Library doors: a refutation
The new library doors are "a menace", says Ned Yoxall
In training for long distance things, you have to train for quite a long time. Whether I’m in the pool, on the bike, or on a run I usually get some ‘quality’ time with my own thoughts. What follows is the result of this time alone…
Recently in Felix, Laurence de Lussy Kubisa wrote a remarkable article in praise of the new library doors. In typically electrifying prose, he has prostituted your loyalties. Your faith and trust should rest forever more with the old doors, not these young pretenders.
In calling the old ‘face-on’ style of door ‘outrageous’, he confuses as much as he outrages. The old had dignity, a certain majesty. You knew where you were with these faithful beasts. These new contraptions, by contrast, are a menace. By introducing a highly dangerous 90 degree swerve to the entrance procedure, the new doors are an HSE nightmare. To anyone who has not tried the new geometry, heed my warning – your inner ear can only take a limited amount of abuse.
To those who make it inside, a gladiatorial spectacle is your prize. Turn back and you’ll see carnage: freshers who can’t hit that magic 90 degree bend, some pulling 135 degrees and hitting the wall, the lucky ones managing a 180 degree in-out shimmy; medics forgetting to turn at all and continuing straight on out; institutionalised PhD students walking, mystified, at the glass where the old doors used to be.
How Mr de Lussy Kubisa can claim that there are “clear benefits to students’ comfort and safety” is frankly scandalous. What management have managed to produce with this new vestibule is Nascar in human form without the banked edges and without the onsite paramedic team. In the words of Mr. Fernandez Garcia, a 3rd year PhD student in physics, “I can’t go back in there. It was terrible”. A glazed look came over his eyes before he softly added, “you weren’t there man, you weren’t there.”
In the light of this debacle, I seriously think that Felix should have a closer look at their employment policies. One can only imagine that Mr. de Lussy Kubisa is someone who disagrees with labels on fruit, among other things. Everyone knows that individual blackberries, raspberries and dried apricots should be stickered – allowing someone to express their opinions who thinks otherwise is ill-informed at best.
Ned is also doing Ironman Wales to raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust. You can sponsor him online by visiting www.justgiving.com/NedsIronman.
