Made In Preston – the blog

Saturday 20th June, a sunny day after early cloud, parked at Deepdale and wandered round the National Football Museum. Thought it had improved since my last visit. Seemed a lot to take in and so I focussed on the last 50 years. Watching a video of George Best made me think that he was better than Ronaldo, although it’s hard to compare as the game is different now.  Best had such balance and the ball seemed glued to his feet. Compare a football shirt of the 1960’s with one of today, a bit like comparing aunties knitted cardigan with a brand name made from fine material. Nice room for Tom Finney. Enjoyed creating my own football show, only a bit confused. North Ends ground is looking good now although the new stand seems an odd fit, presumably to keep its line down against the houses behind, shame really.

Then a short walk up to Fulwood Barracks to see the Military Show. The barracks are a mid 19th century uncompromising military building, attractive in its way. Although it takes a large area it’s something that must be preserved.  There is a large square surrounded by functional terrace style accommodation made from large blocks of stone.  I’ve often wanted to see the Queens Lancashire Regiment museum and it was open. Not much room to move with the crowds from the show so didn’t linger. Once again there is a lot to take in and I end up with more questions than answers. The museum is a bit dark and varnished wood in style. Explanations of battles and displays of medals, a banquet hall and chapel. I had read there is a booklet about the regiment, and have seen it on Ebay, but I didn’t see it in the museum, there isn’t a shop.

So a walk round the display outside; several recruiting displays including one for the infantry enabling a feel of different types of guns, a lot of boys round here. A boxing ring with a tiny boy giving a soldier a real miniature pasting. Boxing separates men from boys but in this case the tiny boy was really going for it, till the soldier raised himself off his knees a bit and the boy suddenly realised it wasn’t all plain sailing. An RAF cockpit was popular and so was the Challenger Tank and Armoured Personnel Carrier. The 105mm gun attracting a crowd.  Younger boys enjoyed the horns in the Land Rovers.  A military band and pipe band were playing. There was a marching and action display later but I left before it started. Seemed a popular day.

Exeter University does a survey of Universities each year that is published in the Times newspaper. I thought I’d have a look at this and produce a laymans view.

The criteria are; Student Satisfaction, Research Quality, Entry Standards, Student / Staff ratio, Services and facilities spend, completion, good honours, graduate prospects. These are all scored.

Top is Oxford with a total of 1000 points. It isn’t immediately obvious how this 1000 was calculated although I guessed it is the benchmark and the others would be a percentage of this top figure for easy comparison. However a simple calculation resulted in the university with 504 points only having about 40% of Oxfords total so I havn’t persevered to work it out.

It must be difficult for Exeter as they did the exercise and got it independantly assessed. However they rose significantly in the table. Their out-performance in student satisfaction being compensated by low entry standards. Does any university look at this and say we can improve a bit here and jump up?

Overall the table looks like a useful indicator but I’d be wary of being too precise in analysing it.  For example I’d be wary of subjective measures like student satisfaction.  Facilities spend is another skewed area as a university building a new extension will get more than one that’s just finished building one. Do you want to study on a building site?  Student / staff ratio might hide other factors like part-time or distance learners. In general the table order looks like you’d expect it to. Without advice on interpreting this my own method is to look at individual statistics to see if any stand out and take all of it as an indication and not as an absolute.

Out of 114 organisations UCL was 78th a fall of 15 places.  A total of 392 points compared to Oxfords 1000.  To maintain their position they would need another 40 points which might be in the level of error.  Interestingly Graduate Prospects at UCL would put them well up the table which is something I’d be interested in as a student. On the other hand completion and entry standards are a bit lower than those around it and student staff ratio is a bit higher. So if you do complete prospects are better than many, at that time.

Oxford and Cambridge are in a league of their own, like Manchester United and Chelsea at football. You then come to those with good research quality and consistent spread with points over 600. Then a middling ruck and some floating adrift at the bottom due to a couple of bad scores.

If I was a student I’d find this interesting yet I’d know what sort of place I wanted to go to. Take York – nice city, newish buildings, good reputation, same for Lancaster. Or would I want a big city. If I was a parent I’d say Lancaster(23rd a fall of 4), in the country. If I was a student I’d say Manchester(24th a rise of 3) in the heart of the city. Well maybe anyway, I should be thinking about intellect. Depends on your subject and your results and if you can make an impression.  I have a degree from the Open University and it isn’t on the list. Having left school with nothing there is still a way in with the OU although it’s a lot more expensive now than when I did it.

The birds have been well fed in our garden for several years though protection from pests is a constant battle. The hanging seed container gets unwanted visitors like squirrels and yesterday a baby mouse had climbed up the post around 10am and was brazenly eating sunflower seeds. The seed tray on the ground also gets squirrels but more recently woodpigeons. These are persistent and last night there were 3 of them, one on each neighbours roof and ours. Smaller birds have no chance as they buzz them or just push them out. Now I’ve got a cover that goes over the seedtray when they arrive. It takes the fun out of it as the visiting small birds are getting fewer. The squirrels have got fewer as well and I wondered if someone was relocating them. After seeing the mouse hygiene steps are being put into place.

The woodpigeon is a very plump bird with a small head and its wings are noisy in flight. They’re very aggressive between themselves and have frequent wing flapping battles. The male is quick to make amorous bowing and rotating movements to any female but when it comes to food the male pushes the female out till he’s finished. Despite this aggression they’re shy with humans and leave at the smallest movement, but soon come back.  When they are nervous they make a small sideways edging movements that get bigger till they decide to go. They always completely clean all the seeds and any very small bits and will try to swallow pieces of bread that are far too big. Brassicas and other gardeners delights are favourites and young cabbage can be decimated.  Their drinking habits are unusual for a bird as they are able to suck whereas most birds collect water in their beaks and tip their heads back. As well as flying, walking is one of their activities enabling them to investigate every area of the garden. Despite their size they get into tight positions and will repeatedly try to get to unattainable food. They have a range of sounds from a low grunt to loud cooing.  They hide in trees and find different stealthy ways to approach protected areas. Although a problem they’re amusing and interesting birds.  It’s still raining.

Real Madrid are said to be offering £80m for Ronaldo of Manchester United.  If the offer is true it seems irresistable. Noticed that one reporter said Real Madrid havn’t confirmed the figure.  Ronaldo is a great player that brightens up the Premier League. His value to his club must be immense in terms of public relations.  Put into perspective if Berbatov is worth £30m and Tevez £25m then Ronaldo must be worth over £50m as a player and his publicity rights must be worth millions a year. On the other hand his salary is immense as well.

EUFA seem to think the Premier League is cheating by getting foreign investors but it’s interesting how the 2 top Spanish clubs are funded as they have some kind of government arrangement that seems to give them a bottomless wallet.

Interesting that PNE, who are the 24th best English team, couldn’t pay Ronaldo’s wages if they sold the whole team.

The last few years have been disastrous for the Royal Lancashire Show with venues being waterlogged. Now Moor Park is in the frame for the next one. Sounds a great idea.

The agricultural show run by the Royal Lancashire Agricultural Society displays all that is good about the country around Preston.  To have it in a park in Preston makes a statement about the ties between town and country.

The park is a large area and using PNE’s facilities should help as well as bringing people to the National Football Museum.  With police help the route from the motorway is fairly direct with access from 3 junctions and even shuttle services from the empty park and ride at Bluebell Way and the railway station.

Involvement from local schools will be beneficial although being held in July it will be in the holidays. Let’s hope the RLAS committee agree.

Today’s Times is crowing that the South East is less hit by the recession and will pull the rest of the country up “once again”.

Well give us £9bn investment in a northern Olympic city, £20bn in a new underground line, £5bn airport terminals, high speed railway lines and stations, endless other investments and big government departments and maybe the north would be less effected.

Then again Preston is due a £700m investment in the Tithebarn Project but others in the region don’t want it.  Looked at from the bigger picture this could look like an own goal.  In Blackpool and Blackburn they think a small amount say £50m each each is better than one getting a big top up.  Maybe if Blackburn got a big project Preston would object, hard to say.

Talk is that Alan Irvine is wanted by Reading, although PNE are denying any offer. Hope it’s true and he stays at Preston. It’s always flattering and you know you have someone worthwhile if a club higher in the table with bigger gates is after your staff. Then again it isn’t clear that Reading has that much potential.  If they are a step up it’s not that big and it might easily go pear shaped.

Other talk is that Paul McKenna is wanted by Notts Forest. PNE have admitted rejecting 2 offers and the story is that Billy Davies has leaked it as part of a masterful type of unsettling strategy. Is it flattering that a lower team with bigger gates is after your players? Probably. Is it unsettling? Probably not.

I’m not getting a lot of genuine comment on this blog, although I don’t mind that.  The blog is fully moderated so posts need approval.

Unfortunately the people who think they can automatically get a comment onto this blog that advertises their product are sending a lot of stuff. I have a automated blocker and deleter but have stopped comments on some posts because of automated nuisance mail that sends an input every 15 minutes.

The world can be a strange place where people have jobs with the objective of spoiling, gas and phone companies tie you in and you need to read the small print of complicated tariffs.