Alex Bilbie's dashboard

On Sunday I went into MHT in the hope of working in the computing labs however they were physically locked (as opposed to the magnetic locks that our RFID cards open).

Wills the labs be locked every weekend or was this a one off? If they will be locked, why and where are we supposed to work instead?

I went into MHT yesterday evening to get some development work done however I had to leave because I was unable to do any work due to some network (presumably security) settings.

I wanted to connect to a remote MySQL database (port 3306) using my database browser Sequel Pro however it was unable to connect due to the port being blocked. To overcome this I logged into my web hosts to use the web based PHPMyAdmin - or at least I would have done except port 2082 is also blocked.

Is there any chance these ports could be unblocked (even if it's just to the computer labs in MHT) so that students can carry out development work?

Last night (10/09/09) I attended the graduation ball with some friends. My tickets for my partner and I cost me £60.

We arrived at the Engine Shed and joined the entry line. Now everyone in the que had a ticket and no-one was being searched on entry so in theory we should have got into the venue pretty quickly, yet there was a girl sat by herself at the door manually checking off every single ticket on a huge spreadsheet so we didn't get into the venue for over half an hour so my first question is was this checking process really necessary and if so why were there not several people doing this to speed up the que and get people inide so there weren't girls fainting in the que all night?

We entered the Engine Shed and no effort had been to decorate the place - so I'm beginning to wonder what my money has gone towards? There was a DJ who I believe was the guy who normally plays at Engine Shed events in term time - again, what has my money gone towards? There were a few fire eaters and jugglers who were there but they really weren't anything special.

At the bar there were only two or three drinks offers but they were tiny little cocktails and so most people just drank expensive pints.

Outside the Engine Shed there were two fairground rides which I believe were the meant to be the "amazing entertainment" we'd been promised. Whilst "goes" on the ride were free, each "go" lasted about two minutes.

There were a lot of other problems and I could go on but to basically summarize my opinion, I think the Student Union used this as an opportunity to make as much fast cash as possible and I think that's disgusting.

I appreciate there are some costs involved with running the event such as security, bar + technical staffing, insurance, electricity, bar stocking and such however I really don't believe what we paid justified what we got, especially considering other unis such as Hull paid less (£25) and had Feeder and Athlete play.

I'd really appreciate a refund.