In what must surely be a vacation first, Dr Fritz Itzig of our Department of Comparative Animal Studies will be accompanied by 24 of his prized experimental rats during his forthcoming two-week camping holiday in the Yorkshire Dales.

Speaking to The Poppletonian, Dr Itzig described his decision as a response to those academic critics who regard laboratory rats as an "atypical" version of the normal rat, as well as to those animal-rights activists who regularly protest about the nature of their laboratory confinement.

Dr Itzig admitted that there would be some limits set upon the rats' freedom of movement while in the Dales. "We don't really want them staying out all night or forming any ongoing relationships with local rats, but I hope that otherwise they'll be able to take full advantage of their time away from the campus and be able to return refreshed and ready for another term of T-maze running."

DOCTORATE ON THE BEACH

Does your partner object to you marking PhD theses while you're on holiday?

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Then beat the rap with Beach Reader.

Although this container looks for all the world like a conventional plastic sandwich box, it readily accommodates a full-size doctoral thesis. When the container is pressed firmly down into the sand, the battery-illuminated thesis can be easily read through the plastic top. Page-turning is facilitated by a special finger hole.

"What a little marvel! I marked five PhD theses and four MA dissertations without even arousing Mrs Lapping's suspicions" writes Professor G. Lapping, Media and Cultural Studies.

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Beach Reader. Taking the Sand out of Assessment.

Does your phrase book cater for your distinctive demands? Our new Academy Speak website might be able to help. Here are some of the sample phrases that you'll find translated into all major European languages.

Can you tell me where I might find some medium-strong goat's cheese and a pair of nail scissors?

Can you recommend an art gallery that would be sufficiently pretentious to take my partner off my hands for most of the coming week?

I realise that we look English but is that a valid reason for omitting the French dressing from our salade nicoise?

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Do you have a sample pastis? Neither of us can bear the stuff but we'd like to look native.

I explained yesterday and the day before that it's no use offering me the Daily Mail because there are no Guardians.

Isn't this folk festival what Baudrillard meant by "simulacrum"?

FIGURE IN A LANDSCAPE

Yes, for the next ten days it's holiday time once more for Poppleton's hard-working dons. And look who's jumping for joy on the beach at sunny Broadstairs. Yes, it's brunette Dr Gillian Kettlelay, deputy head of our Department of Statistics, showing that not all top figures have to be confined to regression analysis. Small wonder that when Gillian's around, there's no shortage of Broad Stares!

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lolsoc@dircon.co.uk