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Tips for policy influencers

From Fancine Bates, Chief Exec of Contact a family; before I forget them:

Clarity of purpose (be very clear about what you want – all agree what it is: people will sniff out any differences)
Evidence base – justify your arguments
Identify decision-makers and target them
Find allies – don’t be oppositional
Plan but be flexible (long term strategic planning is needed)
Review goals (work out where you are and be prepared to change if necessary)
Communicate (especially if working in a consortium/alliance)
Never give up!

Please can I hibernate?

What with the drama and tension at work in the university that has taken the name of the county of my birth, I lean toward 15th december (our early last day so that the uni can save money on lighting heating and security men and so that according to our vc we can all ‘spend more time with our families’) when I can float off on a haze of sleeping till almost midday, a gentle infusion of alcohol, reading the backlogs of paperbacks on Buddhism and er.. spending more time with my family.

For some reason I have started eating the packets of Japanese food that I bought on a trip to Hong Kong in October. Tonight its my NISSIN RETORT POUCH which my son has just heated up and which is disgusting and which I am about to pour down the sink.

another sad story

My poor university is in trouble again: see the THES. There was a mischievous leak of a letter some of us signed. Mischievous because I can’t see what good this will do anyone – either the university managers or the profs that signed it. There have been some very moving testimonies from frustrated and demoralised professors up on our email.

I paid the ultimate price for unsafe sharing

Last night in a corner of a smokey pub in Cambridge a friend and I nuzzled up our Palm Treos together and mine accepted some apparently handy apps. I glanced up nervously, feeling guilty about this liaison in a public space, expecting to be thrown out. Back home, with the night wearing on and a failed hotsync later my trusty Palm was caught in an agonizing loop of starting up and going nowhere, and my pulse was racing. It was my moment of haste in the pub and now my digital life was potentially in ruins. Where was my Unique Tax Reference and my password for my paypall account? What was my son’s telephone number? When is the next research committee meeting? I went to bed in a mood of muted mourning knowing that I had not yet plumbed the depths of the extent of my loss. The extent of my passion for gimicry, gagetry (looking to them to stave off existential boredom) and my love of furtive free things was mirrored in the voiceless horror of my confusion. The story continues….