Once again, at the airport I bumped into someone I hadn’t seen for ages. This time it was MH. Our last encounter had been over quarter of a century ago on the campus of the University of Birmingham. We spent the half an hour or so together before I was due to catch my flight to the Isle of Man. It was lovely to see MH again, although he wasn’t as much help as I hoped with my inoperable iPhone and Blackberry.

Later at a meeting about REF 2014 I was really pleased with the contributions of another fellow undergraduate. While others banged on about issues that should have been resolved by now, SC (now SL) revealed that she had heard of a new way to strengthen your submission. All you had to do was include a list of school teachers in the documentation. If any held Masters degrees, your institution could take full credit.