Peep's diary

Oh come, all ye cheesed-off
What better to put members of the Scottish Parliament in festive mood than having carol singers gather outside their £414 million home? But their seasonal cheer would have evaporated when MSPs heard what was being sung by carolers from Edinburgh University Students Association, who vented their displeasure with the recent higher education budget. A sample of their (reworked) lyrics include, to the tune of Silent Night :

"Silent night, holy night
All is sad, all is shite
They don't care about students no more
Here we are left hungry and poor
How do you sleep at night?
How do you sleep at night?
Silent night, holy night
Students quake at the sight
Uni funding is way below par
One, three, eight million's been cut so far
How do you sleep at night?
How do you sleep at night?
Silent night, holy night Alex Salmond's full of spite
Can he take that smug smile off his face?
The way he treats us is such a disgrace
How do you sleep at night?
How do you sleep at night?"

Radical conversion
After Peep's revelation last week that the former radical Lord Triesman had considered the notorious 1968 protests at the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square as being among his formative political experiences, more insights into the background of current Minister for Students have arrived, courtesy of an article by Lord Triesman himself (then known as Dave) in the New Left Review , July-August, 1968. In the piece, Triesman outlines the protests at Essex University against the Porton Down defence lab, which got him suspended and then reinstated. The aim was, according to Dave, to combat "the whole nauseating apparatus by which universities turned out new generations of capitalist managers".

The big ho, ho, ho
Jim Allen, provost at Ulster University's Magee campus, and Tom Fraser, emeritus professor and a former Magee provost, swapped their academic gowns for Santa suits as part of a world record attempt this week. They were among the expected 10,000 people due to congregate on Londonderry's Walled City in a bid to set a record for the most Santas in one place and to raise money for local charities. Bobble hats off to them.