Tag: Pady Jalali

An Afternoon and Evening With Pady Jalali and John White, 11 April 2016

The reason for Pady’s visit was most unfortunate (the sudden death and funeral of a friend of hers), but the timing proved to be fortunate for us, as the trip made her available to meet us in London on 11 April.

Janie and I had already arranged a day off that day, to see a lunchtime concert of (mostly) English madrigals at The Wigmore Hall – Ogblogged here and had not arranged anything else of substance to do that day. John White was also available that evening and able to get away from work a little early.

Pady arranged to meet us at The Wiggy after the concert. She arrived a little flustered about 30 minutes after the concert ended. But hanging around at the Wigmore Hall is hardly a hardship for me and Janie (Daisy). It is one of our favourite places. In my case, it is now one of only two places in the world (the Lord’s pavilion being the other) where people still address me as “young man”.

It was lovely to see Pady again. Janie hadn’t met her before, but they hit it off straight away, as I sensed they would.

It was a sunny early afternoon when Janie and I had arrived at The Wiggy but it was raining quite heavily when the concert ended. By the time Pady arrived, the rain had subsided but still looked a bit threatening, so we decided to retire to the new Ivy Cafe in Marylebone Lane for some tea. A very suitable venue; quiet in the afternoon and geared up for dining or snacking.

Pady had checked in to a nearby hotel for the London leg of her journey, so we resolved to find a suitable restaurant nearby. Strangely, Pady doesn’t get to try Lebanese food in Boston. As she is a vegetarian, we thought the major mezzes followed by lesser mains tradition would work well.

John was able to join us at the Ivy around 16:30, by which time I was on to my second little pot of jasmine tea and we other three had already “done scones”. Getting to know you chat then switched to catching up chat.

Daisy and I did some thorough research and latched on to a restaurant named Levant – very nearby, as a good contender and one we hadn’t tried before. The promise of nightly live entertainment didn’t please us, but the idea of the entertainment starting no earlier than 20:30 did, as we were proposing to eat early. In any case, we could always fall back on Maroush if we didn’t like the look/smell of Levant.

As it turned out, we did like the look and smell of Levant. We very much enjoyed our meal and chat there. Very quiet at 17:30/18:00 when we arrived. Staff very pleasant. The mezzes were excellent. The grills less so, but still did their job. John drank beer; Lebanese and Moroccan varieties, while the rest of us showed no mercy to a tasty bottle of Côtes du Rhône.

After dinner, Daisy requested an arabic coffee but was told that, regrettably, the machine wasn’t working and that it would have to be regular coffee. We had a short debate about whether we could be bothered to go elsewhere, which was resolved by the realisation that it was nearly 20:30 already, so the live entertainment was due to start soon.

Where did all that time go? In chatting, reminiscing and catching up, that’s where.

So we ventured out into the mercifully dry evening, soon to find Comptoir Libanais on Wigmore Street. “They should have arabic coffee,” declared Daisy, marching across Wigmore Street, grinding taxis, bicycles and other vehicles to a brief but sudden halt. “Do you have arabic coffee?” asked Daisy as she breezed into the cafe. “Yes, come in sit down,” said an unidentified member of staff.

But it turned out that Comptoir Libanais didn’t do arabic coffee; never does, never did. None of us could be arsed to move again; we mostly wanted to carry on chatting for a short while. So we made do with regular espressos, cappuccinos or, in my case, rose-mint tea.

All too soon, we realised that it was really getting late for John, who still had a couple of hours journey ahead of him, so we walked John down to Bond Street tube and then Daisy and I walked Pady back to her hotel.

It was a lovely afternoon and evening. We worked out that it must be at least 10 years since Pady’s last visit, so hopefully Pady will start visiting a lot more regularly now. Who knows, perhaps as soon as next month. That’s right, in the merry, merry month of May, fa-la-la-la-la…

I Fagiolini, Wigmore Hall Lunchtime Concert, 11 April 2016

Daisy and I arranged a Monday off, in part because “that’s quite often what we do these days”, but this one in particular because I fancied this lunchtime concert at “The Wiggy”.

It turned out to be a fortuitous choice of date, as it coincided with Pady Jalali’s unexpected but delightful visit, which I shall report once I have finished this short piece; a link to which should appear, as if by magic, as a ping-back on this one once it is done. (Clever stuff, this WordPress blogging).

Pady toyed with the idea of joining us for the concert, but the train times from Manchester didn’t really work sensibly for that, so just Daisy and I enjoyed the concert, from our front row mafia vantage point.

Janie is not a great fan of Renaissance English Madrigals, especially those of the fa-la-la variety, but even she admitted that this short concert was a wonderful way to get a small dose of them without the irritation that arises from a large dose.

There was a lyric sheet available for 50p which I avoided. Not for the matter of 50p, you understand, but because making it too obvious that the lyrics were mostly about shepherds, shepherdesses, the merry month of May and a fa-la-la-la-la… would not have added to Daisy’s enjoyment. Worse, me singing along would not have added to anyone’s enjoyment.

The concert was broadcast on BBC Radio 3, will be broadcast again on 17th April and should be available on this link until 8th or 9th May. Yes, available until the merry month of May fa-la-la-la-la…

The ensemble entered wearing straw hats and carrying a hamper, an old badminton racket etc. The idea was to give the feeling of a spring picnic; an idea that worked better live than on radio, I’d suggest.

There were three examples of modern madrigal in our concert too – the running order is archived here – but for the encore I Fagiolini returned to the safer ground of traditional month of May-type material; Now is the Month of Maying by Thomas Morley. Plenty of fa-la-las to send us on our way.

Twee? Yes. But it was a lovely concert which set us up very nicely indeed for a relaxing afternoon and evening with friends.

 

Boston, Marblehead, Boston Again & Home, 1 to 3 December 1989

To Boston For The Last Leg Of My Trip

I flew from Washington DC to Boston. I recall thinking that internal flights were, in many ways, an easier option than railway journeys on that East Coast in those days. You pretty much just turned up and took the next plane, whereas the trains had been rarer beasts that required some logistical planning.

I did some touring on my own around the port and stuff that first day in Boston:

It was wicked cold in Boston. I had almost forgotten about the arctic weather I had experienced in New York (Washington DC was still warm) until I got to Boston, where it seemed, if possible, even colder. Perhaps I should have stayed away from the waterfront and the scenic views from the top of tall buildings to feel less cold.

I remember going into a music shop to buy Bobbie Scully the latest Billy Joel record – We Didn’t Start the Fire – Bobbie was a big fan of Billy Joel and the record was being played everywhere all the time while I was in the States.

The really memorable thing about buying that record for Bobbie was the reaction of a college boy type who was also in the shop, who said to me in that slightly pompous New England accent (which might be mistaken for mimicking the British accent but I think he was a genuine New Englander)…

…you don’t want to be buying that record. It’s complete crap.

No suggestion that this was an expression of his opinion about the record. It’s complete crap. Fact. Period.

It’s a gift for a friend who is especially keen on Billy Joel…

…I said…

…Oh yeh?…

…he said, in a disbelieving voice.

In truth I don’t hold that song in very high regard – not one of Joel’s best in my view, but that song always reminds me of this holiday…

…and also of Graham Robertson’s wonderful Newsrevue parody, “One Didn’t Start the Fire”, three year’s later, about the Windsor Castle fire.

An Interlude Upstate In Massachusetts

I had contacted Emma Weiss who had suggested that I join her and Betsy Brady for the evening and a stop-over in Marblehead…or was it Lynn?…

…I have a feeling that they lived in the former town and/but the municiple railway took me to the latter town. I remain irritated with myself that I didn’t keep a proper travel log for this holiday – the only extensive trip i have ever made without keeping one. I’m also irritated that I didn’t take my camera with me on this upstate Massachusetts leg of my trip.

Anyway, I do remember Emma coming to meet me from the train. I also remember Emma and Betsy giving me a brief driving tour around that part of the Massachusetts coast.

I particularly remember them showing me Salem – we had some tongue-in-cheek discussions about whether we might all be strung up in that town on account of ethnic origins and/or interesting lifestyles. We decided to dine outside Salem.

Boston was wicked cold at that time, but these towns up the Massachusetts coast were wicked colder still.

I remember having a jolly meal with Emma and Betsy, after which, having just got warm, they said it was time for us to visit a local bar…in fact I think they even use the term “pub” up there in New England.

The pub was cosy and the locals friendly. Many of them seemed fascinated with a visitor from the UK. No-one quite made me feel like a performing seal accent-wise in the mode of Norman Barst on Thanksgiving…

Dreaming Of A White Thanksgiving, New York, 23 November 1989

…but not far off.

I also recall how very cold it was at night, especially when someone opened the door to the pub. In fact, whenever someone opened said door the drinkers would ring out a chorus of:

CLOSE THE DOOR! CLOSE THAT F***ING DOOR!

Just as we were getting to the point that I thought we had warmed up and I was starting to feel nice and cosy for a pub sesh, Emma and Betsy said,

Right, that’s it. We’d better move on to the other pub now…

…at which suggestion I wondered out loud whether we really needed to go back out in the cold.

Emma and Betsy politely but firmly explained that they live in a small town and that they couldn’t possibly diss the folks in the other local pub by showing off their visitor from England in one pub but not the other.

Word of your existence will have reached the other pub some time ago now, so they’ll be wondering where we are.

Off we went to the second bar, which seemed quite similar in terms of its cosiness, unpretentiousness and friendly clientele.

Emma and Betsy might recall the names of the bars; I can add links and stuff if those hostelries are still there, which they probably still are…with many of the same locals still shouting, “close that f***ing door” on cold nights.

It was a great fun evening. Emma and Betsy were splendid hosts; it was very kind of them to provide that much hospitality to me. I have also enjoyed meeting them both since – e.g. at Michael Mainelli’s wedding, but it has been a good while since I last saw either of them.

Back To Boston, Brunch With Pady & Midge

The climax of my American road trip was an opportunity to see Pady Jalali in her new home environment of the USA. Pady is of Iranian origin but had acquired a quintessentially English accent while at school and then at Keele with us.

But just a few years in the USA had put paid to Pady’s English accent; by the autumn of 1989 she had acquired (and still has) a quintessentially New England accent.

At that time, Pady was teaching math…

…in the USA they only study a singular mathematic, whereas in the UK we study mathematics, or maths…

…at Umass in Amhurst.

Pady suggested meeting in Boston for brunch, along with her sister Midge.

The thing I especially remember about that brunch (apart from having a delightful afternoon with Pady and Midge) was the demeanour of the other diners.

Pady, Midge and I were engaged in conversation as one might expect when friends gather in a diner for a middle of the day meal.

But pretty much every other table seemed to comprise couples or small groups eating in complete silence. Some seemed to be taking some interest in eavesdropping on our conversation. Others seemed simply to be grazing, vacantly.

In those days, of course, non-conversational diners did not have hand-held gadgetry as an alternative focus for their attention. But in any case, this unengaged style of eating out was alien to me (as it had been to Pady and Midge before they migrated to the USA), although it did seem to cross the Atlantic and become part of the UK culture as well by the end of that century.

Of course we were not to be deterred from our purpose; having a good catch up and making a jolly occasion of it.

The photographic evidence suggests that beer, fags and food were all involved (I had long since given up smoking by then, but I was still enjoying beer and food).

It was really lovely to see Pady again – it had been some four years since she left England. Midge was also very good company that day.

It was a super way to end my two week visit to the States.

I’m not sure exactly when I flew back, but I have a feeling it was the Sunday night red eye and I have a feeling I went straight in to work on the Monday. I wouldn’t dream of doing that now.

Pictures from the Washington DC & Massachusetts legs of my trip (including those above but with quite a few more besides) can be seen by clicking the Flickr link below:

USA_3_1989 (15)

Minutes of a Strange Meeting From 10 June 1985, Typed Up 30 December 1985

I have published the hand-written version of these “minutes” under the date of the “meeting”.

Here is the typed up version, scanned from what I think must be carbon copies. Is there anyone else left on the planet who remembers what carbon copies were?

I guess I prepared these for our glorious return visit in January 1986 for the traditional UGM/AGM thingie.

10 June 1985 Spoof Minutes Side One10 June 1985 Spoof Minutes Side Two

After The Hackgrass Reveal…Later That Same Day…A Strange Sort of Committee Meeting, 10 June 1985

Hackgrass Reveal in Pub Circ, Keele, 10 June 1985

On top of my Hackgrass reveal antics on our last morning in office, it seems we held some sort of bogus committee meeting later in the afternoon. More a symposium than a mere meeting, by the looks of it.

It looks as though I completed the minutes that December, ahead of our January 1986 appearance at the UGM I shouldn’t wonder, so I’ll publish the typed version at that date. The hand-written version that follows must have been part-written on the day and then concluded later.

Looks as though my Daily Mail rebuttal might have been around the same time.

Experts at handwriting analysis forensics might be able to work out exactly what went on. John White – I suggest you might choose not to apply for this role, if your attempt at the Hackgrass cypher is anything to go by.

10 June 1985 Spoof Minutes Manuscript Page One10 June 1985 Spoof Minutes Manuscript Page Two10 June 1985 Spoof Minutes Manuscript Page Three10 June 1985 Spoof Minutes Manuscript Page Four

 

Ronnie Scott Review, Concourse Juicy Bits, February 1985 Part Eight

A final extract from that superb memory-jogging issue of Concourse from February 1985.

Ronnie Scott came to Keele several times while I was there. This would have been the last time I ever saw Ronnie himself perform, although I have been to “Ronnies” in Soho since.

My diary records little about the evening (Friday 25 January 1985), other than a statement that I went and a confession “got drunk”. So I am grateful for this review. My memory of at least one earlier Ronnie Scott evening at Keele (probably more than a year, perhaps two years earlier) is better and has a story to it, but I’ll save that story for my diary trawl later.

Janie loves Ronnie Scotts and I have often mentioned to her the wonderful evenings we had at Keele when Ronnie and his band visited. Here’s an independent report on one of those evenings.

Thorns Social Cock-Up, Concourse Juicy Bits, February 1985 Part Six

I remember Pady telling us about this “Thorns Cock-Up” last time she visited, a few years ago, so it made me smile coming across this article about it when going through this February 1985 issue of Concourse.

I had forgotten (or perhaps Pady even had forgotten) that the unfortunate band that got dicked around was none other than The Pogues.

All the more ironic, because Jem Finer of The Pogues was brought up at Keele, son of Professor Samuel Finer, the initial Keele (indeed University College of North Staffordshire) Professor of Politics.

With an additional irony from a personal point of view, because I have now met Jem Finer through his extraordinary Longplayer initiative. The central element of the initiative is a composition of his which is 1000 years long. Read about it and have a listen through this link.  Daisy finds the music very soothing.

But for now, back to the 1985 debacle, article top right of the page:

Concourse Feb 85 Page 14

 

Bar Licence and Health Centre Fee Controversies – Concourse Juicy Bits Part One, February 1985

Lots of juicy bits from the February 1985 issue of Concourse. Here’s the first of them.

Annalisa de Mercur, bless her, was very concerned that the Student Union’s bar licence might get scuppered, which would indeed have been a near-existential problem for the union. The storm was very much of the teacup variety, I’d have thought, for the reasons described in the article.

How Pady Jalali and Hayward Burt ended up in an intra-article debate with the Vice-chancellor, Dr Harrison, is anybody’s guess. Methinks Annalisa might have been trying to big up her piece, as it were.

The health centre fee had been an ongoing issue, if the 1984 manifestos are anything to go by. John “Memory Man” White will hopefully chime in on the comments to describe in intricate detail the nature of the new-look campaign he planned. I don’t remember a thing about it, although welfare was my bailiwick.

Concourse Feb 85 Page 4

Keele (Including A Free January 1985 SU Disco Playlist), Knightsbridge, Kings College Hospital & Multiple Wine Prizes, Mid January 1985

I believe this scribbled note is the playlist from the Real Ale Bar Opening Disco

In the last episode, I described the re-opening of the Ballroom Bar as a Real Ale bar, with John White and I DJ-ing the disco in a less than sober fashion.

Why Oh FY? – My Most Highly Praised Piece Of Statistical Work Ever, Plus Other Keele Happenings Such As Opening The Real Ale Bar, Early In The Spring Term, 1985

I am now pretty sure that the hand-scrawled disco playlist I discovered amongst my papers some years ago, see headline picture, must be the playlist from that gig. It looks like a playlist conceived by committee – it certainly doesn’t remind me of the type of playlist that John and I would (often quite hastily) construct earlier in the evening to give the disco the vibe and shape we wanted. Our personal choice tended to focus more on Motown, Northern Soul and general sixties dance music.

I vaguely remember the discussion with several members of the committee. Pady Jalali insisting that we play the Band Aid song at some point – John and I reluctantly agreeing to open with that song as a clarion call to let people know that the show was starting, as it would empty the dance floor anywhere else in the set. I’m pretty sure Kate Fricker chose the Madonna song and it had to be Pete Wild and/or Hayward Burt who insisted on some ZZ Top.

John and I unquestionably insisted on Police Officer by Smiley Culture, which was high on our list of personal favourites at that time:

Actually, you can hear the entire playlist, which I curated into a 40th anniversary playlist on my YouTube Music account – click here for that playlist – don’t be put off if the link is struck through – anyone can click and listen – you’ll get adverts if you don’t have a YouTube Music account, that’s all. I’ll be surprised f you haven’t had a little bit of a private dance (or in my case at the time of writing, hobble) by the time you hear Neutron Dance by the Pointer Sisters, if not before.

Let’s move on.

A Quick Trip To London, Including A Chance Encounter With Neil & Trish Hyman In Knightsbridge And A Planned Encounter With My Mum In Kings College Hospital

Not Keele: Knightsbridge, London, SW1 by Christine Matthews, CC BY-SA 2.0

Here’s my diary extract from that weekend.

AI systems are now smart enough to read the charred remains of the Herculaneum scrolls…but still have no chance with my handwriting. I’ll have to do this transliteration myself:

Friday, 18 January 1985 – Very busy in office with busts etc. Went to London quite early. Stayed in etc etc

Saturday, 19 January 1985 – Rose lunchtime – drank and had haircut. Went to Chicago Rib [Shack, in Knightsbridge] in evening – Met Neil Hyman and Trish [Hyman] etc – weird. Stopped over.

Sunday, 20 January 1985 – Went home in the morning – lunch at Levinsons [friends in our street]. Went to see mum – then back to Keele. Went to see Petra [Wilson] briefly.

I’ll explain, in a later article, a bit more about my role as Education & Welfare officer helping students who had been busted. No idea why I saw so many on that Friday – I don’t think it was anything to do with our disco a couple of nights before.

I assume I stayed at Bobbie’s place in East Finchley. “Rose lunchtime, drank, had haircut” does not sound like me any more (he says, while writing between 6:00 & 7:00 am), but it does sound like the 22 year old me.

It will have seemed and still seems a strange coincidence to encounter Neil Hyman & his sister Trish, friends from my BBYO days, in the Chicago Rib Shack in Knightsbridge. Firstly, because Neil and Trish were from the Lytham St Annes group, which is some way removed from Knightsbridge . Differently posh, I suppose.

Secondly, the Chicago Rib Shack is not the first place you might think of to encounter, by chance, friends from a Jewish Youth Organisation. Perhaps we were all trying out some seminal vegan options in the place.

In some ways more coincidentally, on the back of a subsequent conversation, I discovered that Bobbie’s mum was Greta Spector’s sister. Her sons, Martin Spector and the late, great Jeffrey Spector were mainstays of BBYO in St Annes and indeed nationally. Neil and I served together on Jeffrey’s National Executive for a while in 1979.

Jeff Spector, Spring 1979

On the Sunday I went over to Streatham for lunch with my dad at Norman & Marjorie Levinson’s house. Presumably they were taking pity on dad and feeding him while my mum was in hospital. Very kind people they were – to me as a child and great friends to my parents for the rest of their lives.

Norman up front, my dad to the right

Mum was in hospital having her second hip replaced in Kings College Hospital. She had the first one replaced there in February 1975 and then needed the second one done 10 years later. Don’t know what it is about the start of years with a five in them, but I need to have one of my hips replaced and shall do so in a couple of week’s time (as I write in January 2025).

Back To Keele, Where Wednesday’s Wine Win & Waffles Needs Explaining

What do you mean, you can’t read or understand that? Oh, all right then:

Monday 21 January 1985 – Union Committee in morning – very busy rest of day. Const [itutional Committee] in evening – drink after. Petra came over later.

Tuesday 22 January 1985 – Busy day today – meetings etc. Cheap drink in evening. Petra came over later.

Wednesday, 23 January 1985 -Lots to do and meetings etc. Won wine today. Stayed in in eve – went for Waffles at Ben’s [Benita Wishart] later.

Thursday, 24 January 1985 – Busy and productive day. Lots of meetings in early evening. Petra came over later.

“Cheap drink” presumably means one of those promotion evenings in the Union, when one of the suppliers would try to encourage students towards their brand with infeasibly cheap offerings. I remember being put off Pernod for life with one of those earlier in my time at Keele. Sadly, with my diary being unspecific about the brand involved on 22 January 1985, unless a reader chimes in with a detailed memory, we’ll never know which particular tipple was cheap that night.

Clearly I didn’t over-indulge as my diary for the next day reads very industrious and perky. And who wouldn’t be perky when they had “won wine”. A whole case of Henri Maire wine at that.

Photo by Marianne Casamance, CC BY-SA 4.0

Here’s the story of how I won it.

While I was with my parents for Christmas, my dad showed me some vouchers and forms he had collected for an Henri Maire wine prize competition. He had bought enough of the wine for two entries. You had to answer a few quite simple questions about Henri Maire wine and then provide a slogan. Top prize, a case of Henri Maire wine. Several other prizes were also on offer. Dad had no clue on the slogans and asked me to help.

My entry – i.e. the one in my name, which ended up winning the case of wine that was sent to me at Keele, was:

Whatever the fare, drink Henri Maire.

Simple and to the point, I thought it might pick up a consolation prize. Dad preferred my other, more baroque idea for a slogan:

Tous les “Hooray Henris” boivent Henri Maire

The arrival of the winning case of “more than half decent” wine caused quite a stir in the Students’ Union that morning. Not exactly an every day event at Keele, that.

I remember excitedly calling my dad to let him know then news. He excitedly told me that my other slogan had also won a prize.

Screw you, Henri Maire. (That wasn’t the slogan). That prize, forty years on.

Dad was absolutely insistent that I keep the corkscrew. I still have it, although, as you can see, it has seen better days. I did keep back a couple of bottles of the prize-winning wine for dad, which I took down on my next visit to my folks.

For some strange reason I became tremendously popular at Keele, for a short while, after that case of wine arrived.

I don’t really understand the diary reference that says that I stayed in that evening but then went over to Benita’s place for waffles. It can only mean, I think, that my intention had been to stay in and that I had sunk into an evening off mode, before Petra (who was very friendly with Benita at that time) persuaded me to join the waffle party…

…possibly with one of those bottles of wine in hand.

Lovely lass, Benita. I think I have tracked her down on the net so we’ll see if she has anything to add to the memory of waffles or even other matters in this series of articles forty years on.

Why Oh FY? – My Most Highly Praised Piece Of Statistical Work Ever, Plus Other Keele Happenings Such As Opening The Real Ale Bar, Early In The Spring Term, 1985

All about timing…more than could be said for the Keele Clock House clock back then

I had been approached by some FY (Foundation Year) students at the end of the autumn term who said that they would have preferred FY exams to be at the end of the term being examined rather than the first Friday of the new term. Those students suggested that they thought that the majority would agree with them.

I put the matter to Professor Watson Fuller, the head of the physics department and Chair of FY Committee, who agreed with me that I should do a survey of the students to ascertain their views on this. He would support a change if a clear majority wanted a change.

Annalisa de Mercur, who was Academic Secretary that year, worked with me on a simple survey. We considered using this as an opportunity to ask other questions, but decided in the end to focus on the single question, with a binary choice, plus room for comments.

Thinking very far ahead and very deeply indeed

Annalisa recalled that the first FY lecture of the spring term was a crowd puller with maximum attendance and thus a suitable time and space for us to maximise “voting turnout”. I am pretty sure it was Eddie Slade himself (also Physics, then Senior Tutor also) delivering the lecture and I am pretty sure he gave our survey a good plug. We had left a form on each seat in the packed FY lecture theatre.

In truth I cannot remember what the lecture was about. Perhaps it was cosmology or perhaps it was atomic physics. Something to do with one sort of big bang or another, I shouldn’t wonder…possibly both sorts.

Annalisa and I were focussed on guarding the doors and, between us, getting as many people as possible to vote. If I remember correctly, some 95% of the FY students turned up to that lecture and some 95% of attendees voted, making our turnout around 90% of all FY students.

I also recall that the interval between that lecture and the next FY Committee meeting was very short and that the deadline for papers was actually the Friday before the lecture. I agreed with Watson Fuller that I would write a short method paper to meet the committee papers deadline, and table the results of the survey itself on the day of the meeting.

The vote was, as I recall it, roughly 70% preferring to keep things as they were, with some 30% of FY students preferring to get the exams out of the way before the holidays.

Chi-squared distribution test for sampling proportions – surplus to requirements

Mercifully, I didn’t need to dig out my (at that time, probably quite rusty) notes on statistical significance tests, as a 70%/30% vote with the “sample” comprising some 90% of the entire population being sampled is, in technical statistical terms, “a slam dunk”. I also summarised for each side of the case the three or four most commonly stated (and main) points that came from the comments. Some people would prefer to be examined while the material was fresh in their minds and to get the exams out of the way – most wanted to use some of their holiday time to revise (or “vise”, I should imagine, if they were anything like me in the matter of FY lecture attendance).

At the meeting, Professor Fuller heaped this tiny piece of research with glowing praise, admiring our method – in particular the decision to keep the survey focussed and simple, the attention to detail in maximising the size of the sample and the clarity with which we expressed our findings.

So fulsome was he with his praise, I thought he might be taking the piss, but I was told by several academics afterwards that Watson Fuller would have been completely sincere when saying those things. He certainly repeated them at the Senate meeting when that point came up in the FY Committee report.

I have spent a fair chunk of my working life making a living out of operational research and statistics – some of it award-winning and much of it quite sophisticated stuff using machine learning…

Click here to read all about it – you know you want to.

…yet I cannot ever remember a piece of my statistical work being heaped with such lavish praise as Professor Fuller’s fulsome praise of that January 1985 FY Committee paper on exam timings.

It was only my appointments diary that reminded me about that research interlude; my personal diary was relatively bland over that period. For the sake of completist readers (or more likely just for my own benefit) here is a transcript of those days:

Monday, 7 January 1985 – Not very productive day – stayed in and had early night.

Tuesday, 8 January 1985 – Got quite a lot done today. Played trivial pursuit at Pady’s in evening.

Wednesday, 9 January 1985 – Not terribly productive day. Petra came over in the evening and stayed.

Thursday, 10 January 1985 – Didn’t get much done today – went out for meal (UC) for Pady’s birthday to Micky’s.

Friday 11 January 1985 – Got lots done in morning – Union Committee in afternoon (chaotic). Staff party in evening – few showed – very unpleasant day.

Saturday, 12 January 1985 – Really low today. Went shopping. Moped around all day. Petra came over late evening. [That must have been fun for Petra judging by my description of my mood!]

Sunday, 13 January 1985 – Stayed in bed virtually all day. Went over to Kate’s for dinner in evening.

Monday 14 January 1985 – Very busy in office today. First real day of term. Stayed in the evening.

Tuesday 15 January 1985 – Lots on today – rushed a bit. Stayed in in evening – Petra came over.

Wednesday, 16 January 1985 – Senate etc today – lots to do. Opened Real Ale bar – did disco with John [White] – got v drunk.

Thursday, 17 January 1985 – Lots on today – including FY committee. Busy evening – Petra came over later on – cooked meal etc.

After all we had been through in the matter of the bar managers in the first half of our year, opening the new real ale bar (i.e. converting the Ballroom Bar into a real ale specialising bar) felt like a positive new beginning.

Image of the Ballroom Bar “borrowed” from the Keele Oral History site.

During our grand opening and disco, no doubt John sank several pints of Pedigree. I might have focussed on the Banks’s Mild but probably partook of both.

Ironically, I can no longer drink beer at all – as I worked my way through my forties I became completely intolerant to it. Still, better to have been able to drink the real ale back in my Keele days, when I was best placed to appreciate it. As with the FY exams question, I believe I got my timings right!