After my last blog post (here), I thought it was time to post an update on the ongoing lecturer’s strike saga.  Over the past few days the situation has pretty much reached terminal decline.  To put it more accurately, the **** has hit the fan!  Everyone involved had hoped that last Monday (8th May) would see the strike come to an end, but instead ended up becoming 100 times worse.  Instead of a suspension of the boycott, we saw lecturers having pay docked, some universities going on full strike, and some lecturers being faced with legal action.

The week started with the UCEA offering the lecturer’s unions a 12.6% pay rise over three years.  This was rejected by the AUT & NATFHE.  This quote taken from someone on the Swansea University Computer Science Forum most probably best explains why:

First, the rate of inflation at the moment is around 2%.  This means that salaries that don’t increase by 2% or more PA are going down in real terms.  While 12% may sound like a lot, remember that it is over three years, and so works out at a little under double the rate of inflation over this time period.  Hardly a huge increase.

The pay rise was promised as a compromise during the last round of pay negotiations.  The lecturers took a smaller increase than they were asking for last time because they were promised a larger one this time.

The Raven – 14/05/2006 15:05:18

Since this offer, things have gone insane and there is now even less of a chance of our exams going ahead without any kind of a disruption.  The exam timetable is being decided on a week by week basis.  The first week of exams are going ahead on schedule as they are mainly third years and masters’ students and lecturers have decided to support them as they are most affected.  However, it remains to be seen whether this is the case for our exams.  I’ll post more details as and when I hear them.

Dan’s 19th Birthday

Dan's BirthdayLast Wednesday I made the trek back to Hereford for Dan’s birthday.  After an appalling train journey (thanks to Arriva Trains Wales), I made it to Hereford about 9pm and found Dan, Phil, Paul and loads of others in Wetherspoons – their drinking already well underway!  It seems they started around 4 and so by the time I found them were pretty wrecked.  The photo on the left shows them around 7ish walking between pubs.  As you can see, they were rather drunk.

After a measly 2 drinks in Wetherspoons before the bar started refusing to serve the group, we headed into Dusk nightclub, where we spent until 2ish drinking and dancing.  The music reminded me a lot of Jumpin Jaks on Thursday nights here in Swansea.

Needless to say, on Thursday morning I had one hell of a hangover.  Of course, never one to say no to a party, I joined Ian and his girlfriend in Jaks the following night!

Photos from the night can be found in my media section

All that’s left to say is Happy Birthday Dan!