Still haven’t finished the videos for HTTLAM. I have laryngitis so can’t do the voiceover.
Anyhow, leaving that aside, David Mitchell (curmudgeon from Peep Show) wrote an excellent attack on the the Government’s replacement for the RAE, the REF. See it at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/27/david-mitchell-pointless-studies-survey.
He makes a number of good points, I particularly liked
Research which will obviously make money if it comes off will always find private funding and so should not be prioritised for public money. In fact, it’s the very place that public money should never go – it’d be like spending the Arts Council budget on profit-making pantos instead of opera or pouring the licence fee into Quiz Call rather than BBC Four.