We've taken the test!

Our university has become the first in the country to submit itself to Which? consumer-product testing, which will shortly be extended to all other UK universities.

Twelve potential undergraduates specially selected for odorous opinions, ingrained ignorance and deep-down biological prejudices were subjected to our university's Mixed Load Humanities programme.

Careful examination of the students after exposure showed a small reduction in deep-down prejudice and ingrained ignorance. However, some odorous opinions still lingered, and a light test revealed several large newly acquired patches of incomprehension.

Immediate claims by our university that the tests had failed to do justice to other features of the humanities programme were dismissed by Which? as "fast spin".

Departmental Yuletide decorations: an amendment

From: The Director of University Signage

I very much regret that an error of transcription meant that the optimal size of balloons for departmental Yuletide decoration was erroneously given as 50 rather than 5 inches. Please amend your records accordingly.

Please also note that there is an optimum of six balloons per department and that all such balloons must be air filled to avoid helium contamination of the environment, personally blown (to avoid the risk of blowback from hand-operated pumps) and image free (to avoid last year's gratuitous references to the vice-chancellor).

Balloons must not, of course, be placed into position until Tuesday of the last week of term (to avoid premature frivolity); and in those instances where use is made of differentially contoured balloons (eg, round and cylindrical), care must be taken to avoid decorative juxtapositions that might cause offence.

Our Chief Decorative Liaison Officer with special responsibility for balloons, streamers and those things that shoot out and squeak when you blow into them will visit all departments during the last week of term to ensure strict conformity with the guidelines.

Please note that balloons that do not meet the approved criteria will be summarily pricked.

I hope this clarifies the situation.

Thought for the Week

(contributed by Jennifer Doubleday, Head of Personal Development)

This week's speaker in our Advanced Leadership course will explain why Hitler was not a good leader because he was a bad man before showing the class how to construct a working model of the Forth Bridge using only a coat hanger, three drawing pins and an elastic band. Everybody welcome.

Rest in peace

Our Director of Corporate Affairs, Jamie Targett, has warmly welcomed the news that the University of Glasgow has held a formal service of remembrance for those citizens who donated their bodies to its ever-expanding range of medical courses.

However, he described as "profoundly mischievous" the suggestion by Ted Odgers of our Department of Media and Cultural Studies that a similar service of remembrance should be held at Poppleton for all those academics who had "donated their souls to the university's ever-expanding obeisance to market forces".

lolsoc@dircon.co.uk.