I don’t know why, but I get regular emails from the ‘Fair Fuel’ (sic) lot. They’ve got steadily more right wing, delusional verging on conspiracist, of late. Reckon ‘Blue Labour’ think they have to appease these people.

Correction: the Morpeth Harriers duo who were 1st and 2nd in the Senior race, which was held jointly with the U23 event. Easy to get confused in these situations!

So Tory Boy became a columnist. Who’d have guessed?

BTW those flats have a car park round the back of the building.

Just up Halewood Rd from where I live, I was actually beeped at by a car driving behind me on the pavement. Driver said he needed to park in front of his flat. I told him the pavement was not an auxiliary car park or road and got a mouthful of abuse.

We were in Valetta a couple of weeks ago. That museum was closed so we did the two biggest forts- that took a while. The Neolithic temples at Ħaġar Qim are amazing. If you like sea swimming, go to nearby Għar Lapsi as well- swim with shoals of little fish.

Use the early Great Western Railway approach; they didn't even convey 4th class passengers by passenger train, just hooked their (open, unbraked) wagons to goods trains.

I can’t understand the Party’s current obsession with appeasing the flag shaggers. It’s morally wrong and is anyway doomed to fail.

I have written letters to VCs on behalf of chemistry colleagues in other institutions selected for redundancy on Departmental contraction on grounds of lack of research income, when the reason was all the collegiate stuff they'd been loaded with, with no credit. Can't think it's any better now, tbh.

Could be! I was Departmental Safety Officer in my 2nd year (in a chemistry Dept, when COSHH was coming in...), then Year 2 coordinator, later Chair of Board of Studies. I did eventually wangle some grant money, hence excuses to say 'no' sometimes. And yes, some female colleagues were worse off.

You're not wrong though, sadly.

Way back when I applied for Senior Lecturer and didn't get it, I bemoaned my fate to a colleague, who replied 'Your problem is that you don't waste enough money!' I had a large teaching load and did a lot of departmental admin; my other problem was not saying 'no' enough.

That figure, and the ratios, are clearly plucked from thin air. These people are a plague on HE. I wonder how many humanities Profs bring in £100k per year? I had trouble meeting that figure in the sciences!