Kronkodile's advice is really clever - Id definitely suggest he reimburse you - that will soon out a stop to his, frankly, shoddy behaviour towards you.

Are the meetings directly related to your PhD?
If not, then they're taking the piss as it isnt your job.

My dept (social sciences) recently advertised for a lectureship, and got 78 applicants! Its not a particularly prestigious university or a 'nice' place, and I'm both gobsmacked and a little scared - I'm planning on applying for similar jobs when i finish my PhD, and had no idea how much competition there would be.
What do others think? Does anyone else know of similar ridiculous numbers of applicants, or could this be a bizarre one-off?

I agree with Corrine - You know whether you can fit it in, and if you feel that you can, then theres no reason not to go for it! Its a fantastic opportunity for a PhD student, for the reasons you identify. Sounds like sour grapes on the part of your supervisor - Go for it!

You can invite yourself to write a chapter - i heard that someone was editing a collection on my topic area, so i just asked him - sent him a of my proposed synopsis - and he said yes. So its always worth giving it a try.

I would've thought it fine to comment on it's generalisability, but i would leave out any claims about the author's intentions (I'd be a bit miffed if someone laid any claim to my intentions, but mebbe that just me!)

Why on earth does it make you 'apoplectic with rage'? Surely there's greater injustices in the world?
(PS 'Apoplectic' IS a fab word though)

I wonder if it depends on whether you're doing a science or not...you mentioned 'experiment' which makes you think you are: if it is social sciences, then i don't think 18 months in would be 'too late' at all - i know a few students who only started collecting data at this point.

Bloody hell - Ive just read last year's posting which you brought up - reading everybody's responses, it has put the fear of God back into me!!!
Maybe i haven't got enough data.....(goes off to quietly whimper)

Hi Otto!
In the end, i did 17 interviews, ranging from 20 minutes to 3 and a half hours (to be fair, that one wasn't really an 'interview' at all - the interviewee hijacked it, never really answered the questions and i don't think i dealt with it well). The average length was about 40 minutes - with experience, i did find ways of getting the interviewees to elaborate. Nevertheless, none of my supervisors thought that short interviews would be problematic, given that the quality of the content was relevant & good. Also, i still decided to stop at 17 interviews as i realised that i had plenty of data for analysis (although i haven't started this yet!) and feel that there are ethical concerns regarding 'over-collecting' data, and then not using it.
Hope that helps - give me a shout if you need to know anything else!
Best Wishes, Z

A 3-month wait for a thesis panel is utterly outrageous. Do you have a research student handbook? I've found this invaluable in determining procedures and, in particular, expected timescales for these things.
My end-of-first-year thesis panel was 2 weeks after i submitted a short doc for it, and i got told straightaway in the panel that I'd got through. I'm telling you this to let you know what you should expect, as a frame of reference: sometimes i know that one ends up thinking 'is this just the way it is?', but it absolutely shouldn't be & you really need to take it further and, to be honest, make a complaint.

is your 3 months of waiting for feedback from your supervisors, or from your transfer committee? (although, either way, its pretty outrageous)

This probably wont help, but ive only been there once and had a dreadful time - the librarians were really unhelpful and i left in tears! You're definitely right to ask for advice - Im sure there's loads of advice that could be helpful - i think my mistake was wandering in like its any other library, which it really wasn't.

But aren't peer-reviwed articles done so anonymously - i.e. when sending in papers, you're not supposed to include your name on the article itself - so how can 'known names' be more likely to be published?

It seems a shame that there is nothing you can do about it - obviously seek advice from someone experienced in your dept, but i also wonder if you could contact the publication and explain your reservations? I'm sure theres a hundred reasons why this is a bad idea, but sometimes i wonder whether we really are powerless? After all, this guy has basically plagiarised you.