CAMBRIDGE BLUE

Hello again, and welcome to July's Autolycan.  It's about Lego, but don't let that put you off.  Some of you may have been pleased to see the back of Sir Arthur Dickens after we last met him, but he makes a re-appearance here.  Please don't let that put you off either.  If you haven't met him before, or would like to refresh your memory, he appeared in Letters of the Law which was published in May of this year.

You may also remember that I wondered if there was any means of using this blog to raise some money for charity.  To do that I need to extend its readership and with that in mind it now has its own Facebook page and Twitter account on @MasterAutolycus 

The blog did get more hits last month because of this, but not yet enough to think of using it for fundraising.  If you'd like to help raise the numbers do please feel free to let your Facebook friends know about it or indeed retweet my Twitter message.

What on earth my poor old Dad would have made of that last sentence I can't begin to imagine.

Anyway, to business.

CAMBRIDGE BLUE

University of Cambridge to hire 'Professor of Lego'                                                               

                                                                                Daily Telegraph                                      

Everyone agreed that the quad looked its best at this time of year. It was bathed in glorious evening sunshine, Spring flowers were appearing in profusion and the leaves on the trees were unfurling and groping enthusiastically towards Summer. Everywhere were the sights, sounds and smells of exuberance and rebirth.

One man did not share this prevailing mood of optimism. Ousted from his position at the Pedantry Association, Sir Arthur Dickens had returned to Cambridge, where he now enjoyed – if that was the right word – the title of Emeritus Professor of Reactionary Grammar. He had, he now reflected, been away from Cambridge for too long. In his heyday, the University had been run along sound, conservative lines by the full panoply of Senate, Council, Faculty Boards, Proctors and all the rest. Sure footed, reliable fellows for the most part - a few libertines not suitable for admission to the Pedantry Association no doubt, but mostly decent sorts dedicated to preserving all that was best about a great University. Rather more women at the higher levels now, he noticed, but perhaps that was a development that was only to be expected, if not always welcomed.

But there was something worse, very much worse. Some ghastly Corporate Services Department had been allowed to spring up, populated by vulgarians - of both sexes - whose one noticeable talent lay in speaking a totally alien language whilst using words which appeared to be English. He still recoiled from his reintroduction to the University when a young man – sporting a gold earring, noted Sir Arthur with distaste – had enquired whether he would buy into escalating key departmental Resource Conversion Ratios by joining a tiger team tasked with leveraging key competencies going forward. It was, the repellent specimen had sought to assure him, a slam dunk, a no-brainer, if the University were to achieve its demanding targets for senior management bonus payments. When Sir Arthur opined that he would prefer to immerse himself in a careful reading of relevant reports and briefing papers, the young barbarian recommended he view something called management accounting software. He shuddered at the memory.

So it was an uneasy, jaundiced Sir Arthur who found himself at High Table in his old college one evening. It was much as he remembered, a familiar and comfortable environment. He'd known many of the chaps there for years but had been seated next to a young and diminutive figure whom he didn't recognise. Nothing if not courteous in an old fashioned gentlemanly way, he had introduced himself and enquired after his young companion's position in the college.

'Professor of Lego, innit.'

'I do beg your pardon,' he apologised, 'but I thought you said Professor of Lego.'

''Sright.'

Sir Arthur reached automatically for something to drink. He had been disturbed to find that the traditional pre-dinner sherry in the Senior Common Room had been replaced by a confection which was identified as a Slush Puppie, and even more disturbed to find that his glass of this revolting compound had been topped up.

'I've been away;' he remarked vaguely, 'perhaps you could enlighten me on the purpose and rationale of the post. I would be particularly interested to learn something of the conceptual framework underpinning its inception, and how its strategic aims and objectives are defined.'

The Professor of Lego looked up, and Sir Arthur realised to his horror that his fellow diner was very young indeed, probably no more than twelve or thirteen.

'It's all 'ere,' said the Professor, reaching for a small black plastic rectangle with an illuminated screen on one side. It was the work of a moment to punch a couple of buttons so that text appeared on the screen and pass the contraption to Sir Arthur, who peered at it in silence for maybe twenty seconds.

'Well?'

'There are no vowels or punctuation,' said Sir Arthur faintly, 'and it appears to finish in mid sentence if this incoherent jumble can properly be thus described.'

The Professor of Lego reached over and flicked the screen. The text changed, pointlessly since it continued to afford Sir Arthur no understanding whatsoever.

'It's a whole new whatsit, innit Grandad?' declared the Professor. 'Sod all that stuff about 'enlightenment and precious knowledge', what about the bottom line? What's going to play well with the punters? Look, kids like Lego – so we do Lego Studies. They could even come out the other end with a Duploma, geddit?'

Sir Arthur failed to geddit, but instead gathered his thoughts.

'I would be concerned' he began, as though addressing a Departmental Board, 'that the proposal may not meet our normal rigorous academic standards...'

'Course it doesn't,' interrupted the Professor of Lego, 'that’s the whole point. Oh, and it's not a proposal, neither. It's a whole new thing. Slush Puppies instead of sherry is only the start.'

'Does this mean' enquired Sir Arthur levelly 'that we will now be admitting students to abominations such as Media Studies?'

'Social Media Studies,' corrected the Professor, 'that's very popular, I mean, bugger 20,000 words or so for a thesis - 140 characters and you can get to be a D.Tweets.'

'But how can this sort of standard possibly be enough to determine which students are awarded first class honours, 2:1s and so on?'

'It isn't.'

'Then how........'

'Think outside the box, Grandad! We got that Simon Cowell in. Even you've got to admit that Cambridge Has Got Talent beats the hell out of sitting marking dreary essays for days on end.'

'Am I then to understand' enquired Sir Arthur, somewhat testily 'that parts of this great University are to be run according to the will of the lowest common denominator? That we are, to use a detestable phrase with which I am sure you are more familiar than I....'

The Professor of Lego looked up sharply.

''More familiar than I' is quite correct, I assure you. Are we - to use that deplorable phrase - 'dumbing down' parts of the University?'

'No.'

'No? But this entire conversation appears to be predicated on.....

'Not parts of the University. We are rolling the concept out across the whole lot.'

'Rolling the concept out? Please confine yourself to the English language.'

'Listen, Sidney Sussex college wanted to attract more women students. First off they tried re-branding theirselves as Sindy Sidney, thinking that all girls love Sindy dolls. To be fair, that one didn't work out – it can be a bugger sometimes, marketing – so they're going with Slinky Sidney instead. You know, that steel coil thing that walks downstairs by itself. The creative boys and girls came up with #GetDownToOurLevel@SlinkySidney! Quality! It's gone viral. And that's on top of kids flocking to join their Care Bears Department of Medicine.'

Sir Arthur gaped.

'I wonder how on Earth all this can possibly have started,' he mused, and momentarily the Professor looked downcast.

'Ah. Yeah, well, sorry to say it wasn't us, it was Downing College what got in first. That new Dean of theirs started it when he invited Dinky Toys onto the Governing Body. I think he fancied being the Dinky Dean of Downing. Showed his age and made the wrong choice – kids don't play with Dinky Toys no more – but a good idea, so we nicked it.'

'And these loathsome tentacles have reached across the entire University?'

'Everywhere! Take the Etch A Sketch Fine Art department, the Lego Star Wars Jedi Scout Fighter astrophysics department, even the building maintenance people wanted to hook up with Sticklebricks, but being Lego we had to protect our position, didn't we, so we come down on them like a ton of, well, Sticklebricks. There was Bristle Blocks all over Christ's Pieces. It looked like the Somme.'

Sir Arthur sat back and took a deep breath.

'I suppose' he murmured 'that it is too much to hope that the University's magnificent sporting traditions have been spared these depredations? In my day you could get your blue for rugger, cricket, rowing...'

The Professor of Lego nodded.

'Definitely. We've ditched rugby and cricket of course, but you should just see the Grand Theft Auto team in action! And the rowers are much happier now we've done away with boats and given them jet skis instead. Made us wonder about putting the middle distance runners on segways.'

The allure of the double cheeseburger and fries – when the indelicacy finally arrived – was enhanced in Sir Arthur's view neither by the lack of the usual highly polished cutlery nor by the Diet Coke which was apparently a compulsory accompaniment. He touched neither. He was grateful though for the silence which fell as the Professor's attention was wholly absorbed by this miserable fare, and happy for that silence to be extended when he offered his own tray to his young interlocutor. It gave him valuable time to think.

His enforced departure from the Pedantry Association had been painful, but Sir Arthur was an intelligent man and had learned from the experience. He also knew that several of his former colleagues were secretly sympathetic to him and might well be persuaded to rally to the cause. Cambridge had been good to him over many years; he now saw an opportunity to repay the great institution which he had helped nurture and shape, and which now stood in the gravest danger it had known in its long history. After all, real ale had done it, real farming, real education – why not found the Campaign for Real Cambridge? Suddenly he was a man with a mission; his mind raced.

At last, he turned to the Professor and explained succinctly and persuasively why the new approach was so desperately wrong, and how he – Sir Arthur Dickens – would ensure the overwhelming triumph of the Campaign for Real Cambridge.

The Professor nodded.

'Good idea. Not the Campaign for Real Cambridge, though. Best call it Cam4Cam. Much catchier.'

Sir Arthur was startled.

'I thought we'd be on opposite sides' he stammered.

The Professor shrugged.

'No such thing. It's a two horse race; if I back both horses I can't lose.'

'That's really a most interesting – possibly quite attractive – insight' conceded Sir Arthur. 'Despite our manifest differences I believe I can learn from you.'

The Professor grinned.

'Call it my Lego-cy' she said.

ANAGRAM CORNER

I'm not a tennis fan, but didn't she do well!

                                                MISS HEATHER WATSON

MS SERENA?  WHO IS THAT?

And as a special bonus, I haven't written a story about it, but I loved this headline in The Guardian.

Woman sent to jail for noisy sex

Honestly, it's like a bloody holiday camp in there these days.........   they can do as they please.......