Free speakers and condoms

The day theoretically started off with a meeting of the people involved in the Sutherland protest, to work out the wording for a new petition (calling for a binding referendum of students, academics and staff on the appointment, or failing that his resignation/ non-acceptance of the position). I heroically dragged myself out of bed in time to make it in to college for 9 am, though my first lecture was at 10. But of all the people who said they'd be there yesterday when the emails were going round, only myself and the ex-Returning Officer actually turned up*, and we were both about 15 minutes late (but it wasn't that we missed them because of that, because I was actually on time to begin with, checked out the two rooms in the basement of St Clement's which had been suggested as meeting places, found no-one in either and went to the computer room on the same floor to check my email to establish whether a different place had been arranged, and noting that it hadn't, went on to send a few important emails of my own while keeping an eye on people coming and going so as to spot any of the Sutherland protest people if they turned up.)

Anyway, the Returning Officer was talking about giving it 10 minutes before going, and I had been thinking along similar lines, but then I decided to be proactive and suggested that we might get somewhere with it even in a meeting of two. Maybe it was even more productive that way- when you have five or ten people all trying to make suggestions about different bits and with different approaches- or five or ten people all avoiding being the one to actually say something- it's harder to get much done. We managed to push out a decent few sentences that summed up the basic idea, and though of course they still needed work, at least there was an original text for people to comment on and amend (though we couldn't be much of a part of that as we were both busy all today).

We were actually finished with about quarter of an hour to go before we both had to be places at 10. I went back to the computer room intending to add a few more comments to the functions for the group project. But once at the computer, it somehow seemed that a better use of my time would be to amend my leaflet to a non-sit-in context so that it could be used as an information handout at the stall with the petition if people thought that would be usefull. I managed to get it done in the time as well (well, ok, I was 5 minutes late for Computational Stats which like everything starts at 5 past the hour so technically I got it done in the time plus 10 minutes. But let's not nitpick).

We've finished covering new material in Computational Stats- today was handing back the test and going over the questions. I actually did pretty well- 34; I'm not quite sure what that's out of (haven't counted up the available marks), but the mean of the top 3 marks (being a stats course the lecturer gave out all sorts of details like the inter quartile range of the marks, for this and the last test (at the time)) was 32, and it came with the comment excellent so in relative terms that's got to count as an achievement to be proud of, if not necessarily in absolute terms. I accidentally saw someone else's mark was 6, and as the range was 28, I calculate that I got at least joint top. Still, complacency is dangerous. I made a silly slip where I was thinking before I started writing one of the functions that after doing a certain amount of calculation it would be necessary to multiply by a number m, but then I forgot to do it by the time I'd written the stuff that came before it. And I wrote that a function would plot one thing (call it x) against another (call it y) when actually it was the other way around- and that was stupid because I knew how x and y would be on the graph, but I temporarily forgot that when you say 'plot x against y' that means having the x value on the y axis and the y value on the x axis, which was why I wrote which one was plotted against which the wrong way round. The lecturer mentioned that a lot of people did that, but he assumed that they had misunderstood what the function did rather than forgotten what the English words meant (perhaps that assumption was justified in the majority of cases, I wouldn't know). And these were just the trivial things. It's important to remember that I had to leave out quite a few questions because I didn't know the answers, and some of the rest I wasn't too sure about.

Just to dwell on the glory a little longer though, I was proud that the lecturer wrote "nice!" next to the way I'd written the function for the last question.

On the way to the computer class, I picked up a copy of The Beaver. They didn't print any of my photos of Reclaim the Night- there wasn't an article about it; I'm not sure if that was because there wasn't room for it with so much more important stuff, or if it was that the Women's Officer had been ill and unable to go- maybe it was she who was supposed to write about it? After all, I didn't see any reporters for The Beaver there. Of course it was a little disappointing, but I hadn't just assumed it would be in there; I realised that the story or just the photo might not make it into the paper. So it wasn't an awfull shock. Hopefully they'll have some more assignments for me to do sometime and if I get to do enough of them sooner or later I should get published by pure statistics!

The rest of the day was pretty much Group Project. We were allowed to work on it in the computer class, and then transferred (there was a class using the room) to C120 to work on it some more, and even skipped Principles and Methods to put in more time on it (though one of us did go to most of the lecture and brought us back the handouts and the information that the lecturer had pretty much stuck to them).

The function we were having trouble with last time held out on us for four or five hours but in the end we beat it into submission, along with a few others that were working ok in the sense of giving results, but not in the sense of giving the right results. The problem with the first function turned out to be a really stupid mistake** that I can't believe we didn't see in four hours of staring at it checking every line for errors. We wasted so much time! Now what's left is pretty much a case of checking that we've used the right method for the questions, and if we haven't, hopefully we will be able to adapt it without writing totally new functions that will take a while to debug and lick into working order.

We took it in turns to break for lunch in the middle; I went off to get a sandwich in the Quad and got handed a S.H.A.G (Sexual Health and Guidance) Week bag as I was passing down Houghton St. I'd heard they were going to be giving them out and had meant to make a point of getting one, but had forgotten, and was taken by surprise, so when a bloke jumped out and offered me one, I said 'Oh, go on then' which sounds rather like I wouldn't have wanted one but had been persuaded (not necessarily a bad thing- one doesn't necessarily want to be too eager!). He sounded like he had been having trouble persuading people to take them- at any rate all the people giving them out seemed very pleased that I'd accepted. In addition to another copy of The Beaver (I later put it on the Beaver stands as I don't need two), and some info about STIs, there were some free condoms. Put together with the one I got in Fresher's Week, that now makes 4 free condoms and no-one to use them with (sniff!) Sadly, I am very very bad at getting as far as a first date with anyone***- I think I am lacking in certain skills like how to tell whether a guy is interested and how to show my own interest, since I don't believe the package I have to offer is inferior- though limited experience would suggest that past that point I do not have a problem. I'm not quite sure how to work on this, but I do need to improve as it would be a shame to let four freebies go to waste**** :-) Incidentally, if anyone has any tips on this, please do comment.

Originally I had planned to go out to dinner with two of my flatmates, L, and two of her flatmates/ friends. But they couldn't make it in the end, so my flatmates and I decided to cook together in halls. They made Chinese food and I made gyoza, which they'd wanted me to show them how to make for quite a while*****. It all turned out really well, and we even had jasmine green tea with it. After washing up (which actually didn't take that long), we had two more kinds of tea- the jasmine tea was my tea and my idea, but it brought out a desire in the others to share their own tea- powdered green tea (matcha) in the case of Flatmate 3 and a Whittards vanilla, honey and apricot powdered tea drink in the case of Flatmate 7. Whilst we drank, I got out my laptop and showed them some of my photos of Japan. I'd planned to stop when we got to the photos of my first trip to Tokyo (I have about 8,000 photos of the trip in all so showing them in one sitting was not really feasible), and though I was worried quite a bit before that point that I was boring them, I stuck out till there then suggested that maybe that was enough for one night. They agreed, but asked to see pictures of my house (in the UK). I didn't have many good ones (in the sense of showing what it's like), but I showed them what I had, and other stuff that caught their eye, before needing to dash to the loo (all that tea), telling them as I went that they were free to look at any photos they wanted as I didn't think there was anything they couldn't see. When I came back they were looking at photos of a trip to a small beach near Weston Super Mare with my family last spring, and we ended up looking at quite a few more before finally going to bed (including more of Japan, from much later in my stay, and the ones of me in a kimono (for the dance performance at the village culture festival)). So hopefully I didn't bore them too much after all!

Flatmate 3 gave me a set of computer speakers- I'd mentioned some weeks ago that it would be nice to watch a DVD together sometime only I didn't have decent quality speakers on my laptop (when I watch a film by myself I use headphones so it's not normally a problem). She didn't need them as she now had a Mac and apparently they were incompatible. I tried to offer her some money for them, but she said they only cost about £5 (she got them in Hong Kong, where she comes from), and anyway she'd got plenty of use out of them, and she wouldn't take anything. I stopped trying when Flatmate 7 pointed out that it was just like the scheme I want to set up in halls of a cardboard box in the common room for people to put anything in that they would only throw away but is good enough quality that someone else might want it, and for people to take out anything they like the look of. Still, it was very generous of her. I haven't tried them out yet, but they've got to be better than the ones I have back home.

*This sounds like I'm angry with them but actually I didn't mind that much

**In indexing some of our vectors we were using a[max(b)] (with different variable names for a and b, but I'll use those as it's simpler). This gives the value of a at the position whose number is whatever value b takes as a maximum. What we wanted, and what we thought that would give us, and couldn't see for hours and hours that it wouldn't, was the value of a at the position where b takes its maximum value- ie a[b==max(b)]. I can't believe we didn't spot that. And we were wondering why it only gave results for small values of one of the parameter (it was because in that case the maximum value of b was small, and less than the length of a, so there was actually a value of a at the position with that number, but for large values of the parameter max(b) was bigger than the length of a and there was no position of a with that number and so we just got NA

***Yes, yes, I know, gets top marks at computer programming but can't get a date, how sad. But if I had to choose only one of academic/intellectual and romantic ability, I'd choose academic, so I guess that's ok. In theory. Doesn't stop me wanting to have it all though (and why not).

****And it would stop the wishfull thinking when I get kept awake by the sounds of people in a nearby room enjoying themselves very very much- I'm not quite sure where it comes from (and it's not that often), but either someone is a very good lover or there is a very good actress of the Meg Ryan school around.

*****I found it slightly ironic that I, a European, was teaching two Asians how to make gyoza- of course, especially since it's a Japanese dish, there's no reason why they should know how, but it felt ever so slightly ridiculous!

Spoilt for Choice

Today was the third meeting for the Sustainability Champions. The Lilian Knowles champions met up in the Garrick (cafe) beforehand as we thought it would be a good idea to sort out what we need to be working on now. We haven't really done much since the quiz in Climate Change Awareness Week. It was just the three girls though (Flatmate 7, SC2 and myself)- the boy who annoyed me rather after the Environment forum, and another who'd been a Sustainability Champion right from the start but hadn't managed to get in touch with the rest of us till around Climate Change Awareness Week didn't show up or reply to my email. In the case of the latter, that might be partly my fault, as I took quite a while to get back to him with more details after my initial email telling him I'd write with more details soon, so he may have given up on us. I'm not sure what the situation is with the other guy- even whether he actually joined up to become a Sustainability Champion or not (he was only intending to become one at the Environment Forum); we had an email from him shortly before the quiz saying he couldn't help after all as he was busy cooking for his 30th birthday, but it wasn't clear from the email whether he was just saying he couldn't join in that time or whether he was resigning from the whole thing. He did come to the Garrick about half an hour into our meeting though, just to have lunch with some friends, so I think if he wanted to be involved (and got the email about the meeting) he would have said something? (He definitely saw us because he said hi in passing). I'm not that bothered either way- if he wants to be in I'll grit my teeth and learn valuable personal interaction skills in the process, while if he doesn't then I'll breathe a sigh of relief- but it would be nice to know which it is. (It may not be his fault- he may have thought he was informing us clearly and categorically that he didn't want to be involved with that email).

We put forward quite a lot of important must-do projects- a whole side of A4, to be exact. Splitting the work three ways though that's not too bad...

The meeting itself was maybe a bit more usefull than last time, but still not hugely helpfull. There were one or two points that we might be able to take inspiration from (or blatantly copy) though.
There was another test in Computational Statistics. I'd been pretty laid back about this one- it wasn't assessed and it was open-book (ie we were allowed to look at our notes), so though I'd remember every now and again over the weekend that there was a test coming up I didn't actually do any revision. This meant I was rather shaky on the bit about factors and linear regression, but I did all I could and then came back to those bits with the notes and made a stab at it. One of the questions was, if I (and another person I talked to about it afterwards) are not mistaken, basically exactly the same as one of the examples in the notes only stripped of context. So I just copied that out changing some variable names. As to how I did, we'll see tomorrow (hopefully).

I did some more work on the project after the class, with one other group member (the football one). The others were busy. We took a deep breath and started on the write-up. We managed to get the introduction and most of the first question done in just 3 hours, which is not too bad- there's only the end of that question plus one more to go, and of course some kind of ending. And fitting the functions in their proper places- we left that bit out. But I'm confident that it shouldn't take too much more work- which is good, considering it has to be in on Friday. We'll be able to do some more in the computer class tomorrow, apparently.

I went to People and Planet's showing of The Constant Gardener in the evening. I thought it was pretty good, though of course rather harrowing. I may be getting better at harrowing films though- I'm probably just gradually getting desensitized. People and Planet were showing it as part of a series of events leading up to World Aids Day on Friday. I don't know how many I'm going to be able to get to- I probably won't make the party/ celebrity items auction on the day itself, for example, as I expect to go home for the weekend that evening. But I'll go to what I can. Part of the problem with a place like LSE is there's so much going on you have to turn down about three things for every one you accept. For example, I was excited to see that the Film Society in conjunction with the Japan Society are showing Tokyo Monogatari (Tokyo Story) on Tuesday of Week 10- I went to see it at the NFT in Final year, back when my Japanese vocabulary was very, very small indeed (which was ok as there were subtitles), and remembered it as being a good film, and thought 'Great, I'd love to see that again- and to see how much more I can understand now' (well, you never know), but then a minute or two later I remembered that that's the day of the Statistics and Risk and Stochastics Postgraduate Christmas party, which I've already signed up and paid £5 for. Still, better that problem than have nothing going on at all...

Off the brown stuff

I didn't get up till 1.30 today, but it wasn't exactly oversleeping as I made a conscious decision to reset the alarm several times and in the end to do away with it altogether, as it was Sunday and I didn't have to be anywhere (though I did have some work to do). Oh ok, technically it is oversleeping, but oversleeping like I was doing it before, not oversleeping like I've been doing it recently which is far more dangerous and insidious. I just wanted to be able to start the post off differently for once...

I must have done about an hour's work in the end, if that. The rest of the time was doing not particularly constructive stuff on my computer, and eating. I went out for supper with my flatmates, to an Indian restaurant in Brick lane which amazingly was not that expensive and didn't have anyone on the door to pounce. Sadly though I've forgotten the name (actually I forgot to look and see what it was). No, wait, it was Aladin (sic). The food was nice as well as cheap, and I had something I don't ever remember seeing on a menu before, vegetable Malaya, which was a bit like a korma only using slightly different spices, a bit yogurty, and with pineapple in.

I think I really am addicted to chocolate. I usually have some in the evening, whether in bar form or as a chocolate muffin or something, but today I didn't have any stashed away and I haven't been out apart from the outing to the restaurant, and I didn't want to say I'd see my flatmates later as I was going off to buy some chocolate. I don't feel at all hungry; I actually feel pretty full, but nevertheless I have strong cravings that I am fighting*. I'm going to have to, because I don't know of anywhere round here that's 24 hours. Tesco's shuts at 6 on Sundays, and I can't even go and be overcharged by the vending machine as I didn't have that much cash on me when we went to the restaurant and even though the meal was very reasonably priced, it used up all my change. I even had to borrow 30p to make up the tip...

I'm feeling pretty tired and a little ill, but I don't think that's withdrawal symptons...

*What makes it even worse is that this is not on 0 chocolate- there was mint chocolate each with the bill

The Benevolent Fire Alarm

Gathering before Reclaim the Night march, Trafalgar Square

By now, you can probably all write the first sentence for me. Yes, I overslept again. This time, as it was a Saturday, I didn't have any lectures to be late for, but I was supposed to be meeting my mum at Paddington station at 10:30. So for once in my life, I was gratefull that the fire alarm went off: this happened at 9.50, so considerably later than I should have got up, but still in time for me to be only 15 or 20 minutes late, and since Mum's train was 15 minutes late that wasn't too bad. My alarm was definitely on last night, and definitely off when the fire alarm woke me this morning, so I'm not sure what happened there, but taken in conjunction with evidence from Thursday when the same thing happened, it would suggest that I've moved on from setting the alarm for ten more minutes a few too many times to turning it right off and retaining no memory of the action. Something needs to be done about this. I don't think hiding the phone (which is what I've been using) is going to work- I already put it in different places each time and if I start putting it in drawers or things to really wake myself up with the effort of finding it, chances are it'll be too muffled for me to hear it and I'll just sleep straight through anyway. I could try what I did when I was doing a TEFL course for five weeks in the summer of Second year, when for the first time in my life being late would have consequences more serious than a telling off from the teacher or an annoyed look from the lecturer*: I wrote down an integration on a post-it note each evening and stuck it on the alarm clock, and I wasn't allowed to get back in bed the following morning till I'd done it. They didn't take very long to do- I purposefully chose easy ones, and nothing involving integration by parts, I think, or complicated substitutions- but having to think about the excercise woke me up enough that I wouldn't just drop off again.

Anyway, I met Mum at Paddington, and we headed off to Southwark. Mum had come to London to do some Christmas shopping with me, but she also wanted to see the slides in the Tate Modern while she was here, and go on them if there wasn't too long a wait. There was though- we got there at about 11 or 11.30 and were told we would probably get on at 1.30. Since we wanted to do a fair bit of Christmas shopping we decided not to bother. We crossed over the Milennium bridge and headed for Covent Garden. Then it started raining very heavily**, so we took shelter in a convenient archway before deciding to make a dash for the nearest bus stop and proceed by bus.

In Covent Garden, after quite a bit of searching, we eventually found the stall where Mum got her handbag several years ago (on another trip to see me and do some Christmas shopping, when I was at UCL. After long and faithfull service, it's finally given in and she wanted another. Once she had chosen, I offered to get it for her as a Christmas present (saves hours of thinking what she'd like...). She said it was too expensive for that, but we came to the slightly bizarre compromise of my paying for half as a present, and her paying for the other half. I took it away with me though and will still be able to wrap it!

We then went and had some lunch. We were looking at various places, but got tempted into a pub, in spite of the smoke, by herby pancakes with mediterranean vegetables and goats' cheese sauce. Unfortunately we didn't check whether there was a table free before ordering at the bar, and had to ask a couple if they minded us sitting in the two spare seats at their table. But after they left, another couple came and did the same to us, so I guess it all evens out.

The pancakes were really, really good.

We went to Oxford St after lunch, to go to the department stores. I got pretty hot, and my feet hurt, but Mum managed to cross a few people off her list so at least it was productive. I didn't even think about buying anything myself- my mind still hasn't really got itself round the idea that Christmas is imminent. We finished up in Marks and Spencer's, and bought a juice each to refresh ourselves.

I had to leave at 4.45 though, because I am now a Beaver photographer! Well, kind of. I'd been meaning to email the editor and ask if they needed any more people to take pictures for a while, mostly because I like taking photos and it would be nice to get them published***, but also partly because in Green Party committee meetings they keep on encouraging people to write for the Beaver because if you get three pieces published you become part of the Beaver Collective which makes decisions to do with the paper, and more Greens on that is more progressive votes, and I'm no good at writing articles but you can also get on the Collective by publishing photos. So I'd been meaning to ask if I could become one of their photographers, and then at the sit-in the editor borrowed my camera to take a picture of the policemen who had been outside the Old Theatre (no-one else had one on them), so when I emailed him those pictures plus the ones I'd taken of the sit-in myself (which he also wanted), I added that I would be interested in taking pictures for the Beaver. The editor passed that on to the appropriate person, and I got an email saying that would be great, and asking if I could go to the Reclaim the Night march to take some pictures.

The Reclaim the Night march is a march for women that takes place after dark, and the point of it is to express a desire to be able to walk the streets at night individually without fear of rape or violence, and to protest about violence against women in general. I already knew about it from some email or other, but I had been inclining on the side of not going****, because of meeting Mum and not being sure how late she wanted to stay or even if she wanted to stay the night. But when I got that request to take pictures there, I found out what Mum's plans were, and established that she didn't want to stay the night, and didn't want to be too late either (I thought this would probably be the case, but I wasn't sure). So that meant I could go.

I had to ask the Beaver photography person about what the rules for taking photos were, since I'd never taken any for anything other than personal interest before, and he told me that you don't have to ask for permission if you're taking photos of an event in a public place and you're going to use them for editorial content rather than advertising (though of course if people aren't happy about having their photo taken you shouldn't do it). But he added that in fact you get the best pictures by a combination of talking to people and just taking them, which I found to be good advice.

The LSE contingent was supposed to meet on Houghton St at 5.30, and I just made it there, but just like for the Climate Change march, there was no-one else waiting and I worried that I had got the wrong time (had it been 15.30 and I'd remembered the 5?). People did turn up though, about five or ten of them, though not the Women's Officer who was organising it as apparently she was ill and had been in bed for 30 hours (which sounds pretty bad!). So the People and Planet President was in charge instead. Apparently she didn't know much about what was happening, but this didn't seem to be a problem as she got us there fine and we joined the group in Trafalgar Square no problem.

There was a gathering of a considerable size there; not as big as for the Climate Change demo, but still pretty sizeable. There were many banners and placards, saying things like 'Women's rights are human rights' and 'Being drunk is not a crime. Rape is", as well as some nice ones done by the NUS, with "NUS women are asking for" and then a picture of a woman (there were several different ones) with a thought bubble saying "An end to violence". People were distributing sheets with the chants for the march. The sentiments were good, apart from one bit that called for a curfew for men, but I thought the chants looked a bit cumbersome to work well. Still, I thought I'd see how they went. We were in Trafalgar Square for more than half an hour- I spent the time taking many many photos, including one of a person with one of the NUS placards, which I asked if I could take. What with being new to this, I didn't think to ask for names or anything, but this person grabbed someone else nearby and told me it was the NUS Women's Officer, which was quite a stroke of luck for me, and also another person who was an LSE student, because I'd said I was taking photos for the LSE student newspaper. So I said I'd get the details after taking the photo, to cover my not having thought to do it already, and wrote it all down on the flyer about chants. Still, there was plenty of time when I wasn't taking pictures, and it was cold, but eventually we got moving.

(l-r) NUS Women's Officer, and Phd students from Warwick
(Women and gender) and LSE (Gender)

We marched up Charing Cross Road and Tottenham Court Road, before turning off near Warren St and going down Gower St to ULU. The chants actually worked out ok- they didn't attempt the trickiest one (and no-one did the bit about the curfew for men in the event!). There was also shrieking/whooping at points and some people with deafening whistles a bit too close to me. There were quite a few people watching us go past, many taking photos, The reaction was mostly positive though we did get some boos when we went past a pub. And towards the end of the march, I overheard one of the marchers chatting to one of the policemen as we walked along- she was actually explaining to him why women don't feel safe walking down the streets at night, because he apparently didn't get our point. (He was being perfectly nice about it, though).

When we went past Spearmint Rhino, the organisers got us to do the 'Sexual violence has to go' chant, so as to make it absolutely clear that we weren't protesting against the sex workers (as they called them, I'm not sure whether that's the proper term). Though I have to admit I can't quite see how the other chants could give the impression that we were... There was quite a cluster of policemen outside, plus some men in suits (at the time I assumed they were management but I suppose they could have been customers) who were smiling and seemed to be sympathetic, or at least tolerant, toward us.

University of Bath Students' Union Vice President
(Welfare and Campaigns) leads those around her in chant/ song

There was a party afterwards at ULU, but I didn't stay. I went to the Sainsbury's at the top of Tottenham Court Rd that I used to shop at all the time when I was at UCL. Inside it was all different, which was quite sad. Sadder was that Cullen's, which used to be opposite, is now a Tesco Express. Ok, Cullen's wasn't cheap, but it had some interesting stuff, and at least it wasn't Tesco's.

The march reaches the lower end of Tottenham court Rd

I got the 205 bus back from the Euston Rd. Unfortunately, though, it turned out not to go to either of the places I'm used to getting off at for Liverpool St, and it was two or three stops later before I realised we'd gone past where I should have alighted. So I got off at the next one and walked back- only I set off the wrong way and realised two seconds later that it was the wrong way, but didn't want to turn round and walk in the right direction as that would be embarrassing, so instead I turned off to the left- halls was not just back but back and left so this wasn't out of my way as such. It was a fair sized road, but not as big as the main road, and it was out of the city, so I felt a little insecure. It was quite ironic (or possibly just interesting) to be in that position right after marching against that, and it got a little more so when a man said something to me as I passed- I didn't catch all of it but it ended with 'doll', I think, and may have been 'Looking nice tonight, doll'. Then, when I turned left again to walk in the direction I should have gone in originally, down a street that was slightly quieter again, another man said 'Excuse me,' and when I turned, 'Where are you from?' I had to get him to repeat it, and he added 'Are you from Germany?'. Now admittedly, there's nothing dodgy in itself about the question 'Are you from Germany?' But I was on a not exceptionally well lit street, I wasn't wearing or doing or carrying anything that I thought could give anyone the idea that I was from Germany, and I couldn't think of a good reason why anyone would need to know whether I came from Germany. So I said something like 'No, I'm not, it's ok, thankyou' (mouth and brain were not too well aligned), waved (ditto gestures), and set off very fast.

Between Tottenham Court Rd and Gower St
(I can't believe I've forgotten what the road's called, I've walked down it like a million times)

Luckily, the streets got better lit and busier pretty soon, and before long I was back at halls. It's been quite a while since I felt like that- I don't feel unsafe in the centre of London even after dark, and I haven't been elsewhere alone at night recently; last year I was living with my parents and was scarcely ever away from home in the evening (bad public transport and no car of my own), and before that I was in Japan which is absurdly safe, and where I never felt threatened at all (except for the time when I was worried about the policeman finding the knife, which I can't remember whether I've already written about; if not then I'm sure I'll find time to put it all down in detail at some point).

The march halfway down Tottenham Court Rd

*I forget exactly what those consequences were- it was probably failing the course, and as I'd paid £500 to go on it...

**There had already been some rain before we got to the Tate, as well as some very strong winds.

***And to be taking them in an official capacity- I have in the past missed some good shots because I was shy of using a flash thus and advertising that I was snapping, or because I snatched the camera back down again too quickly, for the same reason

****I know! A demo I was thinking of passing up for a change! Shock horror!

The Telegraph alone lives up to my expectations (!)

Guess what, I missed my lecture today too. This time it wasn't even like I overslept accidentally- I didn't get to bed too early and when the alarm went off I decided I felt too tired to get up, and went back to sleep. Big slapped wrist. There are two weeks left of term, and I am really going to try and pull my socks up and attend every single lecture, arriving on time and not dropping off accidentally halfway through. I am very ashamed.

I thought there would be no point my going in to college given I had just that one lecture, but then I remembered I had to give in £5 for the Statistics and Risk and Stochastics Postgraduate Christmas Party (which will be in the last week of term)- today was the last day to do that, and, I suddenly remembered, wasn't it before noon that it had to be in? (It was 1.30 at this point). I turned on my computer and looked at my inbox. Yes, it was before noon- but maybe if I went now they wouldn't mind too much that it was late? I also saw that I had an email from the Students' Union Communications Officer. Usually an individual email from one of the Sabbaticals would be an unheard of offer and my reaction would be 'What can they possibly have to email me about?!', but in this case I thought I knew what it was, and I was right. On Tuesday I entered the competition at the bottom of the email that gets sent out by the Communications Officer each week giving details of what's going on. It was five questions such as 'Where does the free bus to halls leave from after every CRUSH?' and 'Who will be Chair of Council from 2008?' (!). I got all the answers except one ('How much does a Southern Fried Chicken Platter cost in the Three Tuns Kitchen?') from the LSE website, and got the remaining one when I was down there for the meeting about the sit-in. And the email was to tell me I had won, and should come to the Students' Union reception to get my prize (tickets to CRUSH; I've never been but always vaguely meant to, though I was entering the competition more for the sake of it, and because after my experience of 0 entrants to my Climate Change Awareness Week Quiz, I felt disposed to enter other people's competitions, rather than for the prize).

The first thing I did once on campus, though, was to go to the SU shop and get not only the Guardian, but also the Independent, the Times and the Telegraph (once again, something I would normally never do- bargepoles figure largely in my normal equipment for dealing with the last two, though not as long as the ones I use for the Daily Mail... which I couldn't bring myself to buy this time). Today was the day that the nationals would have the story about the sit-in, if they ever did. Then I went to the SU reception, and got my tickets from the Communications Officer- a whole four of them, and valid for any CRUSH*. I asked if anyone else had actually entered- not in a your-competition-is-rubbish-and-I'd-be-amazed-if-anyone-had kind of way but in a well-I-won-and-there's-obviously-a-far-higher-chance-of-that-if-not-many-people-entered,-right? kind of way. Apparently there was one other entrant, but she'd put down funny answers rather than the right ones. So I guess it really wasn't that surprising that I emerged victorious... I think they're going to have more competitions in the future, and I hope more people enter- there's a serious purpose behind it, which is to encourage people to find out more about the services on offer, which I certainly did.

Fortunately, it wasn't too late to give in my £5, and I will be able to go to the party!

I had a look through the papers on the way back on the bus. I knew there would be a bit in the Daily Telegraph, in the Diary section- it had been sent round the group in an email earlier in the day. Disappointingly though that was all there was. The coverage was of course unsympathetic, it being the Telegraph, and called us anti-capitalist activists, though I think only a few were actually anti-capitalist and the protest as a whole certainly wasn't, though we were against the mixing of business and education. But at least it mentioned clearly that our protest was about his appointment to Chair of Council and not just a general protest about BP's record. It's rather ironic that the only one of the four with anything about it was the Telegraph- I would have expected better of the Guardian and Independent. I wonder, are people apathetic because things like this aren't covered in the media, or does the media fail to cover them because people are apathetic?

I went out again to have a look for a pub- next week I'm going for a meal again with L, Flatmates 3 & 7, and L's friends, and the latter had apparently expressed a desire to try traditional British food- I thought a pub would be most likely to combine that with a vegetarian option and not be too expensive, but I didn't actually know of any that were good. So I took a bus to Bethnal Green, and walked from there down Cambridge Heath Road (popping into Sainsbury's at the end of it), then into Whitechapel. I found a couple of places there, and then a couple more when I got back, right by halls, which turned out to be no more expensive than the ones in Whitechapel though I'd feared they would be. I had four options in the end, all of which had dishes for mostly £5 to £7 which I think is as good as you're going to get in London (though I may be wrong).

I found a couple more blogs about the sit-in by audience members. The first is unfortunately in Simplified Chinese, which is fine if you happen to be able to read that, but I can't, and the Google translation is obscure to the point of my not being able to tell if the writer is for or against us. But I think Flatmate 7 is going to tell me what it says if she has time- she's from Taiwan, so can read it no problem. The other is a case of Spot the Errors- here's my list:

1. (A linguistic mistake)- 'brandishing' not 'branding' boards
2. It's Chair of Council, not Chancellor- we actually don't have a Chancellor, but a Director, but I shudder to imagine if we did have a Chancellor and it was going to be him...
   
3. The Students' Union wasn't protesting purely because of BP's environmental record but also because of its human rights record, because of Sutherland's non-BP record, and because students weren't properly consulted about the appointment
   
4. We were't happy about his failure to engage, but it wasn't the main reason behind the protest (that being the appointment itself)
   
5. He offered us 15 minutes for questions
   
6. True, we didn't mention Sutherland's non-BP record in the leaflet given out at the protest- but BP's record had already had to be cut drastically to fit on the page, and there wasn't really space to go into Sutherland's own past as well- though perhaps we should have focussed on that instead, maybe that would have been more effective than attacking him as the chairman of a company with a bad record. However, one of the strongest things against him, which a lot of us thought was very bad, we decided not to mention as it's a controversial subject and could end up losing us support from people who agree with him on this: as Attorney General of Ireland he was instrumental in making abortion illegal.
   
7. Once again, the info we had on BP focussed more on human rights abuses than environmental problems- yes, members of the audience addressed us as environmentalists but they presumably hadn't read the leaflet properly
   
8. LSE couldn't settle the matter prior to the lecture (apart from by never appointing him in the first place)- we deliberately kept it quiet from them that we were going to protest so that they wouldn't put too much security in the Old Theatre for us to be able to, as telling them wouldn't have made them unappoint him (why would it, when it was allowing them to avoid the protest and they had no other reason to do so?), but would have removed our chance to protest against it. Similarly, they couldn't cancel the lecture
   
9. I think the writer means 'parties'...
   

The Simplified Chinese blog (for those who can read it)

Google's translation

The Spot the Errors blog (you have to scroll down through quite a lot of blank space to get to the text)

*CRUSH is the main LSE Students' Union weekly event, held in the Quad every Friday- basically it's like a club, only on university premises. Every university has something similar- UCL's was Cocktails on a Thursday (with real cocktails, though in order to make the cocktails fit the student budget, they had to cut down on the quality- for example, it was milk, not cream, in the pina coladas). CRUSH has various themes. though, which Cocktails didn't- for example I think the other week it was school disco themed, and one time before that they had a Baywatch themed one (with rumours that David Hasselhof would put in an appearance, though I'm not sure if he ever did). Universities tend to have other nights as well as their big, open-to-all one though- UCL had postgrad night on Tuesdays, and most places have a sports night on Wednesdays (UCL's was, rather unimaginatively, actually called Sports Night (or possibly Nite)), since Wednesday afternoon is usually set aside for people to play sport, if they want, with no lectures- of course it mostly tends to be people who belong to one of the teams at sports nights, and from what I hear there is a lot more consumption of alcohol and promiscuity there than at the general nights like CRUSH or Cocktails (despite the name). Rugby players are the worst- I lived with one for a year :-)

A Thursday post with nothing about the UGM?!

From the bus on the way in- shame about the lights reflected in
the window.

This is getting a bit repetitive, and must be very boring to read, but I missed another lecture today. I'm not quite sure what happened- I set the alarm to wake me in time to be in for 9 o'clock, and got woken by a text to discover it was 1.15 pm. I dread to think what time I'd have woken up if I'd had my phone on silent as usual.

The text was from one of the people I'm doing the group project with. Three of us were supposed to meet at 10, and the fourth, who couldn't do the morning, was supposed to text me in the afternoon to find out where we were working and come and join us. We were supposed to have a massive day long session and get it practically wrapped up- though it'd been agreed that I could go to the UGM at 1 then come back.

Of course, I felt really bad for having failed to turn up. I sent an email to explain what had happened and ask where they were, then got dressed and went into college. I went to check my email, but there was no reply as yet. Well, I thought, maybe they're taking a break for lunch or something. I had a look through all the other emails while I was there. There was a meeting with the Treasurer for everyone who'd been in the sit-in, because the Sabbatical Officers had been called to a meeting with people from the School, who, it was anticipated, would have a go at them for not preventing the protest, and probably offer a debate with Sutherland to try to prevent further protests. Of course, not all the Sabbatical Officers even knew it was happening beforehand, and those who participated did so as ordinary students, so it seems rather inappropriate to tell them off, but that's by the by. The meeting was for us to say if there was anything we wanted the Treasurer to pass on- the Sabbatical Officers couldn't accept anything on our behalf but they could explain what they thought our reaction would be to any offer. The meeting was at three, and as by this point it was ten to and I had still had no email from the group members, I decided I could probably go.

Once there, as the meeting was just getting started, my phone rang (I still hadn't put it on silent again)- one of the group members. There was only an hour before he had a lecture; he asked whether I could meet him to do some project. If it had been before I got to the meeting, I would have said 'of course' even though I hated to miss the meeting- after all it was already terrible enough that I'd missed meeting them at 10- but I couldn't bear to leave now I was actually there, and asked if it would be ok to meet in half an hour. Of course, that wouldn't really leave enough time to do anything before his lecture, but I offered it anyway. He said he didn't think it'd be worth it, and asked where I was, and if I was actually in something. I explained I was but did offer to come (I think, unless I'm remembering wrong). But in the end we agreed to meet next week. I'm going to try to find the time to put the R history files in order and put comments in our functions, and maybe start the write-up, to try and make up for what happened (though admittedly I had already said I'd do the first two things anyway).

I probably should have taken the phone call outside, or spoken quite a bit more quietly, I realised when I hung up.

The meeting was pretty interesting. One thing that was revealed was that the Evening Standard was running the story- the Treasurer printed out a copy to show us. It started with a massive mistake though- it said that the protesters were removed by four policemen. This was our fault- it was due to a sentence in our press release that was both ambiguous and erroneous- the press release stated that 'four police and four community support officers were called to remove protesters', by which it was meant that they were called to be there in case they were needed to remove us, but actually, although the person who wrote the release thought it was true at the time of writing, that wasn't why they were there at all (I did wonder about it when they sent the release round late on the evening of the protest- we knew policemen had been there before we even came on the scene, so it seemed incorrect that they were there in order to remove us, but when the release was emailed to us it had already been sent to the press so I thought there was no point in querying it). The write-up was pretty sympathetic to us, which was nice.

There was a reporter from the Beaver in the meeting- he was also one of the protesters- and among other things he asked for a comment from a spokesperson about the freedom of speech issue (since the School and audience members were claiming we were denying it to Sutherland and that this was very bad, but in fact we were only protesting in this way because it was our only chance to protest at LSE in Sutherland's presence, and whatever we felt about his record, we wouldn't have stopped him speaking had he not been chosen as Chair of Council. Since we rejected his offer to spend 15 minutes questioning him, because it would have meant giving up the protest and he would still have been Chair, that was rather open to misinterpretation). As we were leaving the meeting afterwards, F (a long time and pretty active People and Planet committee member) and I couldn't remember whether a spokesperson had actually been chosen, but F said she had liked what I'd said about mentioning that there have been other people coming to speak at LSE whose views the same people would probably have disagreed with and we didn't try (and didn't want to try) to stop them speaking), and suggested that in any case it might be good to give the Beaver several quotes to choose from. She suggested we both write a quote, and that I volunteer to be the spokesperson if in fact no-one had been chosen (I'd told her I wouldn't mind). The conversation was interrupted as we went down the stairs from the mezzanine level to the Quad by some guy saying "Nice legs!" We were't sure which of us he was referrring too, but agreed that it wasn't terribly appropriate!*

I went to one of the computer rooms and sent an email to the group explaining that we weren't sure if a spokesperson had been chosen, but if one had, could that point please be included, or if not, I was happy to do it, and outlining what we'd discussed about giving the Beaver a selection of quotes to choose from, then giving a quote about the freedom of speech issue, and also about why we didn't accept the 15 minutes of questions offer. But later I rather regretted sending it- for one thing, I said that I wasn't sending it separately to the Beaver because that reporter was on the list anyway, whereas I should have asked what everyone thought about having several people giving quotes first. I should also have said I "didn't mind" being the spokesperson rather than that I was "happy" to be it**- if I was going to offer at all which really I maybe shouldn't have as I'm not that great at that kind of thing. Someone else sent an email soon afterwards suggesting that a statement be written by a couple of people and sent round for everybody's comments and suggestions before submission, and that was a much better idea. Luckily, nobody made any reference to my email- hopefully they didn't pay too much attention to it.

The People and Planet meeting was a chance to think about something else for a bit, as I planned a campaign to ask NatWest to stop investing in ethically and environmentally dubious projects with a couple of other people***. Back in halls, though, my mind was firmly back on the Sutherland protest. I'd bought an Evening Standard on the way home (something I normally never do), but there was no mention of us (I later found out that we were pushed out in the late editions to make way for a story about a barrister making cocaine in his flat, which I did see). Flatmate 7 told me that we'd been in London Lite though- sadly she hadn't been able to save a copy. The one time I actually want a copy- it's usually such an effort not to be given one. It had the same error about the policemen, apparently- it was probably the same text as the Evening Standard since I believe they're published by the same people.

I had a look on the internet for stuff about it, and found a blog entry by an audience member (and sent a link to it out to the group). A blog entry by a different audience member had already been emailed round the group. Both were at least vaguely positive (unless the one I found is being very subtly sarcastic)- the one that was emailed round unequivocally, the one I found in a kind of confused and not 100% way that means that for the first few paragraphs it actually sounds like it's against us. Here are the links for those plus a link to a site that printed our press release as-is, plus some photos that we attached with it (though I think they printed each photo twice...)

The one that was emailed round

The one that I found

The press release, basically

Incidentally, it's interesting to see that it looked from an audience perspective that we looked as though we were about to capitulate at certain points, because we (or at any rate I) didn't feel at all uncertain about our resistance from where we stood- we had to make all decisions as a group, so we had to discuss whether to accept each offer, but each time everyone was just saying 'no' from the start with no-one thinking we should and it was always a pretty brief discussion- or as brief as it could be when we were spread all the way over the stage!

*As in it shouldn't have been said, not as in we don't have nice legs!

**'it'? Should that be 'him', 'her', or 'him or her'?

***Really must get rid of my NatWest account...

The Sit-in

During the sit-in

Today's exciting climax was the pinnacle and aim of several weeks' carefull planning. Peter Sutherland came to give a talk at LSE and we held a sit in to stop him giving it. We being a coalition of students including people from the Green Party, People and Planet, Respect, the Lib Dems, and many more, as well as just concerned students- actually I didn't know which groups if any most people were aligned with.

We didn't want to prevent him speaking because we didn't like what he had to say- there have been many speakers at LSE who have held opinions that the same group of people would also disagree with and as far as I'm aware no-one even considered trying to stop them speaking, as we do all believe in freedom of speech. No, our problem was that he'd been elected to Chair of LSE's Council. His talk was just a chance for us to protest while he was actually present at LSE.

The reason we're not happy with him being Chair of Council is really threefold- first his own personal environmental, social and human rights track record; second that of BP, of which he is chairman, and third the fact that we feel that another businessman on Council will have a worrying influence on LSE's direction- we're worried about the marketization of education.

Planning started in earnest a couple of weeks ago, with a meeting in LSE's Underground bar one Monday lunchtime. At this point we were discussing general things like what we wanted to get out of the action and what it should consist of. The organisation continued via emails sent between the whole group over the next two weeks- during which time we had to try to recruit as many people as possible while making sure LSE didn't hear about our intention as in that case they would put heavy security at the event and it would be very hard for us to be able to get on stage and carry it out- and there was also a meeting on Tuesday which went into more specific details, such as what should go on posters and what we should do if the police arrived or if Security tried to remove us. It was at this meeting that I ended up volunteering to do the leaflet for handing out to the audience- sort of. At the end of the meeting I asked what the tone of the leaflet would be, since I'd come across many leaflets given out at other people's events, for example one at the George Monbiot event, which were shouty and angry and used terms like 'the most bestial crime' and 'climate genocide', just because the writers were so passionate, but I believed leaflets like that just ended up alienating people- the audience would take one look and think 'Nutters'. So I was suggesting the leaflet should be more calm, rational, well argued, and talking as though it were on the reader's side. CMCC, who had been going to do the leaflet along with other things like posters, asked me whether I would do it, because, he said, I'd done a good job of the Climate Change Awareness Week leaflet. Between my inability to say no and the flattery*- needless to say I really appreciated the compliment-, my acceptance was inevitable. Though in any case when he suggested it I did get inspired by the challenge and from that point on would have found it very hard to give up if anyone had come along and said they could guarantee to do it both more easily and more effectively than me.

The leaflet was the reason for last night's all nighter. What took the most time was the research- even though CMCC emailed me a list of stuff that should go in it with sources, I found I needed to find out quite a bit more. I knew when I took it on that I would end up staying up all or most of the night, but I made the split-second decision that it was worth it- both for my personal lust for the challenge and in terms of the usefullness of the end product at the event and the importance of it being calm and engaging (could I trust anybody else not to be tempted into a bit of a rant?**). The wonderfull end product is here (though missing its text boxes and the other layout features I couldn't do on Blogger), and goes into more detail as to why BP is bad and about our protest than I can be bothered to go over all over again here.

Unfortunately the leaflet was too long and had to be cut down. I handed the task over to the others, and it ended up being taken on by AS who'd already volunteered to print out the finished thing, since I would be at a careers fair today untill the event, and in any case I really wasn't sure which were the most important bits to keep in and which could come out. It was quite painfull thinking that my cherished words were going to be cut, but I knew it had to be done- and at least the original version had been seen and apparently liked by the people on the mailing list. Sadly the ones to go included most of my favourite lines. Still it ended up being a double sided sheet of A4 instead of the originally envisaged A6. Some parts were also rewritten slightly.

There was a meeting today at 5 to plan the really fine details. We did some role play with some of us being protestors and practising going limp when attempts were made to remove us by the others acting as Security***, and we discussed what we wanted to do in various possible situations such as the police arriving, and who would stay in the audience to give out leaflets, who would be on the stage and whereabouts, and who out of that group would make an announcement about why we were carrying out the protest. Shortly before we planned to go down, someone already downstairs rang to report on the security situation. It didn't look good- policemen outside the theatre though we'd thought there wouldn't be any unless they were called later; a security guard blocking the steps to the stage on each side and the first row of seats blocked off. We discussed what we would do now- it looked like we wouldn't be able to get onto the stage, though we all decided we'd try anyway. I was pretty disappointed- I'd been looking forward to sitting on the stage. We went down to the Old Theatre, in pairs holding hands like we were back in primary school (it was so we didn't get separated).

We were all pretty close together as we rushed through the side doors (which would bring us out near the stage). Apparently some of the stewards (LSE students employed part time) tried to stop the front people physically, which we hadn't expected since they are told not to do that- but those at the front say that it was probably an instinctive reaction to the large crowd heading towards them. We got through the doors ok, as one of the security people waiting nearby called 'It's burning!' or something- it seemed they hadn't been expecting us after all. Someone- it may have been Peter Sutherland- said 'What's all this?'

As we came into the Old Theatre, I saw that we were going to be able to get onto the stage after all- the front people were already climbing up- and I felt so happy. We all sat down- I'm not sure how many of us there were, somewhere between 10 and 30 I think****- and CMCC gave a speech explaining what we were doing. The plan was that after he finished that, we should be silent and not react to anything the audience might say. They actually listened to it quietly, which was quite a shock after our simulation in the meeting beforehand, where some of us very effectively drowned him out calling for him to leave the stage in the role of supporters of Sutherland. And the leaflet was handed out (though not all the people who were going to go in as part of the audience and do that were allowed in by security)- and people actually seemed to be reading it, and not in an obviously 'I disagree with every word' way.

Protester's eye view of poster (ie from behind through the paper, in mirror image)
The complete slogan was 'LSE not £$E', only with a Euro sign

Pretty soon, a man from LSE Events came to talk to us. Surprisingly, instead of starting with asking us to leave, he was pretty much from the beginning making us the offer that we could stay on stage for half an hour if we promised to leave after that point and let the lecture proceed. They let us have a few minutes to discuss our decision and we all went for rejecting it and staying on stage. The Students Union Treasurer was acting as a negotiator reporting the position of each side to the other- essential as otherwise they would have had to talk to a leader, and it was important that we didn't have a leader, and not everybody would have been able to hear what was going on or have a say. He wasn't negotiating because he was a Sabbatical Officer- he was part of our group, and conducting the role plays at the meeting and helping us plan, but somebody had to be the negotiator and he was happy to do it.

It didn't really feel awkward being there, for me anyway- not that I thought it would. We'd been planning and imagining the event for so long that I think somehow in my mind it had become an event that had always been intended to be a demonstration, and nothing else, and to which Peter Sutherland had obligingly agreed to come along to be demonstrated at- it took quite an effort to shift my viewpoint and remember that the audience, staff, and Sutherland had all been anticipating a lecture and that this was strange and unscheduled for them. I was holding one of the big posters for a while, untill some of the people in front of me took it- I was quite glad of that as my arms were aching.

The audience got rather unhappy about us after a while, saying things like 'You've made your point, now let us get on with the lecture'. There seemed to be the idea at the beginning among some, at least, of the audience that we just wanted to have a dialogue with him and have him answer some questions, because they thought we were protesting about BP's record, rather than about his appointment to Chair of Council, and indirectly about BP's record. This led to many calls that we were too stupid to see that we were endangering our own cause, after we refused the third***** offer: Sutherland would spend 15 minutes answering our questions before the lecture if we all got off the stage and promised not to come back. We refused this not because we didn't want him to answer questions but because after he'd done so he'd still be the new Chair of Council, so that it didn't go nearly far enough to meeting what we wanted, but there was a danger that it would be seen that the protest had achieved its aim, and the appointment issue, which was the whole point of the protest (as I say, if it wasn't for that we'd have let him speak), would be ignored and forgotten- Sutherland would probably try to portray the question time as having met all that we were asking for.

The other issue was free speech- the audience, or the most vocal parts of it, didn't understand that we weren't protesting his speaking but were using his talk as a chance to protest his appointment. To be fair, things were confused a little by one of our grievances being that he refused to speak to the Beaver on the grounds that the questions were too aggressive, and we claimed that he was thus avoiding debate- so people were saying that we had been offered one now, so should be happy. There was also a fair amount of abuse- we were likened to communists, fascists, Nazis, sexually frustrated teenagers, and, in a comment that particularly amused us when we were discussing it later, North Koreans (I mean, couldn't whoever said that see the irony? If this was North Korea we would probably have been removed to undergo unfortunate consequences long before that point), and told that our parents would/ should be ashamed. We were pretty good about not responding, but not perfect- for example when we decided that people really weren't getting the point about us protesting the appointment, and that we should have someone just state that, the person who did so wasn't able to keep repeating it many times as the audience continued to argue, and was tempted by the presence of the microphone into answering back on one or two other points. But I'm getting ahead of things a little.

I can't remember whether it was before or after the offer of fifteen minutes' question time, but after we'd been there some time, and had refused the first offer, Sutherland came on stage and tried to give his talk. We were surrounding the lectern so he had to stand back from it but he was managing perfectly ok- and as someone said later, that was the low point. I really thought he'd give the whole talk with us still sitting there- being visual, ok, but not succeeding in our aim of stopping him speaking. But then someone suggested we should stand up. I didn't see what good that would do, and worried that it would make us easier to remove, but we all stood up in unison and it actually stopped him speaking- because he was now completely masked from the audience. This was quite possibly the high point.

Then someone had another bright idea: that we should offer to leave the stage and allow the lecture to continue if he and the School would agree to hold a binding student referendum on his appointment. They refused that one- but interestingly though our refusal of their two offers was mentioned again by the LSE Events guy and others after that point (the Events guy had been addressing the audience from time to time to tell them the situation), they didn't mention that LSE and Sutherland had refused our offer- we had to tell them that. Even so I got the impression that though he had to do his job the Events guy was not against us.

There was a self-proclaimed environmentalist who kept on saying in very very angry terms that we were defeating our purpose and harming his to boot as we weren't allowing a dialogue but were preventing the chance to ask Sutherland questions at the end, which he wanted to do, about BP. He also said that by protesting we were making it almost certain that next time Sutherland would speak at a venue which protesters would not be able to get into- if I followed correctly he was urging us not to protest so that we would be able to keep the possibility of protesting which seems rather tortuous logic. I didn't know it at the time, but some of the others said at the end that he was from the Campaign for Rural England (he must have said it himself but I and quite a few others missed it)- only I misheard and thought they said Campaign for Rural Ignorance, which I knew didn't sound right.

In the end, after we'd been there almost an hour, the decision was made to move the event to another venue. We'd already decided in the planning session that if that happened it would be a victory for us- which is just as well because although I can see it when I think about it, I would have thought it was a defeat if we hadn't discussed it. We stayed on the stage till all the audience had left then had a debriefing session, still in the Old Theatre.

People leaving for the new venue

I was surprised that it had lasted so long- I thought, maybe because we'd discussed the worst case situations in the planning sessions, that when we'd refused to leave after being asked they'd get Security to drag us out and if that failed call the police, and that the whole thing would be over in twenty minutes or so with us giving in because we didn't want to be arrested. So, compared to that, really it went amazingly well. True, the audience reaction was not great for us- though there was a bit of sympathy from some people, including some slow clappers when Sutherland left the stage after we stood up, who were probably for us, most people wanted us to leave and the lecture to start, applauding the Events guy's statements that he'd asked us to leave and so on, and at one point when an audience member asked for a show of hands, almost unanimously voting that they wanted the lecture to start. But then it was always to be expected that there would be a lot of business people there- particularly as larger numbers of the seats downstairs were reserved than those who'd been there a few years could remember ever having seen before; and probably most of the audience didn't feel as strongly as its most vocal parts. I personally didn't find the audience reaction too offputting because I was able to imagine what the coverage in the Beaver is likely to be like, even without convincing that audience- as the editor was taking part in the sit in and many who write for it took large roles in organising this, there is almost guranteed to be a large amount of positive coverage, even if there is also some negative.

After the debriefing, we went to the Three Tuns- the policemen only left when we did, and the editor of the Beaver borrowed my camera to get a picture of them- where the Treasurer bought everyone a drink with his own money which I thought was a touching gesture but too generous! Everyone was pleased with how well it went, and discussing what had happened. I think everyone was riding high on the after effects of the victory and the adrenaline for quite a while afterwards- emails have been going back and forth since I got back to halls at about nine and are still coming now, at 1- though admittedly some of it's important stuff that's got to be done like a press release (which is being sent to all the national newspapers in the UK and Ireland as well as local papers, business papers and even US papers- though of course that's not to say it'll get printed).

So now we see whether Sutherland will step down/ be asked to resign by LSE (almost certainly not, at this point). Meanwhile, the campaign continues!

If you'd like to sign the petition, it's here, incidentally:
http://www.petitiononline.com/lsesuth/petition.html

*though that's a misleading word as it was genuinely meant (as far as I'm aware)

**That's not an indication of the kind of person everyone else is, it's an indication of my inability to trust anybody to do a job as well as me once I've got it all worked out- though in the very many cases where I haven't got a clue I am more than happy to believe that other people could do it better

***Actually that was really fun. I'm not sure why...

****I later looked at photos taken by Beaver photographers and counted 16 people on the stage, though including those handing out leaflets etc it was probably about 20.

***** The second offer, which I don't seem to be able to place in the main body anywhere without disrupting the narrative, was to guarantee us '1, 2, or 3' questions in the Q & A session at the end, provided we left the stage and let the lecture go ahead. As someone pointed out (I think it was CMCC, but others made the same point), we could probably have got that without any protest anyway.

Birmingham and back

My camera's working again!
The church opposite where I was waiting for LJ

Unfortunately, I wasn't quite as back on track as I'd hoped. I overslept again and missed the first lecture of the morning, creeping into the computer class (unseen I think by the lecturer) quarter of an hour or so late.

There was a meeting about the sit-in after the class, in the Underground bar. We discussed what we would put on the posters, and what we would do in various scenarios. And I ended up volunteering (or getting volunteered) to do the leaflet for audience members. I knew it'd mean staying up all or most of the night, as I was busy today, but I thought it was worth it, both in terms of what it would achieve, and being able to be in control of making it audience-friendly, and in terms of how much I'd regret not taking up the challenge. CMCC promised to send me all the stuff I'd need to put in it.

Then Principles and Methods, where the lecturer got thinking about the exam in the break, and wrote up a sample question on the board. It asked in its first part 'What is MLE and why is it important?' Writing down what it was would be no problem (assuming I'd read and memorised the notes), but I looked through them carefully and couldn't find anywhere why it was important (that issue of missing out the interpretation again). I put up my hand and said that it might just be me, but I couldn't find it, and the lecturer said that we might not have got to that bit yet, and proceeded to explain why it was important, and I tried to get it all down but I couldn't write quickly enough- and that's all very well for MLE, but what about all the other things we've learned to calculate? The problem is that he thinks that the bookwork (memorising and recalling the notes) is easy and it's the calculation part that is hard, and since he wants everyone to pass will be weighting the bookwork more heavily. Normally that would be correct but in this case we have enough examples in the homework of the calculations that they won't be too bad compared to the bookwork, which really is going to be a problem as the notes are deficient. Not in terms of definitions, that'll be ok, but in terms of interpretation and understanding what the calculations tell us.

Back in halls, I worked on the leaflet- it took a long time as although CMCC emailed me basically all the stuff that was to go in, I wanted to rephrase a lot of the examples from BP's record to be more specific, and so needed to use his links to do quite a bit of research of my own. But I got it done in the end and was pleased with the result- as were CMCC and others, apparently, so that was nice. I had to stay up all night though- I didn't finish till five thirty, and as I had to leave at about quarter to 8, I thought I'd feel worse for going to sleep since it would be for such a short time. I had a shower, which is really unusual for me in the morning, since it's usually a few hours after I've woken before I can bear to get myself wet, but which was nice this time, changed my clothes, had breakfast, and went off to stand at the end of Brushfield St (off which the road with my halls in comes) to wait for a lift from LJ.

We were going to a statistics careers fair in Birmingham together. It meant missing more lectures (Time Series, for the second week running), but I thought it would be really usefull. I would have gone by train (more environmentally friendly and all that), but it was so expensive, and LJ offered to give me a lift as she had decided to drive. We navigated our way through London (past the Co-op I was recommended to a couple of weeks ago and the Waitrose where I found the good stuff), and onto the motorway. As we drove off, LJ was trying to read the printed out directions and drive at the same time so I quickly offered to do map reading. She also had a small portable GPS device that came in very handy once I'd found which of the ten or twelve batteries she had stashed in the car were working. To begin with, I was feeling fine and perfectly wide awake, but towards the end of the trip I nodded off several times. Before that though it was a good chance to have a nice chat with LJ- we normally only see each other in lectures. And it was nice to see open countryside again. There, as well as in some of the bits of London we passed through, there were real autumn colours which I was happy not to have missed though sad that I wouldn't have the time to really go and see them properly.

It was quite interesting being on the campus of Birmingham University- my dad used to be a lecturer there and I went in to work with him several times when I was small. It had been too big for me to get any sense of the way round it at that age though so it was no advantage. I could if I'd thought have told LJ that parking on it would be a real problem though. Arriving just about bang on time we drove round and round, at one point spotting a 'Visitors' Car Park' and buzzing to be let in only to be told that was for staff only... We were given some very bad directions, but eventually found the car park next to the rugby pitch that the security person was talking about, and then found our way on foot to where the careers day was, arriving about fifteen minutes late.

As LJ had told me on the way, it wasn't just a load of stalls, it was actually talks by various people as well. The first one we went to (having missed the actual first one) was about statistics in the pharmaceuticals industry, then there was a talk about the Government Statistical Service. This is what I spent a long time applying for last year. The talk clarified for me that I didn't want to try again this year- it resolved the point I was unsure about: there is indeed a lot of project and people management as well as statistics. I'm not interested in that. So if for no other reason, the careers day was usefull for me.

There were other talks by people in other areas, and what was most usefull was that they almost all described in quite a bit of detail what things they actually did in their job. I was able to see what other things I might consider besides being part of a research team at a university.
After the talks there was a free packed lunch (for vegetarians, an interesting take on the cheese and coleslaw sandwich (which I sometimes get in the Quad)- being Birmingham, this was a curried version), and a chance to look round the stands. I got a lot of leaflets, though there were actually no specific employers I wanted to talk to, as my list had consisted of the Government Statistical Service and the universities, and I now knew about the former, and it turned out that the latter were there to promote postgraduate study rather than jobs as research assistants (which should have been obvious, I don't know why I didn't realise before). I also collected a free bag (very nice blue, which will make a change from the white coloured free bags from freshers' week that I've been using so far), a free frisby, a free spiral bound notebook (with the info about the company on the first few pages- cunning) and even a free USB mouse, which I thought at first was a data stick shaped like a mouse as a gimmick (because it was so small and the cable was coiled up out of sight). Though I'm actually happy using the touch pad on my lap top. Maybe I can take it home and plug it into my brother's computer- his mouse is almost completely shot, due I think to his extensive use of the computer for computer games, and the left button will only click if you press it near the centre of the mouse, and I can't get it to do double clicks at all. As this is the computer we all use at home (except Dad who has a laptop that he wouldn't mind people using except that he's almost always using it himself, for his work), and as I haven't been taking my laptop home for just weekend visits (though I will bring it back over Christmas), it could be a real godsend.

There were more talks after lunch, but nothing that I really wanted to go to, and I wanted to get the 2.05 train in order to be back in time for the sit in. LJ was going to continue up to Manchester to go home for a few days. I fell asleep as soon as the train left New Street, woke briefly to give my ticket for inspection, and then woke again when we reached Euston- it didn't feel instantaneous, but the journey felt pretty quick that way, and it was like being transported from one spot to another without passing through any in between. From Euston I got a bus down to Aldwych- and it was quite a nostalgia trip, as it was the same bus stop and the first part of the same route as I used to use in Third year.

For the sit-in, see next post.

An all-nighter

About twice a year I end up staying up all night. Every time I swear that, by doing more work in advance, or being more disciplined, or learning how to put a really gripping book down, I'll manage never to have to do it again. But I know that really it's inevitable, and sure enough, six months or so later it happens again.

Although it's got so late that I'm not now going to go to bed (I'd feel worse when I woke up), I'm not going to spend the time till I have to leave in the morning explaining what kept me up this time or what else happened today. I've spent all night staring at a computer screen, and I've had quite enough of that to be going on with. I may go into the details tomorrow night- but then I shall probably be shattered and my brain will more than likely not be working, so it's quite likely I'll give it a miss then in favour of an early-ish night. So maybe Thursday evening? Rest assured, I'll come back to this when my brain is recharged and you will get to hear all about everything I've been up to!

Out of the slough and back on track

Hopefully. I did oversleep again this morning- but as before, I'd been planning to do some work and I wasn't actually late for my lecture. I then spent about five and a half hours, with a break for late lunch/ early supper, working on the group project with 2 of the 3 others- the third is the same one who wasn't there last time (when we arranged to meet this time) and I don't know whether he didn't get the email telling him about this time or whether he was busy- I did think he might be.

We got on fairly well. One group member has researched and written a piece about the historical statistician assigned to our group (that's a component of the project as well as the programming), so that's done. And the other member, the one who did almost a whole question in his own time, said at the beginning of the session that he did think my way of doing it was better. But I said that although I still thought my way would give the expected value of the payoff and his wouldn't, I'd looked at the question again and it didn't actually mention the expected value, it just said to investigate the payoff, and the results produced by his method did look more interesting. The other group member was keeping quiet, which was probably wise. The consensus in the end was to include both methods with a discussion of what each told us- and to try and work out what exactly it was that his method was calculating and what the results meant therefore.

In terms of programming, we finally managed to rewrite one of the functions without a loop (R does loops very slowly so it's best to write things in vector form if you can). So that was very good. While we ran it to test that it did indeed work, I started converting the biography of the statistician into the right form for LaTeX to work on- it still took quite a while even without the loop. We then proceeded to the final part of the first question- generalising one of the numbers that was fixed in the first part to a range of values. Only we didn't get that far- we needed to write two functions and the first one was taking ages to get right. It was one of those situations where you stare and stare at what you've written and can't understand what could possibly be wrong about it, untill eventually you start to conclude that the only possible explaination is that instead of a rational machine, your computer is in fact a box with a demon inside pretending to be a computer and it's decided it doesn't like your face. Then you suddenly see the really stupid mistake*, and correct it. Then you try the function again and are back to staring at it wondering how it can possibly not work when everything you've written makes such perfect sense...

We managed to get rid of a lot of problems caused by trivial slips- embarrassingly quite a few of them were due to my sloppy programming- but in the end we got to a point where we were back to the staring stage and it was getting late, so we decided to leave it till Thursday. In between fixing errors or trying reduced versions of the function to try and narrow down where the problem was, though, we had plenty of time to chat because it was taking about 10 minutes each time to run (better than the half hour version with the loop at least). And I became conscious of what I'd only been vaguely aware of before- contrary to my first impression when I found out that's who I'd be working with, they're actually pretty nice people. Not that I thought they were horrible to begin with or anything, just so-so. One of them, K (the one who went away and did the question) has a strangely appealing trait of laughing at me- when I put it like that it sounds bad, but it's more like I'm being too serious, and he laughs and I see the funny side, or I say something that's intentionally gently humorous, but not everyone would pick up on it, and he gets it and laughs along. The other, M, showed us his website where he's calculated statistics, rankings and relative abilities of, not only the UK football divisions, but pretty much every football league in the world. I have 0, in fact probably less than 0 interest in football, but it was nice to get to see a side of my fellow group-projecters that didn't involve functions and bias and Y21 hat. We also had an interesting discussion about Japan, and travelling to various places. K, incidentally, is from Cyprus, and M from the US.

It just occurred to me that mathematically I've come full circle. GCSE projects involved being given a situation and calculating the value of something for various sizes (or values of some variable n)- for example, given an n by m grid, how many squares of all sizes can you find in it?- and then trying to find a formula from what was essentially experimental data (though experimental data with no errors), and explain why it had to be correct. Then projects stopped involving the experimental stage and were just about proving things mathematically. Now we're back to experimenting again- only this time we have a computer to do all the work. In theory, this should mean that I already know how to do this kind of project. But sadly, I think that getting into a GCSE mindset and going for it that way will not get us that many marks...

I wanted to go and see the talk by Sir David King, Chief Government Scientific Advisor about Global Warming which was held in the Old Theatre at 6.30- especially after having come across his name while researching quotations for the Quiz (I feel an almost personal attatchment). But we were getting along nicely and I didn't want to interrupt the flow. I found out as we were finishing for the day that K had missed hearing the Prime Minister of Greece speaking in the Peacock Theatre. We all have to make sacrifices... :-)

*using the wrong variable name, for example, or calling another function which takes variables as arguments that you thought you'd written into the function as variables, but on inspection find that you've actually used constant values (the most commonly used values) instead