A promising 80-years-old young man. Presentation of the special issue of avance y perspectiva dedicated to Bogdan Mielnik.
Dr C Magoulas v QMUL (part II)
This post continues an account and critique of the EAT Judgment
“The Tribunal’s Decision on the Application for Reconsideration
21. The Claimant applied for a review. The ET refused that application because there was no reasonable prospect of the decision being varied or revoked. The application had been based on a “new finding of fact” in the decision of a different ET in a different case. The ET held that the new evidence would not probably have had an important influence on the outcome. That is not challenged on this appeal.”
Reading the above one may ask: what was the “new finding of fact”? And how come the ET [Employment Tribunal] held that the new evidence would not probably have had an important influence on the outcome? I pause to consider this issue. It relates to the failure of QMUL to enact its redeployment procedure as required by employment law in a redundancy situation. (more…)
Simon Gaskell should reinstate John Allen
Simon Gaskell should reinstate John Allen to his post at Queen Mary. It is the right thing to do after the Employment Tribunal’s findings that John’s dismissal was unfair. The Tribunal found that removing the whole of the John’s pre-sabbatical work was such a serious breach of contract that, taken together with the failure to deal with his grievance in a reasonable time, it would have justified resignation and a constructive dismissal claim. (more…)
The East End of London
The “Legend” is a movie about the Kray brothers and their influence on East London. “The College” is located at the heart of it all and still has a collective memory around the mark left by the Krays…
Academic position, age discrimination and social justice
Dedicated to the memory of Jake Dutton, barrister and member of Clerksroom, who represented Babis Magoulas at the Employment Appeal Tribunal.
Matthew Evans quits Queen Mary
With two tweets, Prof Matthew Evans announced his notice to Queen Mary University of London, standing down on July 1st, 2016. His departure follows that of Prof Jeremy Kilburn. I once shared with the Principal of Queen Mary my view that because managers (like politicians) change all the time, the incentive to build an improved department (which in former times would mean personal recognition) appears to be lacking. Indeed, this pair of managers deeply transformed the School of Biological and Chemical Sciences: in a blink of an eye they recruited over 50 new academics who joined 40 members of staff surviving since 2011, while effecting 35 departures of active researchers. Was it for the better? I think Prof Evans would say so:
55 years of Cinvestav – reflexions on a conversation
I have yet to read Susana Quintanilla’s written account of the Cinvestav’s founding [Recordar hacia el mañana. Creación y primeros años del Cinvestav. 1960-1970], a nice edition published by the Center in 2002 that sits on the pile of books on my desk. So far, I have followed the story through the autobiography of Pablo Rudomín. We initiated, today, festivities for the 55 years from the creation of the Center. I returned to the lab with three thoughts to share.
Εκρήξεις σε Βέλγιο και Τουρκία
Όταν βράζει ο χυλός στο καζάνι
Δεν αφήνουν το μωρό να πλησιάσει στη φωτιά
Να παίξει με τα χρώματα τις φλόγας, να ζεσταθεί.
Γιατί παφλάζει ο χυλός, καυτή φουσκάλα που σπάζει
Μην και κάψει το παιδί.
Πρέπει, όμως, μαγειρευτό φαγί. (more…)
Dr C Magoulas v QMUL (part I)
At the same time of my dismissal from Queen Mary on grounds of redundancy, my colleague Babis was also served notice. His case hasn’t seen any publicity so far. In what follows, I present the description of the original Employment Tribunal Judgment by the Honourable Mrs Justice Elisabeth Laing, DBE. I transcribe a few parts of her Judgment (ommitting some of the legal terminology) with an aim to make some aspects of Babis’ experience better known and the text easier to follow for the lay reader. The public document is available in full here.
Drosophila prefers red to white wine
Introduction
From a casual conversation with Dr. Carmen Vivar, we were surprised to learn of her observations that wild Drosophila flies were excellent at spotting her glass of red wine; whereas when she would serve white wine, the flies would rarely appear. We were previously under the impression that flies would be attracted to the alcohol vapor, but clearly such a pronouncement was not able to distinguish between the two types of wine. A quick search in the literature revealed studies on the adaptions carried by populations of flies grown near wineries (see a historical view [1] by the pioneer of these investigations, Stephen W. McKechnie), whose observations were repeated by Spanish colleagues [2], while more recently attention is on Drosophila suzukii [3] , a pest of the grapes themselves. But, to our surprise, given the relationship of most Drosophilists we know of, with wine, we could identify no data on whether our (also known as) vinegar flies, had preference between vin rouge ou vin blanc. (more…)
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