Between the lines

As I wrote in my last annual report, this will be my last annual report. The College Authorities made me an offer, under the Terms of Endearment Accelerated Retirement Scheme (TEARS), whose refusal my accountant cannot countenance. Frankly, I shall not be sorry. In recent years, in this country hitherto publicly funded learning centres, and centres of learning, have suffered the greatest blow to intellectual vitality inflicted at the ideological whim of one political leader, since the Maoist Red Guards were unleashed 20 years ago. I have no wish to preside over the further decline of morale standards among the young professionals, or Yuppies as we may learn to call them, on my staff.