The University issued an orange and black plastic spy penguin to each member of staff. Mine was tall, thin and male. AL was very proud of his slightly overweight female bird with wide floppy ears.

The powers that be instructed us to place each spy penguin in a suitable position from which its beady eyes could track the activities of our colleagues and students.

The spy penguins would have been useful a couple of weeks earlier when a thief walked into the long office that I shared with AL and BD and walked off with my computer.