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issue 70

27 January 2011

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'Truth: lies open to all'

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Every fortnight during term-time.

All editorial correspondence to: subtext-editors [at] lancaster.ac.uk.

Please delete as soon as possible after receipt. Back issues and subscription details can be found at http://www.lancs.ac.uk/subtext.

The editors welcome letters, comments, suggestions and opinions from readers. subtext reserves the right to edit submissions.

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CONTENTS: editorial, news in brief, woodland walk and trim trail, hermit needed?, research excellence framework (REF), sabbaticals, castle prison to close, great hall harpsichord concert, letters.

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EDITORIAL

At the beginning of the new academic year, subtext predicted that there would be gloomy times ahead, and warned readers that forthcoming issues would not make for happy reading.  At the beginning of a new calendar year, we see few reasons to amend that prediction.  The Christmas and New Year period is a time usually spent with family and friends.  Insular lot that academics are, their friends very often turn out to be other academics.  Apparently, a favourite Christmas party game was 'Alternative Careers' as academics vied with each other to suggest the increasingly unlikely alternative jobs they would pursue were they either to be made redundant or to find that they could no longer stand working in an educational system that looks set to become ever more depressing.  Sadly, we are obliged to add to that gloom in this issue.  On top of last term's setting in train of a  funding revolution, we know that this term will see an intensified attack on our pensions, and, more locally, word is also filtering through of the increasing difficulty of taking research sabbaticals, as well as news of an increasingly aggressive and selective approach to the forthcoming REF.  One member of the editorial collective recently took a taxi from Liverpool Lime Street station, and, on informing the driver of his profession, was treated to a spirited attack on government policy on education.  His theme was the short-term vision of government ministers and how their university policies would eventually come back to haunt them.  He spoke a great deal of wise and common sense, much more, alas, than we hear from the mouths of government ministers and university vice-chancellors.  We in subtext continue to seek out wisdom from whatever quarter we can.  In the meantime, and against the odds, we wish all readers a belated Happy New Year.

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NEWS IN BRIEF

Library Restructuring

Readers will have noticed the appearance of new self-issue machines in the library.  They appear to be connected with a major restructuring programme in the Library with serious implications for library staff.  This looks set to intensify this term, with particular members of staff being identified for redundancy.  Understandably, the morale of library staff has plummeted.  As well as redundancies among more junior staff, there also appear to be questions being raised over the future role of Subject Librarians.  We will report any further news as it becomes available, and in the meantime, we offer our good wishes and warm support to all colleagues in the Library at this difficult time.

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University Court

The annual meeting of Court takes place on Saturday (29th January).  Although meetings of Court have recently become increasingly sterile public relations exercises, past meetings have been known to throw up surprises and garner considerable debate.  Among the Court papers that have been distributed to members, one particularly interesting proposal comes from former Lancaster UCU president Alan Whitaker, seconded by former LUSU presidents Michael Payne and Tim Roca.  It proposes the setting up of a Working Group of nine members representing various constituencies 'to assess the changing expectations of students as a result of a substantial increase in tuition fees, together with the implications of such changes for all groups of staff, in the context of the aspirations and objectives of the university.'  subtext will carry a Court Report in its next issue.

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Director of Marketing and External Linkages Arrives

Readers will recall the dramatic departure of Anthony Marsella, Director of Marketing and External Linkages over the summer.  His long-awaited successor has finally arrived.  Her name is Katrina Payne and she was previously Director of Business Development at Cranfield University.  It is at least heartening to find that she has some prior experience of the Higher Education working environment.  She is also a Lancaster graduate, having studied here in the late 1970s. In personal terms, she has so far made a good impression.  One staff member reported that she had said 'hello' to her and another confirmed that he had seen her smiling.  In both respects, this is apparently an improvement on her predecessor.

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University wind turbine

subtext readers may recall that the University's plans to build two 101m wind turbines on its Hazelrigg site near the M6 were rejected by Lancaster City Council's Planning Committee last May. The application had prompted a 1011-name petition in support of the scheme, but also objections from a range of individuals and groups, including the local Tree Protection Officer, the Environment Agency and local parish councils.  In defending their decision, the Council argued that 'the proposed development, by reason of their scale, design, close proximity and visual impact, would exert a significantly harmful influence on the living conditions currently enjoyed by neighbouring residents'.  On 7 March the Committee is expected to discuss revised plans for a single turbine which, advocates hope, will prove less controversial.  Insiders at the City Council certainly report a massive public response in favour of the planning application, but it is too early to guess which way the decision will go.

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Fees and the Finance Committee

The next meeting of the Finance Committee on Friday 18th February could turn out to be highly significant.  It is thought likely that this will be the meeting at which the new level of fees for 2012 onwards will be determined.  All will be waiting to hear how high Lancaster will dare to go.  There has been an increasing tendency in recent years for important decisions such as this to have been essentially fixed before reaching any officially-constituted body.  We can only hope that this supremely important one will be made in the proper constitutional way and that there will be no hint of any backroom deals.

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Saturday Demonstrations

A 'Future that Works' protest against the government cuts is to take place in Manchester this Saturday (29th), highlighting particularly the impact of the cuts on young people.  The protests is being organised by UCU, the NUS and the Trades Union Congress (TUC). The UCU and NUS, in conjunction with other unions are also  organising a march to a rally at Platts Fields Park, which will start at 1pm. The March will start at 10.30am at the junction of Oxford Road and Brunswick Street. Further details are here: http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=5185.

Also, on the same day in London, the Education Activist Network (EAN) and the National Campaign Against Fees (NCAFC), with the support of the University and College Union, are organising a march and rally, 'United for Education', assembling 12 noon at University of London Union, Malet Street, and heading towards Parliament.

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University in Crisis

This series continues this term with a talk by Terry Eagleton, to be given on Tuesday 1st February from 5-7pm in the Management School Lecture Theatre 1.

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Heysham-M6 Link Road

Readers might recall that in October the Government announced that they were minded to fund the controversial Northern Bypass, 'subject to a best and final offer from local authorities on costs'.  The road, which would run from an adapted Junction 34 on the M6 near Halton to the roundabout near Lancaster and Morecambe College, and thus complete the Heysham-M6 link road, has been hailed by the County Council as a potential engine for economic growth in the area.  However, critics say that it will mainly function to attract more HGV lorries to Heysham port, do little if anything to alleviate the traffic problems in the area, and result in loss of significant farmland and biodiversity.  Since the October announcement, Lancashire County Council has been busily redrawing the plans to shave a few millions off the £133m of Government funding that would have been needed for the scheme.  The Council has also reputedly offered £26m of its own funds towards constructing the road, at a time when it is having to make deep cuts in other budgets and services.  And, worryingly, councillors and others who have requested information on the revised plans and costs have been fobbed off.  So it looks like no public scrutiny will be allowed before the Government makes a final decision by the end of January.

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University Web Site

subtext readers who have struggled to navigate around the University website, or who have been mystified by the results delivered by the site's search engine, will presumably be heartened to hear that a new Web Strategy Group has been set up.  The group will be looking in general terms at the university's web presence and, in particular, the content, appearance and design of the university's web site.  All staff have been invited to share their thoughts, concerns, criticisms and suggestions and a web page has been set up to allow them to do this.  The discussion site will be free and open and staff are encouraged to be as frank as they wish.  For those on campus or connected via VPN, the link is below, after which one has to click on 'Staff Consultation.'

http://centralinfo.lancs.ac.uk/sites/WebStrategyGroup

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University Brass Bands National Championships

Brass band enthusiasts will be excited to hear that Lancaster will be hosting the first University Brass Bands National Championships, on Saturday 19th February.  The event is being organised by the university's Music Society (ULMS) with support from the British Federation of Brass Bands.  Some 13 universities will compete, including Oxford, Cambridge, Cardiff, Bangor and Edinburgh.  The competition will take place all day in the Great Hall, and day passes will be available for £5 (http://www.unibrass.webs.com).

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WOODLAND WALK AND TRIM TRAIL

As was reported in LU-Text, the new campus Woodland Walk and Trim Trail have just been opened.  Members of staff were given a trial run accompanied by members of the Sports Centre.  Bette Nichols, College Administrator at The County College, was one of those who participated.  She comments:

'On Thursday 13 January at 12.30 pm I met with many other members of staff at the barbecue area at South West Campus to walk the new Woodland Walk. It is very easy and you can get on and off at various signed points. We didn't do the complete walk as it was very wet underfoot and would have taken longer than our lunch hour permitted. It was very enjoyable and took us around parts of the campus that I had never seen before. Members of staff from the Sports Centre accompanied us on the walk and I understand that there were others who took people on the Trim Trail. Soup and buns greeted us at the end of the walk which was most welcome. I found the walk so enjoyable that I am keeping a pair of walking boots and suitable attire in the office so that I can do this regularly. It can be muddy and squelchy but this has been addressed in most places with strategically placed boardwalks and bark chipping.'

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HERMIT NEEDED?

Outside the Great Hall, near the Jack Hylton Music Room, there's a small sunken garden, in the garden there's a shed, and in the shed there are: 1 broken piano, 1 empty packet of cigarettes, 6 pieces of coloured chalk. On the gate to the garden there's a sign saying that the 'Making Time' garden is open to all, and is care of the Nuffield Theatre, and indeed the garden was created as a performance art piece that ran from 2009-10. This prompts the question, now it's 2011, is the stuff in the shed still art? If so, maybe an 'interpretation panel' is needed.  And, if it's not art any more, could the contents of the shed be upgraded? Though cold and miserable now, the garden will be nice in the spring. Deck chairs and games would be fun. Or maybe the shed could be inhabited? Anyone who fancied being a hermit might start growing a beard now, and then they'd be proper scary looking by summer.

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RESEARCH EXCELLENCE FRAMEWORK (REF)

After some uncertainty over the form the REF would take and, indeed, over whether it would actually take place at all, universities across the UK are now making their preparations for what looks set to be a 2014 assessment.  Here at Lancaster, preparations are underway for a 'mock' REF to begin in the autumn.  What is becoming clear is that universities across the UK are going to be much more selective in deciding which members of staff to submit for assessment.  This is in marked contrast to the last RAE in which the overriding imperative appeared to be to submit as high a proportion of staff as was possible.  The policy at Lancaster and elsewhere was to submit all members of staff unless there were good and clear reasons to do otherwise.  2014 is going to be very different and word has filtered through from several other universities that they are planning to submit only those members of staff who have at least three publications of 3 star quality and one of 2 star quality.  If this is so, this may mean that only around 50% of academics will be submitted for assessment, although of course, at some universities the proportion will be considerably higher while at others it will be considerably lower.

If these early indications turn out to be correct, however, the implication seems to be that at most universities, staff will be divided into 'research-active' and 'non-research active' staff, with these categories being defined purely in terms of whether they are deemed to be eligible for submission to REF 2014.  This, of course, immediately raises the question of the longer-term career prospects of those who are deemed to be not so eligible.  Indeed, word has reached subtext of several universities who have signalled their intention to make use of many more 'teaching-only' contracts in the coming years.  Thus far, it seems that no explicit connection has been made between this and the REF, but it requires no great mental agility for this connection to be made.  With the advent of teaching only contracts, there seems little doubt that most research-active staff will hope to be wholly or mostly relieved of the 'burden' of teaching.  The alarming prospect is gradually coming to light of a British university academic staff divided roughly 50:50 between 'research' staff and 'teaching' staff.

This, of course, would be to enact yet another revolution in British academic life.  For many decades, British university life has been characterised by an intimate conjunction between teaching and research.  Much has been made of teaching being undertaken by the pioneers of the very research that is being taught.  It would be ironic if, just at the time when students are being asked to pay inordinate amounts of money for their university education, there is the prospect of them no longer being taught by the research leaders in their field.

But there are other obvious implications.  One of the disadvantages of previous RAEs was the way in which they encouraged short-term research strategies and discouraged longer ones.  This problem will be exacerbated with the more intensively 'selective' approach of the REF.  Major research monographs in the arts and humanities especially often take a decade or more to come to fruition.  There are many stories of departments having done exceptionally well in the last RAE due to several members of staff bringing to completion monumental works on which they had been working for 15-20 years.  Such scholars many now be deep into their next project but with little concrete to show for it by 2013. Are these leading scholars to be deemed 'non-research active' simply because they do not have the requisite submissions for REF 2014?  Also, what of younger or early-career scholars?  If they don't quite make the required 3 or 4 targets in all four submissions, are they too not to be submitted?  There is clearly much at stake here and one hopes that much more careful thought will be given to these questions all round.

subtext readers may recall UCU's excellent 'Stand Up for Research' petition from 2009 - signed by 13,000 academics but ignored by HEFCE.  Perhaps it is not surprising that there are growing rumblings about a possible boycott of REF as a waste of time and money and as introducing incentives inimical to the spirit of research - see for example http://boycotttheref.blogspot.com/.

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SABBATICALS

Periods of sabbatical leave have long been contractual entitlements for members of academic staff.  At one time, these might have been used for constructing new undergraduate courses or catching up with long neglected reading in one's field of expertise.  More recently, such pursuits were deemed unacceptable because they produced no 'measurable' or 'quantifiable' outputs.  The fact that such outputs themselves depended upon uninterrupted periods of unquantifiable reading and thinking seemed to disturb few.

Now, it seems, the monitoring and regulation of sabbatical leave is to become stricter still.  We have heard that university managers are raising questions about the financial cost of sabbatical leaves and are looking for more concrete evidence of measurable financial returns. So staff will have to give clear and precise undertakings of what 'outputs' they will produce during their sabbatical leaves, which in effect and perversely means that they will have to undertake the necessary thinking and research in advance of the sabbatical that is supposed to give them the time to undertake these very things.  Once again, this exacerbates the pressures towards short term research, as mentioned above (REF).  If a sabbatical allows one to produce a monograph in 8 years rather than 10, this is of little account to faculty management bean counters, simply because there will be no measurable 'output' during the particular period of sabbatical leave in question.

Another concurrent development in many departments is for those embarking on sabbatical leave in any one term to undertake double the amount of teaching during the term when they are not on sabbatical (accompanied by double the amount of exam marking during the summer term).  In many departments, this doubling of the teaching load is becoming a quid pro quo for the term of leave.  This in itself will be enough to make many academics think twice as to whether a period of sabbatical leave will really be worth taking.  When this is combined with the much heavier handed approach to monitoring of measurable outputs, it will not be surprising if many academics conclude that sabbaticals are simply not worth the hassle and the exhaustion.  Once again, it seems bizarre that when the university should be trying to encourage high level research in preparation for 2014, it should be doing everything in its power to make that research much more difficult to conduct.

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CASTLE PRISON TO CLOSE

On 13 January the Ministry of Justice announced that HMP Lancaster Castle will close in March, and its 238 offenders are to be relocated.  Lancaster is one of three prisons that will close as part of the Ministry's particularly aggressive rationalisation of its property portfolio of offices, prisons and courts.  The Ministry said 'we have entered discussions with the Duchy of Lancaster and the local council about the future of HMP Lancaster Castle because while it is performing well, it is outdated and expensive to run'.

The castle is owned by the Duchy of Lancaster (the Crown), and leased to Lancashire County Council, which in turn lease some of the buildings to Her Majesty's Prison Service.  When the prison closes the main incentive to keep the crown court there also will be lost; the court is likely to be relocated next to Lancaster Magistrates Court on George Street, which will mean the loss of the small but useful park in front of the court.

The decision to close the prison was welcomed in a joint statement by Lancaster City Council and Lancashire County Council, who say they are confident in the possibility of attracting 'significant complimentary [sic] private sector investment' to transform the castle into 'a major tourist attraction'.  This idea has been argued for at least since 2006, when Lancaster and Morecambe Vision Board (chaired by our Vice-Chancellor Paul Wellings) argued that the prison and court should be relocated and the castle developed as an attraction which could potentially put Lancaster on par with Chester and York as a tourist destination.  They suggested that in the future the castle might contain a 'Tower of the North' housing some of Duchy's royal art and crown jewel collections, and a Museum of Crime, Law and Punishment.

It's already possible to visit the castle as a tourist (10.00-5.00, 7 days a week).  Access is basically confined to the Shire Hall complex at the back of the castle, but worth it, including Adrian's (or Hadrian's) Tower, the Old Cells, the large Shire Hall with its shields, the smaller, atmospheric Crown Court, and the Grand Jury and Drop Rooms in the round tower constructed in the Georgian period to mirror Adrian's Tower.  Also, it's worth looking out for the production of Shakespeare plays in the castle courtesy of Demi-Paradise Productions, who make very effective use of the areas that are open to tourists.

Perhaps the closure of the prison will enable more archaeological investigation of the site, which was probably first fortified in Roman times but whose exact history remains patchy in places.  The oldest significant structure is probably the bulky, square Norman Keep (built around 1150), not really visible from the outside. The monumental gatehouse at the front of the castle was added by Henry IV at the start of the 15th century.  Going clockwise around the outside of the curtain walls, the next interesting tower is the round Adrian's tower (c. 1210, but refaced in the 18th century). Then comes the Shire Hall complex which houses the court, added in the 1790s outside the footprint of the original, defensible castle.  About half way along the car park leading back to the Gatehouse is the Well Tower, dating back to the time of the Keep around 1190 (it contained one of the castle wells), but substantially rebuilt around 1325. It is also known as the Witches Tower, since it was here that Pendle Witches were incarcerated in 1612 before the execution of ten of them at Gallows Hill near Williamson's park.

Yes, the castle has seen more than its fair share of historic events, and not all of them very nice.  Lancaster was the Assize Court for the whole of Lancashire, including Liverpool and Manchester, until 1835, which meant it saw a lot of significant action.  As well as the unfortunate Pendle Witches, it saw the prosecution under the orders of Elizabeth I of Catholic priests for high treason (because they were Catholic Priests), the imprisonment of George Fox the Quaker for two years from 1660 to 1662, and copious deportations to the colonies.  More people have been sentenced to death at Lancaster than at any other court in England; the last public execution outside the Drop Room was in 1865, and the last execution inside the castle in 1910.  The castle was adapted to hold long-term prisoners in the 18th century, and was a prison until 1916.  In 1954 it again opened as a prison, and was chosen for a number of high-security trials (such as that of the Birmingham Six) because of the proximity of the prison and the crown court.  It is now a Category C Training Prison for male inmates.

The closure of the prison has not met with unanimous approval.  It will result in the loss of 300 prison jobs at a difficult time (though there is talk of relocation and 'natural wastage') – and, unlike those at most prisons, the majority of the officers live in the Lancaster area, so the loss of their spending power will also hit the local economy. Some local commentators reject the Ministry's judgement that the prison is somehow problematic: after a recent visit to the prison, city councillors reported themselves to be highly impressed by the drug treatment, education and rehabilitation work undertaken at the prison.

Some are worried that the plans for turning the castle into a major tourist attraction are unrealistic.  Local MP Eric Ollerenshaw, who was enthusiastic about the potential for tourism when the closure of the prison was mooted last July, now says that he is sceptical.  The first problem is that HMP's lease at the castle still has nearly 3 years to run; they intend to mothball it until the lease runs out, with just a skeletal staff running the heating (rumoured to cost £600 a day) to keep the pigeons warm.  So it will sit empty for two years at least.

Then there's question of the suitability of the castle buildings for alternative use.  HMP have put aside £30m to fulfil their contractual obligation of returning the castle to its 1954 state – stripping out the barbed wire, the large visiting hall in the courtyard, the brand new healthcare centre that cost £1m of public money, and so on.  But what will be left is a complex of buildings with overwhelmingly small, often tiny rooms.  The story of Malmaison prison in Oxford has prompted excited talk of the castle enjoying a similar makeover into a hotel; but the part of the prison adapted at Malmaison was Victorian and far more suitable for the creation of decent-sized hotel rooms.

The Vision Board's idea of the castle as a museum and major tourist attraction will also come up against the physical structure of the castle, with a lack of large rooms apart from one or two workshops in the Keep.  Furthermore, most of the best bits of the castle are already open to visitors.  Students of Michel Foucault may be excited to hear that the Georgian women's prison on the south side of the courtyard is built in the form of a Panopticon, with a central observation room that can see into cells arranged in an arc.  But the oppressive dungeons underneath the Well Tower where the Pendle Witches were kept will be difficult to show visitors safely without disastrously altering the character of the building.  And the castle walls were replaced in the Georgian period and are not considered suitable for tourist access.

Readers who lived in the area in the 1990s will remember the disastrous conversion of Morecambe's Happy Mount Park into a Crinkley Bottom theme park, the collapse of which after just four months led to a protracted and expensive legal battle between the City Council and Noel Edmonds' Unique Group.  The last thing that Lancaster needs is another episode of that sort.  But on the other hand it would be a great shame if the castle were to be left empty and mouldering.

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GREAT HALL HARPSICHORD CONCERT

The second half of the 2010-11 season of Lancaster International Concerts kicked off in the Great Hall of the University on Thursday 20 January, with a recital by the young Iranian-American harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani.

That this was to be an unusual performance became clear when the hall lights dimmed to total blackness as the soloist came on stage, leaving only a couple of small spots on a stand to illuminate the keyboard.  Slight, bespectacled, and looking a bit academic, Esfahani had put together a programme in four sections, combining works by composers of the 17th and 18th century, the heyday of the harpsichord, with a set of modern sonatas by the Californian Lou Harrison.  Unusually, the soloist had provided eight pages of comprehensive programme notes.  The first and the last sections of the programme were by J S Bach, one of the great masters of counterpoint.  Was this to be a dry performance of rather formal pieces, likely to leave the audience frustrated by the absence of any appeal to the emotions?  Far from it.

Bach was also a brilliant improviser at the keyboard, and this aspect of his genius was on show in both works performed on Thursday, the first of them written when he was only in his mid-teens.  The chorale variations on 'O Gott, du frommer Gott' show the rich fund of musical ideas that flowed from the young Bach.  The second section consisted of three tributes to Louis XIVth's gamba player, Antoine Forqueray, by three near-contemporaries - Couperin, Rameau, and Duphly - and a piece by Forqueray himself, transcribed by his son Jean-Baptiste.  These ranged from the exciting and virtuosic (by Rameau) to the sombre (by Duphly).

The six short sonatas by Lou Harrison (who died in 2003) comprised the third section of the programme.  Sparely written, these were nonetheless very approachable works, making good use of the harpsichord's sonorities.  The final section was devoted to a single work, Bach's Ouverture in the French Style BWV 831.  Written later in Bach's life, when he was 49, this is a magnificent suite of dances, opening with the rhapsodic overture which gives the suite its title, and ending with a thrilling gigue followed by an 'echo', which is itself a substantial movement.

This concluded a brilliant recital by a performer who is already a star - it was a privilege to have experienced it.

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LETTERS

Dear subtext,

I write with reference to Robert Segal's letter.

I was taught to use 'such as' when giving examples.  The writer means presumably to refer to Poland and the Czech Republic, not to some unidentified other places 'like' them.

Yes I know it's mean but he started.

Jessica Abrahams

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Dear subtext,

Congratulations on your fifth anniversary issue, significantly no.69. Long may you thrive. I note, too, that student rents are to increase by 6.9 per cent, making the cheapest room on campus £69. Also, nationally, student tuition fees are to swell to between £6,000 and £9,000. What's this preoccupation with 'soixante-neuf'?

How come?

Happy New Year,

Alan Wood

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Dear subtext,

Like my former colleague Robert Segal, I too am surprised by the appointment of Charles Clarke as a visiting Professor in my old department. I am also saddened by subtext's craven and misguided defence of the appointment in subtext 69 in which you erroneously claim Clarke studied Philosophy (wrong - he studied Mathematics and Economics - what has happened to your investigative qualities?).

Given that Clarke as a minister trashed key humanities subjects (history, classics), it is sad to see him being appointed - at a fat salary no doubt - to a post in a humanities-related faculty and department.  Given, too, that Clarke's prime activities in the last few years of the previous government amounted to undermining his party leader and then Prime Minister (Brown), and duplicitous back-stabbing (activities that certainly did not help his party's cause, and that may have helped create the conditions whereby we now have a coalition that has taken an axe to so much of our public services) it seems astounding that Lancaster has decided to reward him in this way.

Can I suggest that Clarke is asked, as part of his duties, to put on courses and/or lectures in The Art of Back-Stabbing, and on How to Undermine Your Party and Ensure Your Opponents Win?  Unless he is used in this way, it is unclear what value he would have to Lancaster - apart from to undermine its reputation. The appointment is a disgrace and a scar on what used to be a good department - and subtext's weak justification of it does you no good whatsoever.

Yours in sadness

Ian Reader (former member of subtext collective)

[Eds: Ian Reader is correct to point out that subtext 69 wrongly claimed that Clarke studied philosophy. We'd taken this factoid from the BBC News website without checking it adequately, for which we apologise. Still the basic claim of the subtext 69 piece – that Clarke says he approves of philosophy - is true (http://www.childrenthinking.co.uk/action_govt.htm) and given that he's got a reputation as an Arts and Humanities hater we think that's interesting, even if it's not enough to overcome the misgivings that many have about the appointment.]

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Dear subtext,

Just wondered how many other people had noticed that the website for the central services 'keep it on campus' campaign seems to be hosted 'off' campus (http://www.keepitoncampus.co.uk/).

Have they incurred a cost to do this, rather than hosting it on a University server for free?  It also means that if you search for details of the campaign using the search facility on the University website you can't actually find it.

Jean Bennett

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The editorial collective of subtext currently consists (in alphabetical order) of: Rachel Cooper (PPR), George Green, Gavin Hyman, David Smith, Bronislaw Szerszynski and Martin Widden.

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