Quote Originally Posted by redgunamo View Post
Nobody trusts academia anymore; it's too obviously for sale to the highest bidder.

Nothing wrong with that, of course, but they swear blind they're not when they rather obviously are.

Cider is an excellent call actually, haven't had any in years.
But that's not true in my experience. Yes, my LSE degree was '89-92, but the history OU BA and UKC MA were in the last decade.

All my OU tutors were sound as ****. One did his BA, MA and PhD at Oxford and Cambridge and came to the OU cos that's what he believed in. Another had a couple of books and had done a couple of BBC docs about the slave trade.

The WW1 section of my Total War course was controlled by Annika Mombauer, one of the top experts globally on the Fischer Thesis and the organiser of the 5`0th anniversary conference at the IWM in 2011, and one of the 4 experts in the Brit Library debate on the centenary of WW1. {She was on the sensible side along side Gary Sheffield.} I spoke to her after both events.

My UKC tutor was one of the country's very top experts on WW1 - book published by CUP as the post-grad handbook on the BEF on the western front. He got into it as a ten year old and had just spent his whole life studying WW1.

And none of them would have been for sale to the highest bidder. They were all into it for the pwoppa academic reasons of just objective historical understanding.

I know what you read in the press about these former Polys doing anything the Chinks want etc.

But the idea that all academics are like that is just silly. As I say, all the ones I've studied with have been the complete opposite. And I spent a lot more time than the other students talking to them cos not only did I have all the free time cos I don't work, I was generally the brightest in the group and therefore the one they enjoyed speaking to.

In short, I've spent loads of 1-2-1 time with most of my tutors and they are exactly what you'd expect of an honourable British academic. I would trust their academic integrity with my life. {Just like they trusted me when occasionally I'd tell them some assumption about India would be wrong cos they knew I knew what I was talking about and would be objective in my analyses.}

But you can't say all academics are like that just cos some of them are.

Cider is lush. I've started using it instead of white wine in creamy recipes, just cos a can of cider is cheaper than a bottle of wine.

With mussels etc. Or the glw's invention that I cook, fresh spag with scallops and prawns in a cider, cream and garlic sauce with fresh parsley. Or a chicken casserole with cider, cream and chicken stock, with leeks, shallots, shrooms, spuds, pancetta cubes etc.

What I like about cider is you can get the tramp stuff I drink at 7.5-9% - for crusties too poor to afford Spesh {back when it was the real recipe at 9% before Cameron ****ed it up with his 4 units per can limit.}

Or you can get normal, Strongbow style. Or the sweeter Irish ones like Magners and Bulmers. Get a can/bottle and raise a glass to Arsenal having the most successful of seasons.