The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2818 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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The meal was adequate, David would have done much better, but there were well over a hundred people here so I accept scale does affect production. We had mushroom soup to begin, Simon ate my roll for me, followed by chicken breast wrapped in Parma ham with vegetables and new potatoes. Pudding—the dessert not my niece—was raspberry pavlova followed by cheese and biccies. Si had my pavlova and I ate most of his cheese and biccies. I had one glass of wine, as I’d be driving home he and Tom had two or three. Tom had to stay sober to chair the proceedings. If there was any advantage in doing one of the speeches, it was sitting on the top table, where the service was quicker. But it effectively meant speaking rather than singing for my supper.

Tom is rather good at this sort of thing and he regaled them with events at the university, including a new Vice Chancellor, over the past year. He had them laughing a bit about things and I suddenly realised he was talking the Queen’s English, not his usual Edinburgh patois. Next up was the Vice Chancellor and I tried to listen carefully to what he said because I was going to be replying to it and although it’s more symbolic as a form of entertainment than an actual response. Some of what I intended saying was possibly politically biased, but despite being married to one of the richest families in Britain if not Europe, my politics were decidedly left of centre and I spoke about what I believed in.

I asked for the jug of water to be refilled and poured myself a glass while I waited for our windbag VC to finish his platitudes, encouraging the troops etc. I felt like I was going to a Siegfried Sassoon to his General Haig, holding things up to the light.

There was polite applause to end the longest ten minutes I’d felt for a long time. Tom thanked the Vice Chancellor and then looked at me. “It gives me great pleasure to ask Professor Cathy Watts to respond to the Vice Chancellor. For those who don’t know her, she is by training a field biologist and ecologist, largely responsible for the success of the British and now European survey of mammals. She is one of the leading experts on the Hazel Dormouse in Europe and has made two successful films about dormice and harvest mice which were well regarded both by the critics but also in academia.

“This morning she gave the Christmas lecture on the evolution of complex cells, one of the most crucial steps in the whole of evolution and how we’re all here today. Then she had none other than Sir David Attenborough attend her lecture and propose the vote of thanks. He was impressed with her as a speaker and as film maker and presenter. Her students love her and she is regarded as one of the best teachers in the university with what might be best described as an inspirational style of presentation. I must also tell you that she didn’t know until two hours ago that she would be giving this address when she stepped in to cover a colleague who is indisposed. Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests and Vice Chancellor, I give you Professor Cathy Watts.”

I stood up and put my hand above my eyes as if peering at the assembled diners. “Mr Chairman, distinguished guests, Vice chancellor, ladies and gentlemen and anyone else I may have missed. Sorry about squinting at you like that but I was trying to count how many of you were at my earlier gig this morning so don’t worry this is a different talk. If however, you fall asleep you’ll be assigned washing up duties.” This got a small chuckle probably from politeness.

“For those who don’t know me, I’m acting Professor of Biological Sciences, trying to fill the shoes of my predecessor who is acting Dean of the Faculty of Science, our much loved Professor Tom Agnew, who is also the one who dropped me in it to do this talk tonight, so if you don’t like it—it’s his fault.” That got another titter, they were going to be hard work.

“I’m a biologist, so expect the odd science throwaway—like the scarab beetle who walked into a bar and asked is this stool was taken—and the neutron who was out walking with a friend and said, ‘I’ve just lost an electron.’ His friend replied, ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’m positive.” These got some groans and one or two laughs.

“The Vice Chancellor has told you how he sees university education going, with more and more research being sponsored by commercial interests, either for their benefit in a direct sense or by association. While everyone loves dormice, only the government through Natural England are likely to sponsor research, no one else is that interested always expecting the funding to happen by magic. It doesn’t and we were very lucky to have received assistance from High Street Banks as well as the UK government and European Union to pursue our survey of mammals which included dormice, and the bank and Deffra also helped to sponsor the films.

“Now why would a bank be sponsoring a university to count dormice and then film it? I suppose it helps if you know the chairman—I do very well now, he’s my father in law but he doesn’t fund things on a whim and they ran a savings account aimed at young people called a Dormouse Account. They suggest it was reasonably cost effective and brought a new generation of potential customers to the bank.

“So one of my roles as an environmental scientist is to try and inform the necessary authorities of the condition of the environment and its inhabitants so they can enact legislation to deal with untoward changes, hopefully, where possible to reverse them. But you all know about that part of my job and if I’m on television any more often you’ll start to think I’m Carol Vorderman.

“Another aspect of my job is to guide research by my staff, graduate students and undergraduates and to manage that part of the department helped by my colleagues. It’s the part I enjoy most after being in the field and actually studying habitats and their inhabitants and during my time I've counted all sorts of mammals, birds, insects, reptiles, amphibians and even protozoa—little single celled creatures. Abundance gives us an idea of how a species is doing and is often the easiest element to study. From this we can then suggest where we need to go next in assessing what is happening with the species if we have figures to compare it against, and so on.

“This is all very well and useful but I also try to allow a small amount of blue sky thinking and research, which the Vice Chancellor tells us is unlikely to survive in the current climate of austerity. I would say, we stop it at our peril. Science is essentially a curiosity about how or why something happens and often what we start investigating turns into something entirely different as we follow the twists and turns of the chase. It sometimes leads to dead ends, but so does sponsored research, however there is just a glimmer that by allowing someone to follow a hunch or a whim, something entirely new happens. The discovery of penicillin and more recently graphene happened this way. So please don’t stop it altogether it kills inspiration and aspiration too.

“Don’t worry, I’ll stop in a moment, but before I do, I’d like to leave you with an observation made by Max Planck, the founder of Quantum Mechanics and one of the leading and most influential and respected scientists of the Twentieth Century. He said, ‘Scientific discovery and scientific knowledge have been achieved only by those who have gone in pursuit of it without any practical purpose whatsoever in view.’ Thank you.”

I sat down and Simon patted my hand. “Well done, girl, showing up that tosser for what he is.” I smiled back at him.

Tom was winding things up and declaring that the dance floor was now ready and for everyone to enjoy themselves, the bar would close at midnight but for everyone to drink responsibly. He handed me a glass of lemon and lime. “Ye’ve tellt it like it is but ye’ll hae made a poowerful enemy—watch yer back, lassie.

Simon and I eventually had a few dances and he went up to the bar to get some more drinks, I was quite thirsty. While he was away the Vice Chancellor walked up to me, “Would you do me the honour of this dance, Lady Cameron?”

He wasn’t my choice of dancing partners but thought I’d better show willing rather than obvious hostility. As we slowly waltzed around the floor he quietly said, “For such short notice, a creditable speech.”

“Thank you,” I said leaving it at that.

“It’s nice to meet a genuine champagne socialist, how much is pa in law worth?”

“I have no idea but I suspect it’s probably worth more than that stuck up moron who seems to enjoy sucking the life force out of anything worthwhile in this Tory afflicted country and to whom you toady.”

“Ouch, fighting talk, Lady C.”

“Not at all, I’m sweetness and light, really I am.”

“As long as you get your own way, eh?”

“You’re nobody’s fool are you?”

“Just be aware of that—it might preserve your career and department during this period of austerity.”

“That sounds like a threat, Vice Chancellor.”

“More a word of advice—please take it, the university would hate to lose you—I’d rather consolidate your acting to a permanent chair, if we can work as a team.”

“Unless Oxford happen to up their offer.”

He laughed, “You don’t really think that do you?”

“Whether or not I do, you’re the last person I’d discuss it with. Ah good, the music has stopped.” He nodded and I dropped a small curtsey and went back to Simon.

“What did he want?”

“To frighten me.”

“Want me to have a word?”

“Not at all, he wouldn’t frighten me unless he wanted to marry one of my daughters.”

Simon looked at me in disbelief and then laughed loudly.