Quite ugly

artworks. Even if they are meant to be ironically ugly. I'm not sorry Morrissey.

Enlightening thought of the moment

"Democracy, the free market," she muses, do you really think they can save us? ... Marxism [was] a great idea, democracy [is] just a small idea. It promises hope, and it gives you [Kentucky] Fried Chicken."

Malcolm Bradbury.

The Melbourne Model

I love this. It is a promotion video for a theatrical performance put on at Melbourne University Student Union. They came up with a musical to document the trials and tribulations of the new academic regime that has been put in place there. Based on the American system, the Melbourne Model largely removes the opportunity for students to specialise. It is impossible to imagine something so critical of university management being put on at any British institution, probably because Australia is subject to a legal process called Voluntary Student Unionism. In short, students have to pay (quite a lot for people without an income) to be a member of the SU, making it a completely separate organisation from the university.

New Zealand

The teenager found guilty of the brutal murder of Scottish tourist Karen Aim in NZ has become the youngest person to be given a life sentence in the country's history.

Times article

Italian history

My enlightening fact of the week is:

"The Garibaldi biscuit was named after Giuseppe Garibaldi, an Italian general and leader of the fight to unify Italy, who made a popular visit to Tynemouth in England in 1854. It was here he accidentally sat on an Eccles Cake and 'invented' the biscuit."

I wish I could be in Manchester on 2nd July, because Kraftwerk are playing at the Velodrome, but alas, my exam on this very Italian history (Gramsci, to be specific) is on the 4th.

http://www.mif.co.uk/events/kraftwerk/

I'm

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Totally Wired

SU elections

One can always rely on members of Conservative Future to prove to us just how ignorant they are.