Where every day is a snow day

In case you’ve reverted to ignoring the news recently under the principle that “if you can’t see it, it’s not happening”, you may need informing that it’s snowing pretty hard in London.  Well, when I say ‘pretty hard’, I mean about the average daily snowfall in Chicago in winter.  That notwithstanding, Britain being Britain, everything has come to a complete standstill.

I received an email at 8:50 explaining that the 9 o’clock lecture was cancelled.  It was annoying that it was made so late, but what can one do?  I, for my part, was never going to go to it, because that would involve waking up at seven the day after the Superbowl.*  I did, however, go to university for my afternoon lecture.  In lieu of public transport, it took an eighty minute walk to get from Finchley Road to UCL.  I found, to my horror, that all classes had been cancelled.

This, of course, is what’s known as ‘f***ing unacceptable’.  What the hell was the university emailing everyone that a single lecture had been cancelled for, when every single lecture in the department was off?  Congratulations, UCL, you just wasted your customers’ students’ day.

Then again, as is becoming abundantly clear, the only way you can have a university that doesn’t act with impunity, and responds to students’ needs, is by giving students real power over who their education: taking power out of the hands of government, and giving it to students.  And that requires lifting the cap on top-up fees.  Until that is done, and students hold real power over universities, the university will treat its students with contempt.  In short, every day will be a snow day.

Update @ 16:36: now I can’t even access journals online.  So the university is physically shut and people can’t access the library resources online?  Great stuff.  Universities need a kick up the arse to sort this stuff

* I pretend that I care.  I’m only really interested in cheerleaders, or, as my cheerleader girlfriend euphemistically calls them, ‘dancers’.  Whatever.