Brexit

Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?

Brexit is the process by which the United Kingdom left the European Union. This was a major political event of our contemporary times, the dust of which has not yet settled.

The big question now is, which is the next country to go? France (frexit)? Germany? Or another, non-vital component (Hungary, Greece...?) until the final explosion.

We did our own Brexit in December (2022), following the University of Wolverhampton's new policy—under the vice-chancellor David Proverbs—to focus on financiary juicy business opportunities for the University, for which Research in general and Physics in particular were not ranking high on the list.⁽¹⁾ This led to a dramatic retrograding of the University back to its polytechnical status of a big school for apprentices and underqualified, but diplomed pupils.

Proverbs, not a scientist, but an engineer of flood risk management, was admirable in his gravedigging role, as he could monitor a university ecosystem from Excell sheets only, like a simple problem of leaking pipes indeed: turning off what doesn't bring in immediate return and opening wide open what is very popular. With the corresponding shortsightedness, he managed to expulse basically each and every single researcher of merit or note from the University, which is now masquerading in its Scholar page as somewhat reputable, but mainly from name misappropriations (e.g., the most cited scientist there at the time of writing is Richard Evans who actually should be this Richard Evans; something similar happens with other people down the list, e.g., Sarah Jones gets citations from various Jones such as S. J. Jones or S. G. Jones, some of the physicists I can readily identify from the list). Jones is in fact one of the previously successful scientists in the glorious days under Geoff Layer, but who has been crippled with no possibility to maintain the trend she had been impulsing. There remains there Alan Nevill (sport), Andrew Lane (also sport) and Jamal Khatib (architecture) but those topics hardly can constitute the backbone of a respectable University.

Proverbs, like a parasite, after pocketting his hefty monetary sum for a dirty job well done, fled the boat that he had sunk and is now providing flood advices somewhere else in Leicester. The University of Wolverhampton, for a moment suspended in the ideal of achieving something of importance and magnitude, went back, at least for decades, possibly for ever, into the insignificance and scorn of a worthless place. A sad turn of event. I liked the place. I admired its potential. I met wonderful people there from students and staff alike. I got hurt at its proverbial throw to the wolves. Fuck you David.

I blogged about Brexit (of the country, there is too little or too much to say about our own).