To what do I refer? To Ireland's loss in the Twenty20 (we've still qualified for the last eight though)? To England's victory over mighty Andorra?
Of course not. Last night we welcomed the external examiners to our august institution. Every subject has an academic from another institution to check that we're teaching well, marking properly, offering good courses - usually they're amazed by the amount of work we do and the quality (they teach 2-3 modules a year: I taught 11 this year, two of them double). Last night in the Hogshead was like a Staff Ball - the only people there without PhDs were the bar staff.
So what was this comprehensive defeat? It was the annual competition to persuade one of my colleagues (no names, to save his blushes) to buy us a drink. I have to admit that we failed utterly. At every stage we were outfoxed. He disappeared just as we entered the bar, and reappeared only when we were safely ensconced around a table, foamy pints overflowing. As we approached the critical stage of the next round, he disappeared for a second and reappeared with his own pint, despite our enthusiastic joshing about whose round it was (I eventually admitted defeat and made the trek to the bar).
By the crucial point of the third pint, we had pretty much accepted failure. Our tactics were reduced to leaving our now empty glasses on the table and staring at them silently. Once again, our foe managed to evade our clutches, spotting someone across the hostelry to whom he absolutely had to talk. He then left, victory assured for the seventh year running. Curses!
Needless to say, I'm not feeling entirely compos mentis this morning. Exhaustion and slight over-consumption of Ceres' bounty conspired against going swimming this morning. Despite this, I bonded with our externals over the twin joys of teaching and Stoke City.
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