University of Essex in the press...

May 2008

Saturday 31

So you want to study a master's in American Studies
MA Latin American art and architecture student Leonorar Baird-Smith comments on her scheme of study.
The Guardian

Brown leadership speculation nonsense
Professor Anthony King, Department of Government, comments on increasing speculation that the Prime Minster is facing challenges to his leadership. Read the full article here.
Daily Mirror
Straits Times
Yahoo UK, Ireland and Asia
Asiaone
Christian Today
Qatar Penninsula

Students tackle gripping drama
A 22-year old drama student who recently secure a place at East 15 Acting School is in a performance, Amy's View. Read the full article here.
Worcester News

Friday 30

Farm trips may 'alleviate' stress
Spending time on a farm could alleviate stress and tiredness, a study suggests. University of Essex scientists said going to the countryside, having contact with farm animals and riding on tractors could be beneficial. Read the full article here.
BBC
Birmingham Post
Press Association
Eastern Daily Press - read the full article here
Express
BBC online - read the full article here
Daily Telegraph - read full article here
Red Orbit
Aberdeen Press and Journal - read full article here

'Dustbin' scopps accolade
The Ivor Crewe Lecture Hall at the University hit the headlines earlier this year when Prince Charles said he thought it looked like a dustbin. The striking building was one of eight winners of The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) East awards, beating competition from across the region. Read the full article here.
East Anglian Daily Times

'Dustbin' lecture hall gets another award
Being described as looking like a dustbin by the future king has not held a £4.5 million lecture theatre back. The Ivor Crewe lecture hall at the University has scooped a second major design award in a matter of months. Read the full article here.
Colchester Gazette
Essex County Standard
Harwich and Manningtree Standard
Braintree and Witham Times
Clacton, Frinton and Walton Gazette
Maldon and Burnham Standard

Dumper donation
The Students' Union have helped raise almost £4,000 for a trio of local charities.
Colchester Gazette

One day of power play
More than 30 children visited the University of Essex for a day exploring the power of water.
Essex County Standard.

Ain't no mountain high enough for Olympic event
The University has been announced as one of six potential training camps in the run up to the Paralympic Games.
Essex County Standard

Thursday 29

Architectural award for 'dustbin'
A lecture hall which The Prince of Wales likened to a dustbin has won an award from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). The University of Essex's Ivor Crewe Lecture Hall in Colchester was one of eight projects in the East of England to win the regional 2008 RIBA award. Read the full article here.
BBC

Paralympic heroes may come to uni
The University has been announced as one of six potential training camps for paralympians in the run up to the London 2012 Paralympic Games.
Colchester Gazette

Nurse awarded doctorate for lung research
Specialist nurse, Linda Pearce, has successfully completed a doctorate in nursing at the University after carrying out research on how nursing care can reduce the impact of breathlessness and improve the lives of patients with chronic lung disease.
East Anglian Daily Times

County Paralympic venues confirmed
The University has been named as one of six training camps in the county for the 2012 Paralympics.
East Anglian Daily Times

Medical corpus open for viewing
A 500-strong collection of historical medical texts dating to the earliest days of printing, has been made available at the University's library.
Times Higher Education

Violence and games link challenged
Games company, Tiga, said today that research produced by Patrick Kierkegaard of the University of Essex, showing that there is little evidence to suggest that video games are anything but harmless, was an important contribution to the debate on video games and violence.
Read the full article here.
Myth Games

Wednesday 28

Colchester pupils put to energy test
More than 30 pupils spent the day at the University of Essex exploring the power of water.
Read the full article here.
Essex County Standard

New Greek bank head
George Provopoulos, the former chief executive and vice-chairman of Piraeus Bank and an Essex graduate, is expected to be the new Greek central bank governor and European Central Bank policy-making Governing Council member.
Read the full article here.
Reuters

Skipper leads on the road
Student Joe Skipper has won the 70 mile Reg Cogman road race came at Wicklewood, claiming his first road race victory.
Read the full article here.
Eastern Daily Press

Tuesday 27

Who really governs?
Professor Prem Sikka, Accounting, Finance and Management, comments on how politics is increasingly influenced by the demands of government.
Read the full article here.
The Guardian - comment is free

Monday 26

Achievement is rewarded
Triathlete Abbie Thorrington scooped one of the top awards at the University's 31st Sports Award Dinner.
Read the full article here.
Evening Gazette
Clacton, Frinton and Walton Gazette
Braintree and Witham Times
Essex County Standard

Research from the University of Essex report recent findings in life sciences
The objective of this study was to examine whether acute exposure to radio frequency electromagnetic fields (REFs) emitted by mobile phone may affect subjective symptoms.
Biotech Business Week

Saturday 24

Setback for new research park
A multi-million pound research park at the University has suffered a setback after a housing developer pulled out of a deal.
Read the full article here.
East Anglian Daily Times

Friday 23

Uni scheme hit by housing crash
The housing crash has hit a major Colchester development plan. Part of the package for a new research park at Essex University included residential land which would be sold off to a developer for housing. However, the University has announced that its proposed developer has pulled out of the deal, which has put the whole project at risk. A spokesman for Essex University said "The University is disappointed, but not surprised, that the developer of the residential land has decided not to proceed in the current economic climate. This is a short-term set-back, as the university would still expect to sell the land when the housing market recovers. In the meantime, we are exploring ways in which we can take forward components of the overall research park project, particularly the business incubation centre and the student housing".
Evening Gazette
Maldon and Burnham Standard
Braintree and Witham Times
Harwich and Manningtree Standard
Halstead Gazette
Clacton, Frinton and Walton Gazette

Come in and browse some fine art
An exhibition of work by fine art students is being opened to the public. The first and second year students from Essex University, based at the Colchester Institute, will hold the exhibition at The Octagon building on Middleborough.
Essex County Standard

Thursday 22

Disturbing Piece where Music Hall meets Freak Show
An eccentric dance production, Outre, by Essex choreographer Darren Johnston is being performed in the Lakeside Theatre on Saturday.
Evening Gazette
Essex County Standard

Wednesday 21

Vegetables and flowers are on the menu for gardeners
Research by the University of Essex to gauge mood change shows a measurable mood improvement in people who have spent even a brief time in a garden.
Derby Telegraph

Tuesday 20

Church theatre plan stalls
Plans to convert a town centre church into a performing arts centre have hit a stumbling block. The University of Essex bought the redundant Cliff Town United Reformed Church in 2007 to be used by performing arts students from the East 15 Acting School - an offshoot of the University. within a few days of the agreement being signed, English Heritage placed a Grade II listing on both the exterior and the interior of the 19th century building. It means that internal features cannot be touched and any planned changes will need special permission.
Echo

Pioneers gather for anniversary
Pioneers of work on free radicals gathered at the University of Essex to mark the 50th anniversary of a paper which confirmed their role in and importance to biological pathways.  Speakers from a number of universities, including lead author Dr John Gibson, met at the conference to celebrate the publications of the paper "Free radical produced in the reaction of metmyoglobin with hydrogen peroxide". Essex is now a leading university in the research of free radicals with the work being led by Professors Chris Cooper and Mike Wilson.
East Anglian Daily Times.

Monday 19

Help until fledgling firms fly the nest
A breeding centre for entrepreneurs is flourishing in south Essex on Essex University Southend Campus. The university site, off the High Street, has a business school and the jewel in its crown is a bustling hub of activity known as the Business Incubation Centre. The centre  is dedicated to helping fledgling entrepeneurs find their feet in the world of business. The first new business moved in last year to take advantage of one of the centre's 20 business rooms, kitted out with phones, desks, computers and fast internet connections. Entrepreneurs pay about £1,000 per month to rent the rooms and there is no shortage of businesses interested in doing so - in fact there is already a waiting list.
Echo

Sunday 18

Your student loan - the morning after... A new system has spawned confusion and conflicting statement
The Student Loans Company now has more than 3.5m borrowers - yet many do not receive statements or have any idea of how much they still owe.
Operating in a similar way to a bank, you would think that by now the SLC would have the necessary processes in place or, indeed, be subject to comparable regulation. Think again. According to the Financial Services Authority, the industry regulator, any institution looking to lend should have the minimum of a consumer credit licence. The SLC does not. Not only does the SLC not have this very basic licence but students have no recourse to the Financial Services Ombudsman if they have a problem with standards or treatment. Only those who took out a loan prior to 1998 have this additional protection.
Michael Goodrum, a PhD student at Essex University, has yet to receive a statement or acknowledgment of any payments made. He says I was so worried about the massive balance after graduating that I set up a direct debit while working just to start payments. Money wasn't automatically deducted as I wasn't earning over the threshold but I wanted to be responsible. It was a nightmare. They told me they didn't do direct debits and it had to be a standing order. So I organised that and then they told me this wasn't acceptable and they wanted a direct debit.
The Sunday Telegraph

Online games started long ago
When did the Internet game scene first start? Well not in the early 1990s when mainstream America started to get Internet connectivity in their homes at an amazingly slow dial up speed. Actually, Internet games started almost forty years ago in the late 1960s according to most games fanatics. And, not unlike most great creations, the game field really began to take off in educational institutions across America. Some of the first colleges to introduce games to the world were MIT and the University of Illinois.
Some other great game developments happened at an educational institution across the pond, in England, at Essex University, throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s. The most popular gaming phenomenon that came out of Essex was a Multi User Dungeon (Mud). People at the University loved this game, and its popularity began to spread across the world as users gained access to the source code and started sharing the application with every gamer they knew. Free gaming owes a lot to this wonderful early program.  Read the whole article here.
Orbitaloc

Friday 16

Sierra Nevada College graduates have plans for future
This Saturday will mark the 38th Commencement at Sierra Nevada College. College commencement is always a day to celebrate accomplishment, completion and growth. But it is also a day that marks commencement into a new phase of one’s life: a phase of exploration, challenge, application of one’s acquired skills in the “real world.” Some of the new horizons and careers the SNC graduates will be exploring include:
Jim Keranen (Entrepreneurship), winner (along with James Weingart) of the 2007 Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup business plan competition for Environmental Solutions, a pollutant removal and alert system for networked citywide storm drains, will be going to the University of Essex to get his master’s degree in entrepreneurship.
North Lake Tahoe Bonanza

Young things turning heads
They're not quite knee-deep in the North Sea this weekend - but the Portico Quartet will be performing songs from it. That's because it's the title of their debut album, a piece of work which as rapidly led them to become one of the most talked about new bans on the UK jazz scene. Portico Quartet are appearing at the Lakeside Theatre on Saturday.
Essex County Standard
Evening Gazette

Get in shape for 2012, town urged
Colchester has been urged to promote itself more if it wants Olympic teams to use the town as a training base. Four sports venues in the town (Leisureworld, Essex University, Colchester Garrison and SD School of Martial Arts) feature on the list of approved training facilities for athletes competing at the London Games in 2012 drawn up by event organiser Locog. Paralympic athlete Dame Tanni Grey-Thomspon, speaking before delivering the 28th Colchester Lecture, issued a rallying call to the town "Colchester has to go out there and market itself to the world - any it has to do it quickly. Really, Colchester has to shout about itself really loudly if it wants to be noticed".
Essex County Standard

Thursday 15

Uni ditches £12m Pru tower plans
The University of Essex has ditched £12 million plan to revamp the former Prudential building in Southend town centre.
Proposals to transform the area around the Elmer Approach site, including Farringdon car park, with a cafe and boutique shops have now been thrown into limbo.
In a statement, University of Essex spokesman Katharine Clayton said: "Over the past few years, the university has worked with successive owners of the tower block in Elmer Approach to renovate it for university use. In recent months, a variety of options have been considered including student residences, office and teaching space and creative and cultural facilities. Unfortunately, detailed costings of the options have revealed the tower block is not a financially viable development for the university. The University of Essex is committed to further development of its Southend Campus, thereby contributing to the continuing regeneration of the town. Securing student accommodation and refurbishing the former church for use by East 15 are now the university's top priorities."
Read the entire article here.
Billericay Weekly News
Southend Echo

Never too young to make your mark in Council
The recent local elections brought down the average age of Thurrock's councillors with one new member in his teens and three others in their twenties.
Three of the four joined three other new councillors at the Civic Offices in New Road, Grays, on Friday May 9 for their first taste of council life.
Amanda Wilton, a 21-year-old from Aveley who was unable to attend, has a more local outlook. She said: "I've been studying politics for the past three years at the University of Essex. "I've lived in Aveley all my life and I'm genuinely concerned in the development of Aveley. "That, combined with the support I have received persuaded me to stand." Read the entire article here.
Thurrock Gazette

Autodesk Showcases Design Innovation Technologies
Read an article about Essex Graduate, Dr Robert Aish  who has co-founded the SmartGeometry educational initiative which has established parametric and computational design as an essential component of creative architecture.
Animation Artist
PR Newswire
Macro World Investor
Yahoo! Canadra
Calibre Macroworld

CIS should be scrapped, says UCATT
UNION leaders are calling for the CIS tax system to be abolished.  The demand was made by UCATT chiefs at their national delegate conference in Perth this week following the publication of a report claiming that CIS subsidises the industry by £1.7bn a year.
The Evasion Economy has been written by Prof Mark Harvey, of Essex University and highlights the extent of bogus self-employment throughout construction.
UCATT general secretary Alan Ritchie said: "CIS cannot be reformed, the system has failed. It is now up to the government to act decisively and rid Britain of bogus self-employment once and for all. This report reveals that not only is the Inland Revenue losing billions in a hidden subsidy to fat-cat construction bosses, but that hundreds of thousands of construction workers are denied even the most basic employment rights."
The report also found that firms using false self-employment are far more likely to hire migrant workers on CIS than go to the expense and effort of training British apprentices.
The report calls for the CIS system to be abolished and replaced by a simple single category of self-employment.
Ritchie said: "These reforms would both simplify the tax system and be more consistent for the accepted legal criteria of employment status."
Contract Journal
Innovations Report
The Engineer Online

Music hall meets freak show
Later this month award-winning dancer and choreographer Darren Johnston takes over the University of Essex's Lakeside Theatre with his troupe Array for thee nights. With a Chelmsford teenage background in hip hop before training and prize-winning at London's Laban Centre, this thrilling dancer and his company, fresh from a sell-0out performance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall present a larger-than-life performance combining exhilarating dance with multi-media production techniques.
Go!

University book gift
A collection of books about the founding fathers of modern medicine have been donated to Essex University's library. The historical library from the Colchester Medical Society has gone on permanent loan to the Albert Sloman Library on the Wivenhoe Park campus. It will be catalogues and made available to researchers, students and the public. There are about 500 volumes - many of which date from the earliest days of printing - and they were kept at Essex County Hospital and at the postgraduate medical centre at Colchester General Hospital.
Evening Gazette

The REAL brain drain: How exhausting housework is to blame for women earning less
The real reason women earn less than men is they do more housework
As she slaves over a hot stove, many a woman is also seeing her wealth boil away.
And when she does the washing up, her money is effectively draining down the plughole.
Because the reason women earn less than men is simple - they do more housework, academics claimed yesterday. Read the full article about research undertaken by ISER.
Daily Mail

Wednesday 14

Professor Dennis Ward
Linguist who launched Russian studies at the University of Edinburgh and in retirement exhibited as an artist in Scotland
Read the obituary for Professor Dennis Ward, who spent part of 1967 at the University of Essex, directing its Contemporary Russian Language project. He was a specialist in early epic slavonic poetry and translated the famous 12th century poem The Lay of the Host of Igor. Read the entire obituary here.
The Times

Housework hits women's wages
Women earn less than men because they carry out more domestic chores such as cooking and cleaning according to an academic study. Women in couple spend up to eight hours a week more than their partners on housework and much of it is done late in the day when men are putting in extra time at the office, says research from the University of Essex. By contrast, men usually do chores such as gardening or repairs that can be put off until the weekend and so do not affect their careers. Figures last week showed that men take home an average of £498.30 a week - £104.30 more than women.
Daily Telegraph

Premier division title for University
Read an article about University of Essex's win over the Wormingford Wanderers.
Evening Gazette

Detainees Sedated for Travel
Read an article about how The U.S. government has injected hundreds of foreigners it has deported with dangerous psychotropic drugs against their will to keep them sedated during the trip back to their home country, including comments from Sir Nigel Rodley who teaches international human rights at the University of Essex and is a former special investigator on torture.
Washington Post

Teabags to help charity
Thousands of teabags are being donated to help a Colchester-based charity.  Essex University Day Nursery is supporting St Helena Hospice by donating the bags, as  more than 10,000 are used every year in its support of patients, family and friends.  Elaine Dixon, manager of the nursery, said: "Donating teabags is an easy, but valued way of supporting a local charity".  The Day Nursery will be collecting teabags until Wednesday.
Evening Gazette

University collects the title honours
The University of Essex collected the premier division title in a winner-takes-all tussle with Wormingford Wanderers.  The University triumphed 2-1 with Ryan Friel opening the scoring for University mid-way through the first half, and Richard Marshall getting their second. 
Gazette

Tuesday 13

University Guide
Essex came 36th in The Guardian's University Guide, up 13 places from last year, with Essex also appearing in the top 20s for American Studies, Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Politics and Sports Science. See the full listing here.
The Guardian

North Essex: Region marked for growth
Colchester and Tendring are identified as "a major focus for economic development and growth" in a blueprint to shape future development.
The East Of England Regional Spatial Strategy, which was published yesterday, sets out the Government's plans to create more than half a million homes and almost the same number of jobs in the region by 2021. In Essex, it calls for 127,000 new homes and 131,000 new jobs to be created. The strategy further confirms the Haven Gateway sub-region, centred around Colchester, Harwich and Ipswich, as "a growth point", with £17.5million of Government cash already allocated to fund its development. Colchester and Ipswich are identified in the plan as "individual key centres for development and change". Key projects for the area include a new container terminal at Harwich's Bathside Bay, the Visual Arts Facility and the expansion of Essex University in Colchester, as well as the regeneration of Jaywick.
Read the whole article here.
Evening Gazette
Clacton Gazette
Braintree and Witham Times
Harwich and Manningtree Standard

Monday 12

Shout about town, Dame Tanni plea
An 11-times gold medallist has challenged Colchester to "shout about itself very loudly" if it wants to attract Olympic teams to use the town as a training base.  Four sports venues in the town feature on the list of approved training facilities for athletes competing at the London games in 2012 drawn up by event organiser Locog. Leisureworld, Essex University, Colchester Garrison and SD School of Martial Arts have been given Olympic approval for a range of sports.
Evening Gazette

Thursday 8

Climate Change represents an existential threat
Former senior advisor to the UK Prime Minister's Strategy Unit and associate of the University's Centre for Computational Finance and Economic Agents, Nick Mabey, warns that governments and businesses must begin to frame climate change as a global security issue. Read the whole article here.
Computer Active
Also featured in Business Green
Also featured in PC Magazine UK
Also featured in Active Home
Personal Computer World

Turbine trigger seizures
Fast-moving wind turbines can trigger seizures in people sensitive to flickering light. To avoid inducing attacks, turbines should have no more than three blades and rotate no faster than 60 times a minute, according to researchers at Essex and Aston universities. Arnold Wilkins of the University of Essex's psychology department, and Graham and Pamela Harding of Aston University's Neurosciences Institute, calculated different shadow flicker effects to measure the seizure-provoking possibilities. Photosensitive people would also need to be at least 4km away to reduce significantly the possibility of seizures - a distance of about 100 times the height of the average turbine.
THE

Wednesday 7

Bottom of the league in business
The number of entrepreneurs is dropping in Southend, with the town rated among the least successful in the UK at producing new businesses. Fifty of the country's largest towns and cities were ranked according to the number of new businesses started in the past year, by national accounting group UHY Hacker Young.  Southend was near the bottom of the league after it suffered a net loss of five businesses per 10,000 resident adults last year.  To read the article in full click here.
Echo-online

Unusual sculptures to the fore
Sculptures by local artists and ones from London and India have been put on display at Hylands house in Chelmsford.  The sculptures include willow tepees, laminated flowers and a giant inflatable are among the work now on display there.  The exhibition opened on Sunday and will be in place until the end of June.  A family sculpture day is being held on May 28 where the public can create and decorate willow shelters, organised by Writtle College.  For further information call 01245 605500.
East Anglian Daily Times

Tuesday 6

Playing with fire, and Grand Theft Auto IV
Despite gaming fans considering Grand Theft Auto IV the utopia of escapism, critics see it as representing all that is wrong with society today.  But Dr Eamonn Carrabine, a senior lecturer from the Department of Sociology at Essex University disagrees with the critics.  He believes 'it is intrinsic to western culture to have violent images.' To read the article in full click here.
Halstead Gazette

Network BBC news 'failing to report well on Wales'
The BBC's network news programmes are failing to cover events in Wales, a report is expected to say shortly.  Final details of the study - Accuracy and Impartiality in Coverage of the Four Nations - produced by Professor Anthony King from Essex University, will go before the full BBC Trust in the summer, but its likely conclusions are reported to have worried Corporation hierarchy.
The Western Mail

HLA-G research
Researchers from the Department of Biological Sciences have submitted data which has been published in the Journal of Immunology. The research looks at the soluble HLA-G (sHLA-G) secretion by human preimplantation embryos in culture which has been associated with successful embryo development, and therefore has potential to serve as a noninvasive marker of embryo viability.  The researchers concluded however, the observed expression of HLA-G in arrested and chromosomally abnormal embryos indicates that HLA-G testing should be used with caution and in conjunction with conventional methods of embryo screening and selection.
Life Science Weekly and Science Letter

Monday 5

Man loses foot in motorcycle accident
A Motorcyclist severed his foot in a horrific accident which saw one of the main roads into Colchester closed for several hours. The accident happened on Clingoe Hill at about 1.05pm today (Monday) when the rider came off his bike in the Colchester-bound track.
Essex Air Ambulance was sent to the scene of the accident between Colchester and Wivenhoe and took the rider to Colchester General Hospital for emergency treatment.
Police said he had suffered head and chest injuries as well as losing a foot but described him as being “out of danger” despite his serious injuries.
Clingoe Hill, which has been the subject of a campaign to lower the speed limit after the deaths of two students from nearby Essex University, was closed for more than two hours as police investigated the cause of the accident.
East Anglian Daily Times

How Emma won through in the fight against adversity
Essex university student Emma West has taken the bold step of turning the trauma she suffered from losing all her hair into a positive move to help other sufferers of alopecia. She has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council to explore how other people have been affected by hair-loss. Ultimately, Emma hopes her PhD research will help promote understanding on the impact of alopecia - a hairloss disease - on people's lives.
Evening Gazette

Joanna Gardner proposed as Royal Borough Mayor
Councillor Joanna Gardner has been nominated by the Council's majority party as candidate for Mayor of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in 2008 to 2009. Councillor Gardner has been on the Council since 1998, representing Church Ward in Chelsea and after boundary changes Abingdon in Kensington.
Councillor Gardner is a third generation politician, her grandfather was a minister in New South Wales, Australia, her mother is an active member of the House of Lords and both her parents were councillors in Westminster. She is a qualified solicitor and was Company Secretary and Solicitor to the Tote before joining her current employers, a management consultancy. Councillor Gardner was made a Freeman of the Goldsmiths' Company in 2006 and has been a Freeman of the City of London since 1994.
Councillor Gardner was educated at the University of Essex where she read politics. She is married to Richard Everett and they have a daughter born in 2005. She enjoys playing tennis and is a dedicated cricket fan.
The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

Mistresses of Memories
One made her mark in publishing and the other in academia. Sofianni Subki talks to Edda de Silva and Dr Nesamalar Chitravelu, experts on memoir and biography writing. They are old friends who lived in the same town, went to the same secondary school and studied the same subject at the same university. But in the end, it's their great love of books and the English language that's kept Edda de Silva and Nesamalar Chitravelu close through the years. Their relationship turned professional when they became an editor-author team in the 1980s. It was a long and fruitful relationship that lasted over 20 years. Edda, 60, is the former managing and publishing director of Oxford University Press and Nesamalar, 64, is a former associate professor in the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, University of Malaya. Kajang-born Edda spent her early childhood in Singapore before her family moved back to Selangor. She received her secondary education in Convent Kajang, Assunta Girls School and Methodist Boys School. She has a degree in English Literature and Master's degree in Applied Linguistics from University Malaya. She also did post graduate courses in Oxford University and University of Essex. Her whole career was in publishing and she spent 33 years with Oxford University Press.
New Straits Times

Sunday 4

BBC leaves Scots poorly 'informed'
Scottish TV audiences are poorly informed and have a skewed perspective on events in their own country because of a failure by the national BBC news programmes to provide coverage of events outside England.  The verdict, a key finding of a major report commissioned by the BBC Trust, is said to have senior BBC figures "quaking in their boots". The study, entitled "Accuracy and impartiality in coverage of the four nations", was produced by Professor Anthony King from Essex University. King's brief was to find out how well informed viewers are about the operations of the UK's several devolved administrations. Read the whole article here.
Sunday Herald

Once, twice, however many times - we can't be afraid of punishing the top managers
Of all the powerful figures in football, Sir Alex Ferguson is among the most respected - and feared. For the 21 years and more than 1,000 matches during which he has taken Manchester United from lingering mediocrity to the summit of domestic and European football, not once but many times, Ferguson has imposed his considerable will on the game.
It is time for the good Lord to deliver on that youthful trust in righteousness. Like Ferguson, Triesman has travelled the journey of Sixties radicals from the left to an accommodation with the establishment he once viewed with suspicion, while clinging to those values that brought him to notice in the first place. And he does not mind an argument. Essex University suspended young Triesman in that heady summer of revolt, 1968, for disrupting a campus meeting, and he was only reinstated after his fellow students went on strike; he joined, gave up on and rejoined Labour, interspersed with a spell in the Communist Party between 1970 and 1977, then came down from Cambridge to a career in lecturing and the trade union movement. By the time he entered mainstream politics, he had the perfect credentials for a quick rise with New Labour, Ferguson's old pal, Tony Blair, making him a life peer in 2004 (five years after Ferguson was knighted). Read the whole article here.
The Guardian

Saturday 3

Boys' toys come to nation's defence
Mini-helicopters, flying saucers and robot buggies are all fighting it out for a new war games prize. 'It's a bit like Wacky Races,' says one challenger as defence chiefs seek to bring hi-tech science to the frontline.  "We call it boys' toys for warfare," bellows Chris Burgess, as the hip-hop act Stromkern roars "Come Armageddon come" from the plasma screen behind him.
Burgess belongs to one of 11 teams unveiled as finalists in the UK Ministry of Defence's (MoD) most ambitious - and unusual - attempt to bring hi-tech science to the frontline. Called the Grand Challenge, the GBP4m project calls on engineers to design a robot that can scour an urban area for enemy combatants and explosives and report back, preferably without human intervention
Another of the finalists is putting its faith in eight "quadrotors" - small, flat helicopters the size of dinner plates that will fly into the village in formation and beam back video and sound. Microphones built into the aerial vehicles filter out everything except voices. The helicopters are designed to take off autonomously and can fly a few metres above the ground. "We're working on a version that you'll just pull out of your bag and throw into the air," said Owen Holland, an engineer on the team from Essex University, eastern England. "Hopefully it's not going to give anyone a haircut."  Read the whole article here.
The Hindu

Friday 2

Voters expected to give Labour Party a 'kicking'
Pre-election polls showed Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour Party headed for significant losses in local elections that mark Brown's first major test with voters since taking office last summer.  More than 4,000 local council seats in England and Wales were to be decided in elections widely viewed as a barometer of Brown's national support ahead of national elections due by May 2010. Results of the day's most closely watched race, between London Mayor Ken Livingstone of Labour and Conservative Party challenger Boris Johnson, were not expected until Friday.
With opinion polls showing Brown's approval rating as low as 28 percent and increasing division within the party, analysts said Labour was likely to suffer heavy voter backlash when initial results started coming in late Thursday. ''Many people are saying, 'We probably don't want to have them in power after the next general election, and we want to give them a good kicking today,' '' said Anthony King, a professor at Essex University who has written extensively about British politics and the Labour Party.
Brown's popularity has waned since he took over from Tony Blair last June. He has been hurt by economic woes triggered by the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis.
San Jose Mercury News
Also covered in Denver Post - see here

As Britain votes, Gordon Brown faces first big test
When Gordon Brown met the three major US presidential candidates on a US trip in early April, it was billed as an important getting-to-know-you exercise for a prime minister keen to build a relationship with his most important international ally. But ever since he got home, Mr. Brown has been scrambling to ensure that he remains in office long enough even to welcome the new president into the post.
A dismal succession of reversals, political and economic, have put Brown and his Labour Party on the defensive as they confront the first major test of the prime minister's popularity: Thursday's local elections. The New Labour project, started in 1997 under Tony Blair's leadership amid a wave of optimism, has never looked so close to eclipse.
"There is no question that Labour will get hammered," predicts Paul Whiteley, a pse–phologist at Essex University. Pointing to the Conservatives' lead in the polls – 18 points in one survey – he says that for the first time in 16 years they would get an absolute majority in parliament if elections were held now. "You are talking now about really big leads – the kind that Tony Blair had over [predecessor] John Major." Read the whole article here.
Yahoo! Canada

Call for cyclists to get back in saddle
Cycle owners are being urged to dust down their machines in readiness for this year's national Bike Week. Dr Bike's surgeries and Taster Training sessions are being held all over Colchester including session at the University of Essex and University Quays.
Evening Gazette

Britain's Labour Party Is 3rd in Early Vote Results
Early returns indicated Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour Party was headed for significant losses in local elections that mark Brown's first major test with voters since taking office last summer.  To read the article in full, including comments by Professor Anthony King, click here.
Washington Post

University placed UK top 25 in new subject league table
Essex University has performed well in the 2009 Good University Guide.  The Wivenhoe-based university has been placed 25th overall out of more than 70 universities - seven places above the next best-performing university in the region the University of East Anglia, in Norwich, which came in at 33.  Each university was ranked for every subject it offers, with these totted up to give the overall results. The league table and other information are available at thegooduniversityguide.org.uk.
Essex County Standard

Bernard on his bike for charity...
Sporty North Essex MP Bernard Jenkin took part in the Hyde Park triathlon in aid of the charity Student Partnership Worldwide.  He raised more than £10,000 - the highest total of any fundraiser.  The event, which was opened by former world number one duathlete and triathlon champion Annie Emmerson, consisted of a 15k cycle ride followed by a 500 metre swim in the Serpentine and completed with a 5k run. 

....and you are needed on yours
Cycle owners are being urged to dust down their machines in readiness for this year's National Bike Week.  Colchester2020, the borough's community strategy partnership, is calling on cyclists to get involved, not just for fun and fitness, but to help Re-Cycle, the local bikes-for-Africa charity.  The Colchester charity do up secondhand bikes, and ships them, along with spare parts, to projects in Africa.  To help residents, the group has arranged for free Doctor Bike surgeries to be held at various venues.  The first is scheduled tomorrow at University Quays, near the riverside cafe on Lightship Way, The Hythe, Colchester, from noon to 2pm.  There are also free 2 hour training sessions for anyone wanting to brush up on their cycling skills.   Bike week runs from June 14 to 22 in Colchester.  If you would like to get involved in raising funds for Re-Cycle, call Emily Harrup or Andrew Budd at the Colchester2020 Travel Plan Club on 01206 506476.  To book a place on your free taster training session, log on to colchester2020.com under Bike Week 2008.
Essex County Standard

Thursday 1

Mini-helicopters, flying saucers and robot buggies fight it out for MoD war games prize
A 4m project called the Grand Challenge, is calling on engineers to design a robot that can scour an urban area for enemy combatants and explosives and report back, preferably without human intervention.  One of the finalists, Swarm Systems, is putting its faith in eight 'quadrotors' - small, flat helicopters the size of dinner plates that will fly into the village in formation and beam back video and sound. Microphones built into the aerial vehicles filter out everything except voices. The helicopters are designed to take off autonomously and can fly a few metres above the ground. 'We're working on a version that you'll just pull out of your bag and throw into the air,' said Owen Holland, an engineer on the team from Essex University. 'Hopefully it's not going to give anyone a haircut.'  To read the article in full click here.
The Guardian - Online

3,000 pupils descend for farms finale
Around 3,000 school children from across Essex will descend on Writtle College today to enjoy hands-on demonstrations of milling wheat, producing butter, cookery , livestock displays and milking and farm machinery.  Called the Essex Schools Food and Farming Day, it has been organised by The Centre for Environment and Rural Affairs (CERA) at the college.  It is being held on behalf of the Essex Agricultural Society, and is supported by Essex County Council, who have organised the transport for schools to attend the free event.
Essex Chronicle

In a spin
Professor Arnold Wilkins, a neuropsychology lecturer at the University of Essex, has discovered that fast-turning wind turbines could trigger epileptic seizures.  Professor Wilkins, worked with researchers at Aston University, Birmingham, to assess whether the flickering of sunlight caused by the shadow of wind turbines could affect photosensitive people.  The study found the faster the turbine or the more blades it has, the greater its chance of causing seizures.  The team used the results to draw up advice on reducing the risks, which they hope will be adopted as planning guidance. 
Gazette