Griffin Close
I've noticed a couple of mentions of Bunglingham University's gulag student accommodation at Griffin Close. I've mentioned before that I used to be a supervisor there, and that meant that, for three years, I was one of the people handing out keys at the start of Freshers' week. (If you were a resident between 1998 and 2001, you'll know me.)

Arrivals day was horrible. Not just because of the numbers of people who'd descend on us wanting to get into their rooms NOW! - though their consistent inability to understand the notion of the queue and that we were going flat-out already was bad enough - but because we knew what was in store for the eager kids and their vile helicopter parents. Many was the occasion when we'd let someone into their new flat and scarper as quickly as possible, because we knew what the response'd be. There was a number of occasions when we had to tell arrivees that they wouldn't have any heating or hot water for their first week or so, for example, or that the oven had just been condemned, or something like that.

Dirt was a frequent complaint: hadn't the place been cleaned since the last occupant left three months ago? The answer was that it had. But in accommodation of a certain age, there comes a time when "thoroughly cleaned" does not imply "thoroughly clean". A level of general grime becomes pervasive: sometimes, a carpet just won't become spotless. The solution, of course, is to redecorate every few years. But Bunglingham never did that.

The thing is, though, that no matter how bad the arrivees' accommodation was, the supervisors' was guaranteed to be worse. This was because undergrads left for the summer, which meant that cleaning and maintenance at least stood a chance of being done. One or two blocks were renovated, in fairness, and weren't too bad. But when a supervisor left, it was invariably to be replaced by his successor on the same day, or the following one: there was never a fallow period in which the flat could be gone over.

Want to know what student accommodation looks like after 30 years with no maintenance to speak of?

No. No, you don't.

Length? I've had a thousand years knocked off my time in purgatory as compensation.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 11:36, 4 replies)

Just remembered (after our last GC discussion)
my brother still has a griffin close mug dated 1985 (I think). He was there in 1990.
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 11:59, closed)

my friend
sam was in griffin!!

however, i think that was 1996-97, because we be very old giffers by now.

still, many a "great" night was had at old joe's and in that sandwich place (mud cafe?).

when my friend em was there, they lived at 666 dawlish road, smelly oak. their front door actually had "666" on it in massive numbers.

class.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 12:13, closed)

My friends; Ian, Marcos, Katy, Beccie ...
lived in Griffin shortly before it's demolition - I was gonna mention it in this QOTW. I'm not sure whether they contributed to the demolition or the atmosphere with their hallucinogenic antics or whether you remember them.

My God - Northfield for the nearest shops, the slowest Maccie D's in the world - and what was that dodgy bar called?

BTW Purgatory has been abolished by the current Pope (I think).
(jmaxi returned again on, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 13:09, closed)

jmaxi
I would probably recognise them. Who knows: might even have let them into their rooms.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 23 Jan 2008, 13:47, closed)