Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:

Mizter T wrote:

IIRC the LT Card proper (i.e. proper expensive that is) was withdrawn
but the name lingered on attached to the discounted tickets.

And in a way has been revived for the Oyster cap.


In a way yes, and it has remained so because of intransigence and/or
straightforward inertia.

Though the LT Card was of course the forerunner to the peak Travelcard
but valid on LT only. And it was a pretty price, though much the same
can be said of it's replacement.

The Oyster cap (both peak and off-peak) is at least 50p cheaper than
it's quasi-equivalent Day Travelcard. As well as that being a good
thing in and of itself it also provides a pricing factor which
differentiates itself from the Day Travelcard (a clue to passengers
shall we say).


I'm not surprised about the NUS's grab for glory. There's no NUS logo
on the new Student Oyster is there?

Nope - nor on the old card I had. Is it on the application form? (I didn't
stop to check.)

Incidentally are there any student
unions in London unaffiliated to the NUS?

Yes - Imperial has a long history of being out (they were a founder member
in 1922, left in 1923 and only came back for brief periods in the 1930s and
1970s - the last was when their President was Trevor Philips). Currently
with the college pulling out of the University of London, some in the SU are
looking towards NUS affiliation as a replacement for the loss of ULU. Were I
a betting man I would not bet on them succeeding.

I didn't know about either Imperial's non-affiliation to the NUS, nor
it's imminent departure from the UoL. That seems like a big step, but
of course I know nothing of the background - apart from quickly reading
just now that it has gained degree awarding powers. One of my
neighbours is a Prof at Imperial, he's a quiet guy but I'll accost him
some day and ask him about it.

My ill-informed logic suggests that a London SU would do well to have
an affiliation with some umbrella entity. I guess the choice isn't that
great - ULU or NUS (or both). That said AFAICS it's even less of a
choice outside London - NUS or not NUS. Despite all it's faults I can't
help but feel that the benefits of affiliating with the NUS outweigh
the cons - esp. if the SU is out of London, as there's nowhere else to
turn. But I confess I know little about all these machinations.


Of the others, I believe the London Business School isn't affiliated. The
central institutes and activities of the University aren't either - they
don't have much in the way of SUs of their own and ULU leaves NUS
affiliation to the colleges. I've no idea about the FEs and other colleges
in London.

But say at SOAS whilst the SOAS SU isn't NUS affiliated it is
affiliated to ULU?

By the by I've just been most amused by reading the Wikipedia page on
ULU [1] - in particular the semi-coherent section on the handover
party, and what appears to be an arcane yet absurd dispute on when
exactly this should occur. Some of the stereotypes about student
politics are not that far off the mark!


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[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ULU