Eventyr

University Cuts

It was announced last week that the following cuts are proposed at the University:

• 115 planned staff redundancies total
• Losses in the schools of Life Sciences, Informatics, English, Engineering & Design, the Centre for Continuing Education, and History
• Redundancies or reduced staffing levels in the Library, IT Services, lab technicians, portering and catering.
• Closure of Unisex, the sexual health and drug/alcohol awareness service
• Redundancy for 11 out of 16 of the university’s student advisers
• Closure of the subsidised childcare service
• Closure of InQbate, a pioneering high-tech learning space
• A 5% cut in Union funding
• Further cuts planned in early 2010

- From 'All the details so far'

The official position is that these cuts are necessary, and are given alongside management claims that the the student experience will be improved (while somehow cutting services that students need and reducing lecturers) and that the university remains committed to research. Emails which say things like "In a number of schools we need to seek financial savings, which will mean reductions in staffing. However, in all cases we will be investing in developing new areas of research and teaching in these schools as a positive approach to the challenges we face" are not helping matters.

40% of academic staff (below professorial level) in Informatics alone are due to be cut. Somehow there are also plans to increase student numbers in the department. I admit to being baffled about who will be left to teach these students, or how it could possibly work.

The week that this all was announced it was noticed that all large meeting rooms at the university had been blocked out so they could not be used - the supposed reasons having since proved to be an 'administration error'... Alongside other incidents this has prompted some to become concerned about the possibility the management are trying to curb freedom of speech.

The drama continues.

In the meantime, this entire thing, while badly managed by upper management, has served to move several groups into action, and appears to be uniting people within departments and across the university in a way that is truly inspiring.

Links:

• THES Article
• UCU
• Stop the Cuts
• Facebook Informatics Stop the Cuts Group
• Facebook University Stop the Cuts Group
• Uni Management on Twitter (spoof)

With My Sincere Smile

I may go out tomorrow if I can borrow a coat to wear
Oh I'd step out in style with my sincere smile and my dancing bear
Outrageous alarming courageous charming
Oh who would think a boy and bear
Could be well accepted everywhere
It's just amazing how fair people can be

Simon Smith And The Amazing Dancing Bear Lyrics by Randy Newman

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On Saturday 14th February my grinning brother got married to the lovely Yvonne.  We all got to listen to a lot of Circulus, tour the pavilion, and listen to some speeches.  Tom has written a lovely summary so I shan't add more.

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Photos:

• Tom: http://www.flickr.com/photos/twhume/sets/72157613834535424/
• Sophie: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sophystar/sets/72157613941883664/
• Carl: http://www.flickr.com/photos/79951199@N00/sets/72157613857595134/
• Adam: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bluejoh/sets/72157614357097864/

Video:

• Tom's Best Man speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=310_63y97kI
• The First Dance and More: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZOt2jW-KF0 (rather long)

Street Greeting

"You look tired" he said as I reached my car that morning.

"Do I?"

Shaking his head he rephrased himself, "Do you think you look tired?"

I shrugged at the stranger, and looked up at the grey morning sky.  Winter was creeping in and everywhere was damp from the recent rain.  "Everyone is tired at this time of year."

"Is this your car? I cleaned it for you."

I looked at him, this stranger who had halted me.

"The birds, you know.  I have a woollen sock.  It works well, wool.  It just wipes off, like this.  See?"

I looked at him as he wiped at my car with a white woollen sock.

"I'm going to clean my steps using it next."

I muttered my thanks and excused myself.  Interesting kindness and odd words.

New Models

Impressively still going since the early 1980's, what really astounded me seeing New Model Army play again recently was that they remain one of the best live bands I know.    Made my heart oddly happy.

---

I'll watch the sun set over every sea
From every city wall, every mountain peak
Before I get old
The Northern Lights and the Southern Cross
The harvests and the miles of dust
And the blowing wind across the world
So wrap this coat around yourself
And leave what's done behind
There's so much left for us to do
And yet there's so little time
I'm going to pull the fences to the ground
Watch the twisted towers come crumbling down
And start again
Before I get old - New Model Army

Singing Chef

"Are you to busy to organize your own dinner party?  or simply just want to relax with your friends,  while top quality internationally flavoured cuisine is prepared and served from your very own kitchen.  Imagine as those sumptuous desserts are being digested,  after dinner entertainment from a musician and performer whose songs will leave your guests spellbound."

The lovely and brilliant Matt Kemp has set up business in Brighton as The Singing Chef.

It is a phenomenal idea, and one I intend to make use of, especially as his prices are so cheap:  Only £125 for a five person dinner party with consultation, purchase of ingredients, the three course meal, complementary glass of wine, music and kitchen clean. He can cook* and he's a darned good musician. Phenomenal bargain to my mind (and I'm a student!).

Now I just need to find someone willing to let me host a dinner party at their house.

25 years of BPEC

On Saturday Brighton Peace and Environment Centre celebrated its 25th anniversary. 

I'm glad that (on and off) over the last 14 years I have had the chance to participate in this achievement.  I've helped it move from the premises on Trafalgar Street (now Rainbow Books), to Gardner Street, to the Brighton and Hove Unemployed Workers Centre in Hollingdean, then on to its current home by Brighton Station.  In reverse, the old BPEC van helped me move out of home for the first time. 

Over this time it has found purpose and drive, and many lovely, lovely people have contributed their time to keeping it alive. An abbreviated history of the centre is given here.

May it still be around in another 25 years.

Figures

Day Of The Figurines is part board game, part secret society. The game is set in a fictional town that is littered, dark and underpinned with steady decay.

It lasts for 24 days beginning from Wednesday 4th April. Each day represents an hour in the life of a small English town that shifts from the mundane to the cataclysmic.

...

The centrepiece of the game is a model town housed at Lighthouse in Brighton. Each of the 1,000 players is represented by a small plastic figurine which is moved by hand every hour for the duration of the game.

To play, players are invited to create a figurine to enter the town: to name it and answer questions about its past. Thereafter participation in the game is via SMS on your mobile phone.

Day of the Figurines (via Adactio).  I know where I am going on my lunchbreak tomorrow.

Chain Pier

My father bought a picture recently, in a massively ornate gilded frame.  On taking it out to reframe it in something more sedate he found this picture underneath:

He was planning to just bin it, but I thankfully noticed and managed to claim it for my own.

Oddly, it is massively similar to the picture on My Brighton and Hove of the Chain Pier.

Good Find.

Burning Fields

Part of me occasionally remembers the burning fields of my childhood. 

After the hurricane, which created giant playgrounds for us of fallen timber in Withdean Field and Peacock Park (or Withdean Park as the sign now calls it), came the burning.

The fallen giants and surrounding scrub needed to be removed.  The flames went on for weeks.  Or so I recall.   

I remember the falling cinders melting the pink plastic on my childhood trainers as I played.

These memories had been resurfacing, but they were truly re-realised when our research group went on a scrub-bashing day burning the downs (with the friends).  Highly recommended and enjoyable even in the mud.

In Love

On Tuesday I left my local post office and saw the view across the hills, down to Patcham, over to Westdene, and over and away to the downs, all lit up by a warm spring sun.  Rather than worrying about why it was so nice for the time of year, I stopped and fell in love with my part of town all over again.  I remembered all of what Brighton is for me.

Today I just felt lucky that I live in the part which got snow.

Odd that after so many years I can still love this place with such a passion.