan to repeat.
Our hotel was far from the "heap of rubble" you saw when you looked
up its photo in Yellow Pages. In fact it was 4 star "luxe". Very
comfortable, very quiet and very convenient. It had a lounge with an
open log fire and newspapers. A pleasant place to spend an hour when
returning from one of (y)our walks.
My abiding memory will be of a sunny Sunday morning by the Seine. The
river a pale green colour, rolling along in the sunshine and people
very much at their ease. You described it as "bliss" and you were quite
right. Small cafes and sandwiches, everyone helpful and not aloof. When
Joan performed her "art" by falling off an escalator in the Pompidou
there were copious and instant offers of help. Flamel, I couldn't
believe that the door would open; the building was surely derelict. But
it did and inside was a culinary treasure. Here the clientele were a
little self-absorbed and perhaps arrogant but that was the only time we
notice any haughtiness.
I bought the rose, a beautiful pink one. Madame did not blush but I
was quite overwhelmed by the moment. I don't know if that was me or
Paris, perhaps it was both.
You offered us four Fs. I offer you in return a number of Cs. Of these
the first is kissing. There is a lot of it in Paris. Doisneau probably
has hundreds of equally good prints at home in his collection. Then
there is culture and colour and cafes, coffee and cake. Children, but
that maybe us being delighted at our new grandchild, and confidence and
a sense of a city that knows what it is about. There is cement and
civil engineering and style which to fit has to be "continental" style.
Then there is carpet in the streets. We frequently saw little rolls of
carpet in the gutter. What were they? I finally decided they were used
by the road sweepers to block the drains when they were being washed.
Is that right? I can add chocolate and collections (in the galleries
and museums). We were missing two Gs: no garlic and no Gauloises. That
was strange.
The Marine Ministry had its website emblazoned on the builders' cladding
around the building. Surely the letter w must now be the most
frequently occurring letter in English having replaced e. The Meteor is
superb. I loved the stations where a transparent tunnel keeps
travellers away from the track. How do they manage to align the train
doors with the platform doors?
It was good fun and we will do it again. You needn't write more as we
still have much to do of your what you have already recommended. Thanks
for the help and the enjoyment you gave to us and to others. If you
ever give up the day job you could, I am sure, make a success of
"Personalised Parisian Progresses".
Stuart Riley
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NUFFIELD THEATRE
The French Student Theatre Group
presents
IN FRENCH
LE BAL DES VOLEURS
by Jean Anouilh
7.30
Tuesday 7th, Wednesday 8th, Thursday 9th March
Tickets 4.00 (3.00 concessions)
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RESEARCH FORUM
THURSDAY, 9 MARCH 2000
'THE SUSTAINABILITY OF THE EURO'
Bernard Connolly
AIG Trading Corporation
(Formerly a senior official of the European Commission responsible for
monetary affairs)
Venue: LT 4 (Management School)
Time: 4pm
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WANTED: SET OF CROWN GREEN BOWLING BALLS to suit youth. Can collect;
please contact j.l.beck@lancaster.ac.uk
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CHILDRENS' TRAIN TRACK FOR SALE: BRIO (expensive high quality wooden)
- about 40 pieces including 8 trains, tunnel, bridge and station.
Excellent condition. 70 pounds. Duplo (chunky plastic) - about 30 pieces,
including 10 trains etc., level crossing and bridge. Excellent
condition. 35 pounds
Also box of assorted Duplo bricks and figures. 20 pounds. Contact: Liz
Mailer 015242-22236 (preferably evenings, or leave a message on the
ansaphone)
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DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY AND CENTRE FOR SOCIAL HISTORY
Cultural History Seminar Series
Tuesday 14th March 4.15 for 4.30 in Furness Senior Common Room
Maurice Slawinski, Department of European Languages and Cultures
'Pride in Performance. Reconstructing Courtliness in Renaissance Italy.'
The political and social disorder in Italy in the 16th century formed
the backdrop to an important cultural phenomenon - the ideal of the
courtier and of courtly behaviour. Maurice will explore the development
and articulation of this ideal in different manifestations. He will
examine what it meant to be a member of a court, what the court itself
meant as a centre of political and cultural forces, and how patterns of
behaviour signified attitudes of mind and allegiances.
This is the last seminar this term. Advance notice: this year's
Histfest will be held on Saturday 6th May 00. A rich and varied
programme is promised. All welcome.
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TO LET: Rose Cottage, Quernmore 3 bedrooms, part furnished, heating,
garden and parking 400 pcm Tel 752045
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FIAT PUNTO 55S; N reg (1996); 3 door; 23,000 miles; MOT valid until
Feb/2001; excellent condition. 2,850 ONO. Contact: Ricardo Cassel;
tel.: (01524) 841502.
--------
Computer Gateway 2000; Pentium 166 MMX; 32 Mb RAM; 2.2 Gb HD; 512 Kb
cache; 15" monitor; 12X CD-ROM; 33,600 bps modem; sound card; graphics
card; speakers; microphone; mouse; keyboard; Windows 95; Microsoft
Office 95. 270. Contact: Ricardo Cassel; tel.: (01524) 841502.
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WRITERS SPRING TO LIFE IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Words and music mingle under the Spotlight on Friday 17th March. The
Yorkshire House, home of Lancaster's monthly live writing cabaret will
host a range of new work from local performers.
This month's line up includes poetry from Steeve the Poet, Preston's
irrepresible bard, and Robert Perica, who recently made his open mic
debut. There will be stand-up comedy from Nygel Harrot - Lancaster's
answer to Ken Dodd... And there will be a short story from David
Forknall, popular with Spotlight audiences for his comic work, and now
showing his serious side.
Music fans get a double treat, with two highly original acts
performing their own material. Vocal and guitar duo Skeleton Staff
feature Tim Stevens and Wendy Corbet, unveiling a new set created
especially for the Spotlight Club. The finale of the evening will be an
unplugged set by the Puma Sutras. This three piece band were reviewed
ecstactically in the local press when they released a 4 track CD
recently. Definitely a trio of musical pioneers, their songs are both
intelligent and innovative. The evening will be compered by Ian
Marchant, novelist, performer and media personality.
Find out more by phoning 01524 62166 or 847240. Or be there on the
night. Show starts at 9 pm with open mike spots - all writers and
performers welcome - read your own poem and get in free!. Admission
3.00/1.50. Line up may be subject to change at short notice. issued by
SUE PARISH (Publicity Officer/New Pages Project Manager/Competition
Administrator)
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FLAT FOR SALE (Greaves area, Lancaster) Are you thinking of purchasing
a flat in the Lancaster area for yourself, or indeed thinking of
bringing your retired parent(s) to be closer to you in Lancaster??
Then please do take a look at this extremely pleasant, contemporary
purpose-built and designed first floor sheltered apartment offering
one-bedroomed self-contained accommodation. Appointments include the
provision of gas-fired central heating, double-glazing and twenty-four
hour emergency alarm call system (if required). Dish-washer also
included in sale.
Sheltered occupancy restriction to those over fifty-five years of age,
the flat is sold on a leasehold basis to those of retirement age for a
sum that represents 70% of the open market value. South Lancaster
location, close to local shops and bus services, with the city centre
and civic amenities being within one mile approximately northwards, and
the University the same distance southwards.
There is a monthly service charge (of approx. 45 pounds) which covers
external repair and maintenance, building insurance, emergency call
system, gardening, external lighting and site cleaning.
This property is vacant, for immediate possession. Urgent sale
required, hence the selling price of 20,000. But any realistic offer
around this would be considered. For further details please contact
Diane Montgomery on extension 92030.
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This year's Iredell Lecture History and Law will take place on 16
March 2000 at 6.00 p.m. in the Faraday Lecture Theatre. Professor David
B. Wilkins will deliver a lecture entitled, "Black Justice: The Impact
of Charles Hamilton Houston's philosophy that Black lawyers should be
'social engineers for justice' on the ideals of Four Generations of
Black American Lawyers." All are welcome.
Professor Wilkins is Kirkland and Ellis Professor of Law and Director
of the Program on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School, and a
Senior Research Fellow at the American Bar Foundation. He has written
numerous articles on the legal ethics, racism and the legal profession,
with a particular emphasis on the experience of black lawyers in
corporate law firms. He has interviewed over 200 lawyers for a
forthcoming book on black corporate lawyers tentatively titled "The New
Social Engineers: The Making of the Black Corporate Bar and What it
Means for America."
For further information contact David Sugarman, d.sugarman@lancaster.ac.uk
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PLEASE MAKE USE OF THE OUTLOOK ADVERTISMENT FOLDER WHENEVER APPROPRIATE