And the award for irony goes to…

… The Hegemon, for its honorary degree policy. We've just given an honorary Doctorate in Business Administration to

Tony Collins – Honorary Degree of Doctor of Business Administration in recognition of his significant and successful contribution to the railway management and rail passenger service of Virgin Trains

That's right. Not, you'll notice, for the top quality, efficiency and affordability of the railway system: the slowest and most expensive in Europe, not aided by yesterday's announcement of 8% price increases for the next three years.

But as a means of extracting cash from our pockets directly and through taxation, it's a winner. Did you know that Virgin Trains merely licenses the name from Richard Branson's Swiss company? That means that there's never enough profit to pay tax on, because the fee charged to license the brand is so huge. So cuddly Uncle Richard is essentially avoiding tax by salting the cash away in no-tax Switzerland. That's what we're giving degrees for. And we wonder why Britain's economy is screwed: we reward financial trickery, rather than, for instance, people who make trains.

So, hats off to The Hegemon for demonstrating that even major educational institutions are capable of parody and satire. It's a grand gesture, a sophisticated piece of grand comedy played out on an official stage. I'm actually really pleased: it shows that there's a living, beating heart here, one capable of witty commentary on contemporary society.

Take a strong draught of Meades

I'm agitating to get Jonathan Meades an honorary doctorate next year. What do you think? He's the sharp-suited, sunglassed, freakish architecture fan, food writer, offbeat Victorianist and cultural historian who alone justifies the licence fee. He even wrote presented a documentary about Birmingham called Heart By-Pass.

Watch some of his work at the Meades Shrine. His books include Filthy English, English Extremists, and Incest and Morris Dancing. Documentaries include: Jerry Building: Unholy Relics of the Third Reich, Queen Victoria died in 1901 but is alive and well today, Surrealism and Magnetic North, in which he explored the cultures of Northern Europe, to stunning effect.

He's also a leading secularist and humanist.

Here's a taste of Heart By-Pass:

All must have prizes

Every year, the university awards honorary degrees to people it thinks have contributed to the community. I was pretty angry when they gave one to the father of India's illegal and immoral nuclear weapons programme, but by and large, they're a good bit of publicity and a fine way to recognise sometimes unheralded work.

The full list for this year is out, and available here. Amongst them, Sathnam Sanghera wrote a fascinating account of his double life as a good Sikh boy and as a journalist playboy - though an honorary doctorate for one book and a lot of articles is a little premature. Nigel Slater fully deserves his, and most of the rest seem like fair choices.

Except, perhaps, for Esther Rantzen. Yes, she's done great things with Childline, but she's now a parliamentary candidate, and it looks like we're endorsing yet another celebrity who thinks fame is a passport to authority. (Then again, our Chancellor is a tax-avoider and leading New Labour shill).

Oddly, no mention on the uni's website of 250 redundancies.