Is the Uni Addicted to Flat Screen TV's? It would appear so.

Walking around Highfield campus it’s difficult to miss the number of flat screen TVs that adorn the walls. They are present almost everywhere from Hartley Library to the SUSU building, not to mention every departmental building in between.

The latest additions to the campus’ TV collection are the new 50” Sony Bravia and 47” LG that sit pride of place in the Hartley Library atrium, but they didn’t come cheap at a combined cost of approximately £2000.

The majority of the time these white elephants of university spending display a screen saver or unimportant notice. The lack of purpose and the fact that they replaced a fully working TV only adds insult to injury. To top this off the Vice Chancellor hasn’t even had the common decency to pay the licence fee; how am I to watch The X Factor during a Saturday night at the library?

It does seem perplexing that in these supposedly austere times and in the face of a looming £4.2bn cut to higher education that the university still deems it reasonable to be spending this money on IT equipment.

For now however all we can do is hope that the University gets its addiction under control, and doesn’t move on to harder substances, 3D TVs, Blu-ray players and the like.