Tag Archives: OUSA Conference

Wednesday 10th February 2010 – I’m cracking on …

upright stud wall stair cupboard plasterboard insulation les guis virlet puy de dome france… with my cupboard at the back of the stairs. If you look closely you can see that as well as plasterboard all round, it has a ceiling and a light. The ceiling is of course tongue-and-grooving for several reasons namely
1) it hides the polystyrene insulation stuffed between the joists
2) it’s easy to fix when you are on your own and there’s no-one to hold up the plasterboard while you screw or nail it
3) I have plenty of it lying around and I’m rather short on plasterboard.

The light is a recessed fitting (it needs a 40mm hole) with an MR16 fitting – in other words a 12-volt capless halogen fitting. But as keen readers of these pages will know, LIDL sells 12-volt LED lights with MR16 fittings. And at 1.2 watts per bulb and they don’t half chuck out the light I shall be using them. It’s not wired in to my circuit as yet and it won’t be for a while but at least it will be in position once Ive varnished the t&g.

So that’s tomorrow’s job and it will be followed by me tidying up a little (yes, Terry) and then starting on plasterboarding the false wall that I’ve built. But I shan’t be starting that right at the wall. If you look at the horizontal, you’ll see that it has a let cut into it. That’s where I’ll be putting the framework for the fitted wardrobe. That part of the wall will be done in hardboard. I’m going to have a fitted wardrobe right across the back wall in the bedroom.

In other news, I’ve received something of a communication that has caused my eyes to pop out and I’ve had to re-read it half a dozen times. There’s definitely something weird going on. It seems that one member of the Executive Committee (probably the only one as it appears that over this last few weeks all of the others have resigned due to not being “given” the posts that they wanted in the forthcoming reshuffle or something like that) has offered to host the OUSA website.

Now won’t that be exciting?

I’ve had personal experience of this web hosting, as followers of my blog will recall in graphic detail. It’s probably useful to recall them –
1) regular and relentless changing of server hosting causing all of my stored e-mails and my address books to disappear into cyberspace every year.
2) arbitrary deletion of files by the “I have never been in favour of censorship” manager of the hosting company because she doesn’t like the content
3) The webhosting manager proudly announcing “you have any information that the others won’t publish? Send it to us and we’ll publish it – we’re not afraid” and then caving in at the first attack.
4) arbitrary suspension of the website simply “to attract my attention”.
5) sending out bills for renewal and then deleting the mail during a server change before it’s had time to be opened and read – and then deleting the website without notice because the bill hasnt been paid.

The of course there was the incident back in the Spring of 2006 when the “I do object to unfounded allegations of stalking” above webhosting manager posted the personal details of a website holder (thankfully not mine) into a public forum to which 200,000 people had access.

I could go on. And on. And on “not with a bayonet through your neck you couldn’t” – ed.

But that’s not the best bit. Back in November this particular webhost suddenly announced that it was closing its doors. And in a subsequent phone call I was told “I no longer have the technical expertise to deal with the problems that arise so I’m closing down and passing all of my work on to someone who is more technically-capable“

So how come this particular technically-challenged ex-webhost is offering to host the OUSA website? It sounds like a recipe for total disaster if you ask me.

OUSA should feel right at home.

Unless of course I am reading this report totally wrongly.

Or unless someone is telling me a huge pack of porky-pies.

But then nothing surprises me any more. I recall the particular incident when X’s details were posted in a public forum and he was simultaneously accused of all kinds of things (simultaneously of course, his “rival” for an elected position was being wined and dined and “offered accomodation” by the Returning Officer in the election but that is of course by the way). I asked the person concerned in leaking this information why she was doing it.
“It’s called ‘negative campaigning‘” she replied. “We’ll do anything to stop him being elected“. (Yes, I have all of my hard drives from 1999 here now).

And so he duly wasn’t elected and OUSA chose in his place a convicted pedophile to lead the organisation. That was one campaign that backfired a little, didnt it? Or maybe that might have been the aim. Anything is possible in OUSA.

But then again we fast-forward to 2009. Due to one thing and another, X is sumoned before a disciplinary hearing. And guess who volunteers to chair it? Absolutely! Never mind “prior knowledge” – never mind “parti pris” the world’s favourite webhost gets the job.

And I wonder if you can guess what the disciplinary committee decides?

Dead right. Candidate X “shall not be eligible to stand for any elected post within OUSA…” . I bet you never would have guessed it, would you?

And in other other news it’s snowing like hell outside. I’m prepared for another seige.

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Thursday 3rd December 2009 – I put it in

fitting new floor beam les guis virlet puy de dome franceposition – the final beam, as you can see. And it took quite a while to do as well.

Firstly I had to position the hangers and screw them in. It’s not possible to cut lets into the transverse beam as there are other beams let into the other side and so the nails are in the way. And the hangers have to be millimetre-perfect so that the floor will be level.

Then the beam needs to be cut to size and that has to be millimetre-perfect as well.

Thirdly, once the beam has been cut to size it needs to be lowered into position and it’s quite a heavy beam so doing it on my own was complicated to say the least. I dropped it down to the ground floor twice and so I nailed some cantilever outriggers across the gap so I could slide it into position.

Once it was in, I could drill through it into the wall in order to mark where the anchor bolts need to go.

And then I had to drill out the holes in the beam to 12mm and then drill the walls for the anchor bolts

Next was to fit the anchor bolts into the beam with just a small amount of the anchor visible

And then roll the beam back into position

And then line up the protruding anchors with the holes in the wall

And then get the beam as close up to the wall as possible

And then screw the beam to the hangers so that it’s in position

And then whallop the anchors through the beam into the holes in the wall.

It’s not tightened up anywhere as yet though – that’s because I want to fit the verticals and it’s only when they are in and fastened up that I van tighten the beam fastenings – that way it will all go into tension.

That took most of the day as it happened, and I finished off by painting with white acrylic paint the part of the wall in the stairwell that doesn’t already have paint on it. I do that because with cement-rendered walls the cement flakes off and makes dust that gets everywhere. The acrylic paint binds it together.

And in other news, OUSA has made the headlines again with the latest proposals for OUSA Sutures – that nasty little stitch-up of a document that proposes that all the OUSA delegates to the Students’ Annual Conference can go socialising (read “piss-up”) at OUSA’s (read “British taxpayers'”) expense and leave the business of running the Disorganisation to the Executive Committee – some of whom received as many as 5 votes from a student body of 180,000.

OUSA Sutures is a controversial document and has ignited all kinds of debate – most of which recognises it for the crap that it is. But to become OUSA Policy it needs to receive 2/3rds of the votes at Conference. At the last Conference there were a grand total of 137 delegates so it comes as no surprise to anyone to learn that in January there will be a meeting to discuss OUSA Sutures and OUSA has set aside a budget of £9.000 for the meeting. And who is being invited to the meeting? Why, 96 delegates to Conference.

Now firstly, can anyone tell me what proportion 96 bears to 137?
And secondly, the closing date for delegates to Conference will not have passed by the time this “briefing” is to take place. So how do they know who will be the delegates to Conference? Well, there’s always a “hard core” of delegates who go every year and who have become part of the furniture. And of course, there are the delegates that the Executive Committee cam approve to fill vacant places.

And so these “delegates”, just over 2/3rds of the number likely to attend, will be invited to a “briefing” long before their names are officially announced as delegates for their branches and before the branch nominations are even closed. They will each have £95 of OUSA’s (read “British taxpayers'”) money spent on their “hospitality”.

All I can say is that if they don’t show their “gratitude” at OUSA’s Conference next April they will have Caligula and her Horse and Pol Pot’s Sibling around to kick their collective @r$e$

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