Alumnus to be proud of no 34 is the subject of a joke currently doing the rounds of US academia via the Internet - Q: "What is the difference between a big fat hairy rat and Pat Buchanan?" A: "One bites the toes off poor children, spreads the plague and has historically been portrayed as a harbinger of the apocalypse, and the other looks like a large mouse." Other differences are that rats do not officially attend either Georgetown University in Washington DC (also the alma mater of President Clinton) - at least, not unless they obtain basketball scholarships - or Columbia University in New York City.