Mylo and Co Oscars Nominations

Film Nightlife Oscars nominations Mylo page 13 and Co page 19 page 4 Guardian Student Newspaper of the Year h e student newspaper of Imperial College No. 1,370 • Friday • 26 January 2007 • ffelixelix felixonline.co.uk RCSU Science PHOTO COURTESY OF LIVE! - LIVE.CGCU.NET Challenge launched Competition launched College-wide with a first prize of £2500 and judged by Professor Lord Robert Winston among others Andy Sykes Marrouche. Mr Marrouche spoke judges for the award. Professor Editor-in-chief for half an hour on the topic, reveal- Lord Robert Winston, the much-tel- ing the question to be: “What scien- evised fertility expert (and Emeri- Almost 100 people attended the tific development or breakthrough tus Professor in Fertility Studies at launch of the Royal College of Sci- do you think will be most significant the College) is to take part, along- ence Union (RCSU) “Science Chal- within the next hundred years?” side Dr Simon Singh MBE (an lenge” in the Blackett Lab on Tues- The theme ties in with Imperial Imperial alumnus, writer of The day night. College’s Centenary year; the Col- Code Book and other popular sci- The aim of the competition is to lege was founded in 1907. ence books), Dr Raj Persaud (psy- write an 800 word essay on the top- The RCSU and its President have chiatrist, Radio 4 presenter of All In ic revealed by RCSU President, Jad assembled a prestigious group of The Mind, and journalist), and Dr Roger Highfield (Science Editor at the Daily Telegraph). This expert panel will judge the fi- The question nal entries after they’ve been pared down by a panel of academics from “What scientific development or breakthrough will be the College. the most significant within the next hundred years?” First prize is £2500, a day shadowing Dr Highfield at the Daily Telegraph, and a top-of-the-range The judges Apple Macbook. Five runners-up will be given £100 and a bottle of Professor Lord Robert Winston (Emeritus Professor of Fertility champagne, with submissions be- Studies at the College) ing considered for publication in the Daily Telegraph. Dr Simon Singh (author of The Code Book, Imperial alumnus) The prizes have been kindly provided by Apple, Cockburn & Dr Raj Persaud (broadcaster, psychiatrist, and journalist) Campbell, Schlumberger, and the Telegraph. Dr Roger Highfield (Science Editor at the Daily Telegraph) All entries must be submitted by 23 February, and can be entered online (at http://rcsu.org.uk/index. The prizes php?page/challenge) or on paper to the RCSU office. The Grand Final, First prize: £2500, a day shadowing Dr Highfield, and an Apple which has been promised coverage MacBook by the BBC, Telegraph, Times, In- dependent and Guardian, will take Runners-up: £100 and a bottle of champagne place on 9 March at a yet-to-be-de- RCSU President, Jad Marrouche, seen here cradling a giant invisible termined location. hotdog while annoucing the launch of the RSCU’s Science Challenge 2 felix Friday 26 January 2007 NEWS [email protected] Bar restructuring faces problems Staff find the new EPoS system slow and crash-prone, and with many experienced student bar staff having left in sympathy with members of Union staff who took redundancy during the management reshuffle Andy Sykes were treated, with many struggling to find out what would be happen- The Union bars have faced prob- ing to their managers. lems resulting from the implemen- Many of the experienced student tation of a new Electronic Point of staff then chose to leave once the Sale system (EPoS) and a change bar managers had taken redundan- in the management structure of the cy, citing their dissatisfaction with bar. the whole process. This left the The restructuring of the bar falls bars in a poor state, with the com- under remit of the Union’s Com- munal atmosphere behind the bar mercial Services division. Felix is degenerating to the point of alleged prevented from commenting on the sabotage of systems to hamper the performance of staff members spe- newly arrived Trading Manager. cifically by the Staff-Student Proto- The new staff lacked experience, col (see page 4), but can comment and this lead to a plummet in the on the changes made by the divi- quality of bar service (this reporter sion as a whole. has had trouble getting a full pint The EPoS system was designed pulled most days). to improve stock control in the bar The new Trading Manager has and to increase service speed. In- been left to deal with this situation. stalling the EPoS system was a key However, things are slowly improv- factor in deciding to change the way ing – training is continuing for the the bars are managed, a new post new bar staff, and a number of oth- of Trading Manager was created er improvements have been seen in (which was filled by early Novem- the bars, such as new furniture, an ber). This new position oversees all increase in catering quality, the in- of the Union bars and catering. troduction of new house wines, and This led to a review of the bar the long-awaited introduction of managers’ positions, as much of chips to the bar (this reporter likes their work was now rolled into the that a lot). Trading Manager position and the The EPoS system has so far EPoS system. The staff filling these proved less than satisfactory. Both positions were offered pay cuts, old and new bar staff have com- transfer to other positions, or vol- mented to Felix that the tills are untary redundancy. The three bar much slower than the old cash tills The new EPoS tills in da Vinci’s; they crash if staff swipe their access cards while the till drawer is open managers chose to take the redun- (requiring scrolling through a long dancy package. menu for the correct drinks item) During this consultation period, and restrict staff to serving a sin- currently without a backup system. the Deputy President (Graduate stock written off over the last few the student media (Felix and Live!) gle customer at a time. The tills, Additionally, the Executive Com- Students), Shama Rahman. How- years; this has drawn the attention were prevented from commenting which are Windows-based, are also mittee believed that the new EPoS ever, the comments on the article of the Union’s auditors. by employment law, despite cries prone to crashing mid-service due system would be compatible with quickly developed into a free-for- Any change is of course fraught from the student staff about the to a software bug. Even sabbaticals the new “cashless” (pay by ‘smart’ all on the sabbs and Commercial with difficulty, and things have not redundancies. have been critical of the current swipe card) system the College Services on the way the restructing turned out as bad as they could The student bar staff are classed state of the system after working has been investigating; however, was handled. At the time of going to have. as ‘casual’ staff and were therefore behind the bar in recent weeks. it now appears that implementing press, the article had more than 100 There are still a number of issues not included in the consultation. The tills are also not connected compatibility between the Union comments. to be resolved, such as the role of Many at the time expressed their across the Union core, meaning and College systems could be very Many of the disgruntled com- the Union shop and separate online dissatisfaction with the departure the dBs and da Vinci’s tills operate expensive. mentators questioned the original shop, the EPoS bugs and the train- of the three bar managers, whom independently, though wiring is ap- Many of these facts came to light reasons for the restructuring of the ing of new staff to replace the expe- they felt loyal to, and raised their parently in place. through comments made on an bars, citing the fact that the bars are rienced staff. concerns with the sabbs and senior The server, which the tills report article on Live!, the City & Guilds turning over a healthy profit. The members of Commercial Services. to, has cost much more than previ- online newspaper (available at live. Union shop, however, lost around This reporter heard many criti- ously reported (as “low hundreds”) cgcu.net). The article concerned £7,000 last year, and online regalia For another perspective on the cisms of the way the student staff to the Executive Committee and is the motion of no confidence in sales faring poorly, with £26,000 of bar restructuring, see page 4. felix 1,370 Friday 26.1.07 Iraqi oil debate Nightlife returns “It has been another bad week in “Onto the dance floor, despite it Iraq. On Saturday 25 US troops being early, that didn’t mean you were killed. On Monday, accord- couldn’t be stopped every few min- ing to the BBC, more than 130 utes by somebody with the man- Iraqi people died in Baghdad and ners to kick over the drink you deli- Baquba, in one of the car-bomb cately placed on the floor or barge attacks we are getting so used to into your get fonky zone.” hearing about.” PAGES 18 & 19 PAGE 3 Big bald bastard Biobrick risks “Seemingly, Hitman is littered with “The concern is that bioterror- bomb-able places. Chairs, chande- ists might also desire to construct liers, cakes – dead dog carcasses deadly pathogens along the lines and flagpoles seem to be the only of Spanish ‘flu.” things that you can’t shove some PAGE 10 plastique on and send into orbit.” PAGE 22 Sex and fashion “Newton's innovative photography Square eyes confronted social taboos and ex- | | | | 9 | | 2 | | | 1 | plored sexual dynamics, changing | | 5 | | | 1 | | 2 | | 3 | WHAT..

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