The Diner's extractor fan has been carelessly sited to output into the main entrance to County South's quad. The replusive effect is the absolute opposite of the smell of fresh bread emerging from a baker's: had I been tempted by the idea of a sausage bun, the smell would change my mind instantly. It must be even worse for vegetarians.

Seriously; why is it so repugnant – isn't the scent of frying bacon supposed to be extremely tempting?
The only reason I can think of is that the high water content of cheap bacon causes it to boil rather than properly fry. Oh, and that cheap sausages contain the parts other manufacturers don't mention....

Things like injecting an elephant with 3,000 times the human recreational dose of LSD, then watching it keel over, dead. Or grafting the front half of a puppy onto a dog's neck (alongside the existing head), then repeating the experiment 19 more times over the next 15 years.

BTW, I love the photo accompanying the Guardian article, depicting an elephant's eye.

*: Effectively reproducing the substance of a New Scientist article without the courtesy of a link back to NS. Naughty.

It's good to be able to examine locations from four sides, and the quality is excellent; I can distinguish the colour of the drain pipe in my back yard, and see that my curtains were open when the plane passed.

Click the thumbnail to make the plane fly closer, or zoom in, or enlarge the image, or something.

It's great that they're interested, and though I say it myself, it is a pretty good photo, but I really object – no, I find it unacceptable – for a supposed journalist to appropriate content and republish it unacknowledged, especially when that content is clearly labeled as under copyright ('© NRT, 2006' is both visible at the foot of the page and less visible in the image's <alt>> tag).

As everyone should know (never mind semi-professional journalists – the article went out under the Assistant Editor's name), web-published content is afforded the same level of copyright protection as any other form of publication: it does not automatically enter the public domain, unless the content owner has clearly provided a user agreement such as Creative Commons – which I don't.

Had I been approached for permission (which I've been happy to give to those who have asked in the past), and been given credit for the photograph, I'd have had no problem. However, I very much object to it have been just taken, unacknowledged.

For some reason, I particularly object to this being done by a self-defined semi-professional, who'll presumably cite experience of journalism and associated standards when advancing his future career.

[Update 12:45: the editor apologied very quickly, so there's no problem.]

If the first an institution knows of a need for special provision¹ is the moment a student presents him/herself on Arrival Day (at the same time as hundreds of other students², all clamouring for room keys, etc.), it can materially disadvantage the student and put the institution in a very awkward position.

To give a specific example, a student arrived today in a wheelchair. Had the College known 3-4 weeks ago, she could easily have been given a ground-floor room, but without an apparent reason to do otherwise, the Residence Office had allocated a second-floor room. At the very start of term, all accommodation is fully-booked; there's no possibility of changing rooms until natural attrition kicks in and people leave. In the mean time, the student will have to use the lift – on the other side of the building – and pass through 2-3 other flats to reach her own.

Similarly, the College was unaware that a new student has Asberger's Syndrome until his/her parents had a quiet word with an Assistant Dean on Arrivals Day. I don't think it's reasonable to expect the standard, non-specialist tutorial system to have identified and made appropriate provision without prior warning and, without being flippant, I doubt the student would have sought assistance, at least not before a social/academic problem had already reached a critical point.

It's difficult. The College wants to help and, once alerted, is very good at providing support (and, importantly, respect for individual needs) but just as importantly no-one should feel obliged to be treated differently. Everyone has the right to decline a safety net (or avoid stating a need for one), so long as he/she accepts the consequences of doing so. Academic Review Committees (i.e. disciplinary procedures) tend to be sympathetic to genuine problems which had been declared beforehand, but 'excuses' after the event are less likely to be accepted.

1: Beyond the bare-minimum provision demanded by accessibility legislation, of course.

2: And worse, parents. I can appreciate that it's stressful to leave one's child in a strange place, especially a utilitarian student bedroom, but please don't take it out on College staff who are very likely to be volunteers doing their best to facilitate the process. They're not legally-liable College employees, and certainly not customer service agents able to allocate better facilities if a parent is sufficiently aggressive.

As the comments on that earlier entry show, S. and I immediately spotted the problem of using wheeled bins on particularly steep hills, but there were also issues of storing all those containers in tiny yards and the imposition of full-size garden waste bins on those who have no gardens.

Following complaints, it seems the Council has changed its corporate mind. We're not going to receive wheelie bins automatically, after all. Instead, we'll continue to receive 'traditional' bin bags, plus the recycling boxes. However, one aspect of the wheelie bin scheme will remain: fortnightly collection.

I really don't see this as workable. One of the main reasons the Council didn't introduce fortnightly collection a while ago was that wheelie bins were unavailable, and it wasn't viable for people to store thin-walled bags of stinking food waste for up to a fortnight. The Council must have eliminated every cat and rat in the city, as that previously defining problem is suddenly considered trivial.

It could be argued that since wheelie bins are still available on request (it's just that they're no longer to be compulsory), those with concerns can have them.
Yet that'd be disingenuous. It's not me that needs the bin.

It'd probably take me a month to fill a full-sized wheelie bin, so I could just about manage without one, filling my indoor kitchen bin then putting out one bag each fortnight.
In contrast, my next-door neighbours fill three bags each week, and store them outside. By mid-week, the first bag is already in their yard and the local cats have moved in. One of the best aspects of the Council's original plan was that my neighbours would have been obliged to render their waste inaccessible to animals (and to reduce the absolute amount of it). Now it's going to be even worse. My yard will to be the place for cats to dine and defecate.
[And no, I don't feel able to persuade my neighbours to change – that's for the Council.]

[Update 06/11/07: There was a fortnightly collection yesterday morning; yesterday evening, my neighbour put out the first full bag of the next fortnight.]

Earlier this year, the University won awards for 'Pac-Lan', a 'mixed reality' game using mobile phone and RFID tags to enable players to keep track of one another’s position as they pursued each other. Halo would be the obvious next stage.

Oh. "The Halo Project will create a wide and safe pathway around the perimeter of campus for walking and jogging with improved street lighting." Bor-ing.

It was interesting to see some of the parents, and novel to see some of the students graduates in suits (especially 'footy' Jo). Then again, my bearded, ponytailed head probably looks odd poking out of a white shirt (shock; horror: I'm wearing a non-black garment) and college tie.

From the 'behind-the scenes' side, it seems to have gone well; no last-minute sabotage this year (see the last line here); the only slight misjudgement was including chicken pieces in the buffet. I wouldn't have expected many people to want to fiddle with greasy chicken skin whilst wearing their best clothes, and I wasn't surprised to see those serving platters barely touched.

One other observation, which will probably sound more depressing than I intend:
As usual, I was left with the college camera, to capture a few images of the event. There are only a few practical, vaguely interesting angles in the enclosed quad, and it's difficult to obtain characterful photos of strangers when I don't really look like an accredited photographer. Hence, every year, the results are the same; only the faces change. I'm uncomfortable about publishing the images, as it introduces a sense that it's all a slow-moving production line churning out generic graduates, when that really isn't accurate beyond the most superficial level.

The Lancaster Guardian is 170 years old, and my local fish & chip shop celebrated by wrapping orders in a reprint of that first front page. It's a fascinating document, both in terms of content and in phrasing: extremely mannered, but often with an edge, as if containing subtle digs at past critics. Much of the material would only be meaningful to locals (for example, the River Lune seemed to be interchangeably called the 'Loyne' in 1837), but a few points stand out as of more widespread interest.

• Thomas Bond and Son Beg leave to inform their Friends and the Public, that they have succeeded to the business of Captain Hawthornthwaite; and have constantly on hand choice Stocks of Main, Arley, King, and Habergham coal; Cannel Slack, &c, to which their attention is respectfully invited.
  Coal? All that mannered circumlocution for coal?
• Thomas Alderson, Hosier, thanks the public for their support. Oh, very funny.
• George Jackson, wine and spirit merchant, and also agent for (big breath...) Royal Exchange Assurance Of Houses And Goods From Fire, London (Established by Royal Charter In the Reign of King George the First) offers fire insurance for livestock. Imagine visiting a modern off-licence to insure your sheep against fire.
• Apart from that purveyor of flammable intoxicants and fire insurance, there are a couple of other odd combined professions. James Milner² was a plumber and glazier. Are they naturally related trades?
  Robert Speight was a whitesmith and bell-hanger (who begged to inform his friends and the public that he had also secured the services of a blacksmith).
• There's only one actual news story on the entire page, occupying the final third of the final column (of six). It reports a severe 'flu epidemic in London, with totally full hospitals and queues of coffins outside cemeteries.
• Apart from the crest of the Royal Exchange Assurance, etc., the only illustration on the page is a printing press, advertised by Messrs. Clymer & Dixon – printers of the Lancaster Guardian. Coincidentally. They:
  have the pleasure to inform their Friends and the Profession that they continue to manufacture the PATENT COLUMBIAN PRINTING PRESSES in the same way as heretofore... notwithstanding the various attempts to supercede them.
  See what I mean about subtle digs? I'm sure there's a story behind that comment.
• Another advertisement in the adjacent column is for Richard Batt's Academy, a school in Meeting-House Lane, providing a full list of fees and requirements of pupils (it would cost 15 shillings for a child between 7 and 9 years of age to attend for a term, for example, plus a further 2s. 6d. for the use of School Books and Stationery and as a contribution to heating costs, plus a Reading Book, a Grammar Book, an Arithmetic Book and a bible, all to be provided by the pupil's 'friends').
  However, the longest item on the entire page, accounting for ¾ of a column, is a collection of reviews of Richard Batt's book 'Gleanings In Poetry' (7s. 6d., 670 pages, with notes & illustrations). The Christian Advocate feels that "the notes are large, yet full of instruction, and interesting without any mixture of fiction... the work is well printed, on good paper, and in an excellent type" (Messrs. Clymer & Dixon again, perhaps?). The Kendal Mercury "can confidently bear our testimony to its cheapness." I think that's supposed to be complimentary.
• Mr. Decimus Woodhouse republishes a note from St. James's Palace in which Major-General Sir Henry Wheatley, keeper of the Privy Purse is "honoured with the King's commands to express his Majesty's sense of your polite attention in sending the two bottles of Essence of Ginger". That's Woodhouse's Æthereal Essence of Ginger, 'certain in affording instant relief in Cholera and oppression after Meals'.
  Don't ask about Woodhouse's Balsam of Spermaceti. Just don't ask.

  [Update 26/01/08: one of Woodhouse's descendents tells me his potions didn't help him, as he died in 1841, aged 31.]

¹ : I think this was Samuel Gregson (Senior), father of Samuel Gregson (Junior), himself Mayor of Lancaster, MP, co-founder of the Natural History Museum and partially responsible for the word 'dinosaur', and of Henry Gregson, also Mayor and in whose memory the Gregson Arts & Community Centre was built.

² : who:

• One can call 'Furniture Matters' direct and have it collected for renovation then reuse by local disadvantaged people.
  Unfortunately, one can't leave the sofa in the back yard for collection, one has to take time off work to be at home when the charity staff visit. Even then, if the sofa doesn't meet their minimum standard (a label proving it meets fire regulations, for example), they won't take it.
• One can call 'Bulky Matters' and for a fee of £15 for up to three items, have it collected for disposal at the local tip.
  Having arranged collection, one can leave the sofa in one's back yard and go to work; one doesn't need to be present when the council staff visit.
  However, as the leaflet left by 'Bulky Matters' indicates, the sofa will be taken to 'Furniture Matters' first anyway, to see if they want it. Potential 'Furniture Matters' direct donors and 'Bulky Matters' clients are not told this in advance (though, to be fair, press releases on the Council's website do imply it).

Thanks to A. for experiencing this so others don't have to.

*: Well, it could hardly offer three alternatives, could it?

I suspect uptake failed to exceed supply, as it seems leftover waistcoats have been issued to outdoor cleaning staff, who now wander around campus displaying the slogan 'Fitter, healthier, quicker' across their backs.

There's any number of web pages stating that a certain councillor is objecting, and informing local residents how to support him, but I've yet to find a single explanation of precisely why there are objections. The best I've uncovered is:

Don't misunderstand; for all I know, there may well be an extremely good reason to object; my point is that the objectors don't seem to be even trying to rationalise it, never mind raise specific issues based on proven facts. It's as if it's self-evidently A Bad Thing, to be opposed without further discussion.

"Why don't you want it?"
"I just don't want it."

Not. Good. Enough.

It is possible for students to register their individual study bedrooms as smoking rooms, by written permission of the head of the College & Residence Office. One of the conditions specified, presumably quoting legislation, is that the designated room must:

It's actually quite impressive that in the time between smoke being reported coming from a litter bin and a porter arriving with a handheld fire extinguisher, a reignited discarded barbecue was able to consume the bin (metal inner, plastic outer) so utterly that it might never have existed, melt right through the adjacent metal drainpipe and heat a wall to the point of bricks shattering.

Pointless, spoilsport regulations, eh?

Having checked with the Press Office, it seems HRH Princess Alexandra, the University's ex-Chancellor, will indeed be here on Monday. However, it's not to open the refurbished entrance to my office building, which might explain why Alexandra Square (I wonder where that name comes from...) is to be off-limits to cycle parking. She will merely be passing through the Square on the way to view the Hesketh Collection of rare books and manuscripts and attend the University's Fellowship Dinner.

I quite understand, of course. One can't allow bicycles in the approximate presence of a Royal personage – that simply wouldn't Do.

No, I don't believe it's a security issue – it never has been before.

Then again, I saw a peregrine falcon perched on Chester Town Hall (it, not me) last November, watching (it and me) the thousands of christmas shoppers.

The striking point is that the film was directly based on real deaths which occurred within half an hour (by bicycle) from here, exactly three years ago tonight. Though it took weeks to establish the precise number, 23 illegal immigrants drowned whilst picking cockles in Morecambe Bay in poor weather.

Having overheard a conversation with an usher, I discovered that at least one group of tonight's audience members, who appeared to be Chinese, had limited command of English. It'd be tempting to draw the obvious conclusion, but I have no way of knowing.

Broomfield is famous for his documentaries, in which he appears on-screen as an active participant, but unlike 'Fetishes', 'Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer', et al., 'Ghosts' is a feature film (Broomfield's second). It's nominally fictional, though based on the facts of the Morecambe Bay tragedy and Hsiao-Hung Pai's undercover reporting for The Guardian, and unscripted performances by non-professional actors recorded on hand-held cameras* had a realistic feel.

Though the film was about the overall experience of immigrant workers, initially in Norfolk then Morecambe for the key sequence, rather than focusing on the tragedy itself, it was that section (actually filmed in the Bay) which affected me most.
Though the film did feature a couple of time-lapse sequences earlier, I'm almost certain that the speed of the incoming tide wasn't artificially accelerated. Having lived at the edge of Morecambe Bay for approaching 14 years, and having grown up a similar distance from the Dee Estuary, I've seen for myself that the wave front can move that quickly. At the mouth of the River Lune, high tide can be 10 metres above the low water mark. Imagine that: the water surface can rise 33' vertically within six hours. On almost entirely level mudflats, picture how much more land is immersed by even 1 cm rise in water level, and the actual rise averages almost 3 cm vertically per minute. Think you could outrun that, whilst avoiding invisible patches of quicksand and deep, fast-flowing gullies? Terrifying.

Leaving the cinema, I was briefly tempted to cycle out to Hest Bank, the point where the bodies were brought ashore, but soon dismissed the idea as it's a bitterly cold night. Says it all, really.

*: One sequence in a supermarket seemed to have been filmed covertly, which could have been for effect, but I can certainly imagine the company declining authorisation – a reminder that the supermarket chains are (no doubt inadvertently) secondary employers of underground immigrant labour wasn't exactly a marketing opportunity.

I obviously took a couple of photographs, on the path from Alex Square to the perimeter road. I'm afraid I was, well, careless, and the images are blurred, but the colours alone justify publication.

In return for their contact details, the students are being given vouchers, free samples, an-

BALLOONS! Ballooooons! Yay!

By their nature, they're private premises, even discretely anonymous, so it was fascinating to pass through an unregarded door into a Masonic Hall, or though an unnoticed side door and up a flight of stairs to a room absolutely full of Baroque plasterwork. One doesn't often get the opportunity to tour the offices of a ringtone company, which happen to occupy a Jacobean townhouse visited by 'Bonny Prince' Charles Stuart in 1745.

It was also good to meet the people associated with the buildings. Attendants at permanent museums primarily guard the exhibits, typically in silence, whilst professional guides can be knowledgeable but disengaged. That's not quite the same as being shown Masonic temples by a Lodge Secretary, or a school chapel (larger and more ornate than a typical parish church) by a teacher, or a partially-disused church by the people who voluntarily maintain the building week-to-week, or even just talk about the weather with the inhabitant of an 18th Century Almshouse – not a re-enactor but a real resident. Personal involvement does add something.

A few photos will follow when I find an opportunity to process them.

*: i.e. where I live, not where I was born.

It was purpose-built in 1936, but 1,592 seats were too many by 1971, when the circle was divided into two smaller auditoria and the stalls became a bingo hall. That was the situation until 2003, when a brand new multiplex complex was built a few streets away. Feeling that they couldn't compete, ABC closed the old cinema, making the staff redundant.

However, it then became clear that the multiplex wasn't going to open: legal issues mean that it's stood empty since then. A small local cinema chain secured the lease to the old building and reopened it as the 'Regal'. They must have known that the multiplex's problems would be resolved eventually and, as expected, as soon as a revised opening date has been announced for the new complex, the Regal is closing. They're not going to try to compete, and the staff are out of work again. Good business, I suppose.

I can't say I'll miss it. As the ABC, the cinema was basic but unpretentious and entirely adequate. The same place rebranded as the Regal just seemed contrived and rather seedy. The new management introduced a pastiche of 'traditional' cinema style, but the world has moved on. Sending a teenager out into the auditorium with an tray around his neck to sell ice creams during the interval wasn't quaint, it was retrograde and a bit embarrassing (as was having an interval).

The management seemed a little overbearing, too: the manager often stood in the foyer overseeing the queue and popcorn stall in a somehow menacing manner. It's the sort of thing that might have worked in the 1960s or 70s, when management could command respect from the audience, never mind the staff, but in 2003-6 it merely appeared unwelcoming to customers and made the staff nervous about being watched.

Pity about the job losses, but on the whole: good riddance.

If that's a bit cryptic, we're entering the second week of remodelling of University House. The main entrance is closed (well, removed), the temporary main entrance is what was a window, and all but the supporting walls (hopefully...) on the ground floor have been ripped out.
It must be a little traumatic for those who have worked at the University since 1964, some of them in this very building for most of that time.

On a slightly different matter: it occurred to me this week, preparing for the graduation ceremonies, that as a teenager reading the university-based novels of Graham Greene, Tom Sharpe and David Lodge, I never dreamt I'd work in a university myself, even less a collegiate one with SCRs, JCRs, quads and uniformed porters.

It's probably a vain hope, but I do hope it's nothing more serious than a drunken fight.

[Update 21:10: See the link in Calephetos' comment. It was a murder, as I'd half-expected.]

[Update 21/02/07: the murderers of Rikki Judkins (50), themselves aged 19 and 15 at the time of the attack, have been given minimum sentences of 18 and 15 years respectively, if 'respect' is an appropriate concept in their case.

Judkins, a Coventry man with learning difficulties and psychological problems, was stranded in Lancaster overnight due to a 'mix-up over his bus ticket' – he had one, but it wasn't valid until the following morning. I can just imaging a driver's malicious glee in refusing him access to the last bus of the night.
Presumably Judkins wandered around looking for shelter. Maybe he was trying to sleep in the pedestrian underpass, maybe he was just walking when he had the misfortune to meet two of the local thugs. I can imagine them making some smart remark, and Judkins' response being considered insufficiently deferential.
So they punched, kicked and stamped him to death, making sure by dropping a rock on his head.]

A Green city councillor has taken the opportunity to hope, in a letter to the local newspaper, that the same engineers aren't involved in building the next generation of UK nuclear power stations.

Cheap, Emily, cheap. This is the level of rhetoric which enables me to dismiss anything said by these hippie busybodies.

Where's the one advertising the Blades Street Mosque, or the Wiccan 'Whatever-Wiccans-Have'? For that matter, where's the advert for the Polish Kościół or the catholic Cathedral? So far as I'm aware, the University isn't allowed to promote any one religion or sect, so I don't know how that slipped through.
No offence to Anglicans – I'd feel exactly the same way if, say, a Hindu temple was receiving preferential treatment – but this needs to be a case of all religious groups being equally represented, or absolutely none.

Investigations will be made. There may be a vacant space shortly....

There's a particularly bad example in Lancaster, where Bowerham Road becomes Barton Road. Heading south, a sweeping descent to the right crosses a road junction. Normally, traffic on the main road travels at speed, but there's always a chance one might have to brake. In the cycle lane, that means doing so on loose gravel. The very idea scares me, so I never use the designated cycle lane, instead sticking to the main carriageway.
The only person to question that was another cyclist, who insisted that all cyclists should use all cycle tracks/lanes at all times – "show some gratitude" and "use it or lose it". Well, so far as I'm concerned, losing it would definiterly be the preferred alternative. The Barton Road cycle lane is only a couple of years old, and was much better when it wasn't designated as such, as passing cars kept all but the gutter clear of stones. I'm not remotely 'grateful' for the segregation.

Despite their inherent design flaw, the rest of Lancaster's on-road cycle lanes actually aren't too bad, if one carefully watches for debris. It's the off-road cycle track that annoy me, as several with perfectly good tarmac have been resurfaced with loose gravel. Last week, the Environment Agency resurfaced one of theirs with crushed glass; the local newspaper reported punctures and vets' bills. There's also an issue of occasional pedestrian hostility (actively inflamed by the same local newspaper), meaning shared-use cycle paths can be unpleasant to use.

All of which explains why I tend not to use dedicated cycling areas, preferring to ride on the road itself.

He spoke at Bowland College's 40th Anniversary dinner in 2004, and in preparing for the event, visited my boss (the current Principal) a couple of times. On each occasion, I thought I'd have to go in and rescue her, as I could hear Marcus shouting at her in an agitated manner, but he was deaf and excitable, and that was just the way he spoke.

The Independent published his obituary today. Even without knowing the man, it's worth reading about a 'heroic' academic who owned (and used) a cannon.

"Pungent"? Yes, I was startled to read that in the Independent article, too, but it has nothing to do with the olfactory sense of the word.

I'd be fascinated to see how they'll manage that without getting the paper wet, and how many 10-year-old paperboys are found paralytic in ditches.

The University doesn't give permission, but the hippies are easily ignored and it'd be impolitic to evict them. However, it's occurred to me that they could, in theory, be arrested for Loitering Within Tent.

Sorry.

As soon as it stopped, later in the morning, I walked (not cycled) to Williamson Park, hoping to take a few photographs of pristine whiteness before anyone else ventured out.
It seems I'd misjudged my neighbours....

The promenade is already fairly popular with cyclists, so I don't see a reason why it couldn't be treated like any of the district's other shared pedestrian/cycle routes. From personal experience of having stopped to speak to a police officer on the promenade, without being challenged about cycling, I'd say there's no interest in enforcing the current byelaw, and that the Council is merely tidying its statute book(let).

However, I've just read the draft rewording (.doc format), and discovered that it is, or will be, illegal to break a horse on Morecambe promenade between the hours of 10:00 and 18:00. Scandalous!

Hope!

Prospect!

Bradshaw! Er....

Okay, I'm easily amused.

I've just received the final, draft (eh?) agenda, and noted:

Actually, that's a remarkably accurate, rapier-like satirical insight. Whoever typed-up the agenda needs to be commended, or sacked.

*: I suppose in a region less dominated by hill sheep farming, one's first thought might have been of a certain weedkiller, but that's an even less flattering concept.

The worrying thing is that the seven-segment-LCD -type display goes up to 199 mph, on a fairly tight bend in a 30mph zone.

Admittedly, there were three sp*m flood attacks, but I still think ISS (Uni. 'tech support') need to improve their spam filters.

Another annoying thing is that the filters merely identify suspected sp*m, but still deliver it to mailboxes. That's of limited value....

I suppose it'll reduce queues and make better use of techies' time, but I can't help visualising the vending machine as being of the snack food type:

• Insert money.
• Make selection.
• [Chosen item falls 1.5 m into a metal trough. Crunch.]
• Retrieve fragments of mp3 player.
• Queue at reception desk to complain.

Contrary to the initial announcement, and the <title> of that web page ("Buy bikes tax free with Cyclescheme and the Government Green Transport Plan. Save up to 50%"), this doesn't involve buying outright – it's a leasing scheme, with an option to buy at the end. Throughout the period of the lease, the bike remains the property of the employer.

I found the initial presentation of the plan to be extremely misleading, and having discovered its true nature, I react with hostility, but more objectively, I have major doubts about whether this really is the best option for the typical user.

One further drawback is that though the scheme doesn't specify particular bike manufacturers or types, the employee is obliged to buy (sorry, 'acquire') his/her bike from a limited number of shops – there's only one within the Lancaster area – which might well be agents for a narrow range of manufacturers. I've experienced that before: my bike was stolen a few years ago, and the insurer obliged me to obtain a replacement from one specific shop, which only had one model of a comparible type and cost. I was riding a crappy Raleigh (they make awful bikes!) for at least a year before I could afford to replace it with something truly of my own selection, my current bike.

Another disadvantage is that though the University would retain full ownership of a leased bike, if it was stolen, the employee would have to keep paying for it. I suppose that's rational, but it's not something I'd accept.

Applying that logic to the whole proposition, I do acknowledge that it might suit some people, but I certainly won't be giving it further consideration.

So, a market opportunity remains: if anyone wants to formulate a subsidised 'buy outright' scheme, you have my support. In principle, that is – I'd need to see the small print!

The job took three days, and hence was in three sections marked by dividing ridges. Not a problem; after the tar layer had been laid and a smooth coating of sharp gravel smoothly applied, a heavy roller would press the stone into the tar, simultaneously removing the ridges.

Yet that never arrived. Day after day, as I had to decelerate to a slow walking pace to negotiate tight turns on loose gravel, I gave the workmen the benefit of doubt – perhaps they couldn't return to finish the job in ambient temperatures of over 25°C, and would do so when the weather moderated. In the mean time, the surface was degrading, particularly where bike tyres were carving narrow ruts in the gravel. Car tyres might do the roller's job, and force stone into the tar, but narrow bike tyres preferentially push it aside. If the roller ever turned up, it'd also be less than ideal to press horse sh*t into the finished surface.

Complaints via the University's online staff newsletter have drawn a response from the Uni's Travel Plan Co-ordinator: The University wasn't involved in the planning, but he's checked with the City Council and... it's finished. That's it. One of the better cyclepaths in Lancaster has been effectively downgraded to a roughly-surfaced semi-rural track. And to state the obvious, I've paid for this deliberate degradation via my taxes.

The stated aim of the City Council was "to provide a safer surface in icy conditions". Firstly, that's irrelevant for at least nine months of each year, and secondly, the reasoning makes little sense. Coarser aggregate within a fixed, otherwise 'finished' tarmac surface would be great, but loose gravel probably won't even last until winter, and is currently a skidding hazard.

Our Travel Plan Co-ordinator reports that "they [the City Council] are not proposing this treatment for any more routes this year, but it is (at the moment) part of the County Council's standard specification for cycleways." I struggle to believe this is based on engineering principles, and can't help wondering whether it's just cost-cutting, though if that's the case, why not just have left it as it was?

That's my primary objection: it was already absolutely fine.

Incidentally, if you follow that link to the paper's website, you may spot a story beginning:

Note to N.Americans: A European (or British, anyway) academic doesn't become 'Professor' on attaining a PhD – someone with a PhD is addressed as 'Doctor', and has a long way to go to become 'Professor'.

As I've been writing, the cyclists have arrived. They seem to have done a circuit of the northern perimeter road, dithered aimlessly in Alex Square (outside Uni. House) then regrouped at the hitching post, back on the perimeter road. I'd say there are about twenty of them, with an impressively powerful and clear bike-trailer-mounted sound system; if I pause 'OK Computer' on my mp3 player, I can hear every word of... 'Hail To The Thief'. Hmm. '2+2=5' as protest song? Whatever.

The magnitude of the swing was rather surprising - 2001's 0.9% Labour majority has turned into an 8% Tory majority. Even if 2,278 votes hadn't been wasted on the Greens, their 4.4% applied to Labour wouldn't have been enough, especially as, by the same argument, votes not wasted on the other no-hoper party, UKIP, probably would have contributed 1.9% to the Conservatives. I could say 'if only a few more natural Liberal Democrat voters had tactically voted for Labour (as I did), we might have held the barrier against the Tories', but that would have required a lot of tactical voting.

Actually, that implies that the Tories did particularly well here, but that's untrue. Their share of the vote only rose by 0.6%, whereas the LibDems, Greens and even UKIP improved their shares by 5.9%, 1.4% and 0.5% respectively. The significant, and obvious, difference was that their gains were at the expense of Labour, whose share dropped by 8.3%.

If only we had a fair electoral system in the UK. The Conservatives received 42.8% of the votes of only 64.5% of the eligible electorate, which, as the single highest total, was enough under the 'first-past-the-post' system. However, it means 57.2% of voters didn't vote for the person elected as their representative. As a proportion of the entire electorate, including non-voters, that means the new MP has a mandate of 27.6%.

This morning's haul is slightly atypical, but not by much:

• Someone requesting a Nokia handset (what?) and a prospectus, but only providing a name, house number and street name – no town or nation. The syntax suggests it's somewhere in Africa.
• The parent of a potential student commenting on the website. Critical, but a fair point; exactly what we welcome.
• An existing member of staff complaining that certain pages don't fit on her monitor without scrolling. And?
• From Lahore, Pakistan, an extremely long (7,443 words) treatise about world poverty, I think (didn't read past the first paragraph), which had been pasted into the box clearly marked "Please add any other comments which you would like to make about the website".
• Someone complaining that she was unable to order a prospectus via the correct form, as that form's drop-down list doesn't include 'Great Britain'. That's because officially (and the list of countries is taken from an official government source) there's no such country – it's the UK. A non-Brit might have been confused, but this comment was (by definition) from an applicant already in the UK. One would have thought she'd at least look further down the list, for 'UK'.

It seems so. An unnamed student quoted in a student newspaper (disclaimer: with which I've had problems before) apparently said the University:

Note that I don't necessarily support or defend the alleged actions of the companies; this posting is about the illegitimacy of the activists' actions, not their cause, and, to be honest, to gleefully mock their naïvity.