Mobile Phones not allowed

Just found this hanging in one of the refurbished lecture theatres.  We haven't had a Regsitrar and Secretary for about five years.  Compare and contrast with the large TV screen images which are marketing our mobile phone App About UoB.  Err go figure.

Xmas Do

An excellent evening in the "Disco Bar" (as it was) but "Escape Bar" (as it is) with friends and colleagues from across the teams in Learner Support Services.  The pub quiz by the re-formed "two idiots" was fantastic and Professor Davis and his chemistry experiments will no doubt be remembered for years to come - especially the one requiring health and safety approval.  The toast eating contest was also memorable for various reasons.  But the biggest laugh of the evening was later on at home watching the comedy series "Life's Too Short" when Warwick fly tipped his brand new washing machine.  Absolutely Epic!

Deck the halls

Shamefully cut and paste from an internal circulation but worthy of viral marketing.  Here is a nice way to spend a few minutes in a University setting - which looks a lot like the Atrium/Student Central here at Bradford.  From original message:

The halls of the Carlson School of Business are bustling these days with students preparing for their upcoming finals. Recently, those same halls were filled with "merry measure" when all received a surprise visit from a saxophonist and about 300 of his friends.


View Holiday Card

IT "at risk" dates

We are currently reviewing our process of established IT "at risk" dates during the year which are published well in advance (currently out to January 2014) and which allow fixed dates in the University Calendar for IT related service interruptions.  I believe that we are quite unusual in having this particular luxury embedded in our culture and so far supported (although sometimes a little reluctantly) by the University management.  Some of them would prefer out of hours evening and weekend working usually during holiday periods i.e. holiday for the rest of the University in terms of the academic calendar.  The options we are considering include "Do Nothing" and stay with three periods a year, moving to more frequent calendar but less days "at risk" in each period and less days overall too.  Third option is moving to a more ad hoc arrangement, particularly for high impact services or new projects, perhaps mixed with the second option ie a hybrid approach.  One thing we might need to think about is the label - is "risk" the right word?  perhaps it should be the IT "opportunity" dates or "improving your IT Services" dates because the work is often about addressing a risk through maintenance and housekeeping of systems.  comments welcome.

Snow Plough ready for (immediate) action

Almost one year to the day it snowed very heavily on the way to work this morning.  A thick heavy coating of snow on untreated roads in Bradford led to ice rink conditions not helped by generally poor driving by commuters unable to manage the conditions.  This week is degree ceremonies week so its the anniversary of last year's closure and I believe that the trigger for all this weather is the purchase and delivery last week of a brand new snow plough, gritter and tractor which arrived on the lowloader for immediate use!  Here it is:

Disappearing teaspoons

This morning there wasn't a teaspoon to be seen in the staff room or on my shelf.  So I put a sign up on the wall saying: "please bring back the disappearing teaspoons".  This evening a learned colleague in the Library told me about this BMJ article on the disappearing teaspoon so here is an abstract and a link.  So we are not the only ones affected, but could you make a career out of it?

Abstract

Objectives To determine the overall rate of loss of workplace teaspoons and whether attrition and displacement are correlated with the relative value of the teaspoons or type of tearoom.

Design Longitudinal cohort study.
Setting Research institute employing about 140 people.

Subjects 70 discreetly numbered teaspoons placed in tearooms around the institute and observed weekly over five months.

Main outcome measures Incidence of teaspoon loss per 100 teaspoon years and teaspoon half life.

Results 56 (80%) of the 70 teaspoons disappeared during the study. The half life of the teaspoons was 81 days. The half life of teaspoons in communal tearooms (42 days) was significantly shorter than for those in rooms associated with particular research groups (77 days). The rate of loss was not influenced by the teaspoons' value. The incidence of teaspoon loss over the period of observation was 360.62 per 100 teaspoon years. At this rate, an estimated 250 teaspoons would need to be purchased annually to maintain a practical institute-wide population of 70 teaspoons.

Conclusions The loss of workplace teaspoons was rapid, showing that their availability, and hence office culture in general, is constantly threatened.

Starting All Over Again

There's been a lack of activity here for several months and I'm going to give it another go in the run up to Christmas.  It's for my own benefit as a way to remember things that might be useful in either personal or work life etc and so today's topic is a small article spotted in the student newspaper (edition 3 November) which is highlighting a Gallery II event relating to Memory Theatre which has been running since 18th November.  It will be a collection of Bradford doors, parts of doors, whole doors, loved and unloved but characterful and photographed here in Bradford.  Why is this interesting to me?  over the Summer we discussed ideas for a newly decorated space in the Library building (a long wide corridor) and a colleague in our IT and Media School came up with lots of great ideas including this one - as the corridor is already full of doors.  It was such a good idea and a bit of fun - so we'll see if we can get the display curated to this space after the Gallery event.

The Summer is nearly over

Six weeks since the last post and we have been dealing with A Level results, confirmation, clearing, pre-enrolment and the British Science Festival which ran from Sept 10-15th in Bradford. We have helped to relocate an academic school from a separate campus (School of Health Unity campus) de-commissioned a large student Hall (Laisteridge) and done a couple of software upgrades which is a slight understatement for Blackboard 9 and Blackboard Mobile, Windows 7, Office 10 for students and migrating thousands of student email accounts to Outlook Live services. On the personals front there has also been a few weeks annual leave, a place at Nottingham Trent for Jacob and Megan in Kenya volunteering so it has all felt very hectic. There was a lot of planning for the BSF over a year and a real co-ordinated and team effort from lots of different people both on and off campus. It appears to have gone very well and the enabling part that IT Services has played in terms of network, wireless, internet cafe, back-office for the association and the dozens of other things that came along both expected and unexpected. This weekend we are now welcoming the new students into The Green. The new academic session has truly begun.

Hebden Bridge Boho Town

It's Hebden Bridge again - this time it's boho town. Last time was over 2 years ago here. It's still one of the lowest cost boho towns apparently - I wonder who decides these things?

University Mace

A starring role in the story of the University Mace on YouTube. Well not quite, but it's a privilige to share in the Graduation Proceedings. Is that the Chancellor on his mobile? There is also an interesting article on the special collestions 100 objects site here.

Curry Capital - Bradford

A message from Bobby at Prashad:

We as a city are most certainly deserving of this accolade and with your support Prashad would love to represent it's city.

I hope you feel we are worthy of your vote, Bradford Council are collecting votes from which 5 most voted restaurants will drive Bradford's bid.

We ask that you support our involvement in this great accolade and complete the on line voting form from the link

Please remember every vote counts and so please forward this email to as many people as you can and complete the form for every member of your household.

Prashad was born in Bradford as I was and we are very proud of our city, we want to continue our positive exposure and embrace a new dawn, Bradford is on the up.

Curry is the nations favourite dish and Bradford is where it started, this is our year and we need your help.

Thanks

Bobby

Google+

There's an interesting blog post here. Is this going to be more useful than other things as a social media consolidator. Probably others either in the pipeline or already here - most likely need to get traction and critical mass which other Google attempts (wave, buzz) probably haven't achieved.

Harome places to stay

Well worth a return visit - parent's 70th birthday weekend spent with family and friends at the Pheasant - superb.

Students versus Grayling

I thought these three short stories about the future student expectation versus AC Grayling's view of the world were interesting and worth a read in a year's time to see what happened.

Student Trascripts and HEDDs

There has been some interest in the initiative called the Higher Education Degree Database (HEDDs) and this article in the paper caught my eye, given our recent poor performance in league tables which has been partly attributed to the low numbers of first and second class honours awarded - is this a function of the student or the high tariff/hurdle that we choose to put in place for the student. Discuss.

Squidbeak

Spotted in this week's Saturday Guardian magazine letter's page a little review for Squidbeak. We already knew about this website from the mother of one of the authors who told us about it for a recent trip to the East Coast. We stayed at Thorpe Hall very highly recommended. They also like Prashad's and so do I! Probably won't go much wrong with any selections from here.

Nottingham Trent University good at keeping in touch

Interesting to see how other Universities manage the recruitment of new undergraduates. jacob is taking his A Level exams this week and hoping to go to NTU to study Business Management. They have been very good at personalising and keeping in touch throughout. Well Done to NTU - it's working.

Meeting Damon Hill

This Sunday went along to Oulton Park for the British Touring Car Championships. Last time we went it was a lovely sunny day and we went with another family and enjoyed a picnic with the kids who were still quite small. They have all grown up now so it was just me! The highlight of the day was meeting Damon Hill having blagged my way into the Michelin hospitality tent - I spotted him walking briskly from a motorhome and stalked him. Damon's son Josh was racing Formula Renault on Sunday.

Mind Certificate

Quite out of the blue there was a certificate in the post from Mind (mental health charity) for the money we raised last year in memory of Hugh. The four of us involved in the London 2 parix cycle ride raised over £4000 with gift aid. This was the personal contributions from friends and family - thank you everyone.

UCISA 2011 Reflections

Its been a couple of months now since the annual UCISA management conference in Edinburgh. I made a note to reflect on this year's event and the two others that I had an involvement in with the organising committee. My involvement has now ended and the event is in the capable hands of a group with fresh new ideas.

The Good Stuff

• Regular meetings and informal discussions with a small group of people involved in the organising team - there was always interesting stuff going on at other Universities worth talking about and sharing


• Putting together a theme and a programme - we got better at that and the last one seemed pretty effective


• Looking after the guest speakers. It's been fun and also quite stressful at times hosting some of our "celebrity" speakers such as Ruby Wax, Eliza Manningham-Buller, John Humphreys, John Sargeant and James Cracknell. I am still in occasional touch with Larry Hincker from Virginia Tech and hope one day to take up his invitation to visit - I think that was the most memorable presentation of all.


• Raising and exceeding the target for charity fundraising (£10k over three years) with special thanks to Trudy and Richard. Wow!


• The invitation to Oxford for the UCISA "away day" which was always a treat.


• Having a chance to meet up with lots of delegates and exhibitors once a year and hopefully (usually) getting some good and constructive feedback.


• Getting a nice room in the conference hotel!

The Not So Good stuff

• Opening the event and having to make a brief and uninspiring speech including all the housekeeping.


• Last minute speaker changes - usually unplanned


• Managing speakers who aren't prepared and cannot find time to be briefed


• The last weeks before the event - lots of preparation


• Trying to fit everything in as well as the "day job"

The added extras

• Visits to University locations around the country - a chance to visit learning spaces, student unions and libraries along the way and usually meet up with the people runing some of the services.


• The good fun with the organising team and the UCISA Exec.


• Hopefully making a bit of a difference and in particular helping us to share our knowledge and experience.


• Working with Sue and colleagues in the UCISA admin - they have been great.

Biking in Lake District

At short notice four of us set off for Elter Water and the Youth Hostel for a weekend's mountain biking. It was torrential rain on Saturday so apart from two hours later in the day in the pouring rain, we spent time at the Watermill (en route in Ings) and then the Britannia Inn. Sunday was better with the odd cloud burst but an excellent ride with fantastic views and scenery especially as the rivers and feeders were all flowing at capacity. The Britannia is holding a Giant Marrow competition on Monday September 19 in the back bar. We are planning our entries.

Oh to be a pen pusher

The Apprentice: New Series

We love the apprentice in our house.

Quote of the Night from episode one, goes to accountant, Edward Hunter, who said: "Not only am I the youngest [competitor], but I am also the shortest...". Yes shortest lived mate - "you're fired".

and timeless classics from the last series (series six 2010):

“And here is the River Thames, the second biggest river in London.” Jamie
“Pinewood Studios? I’m pretty sure that’s a furniture store.” Sandeesh
“My first word wasn’t mummy, it was money.” Shibby
“If I was an apple pie, the apples would be orange.” Alex
“The face of Big Ben is 20 diameters in width.” Jamie

You just gotta roll with the punches, roll with the punches

Mary Towneley Loop

This weekend six of us completed the MTL on our moutain bikes over two fairly relaxed days although it was pretty tough at times. This route follows the Pennine Bridleway in a circular route starting and finishing near home in Hebden Bridge. If you ever find yourself in Rossendale then this B&B comes highly recommended and is approximately half way round.

IT Services Newsletter #27

Improving Student Experience
There are a few things to report in the last month and also coming up. The staff and student “zoning” on level 01 is really starting to take shape. Room 01.44 will be re-opening shortly as a student quiet study zone for laptop users during May/June. Over the Summer, this room will be refurbished and launched again as a student PC cluster. This will be incremental (new) capacity of about 20 seats for the start of next academic session.

We have heard from Estates that the toilets on Level Zero (Gents and Ladies) have been prioritised for a total makeover this Summer from the end of term in an ongoing program throughout the building. The style of facility will compare with the refurbished/new toilet facilities in Horton Building (by the Barn). At the same time, the staff toilets will be de-commissioned as there is an outstanding audit/insurance request to eliminate the risk of water leaks into the computer and network equipment room which are located directly underneath on level 02.

Hopefully you are aware of a number of student service projects that are taking shape ready for the start of the next session. These include (subject to confirmations) Windows 7, Office 10, Office360 (the Microsoft unified collaboration suite for email, calendaring etc), Blackboard latest release (Bb9) and the integrated Blackboard mobile module. A micro-campaign communicating this to returning students is currently being planned. Thanks for all those who are working on these important projects at the moment.

Improving Staff Experience
The plans for the upgrades to the Staff Room (01.59) have been up on the notice board for a few days and there are a few clarifications from the User Group meeting earlier this week. There are overhead cupboards as well as worktop cupboards going to be installed (shown with dotted lines on the plan). There is a counter fridge that will be built-in – this will be a new fridge which will be energy rated A. The recycling bins will be re-located outside the room in the nearest suitable corridor except for the household waste bin. Estates will ensure that the water heater/boiler will be either re-cycled (if still efficient) or replaced with a suitable energy efficient device – similarly lighting will be automated on entry. There will be a coat of paint in a suitably homely colour but it will not be Farrow and Ball, and the tiles will not be Fired Earth! I am afraid that the indicative seating involving sofas and tables is just that and there will be furniture recycling from the level zero staff room. Please note that there will be disruption for 2-3 weeks while the works take place and this could be starting next week.

There has been further progress on the Unified Printing Project. This project is investigating a way for both students and staff to use “pull” printing technology to both save paper and energy (claims of savings in the order of 20-40% are being made although these are industry standard and hard to substantiate in a HE context). The savings come from sending things to print and not collecting, or printing on the right device for the volume required. We will soon be getting a new Multi Function Printer/Copier/Scanner which will replace the ageing colour printer and small printer/copier/scanner that have been located in 01.59. This new facility will be located somewhere in the Orient Express (to be decided).

Times Higher Award Submission
We have just found out that we were not shortlisted for the ICT initiative (I mentioned this in the last newsletter). The full list of shortlisted Universities is here. Bradford doesn’t appear in any of the categories. We can put the tuxedos back in the wardrobe for another year.

Green Impact Submission
We made our departmental submission ahead of the deadline and were thoroughly audited last week by two students who had a clip board and went through practically every question. We are one of the few departments who have had a go at the “gold” rating so hopefully we will find out shortly whether we have been successful. We also submitted bonus areas for the innovation award (which was the campus wide energy audit through our involvement with EUAC – see attached) and also best energy saving idea (PC desktop managed power down for all staff and student equipment on the campus).

JISC Embedding IT Project
This project has been running for about 6 months and has mainly been delivered through the efforts of John Fairhall along with colleagues in SCIM and the ADU. The final report is just being prepared and will be circulated widely. One of the spin-offs from this project has been the procurement of a smart texting (SMS) solution. This is currently going to run in parallel with the existing Meerkat service used by the SAINT system. The case studies include using text messaging in the disability service to remind students of appointments, an automated response/campaign manager system when we are promoting an activity such as Open Days, SMS reminders to Library borrowers who do not return books on time, and an interative SMS quiz system for use in lectures. As a result of this project we have been invited to bid for a further piece of commissioned JISC work – they must like what we are doing here!

Compare the Market - Simples
As part of the Txt Tools development, students and staff can now “compare the market” for mobile phone deals via the University mobile site at our mobile phones comparison site hosted here. These deals are available to staff, students and our local community.

Major Cool Replacement
We are moving into the final testing and evaluation stages of the system which will replace the Major Cool email list management tool. This tool has been around for a long time and has done a great job but doesn’t have the flexibility that we now need. The new tool will replace the way we manage lists and also provide an opportunity to update and purge almost 3000 mail lists that have developed over time in the legacy system.

IT Board
This forum is continuing to meet on the first Friday of each month and has recently been focusing on the IT Services rolling plan for the current year 2010/11 and also a range of account management activities that we are undertaking with both Academic Schools and Corporate Services. This last month we have had review meetings with Commercial Services, Library, Academic Development Unit, Estates, SSIS, Health Studies and the technical group of School IT managers. The documents and notes for all the meetings are available on the H:/Exchange Directory. One item of interest from this morning’s meeting, was the fact that UNIAC the internal auditors are doing some work with us from the middle to end of May for a period of about 10 days. There are two main areas which it is being proposed that they look at which were priorities from the IT review undertaken late last year – the systems integration requirements for Library and Estates in particular, and a review of ID Management related issues.

UCISA Exhibition Fun

This nice people at Salford Software encouraged me to sit for a while and before I knew it this had been produced:

Palestine Awareness

There is a week of awareness taking place this week which is being promoted through the Students Union. I was interested that the students were promoting a live video link at 2pm on Thursday in the Lecture theatre Student Central to other students in Gaza (at the University there). Our current student union treasurer/secretary has family, friends and long associations with Palestine but was also unfortunately detained there and there was a big campaign to get him released. The internet is changing the way that students around the world communicate and itneract and maybe it is also leading to revolutions too (Tunisia, Egypt, Libya). Where next?

Supplier Event

Attended an event in Nottingham last week which included a discussion about the future of IT in Higher Education as a result of the fees changes and perceived introduction of a more competitive versus collaborative landscape in the future. Opinions were divided on the similarities and differences between HE/public sector and private sector from an IT perspective. The discussion was pre-faced by a fascinating informal presentation from a senior IT guy in Next who had previously worked in the sector at both an "old" and a "new" University as well as in other public and private sector roles. He was kind enough to share the notes he used as a basis for the main themes.

Grand Central

First ever trip on a relatively new London service which sets out from Bradford via Halifax, Wakefield, Doncaster and then KX direct. So managed to get a parking space at Halifax and a £49 single ticket (versus £128 on Easy Coast). In February they announced that there is a £25 standard return fare all month. The train is half full and it's direct but takes extra hour versus Wakefield to KX but that doesn't include drive to Wakefield and £15 parking so it's looking like a good option so far although no power sockets in any coach due to a " technical fault". Will compare with east coast coming home as only three trains a day the next one home is after 8pm depart London so back via Leeds to Halifax for 8pm hopefully. Today's last minute trip is to NUS and University Governance event with UUK NUS Charity Commussion and government (David Willets) ref new charitable status coming later this year. At moment I am enjoying spare time job as Chair of shadow Trustee Board for Student Union and Hon Treasurer until new system in place.

IT Services Newsletter #25

We are well into another New Year and its been really busy for both our students (who are now in the middle of exams) and also for some of us (e.g. as we finish off the loose ends from the IT “at risk” period at the start of January). I’m going to try and keep up the idea of a monthly newsletter during 2011. We are also working on a report which we are preparing for the first meeting of the Information Systems Committee (ISC) at the end of January 2011. This report provides a quick summary of some highlights from the last six months in terms of improving services for students and for staff – if you feel that we may have missed something important please let me know – it’s not too late for revisions. It is important that we keep reminding the University that we are continuing to make a positive contribution in various ways to the University’s success.

From the Infrastructure Team

IT “at risk” periodThe IT at Risk period over the Christmas/New Year vacation ran from Friday 17 December through Friday 7 January. There was a lot happening and this has gone reasonably smoothly and without significant inconvenience to students or most staff. There are a few things that are being worked on (e.g. pFact, Salto and Business Objects) and the majority of changes were successfully made.
• Secure Global Desktop – Volatile Windows Desktop upgraded
• SAINT test and team services (not live) a new release of application software.
• Data - Staff Data Storage (G / H Drive) installing new security certificates.
• Windows Update and McAfee Virus software upgrade
• Various services using SQL database software to install security and other software patches.
• Commissioning and re-cabling works Student Central – affecting over 300 voice and data sockets
• Infrastructure changes to the Directory Services
• SFX Upgrades – Library service
• Server Room Switches
• Campus Firewall

Christmas/New Year operationsDuring the Christmas and New Year break we also ran all the services “unattended” and there were no major service interruptions to report. It was interesting to do some usage statistics for the PCs on campus between December 29, 30 and 31 (for 2009) and we’ll be doing the same for 2010 which showed:

Number of logins Number of unique users
Dec 29, 2009 750 425
Dec 30, 2009 650 315
Dec 31, 2009 620 360

Saving EnergyDuring December, Estates safely de-commissioned two air conditioning units in the “old” computer room on JBP Level Zero One. This is a result of equipment failure and also the removal of various equipment and servers over the last year. There will be an energy/cost saving from this but it is hard to measure at this level of detail in the JBP Building. We are working with Estates and Facilities to conduct some more detailed measuring at circuit level (non intrusive) for the two main computer rooms so that we can get a better idea of the energy usage as we plan for further improvements.

From the IT Support and Telecomms TeamThe monthly highlight report (for December) is now available with all the other monthly reports here. The total number of jobs completed in December 2010 was 926 with a completion rate before or on target of 96%. It was also another positive month for customer feedback with just one dissatisfied customer responding to our satisfaction survey. Sara has passed on her thanks to all involved: “What lovely comments - thanks to everyone involved for generating such positive feedback, it's really great to read”.

We held an initial meeting with representatives from all the IT Services teams to look at various management reports from the RMS system and see if we can make some improvements to coding and reporting in time for the next Academic Session. In addition, we now have two academic schools actively using the RMS system for logging activity (SCIM and School of Management). The proposed changes will include the new internal structure/teams as well as aligning the codes with our service level documentation.

There are some preliminary investigations about IP Telephony for the Listerhills Science Park, as various departments move out of that facility to occupy main campus space (e.g. RKTS and SLED) and there is a continuing but smaller amount of activity which needs support.

From the Systems TeamThis is a fairly technical news item but it will eventually have an impact on a number of our systems. The University’s Admissions team has agreed that for the foreseeable future we will continue to only accept ASCII characters from UCAS, not UNICODE. Therefore SAINT, and all systems taking SAINT feeds, do not need adapting for UNICODE . . .just yet. The UNICODE change allows for a much wider range of character sets which can improve personalisation (e.g. when sending correspondence).

Any Other Business
Final Phase of Office Moves (JBP level 01)We are now entering the final phase of minor works and office moves as we complete our plan to co-locate our IT teams together. During the next few weeks, the remaining members of the LSS Customer Services team will be moving to the Customer Services team offices on JBP Level Zero. Work has begin on extending the “submarine” office to enable the IT Support team to move into the vacated and adjoining space with service desk. The IT Systems team will then be relocating to 01.36/01.37 hopefully during February which will provide space for the PC Cluster to move into the newly created student “zone”. In a separate move the student PC clinic will be moving from its current location to a new home in the “student zone”. It is possible that we will also be joined on level zero by others who are being re-located as a result of the School of Health library moves to Level Zero of the JBP Building. This is still under discussion at the moment.

Public transport rant

For various reasons it makes sense to me to normally commute to work by car which us about 30 miles round trip. Frequently in the Spring and Summer I have tried to commute or part commute by bike. Occassionally like today I need to use public transport. Tonight the trains are all running late or not at all having bought a one way ticket. So now on the bus from Bradford Interchange to Halifax then onwards hopefully. It's more expensive by bus than train. I will be in a car tomorrow. Just bad luck? Probably.

Starting again in 2011

I just noticed that there have been no posts here since before the December and New Year break. There's plenty to write about but it's finding the time although this should only take a few minutes. I guess its sometimes hard to find those few minutes. Anyway three things today relate to the following photos.

The first one is from one of the Group Study rooms in the JBP Library as it is exam time these are getting some pretty heavy use from dawn to dusk. This photo must prove that Engineering students do visit the Library and that some students are working hard in those group study rooms contrary to what some may think given the general level of noise and disturbance!

The second one is the University flag at half mast - this is a farily rare occurence and last Friday it was to mark the fact that a colleague had died unexpectedly over the Christmas break. Jason Maher had just been appointed to a senior role in Learner Support Services as Head of Careers and Employability and he was due to take up the role in August. Everyone is still shocked and reeling from the news of his sudden and unexpected death. Jason was a gentleman and a larger than life character who will be very sadly missed around the whole University.

The final photo is from this Sunday's visit to Sheffield. I was there for a rugby match with Joseph(Old Brodleians away to a Sheffield team called Abbeydale) so we decided to pop in to see Megan. Somewhat surprisingly she was already at the Information Commons studying for her exam on Wednesday this week and so we had a coffee and some lunch in the bustling Information Commons cafe. Prices felt rather expensive at more than £5 a head for a sandwich and a hot chocolate. They were comparing prices with Starbucks at £2.40 a cup whereas we charge £1.40 at Bradford by comparison. Captive market however, and the place was rammed.