Gavin’s Gaily Gigest

Former Spark editor and good friend of mine, Richard Holloway, has started blogging. He is, regrettably, a Tory, but I won’t hold that against him as I add his RSS feed to Bloglines and start to enjoy his occasional ruminations as a “sceptical conservative”.

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The Guardian have published their student media awards shortlist (although unfortunately I can’t find it on their website at the moment) and Sam Read of the University of Reading has been shortlisted for “Broadcaster of the Year”. Thoroughly well-deserved if you ask me, as Sam worked on Junction11’s news for three years non-stop, often when [...]

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That great Labour training ground, the National Union of Students (NUS), have taken leave of their senses and elected current President of RUSU, Dave Lewis, their National Treasurer. It is, as he puts it:
“an opportunity that will help our NUS deliver reform, increased accountability and new national partnerships.”
Or as I would put it:
“an opportunity to [...]

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Short answer: No, but the situation could’ve been handled better… And those who support Bryn should stop attacking Sally.
The winner, Sally Pearman
[Confused? Click here for background on this post]
Bryn has admitted that he spent over £45 (the campaign budget limit)… in fact he spent (according to sources) several hundred pounds. He should have been disqualified [...]

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That great annual popularity contest, the RUSU* elections, came to a bizarre end last night, with the disqualification of one candidate, but the election of my favourite, Sally, as President and my friend Pete also getting in. Here are the full results, before I move on to more about the disqualification:
RUSU President: Sally Pearman
Vice President [...]

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RUSU Presidential candidate Bryn Landy has posted a campaign video (the only candidate to do so as far as I know)
Highlights:

“… and a lively atmosphere all through the week” said to a shot of a deserted campus.
The whole library doors bit.

I’ve updated my review of candidates to include Sally, who is standing for President.

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It has been a week since the following emails were exchanged and I’ve heard nothing back from Junction11, the student radio station I used to have a show on. To refresh your memory, here’s the original email from Junction11 and my reply.

For the sake of posterity, here’s the short and less than sweet email I [...]

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That major popularity contest, student union elections, comes to the University of Reading this term. With almost tiresome regularity, a bunch of freezing students will stand outside the union building, attempting to convince those walking past that they really are the bestest in the entire world.

Anyway, here are some of my thoughts on those standing [...]

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The slightly light-hearted reply I’ve sent to this email:
My re-collection of Monday’s show is that we certainly did not swear - I think the harshest thing I said was “bugger”. I appreciate that if I lived in the US and had the FCC to contend with, I’d be screwed, but “bugger” is hardly a post-watershed [...]

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Email received today from the head of Junction11, the student radio station my friend and I broadcast on once a week:

It was brought to my attention that your Monday show did not comply with the rules that we must follow as a broadcasting service.
Having listened to your show, I must stress that it contained several [...]

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