Alex Harries's diary

Honestly, this is the best photo of Rich I could find... No, really...

Rich Roberts - Entertainments supervisor, tech head, sound engineer, lampie, tea-maker, occasionally the Original Angry Ginge ;o) and my boss for the last 3 1/2 years - has worked his last shift at the Union and is now off to start a new life in sunny Cambridgeshire.

Even campus security turned out to wave goodbye, showing their endless affection by clamping his car (chin up Rich!).

(Seriously though, Rich taught me pretty much everything I know about running events and sound engineering - and just a tiny bit about throwing superstar tantrums - and as part-time jobs go, working as an Ents monkey has undoubtedly been one of the best. The place won't be the same without him).

So, here's to Rich - cheers Ginge!

If you browse the web using Firefox (and if not, why not? Get it here!), you've probably noticed the search box on the top-right of the Firefox window. You can add custom search engines to this list, so you can search a particular website straight from your browser, instead of having to go to the website you want to search first.

You can now search UPSU.net with Google by adding our search engine plugin. It's easy to do, too: just click the down arrow to the left of the browser search box and click 'Add "UPSU.net"'. Decided you don't like it? Just click the same down arrow, click 'Manage search engines' and remove it. Easy!

I've been a bit very slack in writing up what actually happened at NUS Conference. In the meantime, have a video from David Darkin from the conference. Very random... (Can't see it? Go here).

(Tuesday)

Well, we're here in Blackpool. For some reason I keep calling the place Brighton. More beer needed I think...

We rocked up yesterday after a 5-ish hour drive up the motorway and immediately renamed our hotel Fawlty Towers. I have the pleasure of sharing a room with two other guys - Nick and Gordon - something which I haven't done for a few years.

I have to take my hat off to the plumber who put our shower in, as (s)he is clearly someone with a brilliant sense of humour; having spent ten minutes this morning wondering why, even with the shower set to its hottest setting, I was only getting freezing water, I admitted defeat and was just about to head downstairs when room-mate Nick wandered into the bathroom, fiddled around for a couple of minutes, and announced there was copious hot water.

The problem? Silly old me had forgotten that, north of the Watford Gap, blue means *hot* and red means... You guessed it - cold.

Duh - of course... ;o)

Rewind to last night; wandering around town, we must have made it quarter of an hour down the road before we saw any signs of life at all. Blackpool out of season feels a lot like a colder version of a mid-west American ghost town.

We also passed the NUS Conference venue last night, which appears to be a bingo hall-cum-former town hall. Peering in the windows, I saw a largely empty venue with the occasional bit of rubbish peppering the floor, but very little else. I'll be heading down to the conference shortly, so fingers crossed there'll be slightly more going on today. Otherwise it's back to bed.

As I type this, the rest of the Oxford University bods have just arrived. They're carrying enough luggage to survive an arctic winter or two, which makes me feel less daft for bringing more luggage than anyone else from Portsmouth seemed to. Hey, I need a lot of makeup...

My only real grumble - now I've figured out the shower - is that our hotel has to be one of the few places in the world not to have discovered a wireless internet connection. I'm not complaining *that* much though - it just means I can't do any UPSU.net work while I'm up here.

Conference is looking interesting, but long. I've just examined the small print and found that cameras, laptops, mobile phones - in fact pretty much anything more complex than a wrist-watch - aren't allowed into the main conference area. Notepad and paper for anything I need to remember then. The only minor problem there? I can't read my own handwriting at the best of times.

Wish me luck - this could be a long day.

/al ;o)

Now elected, I've been driving a few people potty with hare-brained ideas and half-baked plans which I'd like to see started before the end of this academic year.

Having - I think - reached the ends of their collective tethers, the management bods have decided to pack me off to the NUS Conference this coming week along with a number of other students, and also to the NUSSL Conference next week, to restore some sense of quiet to the Sabb office. At least, I *think* that's why they're sending me away ;o)

The NUS Conference is generally regarded as a melting pot of student ideas and enthusiasm, with a nice sugary coating of evening misbehaviour - usually found to be about 35% alcohol by proof - and the latter is a more business-like affair involving lots of companies trying to sell their products to you. No-one knows the alcohol content of the NUSSL Conference since no-one's made it back sober yet...*

Of course, since I don't do any buying of alcohol - that's down to UPEL (the bods running the bars at the Union) - the NUSSL excursion should be a good opportunity for an interesting insight into the trading side of Student Unions across the country... Ok, and a good excuse for a few hangovers as well...

As long as the top brass have no objections, I'll try and report back on what actually happens at both conferences, especially the NUS conference, as it's an important example of the good use of the Union's NUS membership fees.

* I could be lying here, of course - NUSSL might actually be a serious business event - I have yet to find out for sure.