Dear Maureen

Hi. Yes, it's Dr Piercemuller. Thanks a lot for the letters, telephone calls, emails and text messages.

Sorry I couldn't get back before, but I've been up to my eyeballs in the Urban Deprivation conference that has been running all week in Antibes.

In between sessions, I've managed to snatch a couple of minutes R and R on La Garoupe beach - just around the corner from the conference centre. Have you ever been there? If not, I'd heartily recommend it. Excellent garlic prawns washed down with ice-cold Proven?al ros¨¦.

I'm heavily into recruiting work over the next five weeks, visiting some of the key academic centres in Italy and proclaiming the merits of a degree in media and cultural studies at Poppleton. So far I've managed to set up trips to Florence, Perugia, Venice and Positano.

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In fact, I may already have recruited one young chap from the Antibes conference who has a particular interest in studying the British underclass. Do you happen to know if there is an underclass anywhere in Poppleton (or nearby)? I suppose if there's not one to be found he could always fall back on the department (joke).

Well, I've nearly run out of space even on this large postcard, so I'll just say that I'm even now looking into the queries you raised about the 36 missing examination scripts, the logistical problems of handing my first-year lecture course next term to Dr Quintock while I'm away on Erasmus business, and that peculiar question from old Lapping about the whereabouts and precise status of the two research articles I wrote last year for The Moldavian Journal of Experimental Leisure Studies .

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I'll let you have precise responses just as soon as the pressure is off.

Sorry about the blob of olive oil. Sometimes it can be an absolute nightmare cracking open these giant prawns. Enjoy your own long break.

A bient?t

Dr Piercemuller