Peep is all too aware that vice-chancellors are looking younger these days, but was still taken aback to see the pre-adolescent picture on the homepage of Mark Betz, a European cinema expert at King's College London. Dr Betz admitted we had got him bang to rights: "It is true, I am a child prodigy - at six years old, the youngest PhD holder in Britain. Though in my native Canada such educational fast-tracking is not uncommon."