Alex Harries's diary

Surreal quote of the week by gay rights group Stonewall on the subject of Dumbledore being "outed" by JK Rowling: "It's great that JK has said this. It shows that there's no limit to what gay and lesbian people can do, even being a wizard headmaster." The BBC fail to mention whether the statement was delivered with any trace of irony...

Assuming I don't get sacked, lynched or excommunicated by my highly-stressed (but very good) newspaper eds over the next few hours, I'll try and pop back here and write another Really Boring Update on what's been happening over the last few weeks (being gaffer-taped to a pole, and not knowing where to look as I found myself faced with around twenty topless sportos being just two of them...).

Al

Working through the next issue of the paper's articles, I spotted this in a press release from Hampshire bobbies about their anonymous, non-emergency reporting telephone line, with the heading "Callers should use the Single Non-Emergency Number, 101, to report the following...":

What's so bad about street lights then?

(Yes, I'm procrastinating, but then so would you be facing a ridiculous pile of articles which have to be turned into a newspaper by Monday morning, while Paul Oakenfold's about to play a set less than 100 feet away!)

The Freshers' Ball line-up - happening on Saturday 20th October - was announced today and I have to say that, with its diverse and slightly eclectic line-up, I'm actually pretty excited about the night. (Sorry for the little plug, but I'm only saying it 'cos I think it's true...!)

The main Freshers' Ball headline act is a Scissor Sisterz tribute band which, having listened to the tunes on their website, should make for a brilliantly messy one in Lux, while CO2 is being themed in a Bhangra style, with Eastern sounds, visuals and even some Eastern flavour in the form of special cocktails. In five years of being here at the Union, I don't think I've ever know such a random and eclectic event take place, and that alone should make it one of the most fun nights of the year. Brucie Bonus: £15 is nothing to pay for a ticket to the best way to end your first few freshers weeks! (Check out the Freshers' Ball event listing for more info if you've got a minute free).

It's been a while since I've written anything here, and that's mainly thanks to spending a ridiculous amount of time on the launch of our new student newspaper, Pugwash News/Purple Wednesdays, which was swiftly followed by the traumatic workload associated with the fun of Freshers' Fayre. Since then, for the last few days I've been running around putting all our archived Pugwash content onto the iMacs so the bods who get involved in meeja this year have plenty of material to refer to - we've got Pugwashes going back to 1997, and I even found a dusty old copy of the Portsmouth Student Guide from '79 down the back of a filing cabinet - random...

I think the newspaper has been an amazing success: we printed 3,000 copies of the 12-page Pugwash News/Purple Wednesdays, and in the space of 48 hours at Freshers' Fayre and around campus, almost 2,700 copies were handed out to students. Despite having a huge range of content I want more, so every other sentence I've been uttering for the last few days has been about recruiting more people to help with the paper, and to get more ideas and content for it (interested? mediaofficer@upsu.net!).

Freshers' Fayre, while I remember, was really good - more than 200 people signed up to Pugwash! Everyone enjoyed themselves, especially the people who got to see me being gaffer-taped to a tent pole. Many videos and photos were taken and, since self-embarrassment is something I'm so good at,  I'll put them online as soon as we can edit them down.

We've also taken on two new pixel munkis, and UPEL (the trading bods who run the bars) have also been spending some time on their Social:Life section: Tom Worman (aka the Union's photographer) and Nathan Sweeney (a bars supervisor in a former life), to take up some of the workload on the website now I've got less time free to push pixels around. Mind you, I never did that much hard work really, so it's not like they're going to find it particularly hard or anything... ;o)

I should mention the Sabb team a bit, since I'm supposed to be promoting their work and all that: loads of students signed up at Freshers' Fayre to take part in clubs, societies and the Union's support and training groups, including STAND, RAG and About 321 more words in this entry