The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2792 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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“Actually I teach under my maiden name, Watts, to avoid any problems with titles,” I informed our visitor.

“Isn’t professor or doctor a title then?”

I regarded our guest. I suppose she was a couple of years older than I but it was difficult to estimate under all that powder and pancake. I mean, how many thirty somethings use a contrast colour lip liner to go to the office? She also had about three different shades of eye-shadow besides the liner; but the most outrageous thing was she was either wearing false eyelashes or had those semi-permanent extensions done. Was she going clubbing on the way home from work?

“I suppose it is, but how would you introduce me if I used all together—Professor, Doctor, the Lady Cameron? Or the other way round?”

“Okay, point taken.”

“You forgot, Mrs Cameron,” teased Tom.

“That’s implied in Lady.”

“It isn’t with Stella,” he threw back.

“That’s because she’s a congenital idiot, I only married into it.”

Ms Hepplethwaite looked at me askance, “Are you sure you really are uptodate on this policy?” she’d placed it on the table and tapped her finger on the cover.

“She wis part of the group that drafted it,” said Tom dropping me in it.

“I don’t recall there being anything about aristocrats or royalty in there, we don’t get too many of either in Portsmouth.”

“Apart from yourself, of course.”

“As I’m working as professor or Dr Watts, it isn’t an issue.”

“But there is section on the social status of all individuals, is there not?”

“Yes, but...”

“No buts, professor, it clearly states that respect be given or shown to the status of every individual, except where that might involve interruption to or disruption of classes. Where this is foreseen, the individual will be approached to minimise any untoward occurrences.”

“I think we carried it forward from the previous edition because no one was quite sure what it meant. It is rather woolly.”

“Does that mean you’re not implementing it?”

“Of course not, it just hasn’t happened or is likely too.”

“What if some Indian or Arabian prince came to do a course here?”

“Aren’t they likely to go to one of the larger universities, like London?”

“Not necessarily, sometimes they go to smaller ones because it’s easier for their bodyguards to protect them.”

“It might be easier for everyone if we didn’t accept them, I don’t want seven foot tall bodyguards armed to the teeth running round my department.”

“You can’t do that, you’d be contravening your own policy of equality and diversity and we might have to fine you a few million to remind you.”

“What? That is so unfair.”

Just then the food arrived but I felt more like tipping it over Hepplethwaite’s dyed and lacquered coiffure than eating it.

“What is all this about anyway, we’ve never had a complaint to my knowledge and we’ve dealt with all sorts of minorities—race, religion, sexuality, gender—we treat them all the same. So why are you here?”

“I wis jest going tae ask ye thae same question, Ms Hepplethwaite, whit is going on?”

“I can’t tell you that here, but yes, there is a reason for my visit.”

We had to wait another forty minutes before we were sitting in my office with cups of tea before our visitor would tell us. “We, that is the government have been negotiating with a foreign state to accept one of their princes as a student at a university. He wants to study biology and he wants to keep his personal yacht somewhere. It looks like you might be suitable.”

“Why have the government been negotiating? This is linked to some sort of deal isn’t it?” I began to believe we’d been sold down the river.

“There will be trade deals worth billions of pounds involved so you will guarantee him a good degree.”

“If he produces the goods academically, we will, if he doesn’t he’ll be out on his ear, prince or no prince.”

“Professor Watts, I don’t think you appreciate the vulnerability of your funding from the department...”

“That is blackmail.”

“No, it’s realpolitik.”

“What giving some foreign playboy a degree because some tit in government wants us to or they’ll cut our funding? No that’s intimidation, blackmail.”

“Blackmail is such a dirty word, we prefer cooperation, it’s so much cleaner, don’t you think.”

“I think I want no part of it.”

“If you were to resign to spend more time with your family, we’d of course understand.”

“You’re asking us to compromise the academic standards of the whole university for one lazy, good for nothing creep because he’s a prince in some grotty little mud hut, in some godforsaken spot off the civilised map.”

“I don’t think Kuwait’s government would agree with you, professor.”

“Why us?”

“Because no university worth its salt would accept him, would they?” Tom having kept silent, joined the fray.

Lucy blushed up to the roots of her dyed hair, even through the mask of makeup, she looked hot.

“Most Arab states would want Oxbridge or London, or Edinburgh or Glasgow, possibly Cardiff, not little ol’ Pompey. Is that not the case, Ms Hepplethwaite?” Tom astounded me, he was talking with no accent at all, just plain received English.

“We thought security would be easier in a smaller place.”

“Ye must think I came doon in the last fall o’ snow,” it was returning, the accent—well what did you think I meant? “If the big boys can’t accommodate a cheat, neither will we.”

“Your vice chancellor didn’t seem to share your view of things, he was far more pragmatic.”

“I’m sure The Guardian would be delighted to learn that, from an undisclosed source of course.”

“You’d overrule your own vice chancellor?”

“He isn’t concerned with academic standards, Cathy and I are.”

“Even if he was promised research contracts worth several million pounds.”

“I don’t care if he was offered his own bloody oil well, the answer is no.”

“We haven’t yet discussed funding for your own department or for yourselves of course.”

“Are you offering us money?” I asked astonished at the brazenness of this woman.

“I might be,” she tried to play canny with a Scot—waste of time.

“How much?”

“A hundred thousand per year, though you’d have to go there to collect it in person, naturally.”

“Tom, I hope you heard all that because I’m going to call the police. Attempting to bribe any academic institution to cause favour to a student irrespective of his or her abilities is an offence. Tom you’re a witness to this obscenity.”

She laughed.

“What’s so funny?” I felt like anything but laughing.

“They said you’d throw it out, lock stock and barrel.”

“Perhaps you should have listened to whoever they are then. It would have saved you a conversation with the police.”

“There is no student.”

“Why all the secrecy then?”

“We’ve had a spate of British universities being accused of effectively selling degrees to foreign students who bring large amounts of money with them and would prefer to spend it enjoying themselves than working for a degree. I can see you’re not amongst them.”

“How do we know you haven’t just revised your story and go and bother somewhere else until they say yes?”

“I have here a letter signed by the secretary of State for Education explaining our policy to root out bribery and corruption in our universities.”

“Why did you choose the Faculty of Biology?”

“We stick a pin in a map. If you had agreed, apart from being suspended, we’d have asked other faculties and the same would have happened there. It’s draconian but it works.”

“What about the vice chancellor—I thought he was in favour?”

“He said no and when we said we were going to test biology, he was sure you’d repulse the offer as well even with veiled threats.” She showed us the letter and then her proper ID. She was actually an undercover security officer.

“What did you think of that?” I asked after our visitor had gone.

“I wis tryin’ no tae think, it wis sae temptin’.”

“What?” I gasped and he roared with laughter. I’d been had again.