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As if there aren't enough Grumpy Old Men writing for The Times Higher , no sooner do I renew my subscription than you announce Frank Furedi is to be a regular feature.

True to the form of his lavishly, if mysteriously funded, Institute for Ideas, he proposes knowledge for its own sake against incursion by the state.

The elite of the so-called academic community have long hidden their Trahison des Clercs behind this empty slogan, hoping that fees and privatised universities will save their precious research careers and preserve their teaching from relegation to training. But knowledge is never for its own sake and to oppose the Government and the corporations' notion of knowledge is not to oppose the use of knowledge for more human purposes.

Any chance of a refund?

Pat Ainley
University of Greenwich