Nice People Thread Part 9 - and so it continues

silvercar

PasturesNew wrote: »

I think it's a pity the Unis never controlled all the housing. Much easier all round. A certain standard of accommodation, easier for students, easier for students to even move rooms mid-term (or leave).... and spare capacity could be rented out on the private market. Unis could have set up an accommodation company and taken the profits/made little, with more security and less anxiousness all round.

Its the other way round now. Lots of students shun the uni halls and go into private halls which are modern with better facilities.

I suggested to DS2 that he and his mates rent a flatlet in one of the private halls, but they prefer to rent a grotty house.

Standards of uni halls vary considerably, they start from around £4k for a standard room in an old fashioned hall to about £7k for an en-suite in a self catering modern hall with gym and flat screen TVs (Manchester prices).

Generali

Me and a couple of mates rented this fantastic place when we were students. I suspect that the parents of the landlord had died and he didn't know what to do with it so rented it out.

It had about 10 different types of glasses for different sorts of drinks, bookshelves full of books (e.g. a DIY book from the 1950s, Churchill's History of the English Speaking People(?s?), the proper Churchill biography which runs to about 20 volumes and a Guiness Book of Records from the early 70s). We even had fish knives! The place was incredible. It was opposite a pub and a convenience store and walking distance from a couple of supermarkets. The perfect student house location. It was bloody cold mind you.

This house was completely wasted on us wasters. We just wanted to party really and we partied pretty hard even for students. We cooked up some pretty decent meals there though. I remember coming home from a club one night at 6am and starting to bake bread!

zagubov

I was a student far donkey's years., in uni halls, uni houses, private flats, but never heard of private halls.

Once lived in a really classy house that Nikkster knows about.
Way out of a students league. Wasted on us- we never mowed the lawn and eventually a mate brought a scythe and we has to cut it down with that.

It was full of jars of exotic pickles veggies stored in oils and things we were too wary to try eating.

Nikkster

vivatifosi wrote: »

Spell check..... can't specifically name person who this is addressed to as it corrects to something irrelevant. However my dad often has furniture bits and Bob's as a result of his job, free to collect. Will let you know if he gets anything, sods law means that he will now have a quiet couple of months. He does get all sorts though.

michaels wrote: »

We have a leather sofa and a single bed that are up for grabs if that would help out?

You two are cryptic aren't you?

At the risk of showing how ego-centric I am at the moment (pretty much off the chart). Were you both referring to me (or as viva's autocorrect might have thought milli )?

Assuming you were, thanks for the offers

Hopefully I'll be the proud adoptive owner of a heap of student furniture, otherwise I'll let you know. I won't be in desperate need of anything - I have an air mattress, and cushions to sit on the floor etc. It'll only be me, and I know that I'm happy to slum it for as long as it takes. I don't think I'll be having homeowner dinner parties/ g&t sessions for quite some time :rotfl:

lostinrates

LydiaJ wrote: »

I'm sure you're right about it being a learning experience. I didn't have any trouble doing it when I left college, despite not having learnt it while at college, though. When I was at Oxford (late 80s) everyone who could live in did live in - you ended up a lot closer to where you wanted to be, and it was about a third of the rent of living out.

Neither did DH, and neither do loads of people who never went to halls or go straight from home to marriage. Nevertheless, I think its a valuable experience that helps many....just like formal education isn't requisite for success, but is a great factor in it being easier for many successful people!

lostinrates

Nikkster wrote: »

You two are cryptic aren't you?

At the risk of showing how ego-centric I am at the moment (pretty much off the chart). Were you both referring to me (or as viva's autocorrect might have thought milli )?

Assuming you were, thanks for the offers

Hopefully I'll be the proud adoptive owner of a heap of student furniture, otherwise I'll let you know. I won't be in desperate need of anything - I have an air mattress, and cushions to sit on the floor etc. It'll only be me, and I know that I'm happy to slum it for as long as it takes. I don't think I'll be having homeowner dinner parties/ g&t sessions for quite some time :rotfl:

I am pretty certain I can come up with a single bed in decent condition.....or there is that ikea bed I have which I think is horrid but its in amazing condition, has been slept in fewer than a dozen times...its a very small double.....

lostinrates

LydiaJ wrote: »

I was at the Oxford college with the reputation for the best food. Rumour had it that some elderly rich Victorian gent without family left his entire estate to the Merton kitchens on the grounds that his life had been wonderful apart from the food in college. Eating in college was cheap, plentiful and excellent. (We complained about the food, like all students, but our complaints were not entirely typical - for example that while there was usually plenty of bread when the starter was soup, there wasn't enough when it was salmon mousse.) I didn't cook anything other than toast until I was a graduate student, and then only very occasionally until after we got married and moved into a flat (heavily subsidised, college-owned, available only to married students at that college).

Do you ever go back to formal hall?

Its really fantastic to go as a guest, I really appreciate the privilege, for those of us whose college fare was less grand and whose rooms were more prosaic its all pretty glorious!

DH is giving a lecture next term, I'm hoping I can go too.

Spirit_2

PasturesNew wrote: »

This was something that made me mad about one of my parents' decisions. They'd bought a sofa some years before, nothing specific "just a sofa" and when the material became threadbare they paid £700 to have it recovered .... a brand new/better one would have cost less! !

We bought a Duresta sofa 20 odd years ago. Had it recoverered and cushons converted from three seater to two seater & feather stuffed about 12 years ago.

We need/want a new sofa now and keep coming back to essentially the same framed sofa but we want something a bit smaller..and not feathers.. after a few years they always look collapsed and saggy.

zagubov

silvercar wrote: »

Agreed. That list is stupidly long. Student rooms have limited space- there would be no room to store all that, never mind transport it to and from home.

DS1 always said there were so many cheap eating places near his accommodation it was cheaper to eat out rather than cook. I guess the "curry mile" did more than curries.

I would say they need enough to cook pasta, a baking tray and spatula, a few plates and a bit of cutlery. Couple of mugs, glasses and bowls. Then once they have settled in they can buy more if they need it.

Remember that uni towns have shops! Far easier to stock up from the local shops than shlep from home.

We did a fair bit of shopping with DD when she went into halls a year ago. The rooms (in central London) were shoebox-tiny.

One problem is that central London (and proabably other city centres) isn't well-served by
- banks that used to be building societies
- supermarkets that stock a full range
- budget shops
- general stores (well actually since the demise of Woolie's the budget shops are trying to take over that niche).

Out in the 'burbs we can get all this, and can maybe drive to a major store but in some uni areas it may be quite difficult to stock up on reasonably priced stuff.

michaels

Nikkster wrote: »

You two are cryptic aren't you?

Mine wasn't supposed to be cryptic, I just thought it was obvious who I was offering without saying so, especially as you are not too far away. The sofa is not at all bad, a bit scratched but not 'sagged down' at all, dark navy leather, bed is nothing to write home about but condition is good....a bed is a bed.

I only ate in hall about 3 times in 3 years despite being in college accommodation for all three years and was very annoyed to have to pay a service charge for it that subsidised everyone else. Certainly avoided formal hall, somehow at Kings where we were all supposedly so 'right on' it really revealed the students and fellows for the hypocrites they were.