Great minds eh! :-)

I have the answer! (I think)

Cheap tickets only come out a period of time before travel (I don't recall when, maybe a couple of months, maybe 3 - you could ring national rail enquiries to ask if it's not online). If I look for Sept it's coming up at over £100 for a single. Try August and it's just over £35. So, you might need to wait a bit longer before booking Sept, but not too long else you'll miss them!

In case you don't know, there are lots of diff ticket types. The cheap ones are the Advance ones, you must travel on a specific train (else you have to buy a whole new expensive ticket). They come in at a few diff prices, basically when they sell out of the cheapest, it goes to next band until all the advance tickets are gone.

And two singles in usually cheaper than a return. You can often get the two singles at diff prices depending on which band you end up in. And if you can, be flexible and search the earlier and later options till you find a cheaper one.

It all depends. Unis give offers to try and fill their places, then they get results and have to juggle it all around to fill the places. If lots of people don't meet the offer then they might negotiate. If lots of people do then they might not. Basically they need to try and balance to get enough people on the course, not too many, and not too few. They will want to to fill their places. So it all depends on what everyone else does etc. I don't think if you contact them they will tell you any more. You just need to be patient and wait and see. Imo there's nothing more you can do.

My application process was dead easy so I don't really have any pearls of wisdom, but I think I recall there are lots of books that talk about this stuff. I read books about how to do a PhD when I started and usually missed the first few chapters as they were about applying. Try a uni library, mine has loads, and it wouldn't take long to just sit and look at them. And I have been told that all uni libraries are meant to be public access, as they are public institutions, so they should let you in. (Anyone can certainly get in mine, although I don't think people know that as it looks like you can't)

I agree. I heard about my (funded) PhD opportunity late, wrote a research proposal in a couple of weeks, and I got accepted with funding. Of course my research proposal has changed massively, but I think that's part of it. I didn't need to email my potential supervisors so have no experience of that, but your proposed email looks short, to the point, clear which is what is important. You can't be expected to be perfect at this stage, and supervisors are only other humans, and can just say if you don't give enough info, or if it is late in the day etc. Imo you've nothing to lose.(up)

At my uni (just double checked) it is page numbers for quoting, no page numbers for citing. (But googling I saw different) In the way I write, I sometimes include citations which are more conceptual so it would not be possible to give page numbers without being so broad as to be meaningless, whereas a quote obviously comes from a specific place, so makes perfect sense to me. (This is what is described as Harvard at my uni)

Re random page numbers, seriously! That sounds crazy to me. You're giving the examiner a gift to undermine your whole thesis (once revealed as a cheat, doubt is cast and the onus is on you to prove you're not) if she spots one, which if they are familiar with the text would not be hard. There are books that I would spot if the page number were dodgy, not because I know every page but you know where in the book it will fall. (And if I were an examiner I would spot check. Am I just anal??) Which makes me think it might not be so hard to find the page numbers if you need them. Of course more peripheral stuff maybe not. Btw on that note, I know an examiner who whilst he was reading the thesis would tick off in the biblio every reference that was mentioned, to make sure all in the biblio are in the text, so I think pages numbers wouldn't be beyond the realm of his checking.

Personally I see it from a different perspective. People running things down aren't doing it out of logic, they're doing it because they want to tell themselves it for some reason to make themselves feel better for whatever reason. I'm vegetarian, and I often get 'asked' by people why I am, so they can then justify to me why they eat meat. They don't listen to the answer, they are just waiting to tell me why I am wrong, which is actually re-affirming in their own mind why they are right. So, looking at it logically, or trying to fight back with statistics isn't going to work. It's not coming from a logical place. I don't think people sit down, look at employment etc stats, and decide an 'academic' route isn't for them. They have different, more emotional reasons than that. So personally, I just don't engage in conversation like that. I just let people tell me what they need to tell me, nod vaguely, and then move on. It doesn't fuel what they are saying, they get to make themselves feel better, doesn't affect me. If it were an ongoing relationship, I might then slip things into the conversation every once in a while that challenge their preconceptions, but not in an overt, confrontational way. Chip away, give people the opportunity to see things differently for themselves.

I don't know the answer in your case but I had a similar thing with a friend of mine who is a refugee. Luckily for him he knows the law relating to refugees inside out. The person in officialdom didn't, and had out of date information, and of course as my friend had a vested interested in what he was saying the official couldn't just believe him. It got sorted in the end. The scary thing was, for all the people who hadn't know as much as him, they would have believed officaldom and that would have been it. So I really think you need to get proper advice from an organisation that know the rules relating to this inside out. They change (this was what happened with my friend, and he knew they had), and although people here can tell you all sorts of things from their experience, you need someone who is absolutely spot on and current.

Writing, I mean. There is a reading group too, but this one is about sharing our writing
(Soz don't know how to edit on this forum)

We do a reading group. Get together, read each others work, comment on it. Small select group so everyone gets a turn and there is no freeloading.

Personally I would rather sometimes cause confusion, cause people to think "what?", let people try to figure things out, see something that causes offense to a different group, something that goes against the grain, and more importantly triggers thought.

Neither. Try reading back through the posts and see if you can spot any of what I alluded too....

Nevermind. Poly bashing is an established sport, so probably doesn't even feature on the radar. I just don't like to ignore stuff like that, in any arena.

Funded place. If you go to the 'prestigious' uni it would appear you'll have to put up with all sorts of outdated prejudice, looking down on others and RAE obsession.

I'd disagree a little about the benefit of a PhD in a non-academic job. Whilst things aren't the best, there are jobs out there. It is low-skilled people who are hit the worst not people with degrees. And outside of academia I wouldn't say a PhD is much of an asset - people can actually be scared of people with PhDs; they don't want someone who knows it all and will challenge them. BAs, MAs etc, sure they just show you are qualified. But a PhD outside of academia also points you out as being a little odd and no-one knows what an MPhil means in relation to a PhD. Obviously depends on the employer etc etc, but....

Other than that - I like the mindset advice someone else gave.