Political Update
Dear Felix,
After reading the letter last week bitching about Southside shop I thought I should contribute to this worthy cause. I very rarely buy things from the shop and gave up trying to eat basics pizzas a long time ago but am still a regular to the downstairs bit of Southside bar. I was horrified last Tuesday to see a small brown mouse scurrying along behind some seats. When I casually mentioned this to one of the lovely barmen, instead of looking terribly embarrassed and offering me lots of free drinks to compensate for my traumatic experience he just shrugged and said there's loads of them around. Lovely. Do you think the Grade II listed status Southside apparently has includes the original rodent population?
Talking of unwanted rodenty types, I was fortunate enough last week (privileges of being a councillors daughter) to have a very interesting tour of the Houses of Parliament followed by tea on the terrace. I took this opportunity to ask as many important people as possible about top up fees and they're opinion of our lovely Mr Sykes. David Davis (Deputy Leader of the Opposition) was violently against top up fees but did admit that the bill may well get passed when it goes to government. A lovely little man who is the mp for somewhere in Bedfordshire talked for a good 20 minutes before I realised he was cunningly avoiding giving any opinions on anything, clever little scamps these politicians. Another terribly suave mp, who was also a party whip ( how funny is that? I spent a long time confirming with him that it was his job primarily to whip people) really liked the graduate tax idea and also admitted that Sykes was a conniving little bastard (not quite his words, we were in polite company, but the look on his face was explanatory enough). The general consensus is that the top universities do need more money but that top up fees are not the answer, or at least not right now. I think the best quote I got by far was from an mp who after hearing that I studied maths said 'I'm awful at maths, I see numbers as colours, I seriously think a part of my brain is missing'. And he's helping to run the country…
