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A similar ethos was in evidence in the department of international politics at Aberystwyth where the Christmas party was replaced by a programme in interpersonal and social skills.

This featured a highly appropriate acronym and an application form forewarning of role-playing exercises. These include the moment when an academic realises that the vaguely familiar student he/she is talking to has been a doctoral supervisee for the past two and a half years; and meeting an internationally-renowned subject specialist convinced that "both the Research Assessment Exercise and Teaching Quality Assessment are part of a global conspiracy involving the Central Intelligence Agency, the Chilean secret police and Marks and Spencer".

It's as good a theory as any we've heard.