Now when University House was built it was not this fantasy of glass and steel but a mere functional 'soviet-style' concrete box that you can see in the back. It worked perfectly well as the student union building with cafes and bars and so on. Obviously sometime in the eons since I left the place it became so unbearably ugly that it needed a makeover and what a makeover. It took me a while to realise that the canopy changes colour. It's pretty useless as a canopy but what the heck! In these days of cutbacks to universities this is an obscene monument to conspicuous consumption.
It's been made prettier from outside, but all the bars and restaurants have gone. What's left? One pub on the ground floor called the Sanctuary and the Johnny Mac. The former is the only place in the building serving food.
ReplyDeleteThe bank's gone, so is the travel agency and many other things. Although the supermarket moved from first to ground floor and is now bigger, it doesn't offer foreign press and its selection of domestic press is very limited.
Gone are the good old days in which we spent hours in the Reznikov and could choose from a variety of restaurants and food and didn't have to wait that long.
I was down there yesterday - 20 years after I graduated - and gutted to see the Rez isn't there any more. Nothing was open either... most bizarre!
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