Today
Today has and is going to be hectic. Oxfam stuff at 11am in the Student Union… I’ve got one or two photos that I’m really happy with. I don’t think I can include one as I don’t technically own them, and I don’t think it is fair on the people that have taken part on the understanding that they are one in a million.
The campaign is to get the government to stop dealing arms to country’s run by oppressive governments, those with child warriors and this sort of stuff. In honesty, I’m there mostly for the chance to take some photos, although it is obviously a good cause, and that doesn help. On a similar note, here’s a photo I took on Wednesday outside the Union—the university holds £1.4m of shares in arms companies and some students want rid of them. This time, I don’t really agree with this… they do us, the students, a lot of good and selling them brings nobody any benefit (please click the image for the non-nastily-browser-resized version!)
I’ve just spent the last hour sewing my trousers back together after the incident on the train before my Sun interview. I’ve done a crap job, but it’s good enough for tonight. After that I did some ironing! Wow. I almost forgot how this worked. The idea is: the iron is hot and it makes stuff go flat. Sounds easy, but it’s not!
The white shirt actually looks ace… I’ve done a really good job, but my trousers are a little below par, thanks to having a really thick towel to iron through. Obviously you can’t directly iron black trousers, otherwise they go all nasty and shiny (how ace is knowledge like this!?)
I have about fifteen minutes in which to get all tarted up for my departmental ball (there are other departments too, so it won’t all be blokes!). I’m there in an official capacity… but an ace one. There will be myself, Samia and Rog and we’re the photographers! Sounds like a good film to me.
It’s a bit different though, as we get to charge a whopping £5 per photo. This is genius, there is potential to make quite a bit of dosh here, especially if we can find somewhere really cheap (that still meets our quality requirements, obviously) to print the photos. I think we’ll be splitting all of it three ways, although I’m not sure.
Right, best get myself organised!
Tags: life
February 18th, 2006 at 12:17 am
Because they are actually quite a good holding at the moment. So do we sell the RR shares to keep the junkies in People & Planet happy? But then…there might be more pressure on fees. But hang on….didn’t last years student AGM ‘observe, propose, resolve’ to try and banish tuition fees, and if not, keep them as low as possible? Circular argument etc.
Of course the University, RR, and all other concentrations of executive power will probably be laughing their heads off at this sheer self indulgence. The idea that these foam-heads can goosestep their matted-haired legions into an assembly that represents (in quorate terms) 2.5% of the university student population, and actually lend legitimacy to this sort of proposal is ridiculous. No doubt the head of P&P is elated. Another line on the CV.
UOB is THE ethical university. Founded on money from the sale of cigarettes, located in the city which was a world centre of slavery, and with many tech research programmes linked to MoD/GCHQ, I think we are commendably unethical. And you know what? Most of the student population actually….really couldn’t care less. It appears that student activism died out with boob-tubes. Actually, the whole fag/slavery thing doesnt strictly matter because in their time, they were kosher. But apparently links with RR, Qinetic, etc = not good because they make not very nice things. Well, go cry to mama.
The fact is that in 10,20,30 years time, there could will be some not very nice nations with some not very nice toys breathing down our neck. And if we ditch our entire portfolio of defence IP and become a metal-banger for the US (which by some standards we already are), then we are a juicier target. That is not to say we should not engage with said nations. That is not to say this is the right way to do things. It is just the way things are. And things are not going to change.
What astonishes me is the pure idealism. Yes. You heard it….I am complaining because these people have ideals. Normally a little idealism is good. After all. We are all in the gutter, but some of us are staring at the stars, as said that irish playright who liked tweaking famous politician’s sons. The problem with these ideals is that they are so pure, untempered by practicality or association with the real world, that they spawn these ridiculous motions. ‘Ban Coca Cola’...’Wear hair shirts…’. Perhaps it is the engineer in me. Perhaps i want to know HOW they will get to where they want to be. Certainly not by proposing irrelevant motions like this at the Union AGM. Nor by hassling me as I go round the ‘engineering careers fair’ aka -> ‘Investment wanking and bomb makers free-for-all’. I told the spotty P&P guy there straight. ‘I am a moral vacuum. I will do anything for money’....he seemed a bit taken aback. As I exited over the pile of ‘dead’ bodies…..(looking more like stoned arts-students who had had an embarrasing accident with a tanker of tomato ketcup), I thought what a jolly good day out it had been for them.
So what these people need to do, perhaps, is to reassess their strategy. Maybe they would get further to where they want to be if they would be more realistic. Like, instead of targeting the UK industry, which is subject to some of the tightest export orders EVER, why not go for the Ruskie and Chinky companies flogging cut-price AK-47’s to sudan? And for fucks sake. Why can’t they just stop this whole self-flagellation thing? I think the UK is pretty ethical compared to a few other places.
Of course, they never will. The big dirty secret is, that they have no principles either. Today’s tireless unilateralist is tomorrow’s conniving cabinet minister. Passim Rt Hon. Peter Hain MP. Now a big shot in the cabinet. Then, in his hairier days, a tirless campaigner against apartheid. Now sitting on a cabinet that refuses to cut off over 100 trade deals with that well-known paragon of human rights, Zimbabwe. My point is that Sticks and Stones, gunpowder, machine guns, A-bombs, Neutron bombs are really just manifestations of man’s carnal and timeless desire to anihilate, fuck up the planet, yadda yadda yadda. And they are not going away.
But while they are keeping my student fees low, and securing my future, i’m game. So keep those Eurofighters rolling off the line, Baby!
. DWL.
February 22nd, 2006 at 1:50 pm
Small point: The fact that BAE et al will sell their arms to either side of a conflict with the British government granting them the lisences to do so is a legitimate reason for finding the arms companies abhorent. Nobody really expects war to end, or arms companies to dissapear by withdrawal of investment – however, a degree of pressure from certian corners of the hairy shirted, sandal wearing brigade (as your tar covered brush has so aptly labelled everyone who gives a crap about it) might actually force some sort of international regulation on arms sales.
You may think it’s fine, but try to search for an ounce of humanity within yourself and stop patting yourself on the back because you can get a job building Challenger tanks when you graduate because your uni wants to get rich easily at the expense of the misery and deprevation such deals cause around the world.