City racism

[Eggchaser]

I once saw a fella eating an £18 roast beef dinner with a KFC variety bucket under his chair that he kept dipping into every other mouthful. In London. Only saw it once, but it's stuck with me enough to get London the nickname FATBASTARD CITY

Was he on a tram or a trolley bus?

[WOM]

Bus trip: wage slave on your way to your corner of the capitalist grind
Tram trip: man about town on your way to your next dizzying rendezvous

This. You wouldn't find someone in a John le Carré story tailing someone on a bus. But on a tram, wearing a hat, reading the morning paper...for sure.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

I think that successive governments' policies of encouraging everyone in the country to go to university has been a deliberate way of energising and boosting the economy of post-industrial cities, especially those up north that weren't traditional "top twnty" red brick unis. On my recent travels I went to Newcastle, and in particular stayed in Jesmond, the main student quarter. Rammed full of the cast of Made in Chelsea, it is, all driving new cars and not a Geordie accent among them. Durham always used to (and I guess still does) get that crowd, but I doubt Newcastle did ten years ago.

[treibeis]

Have non-London universities ever had loads of students with the local accent (genuine question)? Bristol never did when I lived there ( yes, I know Bristol University fancies itself).

[Benjm]

Local populations tend to be more strongly represented at the former polytechnics.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

My point was more that there are a lot more non-London universities in this category now. Bristol, Exeter, Bath, Birmingham, Southampton, Durham, Manchester, Lancaster, York, Nottingham, they always did. But loads more now do too, and the students are spending their (well, mummy and daddy's) money. Go to a pub on Friargate in Preston and you'll hear the distinctive home counties bray of a group of dental students. Preston! I'm not sure that was even a local polytechnic in 1990.

[treibeis]

Local populations tend to be more strongly represented at the former polytechnics.

This was the case at my alma mater (Polytechnic Of Central London), yes. But Bristol Polytechnic, as was? Home Countries territory, at least in the 1980s..

[ursus arctos]

Whenever I would take ursus minor to primary school, I would take this to the office



the metro was maybe 10 minutes faster, but the tram was infinitely more civilised.

The trams we would take to and from the Meazza to watch Inter were more utilitarian, but our memories are just as fond.

[Benjm]

My brother went to Bristol Poly in the early '90s and I don't remember his mates banging on about Adge Cutler and the Ashton Gate Eight all the time, so you could be on to something here.

Edit: to treibeis, for avoidance of any doubt.

[treibeis]

My brother went to Bristol Poly in the early '90s and I don't remember his mates banging on about Adge Cutler and the Ashton Gate Eight all the time, so you could be on to something here.

Edit: to treibeis, for avoidance of any doubt.

Yes, but did he ever mention Fred Wedlock, Stoney Garnett or Eddie Shoestring?

[Lang Spoon]

Bus trip: wage slave on your way to your corner of the capitalist grind
Tram trip: man about town on your way to your next dizzying rendezvous

Yeah. Apart from its infrequency, it’s great living near the Luas green line extension in Dublin. Being only a few stops from the northern terminus means it’s almost always half empty and I can get a front facing seat to myself nae bother. It’s cool (well ventilated if not air con and not full of sweaty standing bastards like the red line I almost never took commuting at my old gaff). Buses are pretty good at getting you across the city compared to the radial routes of 15 years or so back, and more of the fleet is modern, but it’s still shite and depressing. I hated taking the bus. At least the tedious waiting for traffic is usually predictable on the tram.

[ursus arctos]

Students in the US have travelled significant distances to attend university for a longer time than in the UK, but there are a number of places that have had significant populations from the New York area for more than a generation, including Vermont, North Carolina, Miami, Michigan and Colorado College. The kind of dislocated accents that Rogin describes are common in all of those places, as well as in places like Boston.

Part of the impetus for this trend has been the increasing squeeze on funding for public universities, whic therefore increasingly see out of state and overseas students as cash cows who help balance the books (the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition can be as high as 10 Times).

[Benjm]

Yes, but did he ever mention Fred Wedlock, Stoney Garnett or Eddie Shoestring?

Until five seconds ago I'd have sworn that Fred Wedlock was from the north-west.

[Third rate Leszno]

Rog, Preston had a poorly rated poly in the mid 80s as my mate achieved the notable distinction of being so shit that he got booted off his HND course there.

I went to the Polytechnic of Wales, and there were lots of local accents (as well as a surprising number of Northern Irish).

[treibeis]

Until five seconds ago I'd have sworn that Fred Wedlock was from the north-west.

"Oldest Swinger In Town"? "Fatty Wedlock"? Fucking hell.

[Benjm]

"Oldest Swinger In Town"?

I remember vividly, silver jacket on TOTP and all. But, if you'd asked, I'd have confidently placed him in greater Manchester.

Don't take this the wrong way, but he may have become commingled with Mike Harding in my memory.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Question: Are the new universities in the UK proper research universities, or are they — as here — "teaching universities" — i.e. faculty teach 4/4 with no research time, and no post-grad degree programs?

[Lang Spoon]

Don’t they all have to pretend to do at least a little bit of research?

[Lang Spoon]

Christ, Mike Harding.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Not here, there's just no time during the semester, nor sabbaticals either. It's a real bone of contention.

[Benjm]

Question: Are the new universities in the UK proper research universities, or are they — as here — "teaching universities" — i.e. faculty teach 4/4 with no research time, and no post-grad degree programs?

I don't know about now, but before the polys changed over in the '90s they were teaching institutions. The university league table metrics were heavily weighted towards research, so effectively the new universities were doomed to second division status. There were questions at the time about whether they wouldn't have been better off remaining as they were, rather than entering a race that was rigged against them, but the university fetish won out.

[Lang Spoon]

Question: Are the new universities in the UK proper research universities, or are they — as here — "teaching universities" — i.e. faculty teach 4/4 with no research time, and no post-grad degree programs?

Somewhere as pisspoor post 92 as University Of West of Scotland (Paisley and Hamilton Tech) is maybe the worst of the new new Scottish unis (the sixties ones generally rank pretty well) but employs professional bore Gerry Hassan as some kind of research fellow. Though actual journalist and general Sound as Fuck Peter Geoghegan just left a teaching/research post, darkly hinting at Dark Monitised Forces in academia (while backing up an lrb piece saying same about Russell Group places).

[Amor de Cosmos]

I don't know about now, but before the polys changed over in the '90s they were teaching institutions. The university league table metrics were heavily weighted towards research, so effectively the new universities were doomed to second division status. There were questions at the time about whether they wouldn't have been better off remaining as they were, rather than entering a race that was rigged against them, but the university fetish won out.

Yeah, that sounds familiar. Most of the community colleges in BC were "upgraded" to universities about six years ago (I teach at one of the few that wasn't).

[JVL]

It probably is, but it was full of road works that didn't seem to be actually happening when I was there last year, which is about standard for me when I visit 'lovely' places. But the weather was nice, there was a beer festival and a football match so it wasn't all bad.

They've been digging up Karlsruhe city centre for several years now, but the huge project is finally approaching a conclusion, I think - they've been tunnelling under the main roads through the heart of the city to put most of the tram/Straßenbahn lines underground and open up those streets to become much more pedestrian-friendly (and much safer too, you had to have your wits about you as the frequency of trams had increased considerably over the last decade or so and it felt like there was a unit clanking by every 2 minutes or so during the day). I like Karlsruhe, it's a nice place to just mooch around and the walk to the stadium through the palace gardens is one of the more pleasant approaches to a ground...

As for the Cambridgeshire Busway: had the pleasure of travelling to St Ives on that last year. They fair rip along the the out-of-town sections but then the timetable has to be padded massively for the inevitable loss of time in the congested centre of each town the routes pass through. The journey back to Cambridge was great: had just seen Hayes lift the Southern League Cup and we got front-row seats on the top deck, VL jnr. was delighted with that and I was able to savour the moment of having actually seen my team won something while he pretended to be driving the bus. Happy days.

[treibeis]

I remember vividly, silver jacket on TOTP and all. But, if you'd asked, I'd have confidently placed him in greater Manchester.

Don't take this the wrong way, but he may have become commingled with Mike Harding in my memory.

They looked similar, I'll give you that, and neither of them were particularly funny.

Mind you, they both looked not unlike Martin Lee as well. Maybe they too did things with pliers and ball-peen hammers to session musicians who kept making mistakes.