#Nov30 in Nottingham

Today was an important day for the fightback against 'austerity', with two million public sector workers out on strike all over the country. It was a lovely late autumn day, cold but clear and sunny. We got up at an ungodly hour, by student standards, to support our lecturers on the picket lines around University Park Campus.

We put up posters, held placards and posted pickets on all nearby paths. Picketing an open campus is a little tricky: many of the cars going past you will be private sector contractors, who are not on strike, and students may be going in for more than one reason. Still, we encouraged all who came to turn back, go to the pub etc.: some did and were cheered for it. We got quite a lot of declarations of solidarity from passers-by, but really the old principle that you never cross a picket line needs to be reinstated. (I hope this will happen as the struggle against the government broadens and continues.)

There were tight-lipped managers in Jaguars, too, and scabs who would try to avoid looking you in the eye as they drove past. (We generally didn't denounce them as vigorously as I've seen happen at the 2009 Royal Mail strikes, for example.) Shortly after 10am, we packed up and walked to Forest Recreation Ground, where the trade union march was gathering.

It was a terrific march, certainly the largest I've been on in Nottingham. There were people from more unions I've ever seen outside the TUC March for the Alternative, including unions not commonly associated with protest and industrial action, like the Royal College of Nursing. The local Labour Party branches were there, too, reminding us that Labour is not just the spinelessness of an Ed Miliband. As in March, there were people from all sections of society, including many with children. We marched down Mansfield Road, through the city centre and Market Square (past the occupiers, with whom there was much fraternising) before gathering in Wellington Circus.

The atmosphere was amazing. No march I've been on has ever experienced quite so much support from the general public, I think: drivers honked and raised their fists, people young and old clapped and shouted. I don't want to exaggerate this, but polling data suggests the government has pretty much lost the argument on job losses and cuts to services. The Tories and their LibDem running dogs mishandled the conflict from the start, managing to create a broad front between smaller, more militant and larger, more conciliatory unions. The challenge to the anti-cuts movement is to maintain and expand the front that's been created, and keep pressing the most reactionary government since Caligula until victory.

The bounty of Nottingham's bins

A few nights ago a friend and I went skipping (or dumpster-diving, as they'd say across the pond) in Lenton. It was my first time, so I was grateful to have a veteran with me. Rummaging through various bins is a bit scary to begin with, not least because some people will look at you strangely as you debate Marx, veganism and the student life while searching their rubbish for fun and profit. But they're more afraid of you than you are of them.

It was an immensely rewarding experience. Beyond the desire for free food and stuff, dumpster-divers seek to show up our society for its wastefulness, and do their part in recycling. Of course it's fun: you find the strangest things. And, last but not least, it's apparently a great way of making friends: an inebriated but lovely gentleman stopped by as we were searching a skip and engaged us in a drawn-out conversation about his children and his dog, while expressing approval of our actions.

We knew the rubbish would be collected the following morning, so this was the perfect time to nick everything the students had seen fit to throw away. Incidentally, students: shred your documents before you bin them! Identity theft would be jolly easy for anyone so inclined. We did well, though my friend, who has experience, determination and a keen eye for the useful, bagged rather more than I did. (Meanwhile I, in a fit of detestable madness, decided it would be very funny to spray-tan a part of my arm from a fake-tan bottle. Not so funny now.)

The things I salvaged included:

- a working alarm clock
- a half-full tube of after-shave emulsion
- six china mugs of acceptable loveliness, one of them in masculinity-affirming pink, with a saucer
- a plastic England mug, which I pretend to like ironically
- a Coca-Cola glass, which is now a trophy from the Man
- two unopened bottles of generic continental lager
- a pair of 3D glasses
- a leatherbound Belle & Jerome menu
- a  mostly-empty bottle of a brand-name men's fragrance, which smells twice as good when free
- One pack each of children's and grown-ups' drinking chocolate
- a Co-op linen shopping bag
- a lovely white shirt in my size, which I put on immediately.

I should point out all these items are in pristine condition (after a wash, anyway). It's incredible just how much people throw away rather than giving to charity or distributing it to neighbours. But I'm not one to talk, I've done much the same. Whenever I move, please feel free to come and take some of my stuff. You won't have to pick it out from the bin - just ask.

Bull of the University of Nottingham, Against Rod Thornton

As you've no doubt heard, our university has suspended Rod Thornton, a lecturer in the School of Politics, for writing an article that ruthlessly exposes the university's lies and bullying during and after the 'Nottingham Two' affair in 2008. When the Guardian and the BBC ran the story, the university released a statement claiming Rod Thornton 'defamed' his colleagues with 'baseless accusations'.

I'm sure you're thinking what I'm thinking: lame. That's the best they could come up with? 'Defaming'? Clearly the art of vigorous denouncement without engaging in debate has suffered since the good old days. They need help. So here's a suggestion of how the university ought to have attempted to suppress legitimate whistleblowing - with apologies to Pope Gregory XI:

Bull of the University of Nottingham, Against Rod Thornton
The University, servus servorum sapientiae, to her beloved children the students of the University, in the diocese of Russell, grace and benediction.
We are compelled to wonder and grieve that you, who, in consideration of the favours and privileges conceded to your student body by the University, and on account of your familiarity with the Code of Discipline, in whose sea you navigate, by the gift of knowledge, with auspicious oar, you, who ought to be, as it were, warriors and champions of the orthodox faith, without which there is no economic growth, - that you through a certain sloth and neglect allow tares to spring up amidst the pure wheat in the fields of your glorious University aforesaid; and what is still more pernicious, even continue to grow to maturity. And you are quite careless, as has been lately reported to us, as to the extirpation of these tares; with no little clouding of a bright name, danger to your careers, contempt of the laws of this land, and injury to the faith above mentioned. And what pains us the more, is that this increase of the tares aforesaid is known in London before the remedy of extirpation has been applied in the School of Politics where they sprang up. By the insinuation of many, if they are indeed worthy of belief, deploring it deeply, it has come to our ears that Rod Thornton, Lecturer of the School of Politics, at the University of Nottingham, Expert in Terrorism (would that he were not also Master of Errors), has fallen into such a detestable madness that he does not hesitate to dogmatise and publicly preach, or rather vomit forth from the recesses of his breast, certain propositions and conclusions which are erroneous and false. He has cast himself also into the depravity of preaching heretical dogmas which strive to subvert and weaken the state of the whole University and even secular polity, some of which doctrines, in changed terms, it is true, seem to express the perverse opinions and unlearned learning of Rizwaan Sabir of cursed memory, and of Hicham Yezza, whose book is extant, rejected and cursed by our predecessor, Sir Colin Campbell, of happy memory. This he has done at the University of Nottingham, lately glorious in its power and in the abundance of its resources, but more glorious still in the glistening piety of its faith, and in the distinction of its sacred learning; producing also many men illustrious for their exact knowledge of the Code of Discipline, mature in the gravity of their character, conspicuous in devotion, defenders of the Management Board. He has polluted certain of the faithful by sprinkling them with these doctrines, and led them away from the right paths of the aforesaid faith to the brink of perdition.
Wherefore, since we are not willing, nay, indeed, ought not to be willing, that so deadly a pestilence should continue to exist with our connivance, a pestilence which, if it is not opposed in its beginnings, and torn out by the roots in its entirety, will be reached too late by medicines when it has infected very many with its contagion; we command you with strict admonition, in virtue of your sacred obedience, and under penalty of the deprivation of all the favours, indulgences, and privileges granted to you  by the said University, for the future not to permit to be asserted or proposed to any extent whatever, the opinions, conclusions, and propositions which are in variance with good morals and faith, even when those proposing strive to defend them under a certain fanciful wresting of words or of terms. Moreover, you are on our authority to suspend the said Rod, or cause him to be suspended. Besides, if there should be, which God forbid, among you opponents stained with these errors, and if they should obstinately persist in them, proceed vigorously and earnestly to a similar removal of them, and otherwise as shall seem good to you. Be vigilant to repair your negligence which you have hitherto shown in the premises, and so obtain our gratitude and favour, besides the honor and reward of the Management Board's recompense.

Better, eh? They really ought to get some papal scribes to smarten up their public relations effort. But seriously: the circumstances surrounding all this (for which please read Rod Thornton's paper, 112 pages long though it may be) stink to high heaven. It is unfortunate that our university, which prides itself on its allegedly open, democratic culture, should seek to attack its own students and lecturers and attempt to suppress dissent. We have a management culture that rewards loyalty and punishes heresy, one that disdains to follow its own procedures - it was a moment of grim amusement for me when Rod Thornton in his paper became the third person I know of to independently call the university 'Kafkaesque' in print. We can't let them get away with it.