As is well known, Frank Whittle was the inventor of the jet engine and, hence, Top Gun, package holidays and duty free drinks trolleys. Therefore, Frank Whittle is directly responsible for the invention of alcohol. This is presumably why the university named a bar after him.
You may have noticed the Frank Whittle Bar. If you were disorientated on leaving Rootes restaurant, or simply overshot the Airport Bar, you may have wondered about the small closed dark place without anyone in.
It was not until earlier this term that a few postgrads thought it would be an idea to open the place up at some point so that other postgrads could go in it.
The plan was to set something up for the rather neglected postgraduate community so that the postgrads would begin to feel like a community. Some place the postgrads could go to; some place that wouldn't close down over the vacations.
Frank's is not a big place: obviously it would have been difficult getting all 5,000 postgraduate students in there. In a spirit of scientific enquiry, the postgrad committee eventually got Frank's opened for four Friday nights.
Hopefully, if enough interest was shown it would be worth it to have something more laid on. But before it would be necessary to get the postgrads a new bar they had to fill the old one up, in particular they had to prove to hospitality services that the cost of opening the place would be covered by takings; members of the postgrad committee took it upon themselves as a personal duty to make sure the bar takings were high enough.
Large quantities of pizza were purchased from Harvey's and carried in during the early stages of the evening. And Mr. Jon Slade arrived to play his eclectic gramophone records, thus supplanting the music piped in from the Airport which had caused so much controversy.
And, much to the surprise of many of the committee, Frank's did not empty completely as soon as the pizza ran out.
So it appears that there are postgrads out there who'd like to come to their own bars and events, in addition to whatever else they do. Now, as the undergrads wander off home the postgrads most need something to keep them going, and Frank's is booked up f or conferences so instead we're going to squat in the union. And anyone else who's still around can join us.
You may have noticed the construction site next to the union: a postgrad bar will be in there somewhere.
Until then, let's expand to fill whatever space provided.