BUS W@NKERS

Posted on August 17, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged access, bus, bus company, bus service, bus wanker, buses, class, commuters, Enrique Peñalosa, ethical, featured, first bus, inbetweeners, liberalisation, mobility, nationalise, neoliberal, ownership, profit, public ownership, rail, renationalise, rural, shareholders, snobbery, transport, transport act.

by Matthew John White

I doubt that the brilliant gross-out teen comedy The Inbetweeners invented the term ‘bus wankers’, but it certainly dragged it into popular culture. In Series 2, Episode 4, which first aired in 2009, arch gross-merchant Jay shouts the insult in question from the window of a moving car. The phrase is now firmly mainstream. You’ll often see it in social media comments: “my car’s at the garage so I’m being a bus wanker today”, or “can’t wait to pass my driving test so i can stop being a bus wanker”. A Facebook group named ‘bus wankers!‘ is liked by 93 thousand people.

Derision of bus users isn’t always achieved with this phrase, of course. Just the other day, while discussing a trip to London over a pub garden pint, a friend of a friend loudly asked “Who over the age of 30 gets a bus?”, accidentally (I hope!) paraphrasing an apocryphal Thatcher quote in the process. Yet ‘bus wankers’ has become the standard, convenient, go-to expression for such mockery.Continue Reading

REVIEW – SAVORR ANTISOCIAL SOCIAL

Posted on May 2, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Student and tagged access, ANTIsocial Social, art, artists, audience, Bethany Freer, Colleen O'Brien, conversation, curation, digital media, Emma Hampson, event planning, exhibition, featured, gallery, Great Yarmouth, Henry Jackson Newcomb, internet culture, Maddie Exton, norwich, NUA, originalprojects, SAVORR, SAVORR Social, screens, social interaction, social media, social space, streaming, student art, technology, The Bicycle Shop.

By Laura Potts

SAVORR, a non-profit arts organisation based in Norwich, recently started a series of events called SAVORR Social, to showcase interesting new ideas and concepts in local art. These events aim to inclusively welcome a number of groups into a socially and artistically fertile space, a space that harbours diverse ideas, conversations and considerations. On Thursday April 19th I attended the ‘NUA Open ANTIsocial Social’, the fifth event in the series, which showcased experimental work from four Norwich University of the Arts (NUA) students.

CRITICISMS OF USAID’S LEGAL AID TOOLKIT IN MYANMAR

Posted on February 4, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged access, aim, Alycia Ebbinghaus, Aung San Suu Kyi, charity, corruption, discrimination, featured, foundation, international, Kachin, Karen, land dispute, language, law, lawyer, manual, marginalised community, Mon, Myanmar, target, toolkit, tools, USAID.

by Yali Banton Heath

Myanmar is a country under the spotlight at the moment. Human rights abuses, allegations of ethnic cleansing, economic development and foreign investment, and piss poor freedom of speech are among many controversial issues which cast shadows in today’s political discussions. On the ground, such issues require adequate legal aid, but Myanmar’s judicial system has been in tatters for decades.Continue Reading

“MORE POWERFUL THAN LANDLORDS CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE” – THE SUSSEX RENT STRIKE

Posted on December 22, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged access, ACORN Tenants' Union, activism, Birmingham Student Housing Co-op, campaign wins, campaigning, community action, compensation, democracy, direct action, Edinburgh Student Housing Co-op, exploitation, landlords, living conditions, living costs, Norwich Association for the Co-operative Housing of Students, power, profit, profiteering, quality of life, renfell tower, rent, rent strike, Sheffield Student Housing Co-op, standard of living, strike action, student accommodation, student housing coops, Students for Co-operation, Sussex Cut The Rent, UEA, university management, University of Sussex.

by Robyn Banks

Last week, students living in accommodation at the University of Sussex staged a rent strike, and successfully achieved their goals in the space of three days. The university has capitulated and agreed to £65,000 of compensation for the students who live in the halls due to the appalling state they are currently in.

HIGHER EDUCATION’S EXPANSION PROBLEM

Posted on December 5, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged academia, academic staff, academics, access, class sizes, confidence, consumerism, education, government, grades, higher education, higher education standards, profiteering, student as consumer, student numbers, students, tuition fees, uk, university growth, working class, working class students.

by Alex Powell

The number of students starting at UK universities has increased dramatically in recent years, despite a slight fall recorded this year, and is set to go on increasing as universities increase their intake. The government has heralded this as an example of the increasing availability of higher education to students coming from working class communities. However, we have to ask what impact the increase in student numbers is having on the quality of education provided by universities.

ALTERNATIVE ARTS EDUCATION – A BRIEF HISTORY

Posted on November 15, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Student and tagged access, Alexandre Gurita, alternative, Alternative Art College, alternative art school fair, art, artists, arts education, Black Mountain College, Catherine Despont, communal, creativity, culture, curricula, Dylan Gauthier, education, empowerment, Free Education, freedom of expression, government, history, informal teaching, John Rice, knowledge, neoliberalism, New York, passion, Pioneer Works, policy, schools, social change, teaching, tuition fees.

by Laura Potts

Education is amazing. It encourages the growth of passion for any number of subjects, and opens doors for many to enter into the field that that passion leads them towards, where their research work is often vital to the discovery of all sorts of new and exciting things.

However, the modern system that has emerged as society has ‘advanced’ does not always prioritise the curiosity and growth that education cultivates over more material concerns such as financial gain. The increases in the various fees and costs associated with higher educational institutions and the shrinking of the creative curriculum at earlier levels often means that a passion for a subject is no longer enough. But as with any monolithic trend, alternatives have sprung up down the years.

THE UNDERCROFT – ART, SPACE AND POWER

Posted on October 18, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Student and tagged 1960s, 1970s, access, aesthetics, alternative, alternative spaces, art criticism, art gallery, art history, art market, artwork, capitalism, cave paintings, conceptual art, culture, Dada, exhibitions, Gennadiy Ivanov, history, internet, modern art, norwich, political art, popular culture, power, Renaissance, revolution, Russia, social art, space, street art, technology, The Art of Revolution, Undercroft, USSR, viewer, virtual spaces, white cube gallery.

by Laura Potts

Artistic culture and practice has changed drastically over the past few centuries. From Renaissance painting and its high-minded focus on aesthetic and documentary purpose, to the eruption of absurdist Dada work in 1915, to the stark political statements of much modern art. The aesthetics of art and its chosen themes are not the only thing that has changed though; the spaces where we encounter art have also transformed.

THE TUITION FEE FREEZE – TOO LITTLE TOO LATE

Posted on October 4, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged access, austerity, Brexit, child poverty, conservative party, conservative party conference, conservatives, elections, false promises, fox hunting, Free Education, government, help to buy, jeremy corbyn, Labour, less well off, living standards, migration, older people, patronising, politics, prime minister, privatisation, property ladder, repayment threshold, snap election, student debt, student loans, student welfare, students, theresa may, tuition fee freeze, tuition fee rises, tuition fees, voters, voting, young people.

by Laura Potts

As the country continues to languish in the grasp of a Conservative government, and the shadows of brexit and the snap election continue to lengthen, many are left questioning the political standing of this country’s future. This year’s extraordinary general election has made many people feel alienated from their government, especially among the younger generation. Hardly surprising, as the ultimate outcome reflected the voting preferences of their elders, with 58% of 60-69 yr old’s voting conservative while 62% of 20-24 year olds voted labour.

THE RIGHT ARE RUNNING SCARED – A RESPONSE TO TOM WELSH

Posted on August 4, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged academia, academic work, academics, access, alternative facts, capitalists, career, Chris Hanretty, City AM, commentary, education, elitism, experts, free market, GE17, general election, graduates, HE policy, higher education, historians, hyperbole, hypocrisy, inequality, Institute of Economic Affairs, jeremy corbyn, King's College London, Labour, left wing, marketisation, Michael Gove, no platforming, Oxford University, policy, private universities, privatisation, research, right wing, safe spaces, sensationalism, socialism, student debt, Taxpayers' Alliance, The Telegraph, Times Higher Education, Tom Welsh, Tories, tuition fees, u-turn, UEA, uk, universities, voters.

by Robyn Banks

In the midst of right-wing confusion about Jeremy Corbyn’s continuing support amongst the young, following a supposed u-turn on his flagship policy to scrap student debt, Tom Welsh of the Telegraph has unveiled a new thesis: the left will continue its resurgence so long as too many go to university*. His argument is as ridiculous as the title makes it sound, and his article is full of claims that are absurd, patronising and completely unsupported.

REVIVING CAMPUS ACTIVISM – A ROADMAP

Posted on July 6, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged academia, academic culture, academics, access, accessible academia, accountability, alliances, Apartheid, austerity, awareness, awareness raising, British political history, Campaign for Lincoln Democracy, campaign strategy, campaigning, campus culture, co-operation, co-operative university, collective action, communication, Community, culture, curricula, curriculum reform, decision making, democracy, democratic higher education, depoliticised unions, direct action, diversity, economics, economics education, elections, employment rights, escalation, experts, GE17, government, grassroots, higher education, hubris, international organising, investigative journalism, Lincoln SU, Lincoln University, listicles, lobbying, local media, manchester, media, neoliberalism, occupation, organising, petitions, pluralism, politics, Post-Crash Economics Society, postgraduate tutors, Queen's University Belfast Students' Union, Queens' University Belfast, radical media, referendum, Rethinking Economics, senior management, Social Science Centre Lincoln, startup media, strategy, student activism, student democracy, student elections, student experience scores, student life, student media, student societies, students, students' unions, teaching, teaching staff, trade unions, uk, uk politics, universities, university staff, War of Words, Warwick Anti-Casualisation, Warwick University, workers, workers rights, working conditions, WOW 2016, young people, youth turnout.

by Bradley Allsop

We live in turbulent times. The political establishment has been rocked again and again this last year. The government is embattled in a way it hasn’t been for 7 years and that rarest of things in British politics, change, is peeking its head above the parapet. What’s more, for the first time in my lifetime, it seems my generation is willing to be an active participant in all this. June’s election saw the highest rise in youth turnout in British political history – it reached its highest absolute level since 1992. It falls to those of us already engaged to fan this flame and help it spread beyond the ballot box, building the political courage and competencies of our fellows. Nowhere offers a better opportunity for us to do this than on university campuses.

access

BUS W@NKERS

CRITICISMS OF USAID’S LEGAL AID TOOLKIT IN MYANMAR

“MORE POWERFUL THAN LANDLORDS CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE” – THE SUSSEX RENT STRIKE

HIGHER EDUCATION’S EXPANSION PROBLEM

THE TUITION FEE FREEZE – TOO LITTLE TOO LATE

THE RIGHT ARE RUNNING SCARED – A RESPONSE TO TOM WELSH

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