Alex Harries's diary

Apologies for not posting what I've been up to lately - there's a helluvalot going on, but I've been remarkably unmotivated to put words in the blog to explain what's been going on, as I've been working hard to keep my head above the workload. Nothing new there though - maybe I should cut back on Facebook during the work day...? ;o)

I'll start adding a backlog of posts over Christmas as the workload settles down - I've given myself just one festive project to work on this year, and it's the long-overdue rewrite of the JobShop website, so I'm hoping to be able to find some time to put some ramblings online to ask you, the readership, your thoughts on some of the thorny issues we've come across with UPSU Media this term.

In the meantime, why not check out the shiny new old Pugwash archives? There's issues of the magazine going back almost six years, so there's bound to be something interesting for you to read. Sadly, there are a number of missing publications which have either been lost due to unreadable media, and a couple which seem to have simply vanished, but I think we've done remarkably well to put together the amount of content we have, so credit goes to the bods who helped to catalogue all of the issues including Mike Cooter (UPSU Comms Manager) and Adrian Fraguela (last year's MAPO).

It's about half nine on Saturday 5th May. Portsmouth Guildhall is packed full of scrubbed, polished and groomed sports bods. Sports Sabb Jodie Austin is in charge of the mic, and up on stage, a little bald Spanish chap by the name of Fraggy is looking like he's about to have a heart attack as he prays - and prays, and prays, and prays - that the AU Dinner video, the result of two weeks' solid work* from him and Mike Cooter, works first time when he hits "play"...

This year's event was a first for many reasons: it was held in the (very plush) Portsmouth Guildhall, it sold out faster than ever before (and I think more people attended than ever before), I was there for the first time (ok ok, nobody cares about that), and instead of having a guest speaker we were treated to a video of the Union's sporting achievements this year, seasoned with a sprinkling of words by a few sporting bods.

For many people attending, the video was definitely the highlight of the evening's entertainment. As they appeared on the big screen, each club raised a deafening cheer, and the round of applause at the end of the video was testimony to the video's popularity.

I think this could be a really good sign of things to come - bigging-up the efforts put in by clubs and societies doesn't just have to happen through awards - everyone likes a bit of publicity, and if we can improve clubs' and societies' numbers and confidence by getting (good) videos of them played all over the place, and put online, then I'm all for it.

Of course, everyone at the dinner looked Fabulous, Darling, with only a couple of people getting blatantly wrecked (lightweights ;o), and the occasional evil glare between girls who'd worn the same dress. I don't understand that mentality, I'll be honest, but I'm sure someone will explain - with diagrams - why it's such a Bad Thing (TM).

A big well done to Fraggy and Mike for their efforts over the last couple of weeks (and a well done to everyone else who helped organise and run the night so well), and also a thankyou to Fraggy and Mike for opening up a new area of UPSU Media for me to play with/break/push forward. Apparently, I'll have to learn to do this next year: oh dear...

Randomly, during the evening I was once again asked - this time by Sam Wilson (one of my opposition candidates in the elections) - whether I was going to cancel Purple Wednesdays. In hindsight, I think I was lucky to escape with my legs intact when I thought it would be a good idea to wind him up for a bit, saying it was definitely being cancelled (it's not!) - the look on his face was, err, priceless. Sorry Sam!

p.s. The video was great. The Apple Mac it was playing on worked fine, and everyone lived happily ever after. Or something like that, anyway... :o)

* Yes, apparently, Fraggy actually does work. Shocking, but true... ;o)

(Geeky moment) Comms manager Mike Cooter's shiny new 19" widescreen monitor arrived yesterday. On enquiring whether it was any better than his old 17", he darkly muttered something about "fuzzy pixels" and poor picture quality.

... Turns out he'd spent several hours thinking his new screen was fit only for the bin because he'd been running it at the wrong resolution.

(PEBKAC: "Problem exists between keyboard and chair" - Wikipedia)