WORD OF MOUTH

Dearly departed

I am beginning to lose count of those who have resigned from the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals this past year. Shades of Agatha Christie's politically incorrect title. The latest departure is a particularly hefty blow and will sadden education and science correspondents alike, for it is Ted Nield, the committee's highly valued press and PR officer. Dr Nield, 40, qualified as a geologist from the University of Wales at Swansea (gained his PhD at Cardiff). Ten years ago he was appointed CVCP science officer by Auriol Stevens, now editor of the Times Higher Education Supplement, when she was information suprema for the university beaks. He is to join the Geological Society as science and communications officer. By coincidence, the 190-year-old society's Burlington House was the original home of London University, which owns the CVCP's building he is about to leave. The CVCP, ready for its own major move across the road to the former HQ of the Jewish Board of Deputies, will be anxious to fill this latest vacancy.

No Apple for Virgin teacher

Richard Branson was not alone to weep at last week's failure to fly Virgin Global Challenger much further than the Atlas Mountains. An unsung, unseen protagonist was up each morning at 5am and spent 20 hours each day preparing for the flight. Martin Harris, who has taught meteorology and geography at the University of North London for 30 years, ever since it was nowt but the Northern Poly, kept the Branson team informed of every tiny change of wind. "It was the most elaborate aviation weather forecast ever conducted by the Met Office," he told me. Weather conditions and positions were electronically transmitted to Branson at half-hour intervals. All to no avail, for, in the end, the weather was not to blame. There's an ironic twist to this sad tale. Harris, an international weather authority who directed the successful British balloon flight over Mount Everest six years ago, was fortunate to be able to call on Bracknell's great meteorology computer for the Virgin venture, for he has never been given a computer of his own in his office at the university.

Ain't gonna study

What's this? Another place at which to study war? Several institutions concern themselves with Peace Studies, Bradford University being perhaps the most celebrated. Now King's College, London, widely acclaimed for its Department of War Studies, has been challenged from north of the border. Glasgow University has launched its own Centre for War Studies, having first rejected the alternative titles "defence", "strategic" and "security". It opened with a seminar by Professor John Erickson on the history of the Red Army. Not to be outdone, Edinburgh University launched a Centre for Second World War Studies, said to be the only one of its kind in Britain. Who'll be the first to specialise on Bosnia?

Evenings with Anne

Still on the subject of WW2, I hear that Southwark Cathedral, the South Bank's brightest jewel, is to host an Anne Frank exhibition. Only the Bible has sold more copies than this little girl's diary. Now we are to be given a new translation containing revelations from her pen that were felt to be "too sexually daring" for inclusion in the original book. The exhibition is being sponsored by South Bank University and will include a number of special events, including school workshops and lectures by such authorities as Rabbi Julia Neuberger, Professor Stanly Cohen of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Lord Runcie, the former Archbishop of Canterbury. But by what authority is Tony Blair performing the opening on 29 January?

MacMafia?

What's going on? Parliament used to be the stamping-ground for Oxbridge graduates. Now, it would seem, Edinburgh is taking over. Malcolm Rifkind, the Foreign Secretary, graduated from Edinburgh University. By strange coincidence, his Labour counterpart, Robin Cook, is another Edinburgh alumnus, as is Cook's researcher, David Clark. Yet another is Pat McFadden, a close aide to Tony Blair. And what of Blair himself? He graduated from Oxford but was also educated at Fettes College. And that's in Edinburgh.

And finally ...

Oxford University, which abolished its entrance exams to encourage more applicants from state schools, now wants to scotch the many myths surrounding its admission interviews. Two such myths are particularly popular: first, young men are no longer asked whether they play rugby; and a story about the tutor who is said to have looked up from his newspaper and ordered a candidate to "entertain him" is quite untrue. Nor is it true that the said candidate responded by pulling out a match and setting fire to the paper. Would that it weren