Antithesis

And here is next year's news:

January

Election fever mounts as Michael Howard promises to crack down on middle-class crime by imprisoning anyone who is slow repaying their student loan.

Jack Straw, refusing to be outbid, says Labour will cut their hands off.

Academics complain of "gossip deprivation" with the end of the Research Assessment Exercise.

February

The Americanisation of British life continues as the president of NUS changes his name to Douglas Sneaker.

The Higher Education Quality Council bids for a share of Britain's deep-sea fishing quota founders on the requirement that applicants must be able to communicate in recognisable English.

March

The research councils advertise for a joint head of publicity capable of maximising the publicity given to science. The job goes to a mad cow.

Quality inspectors diagnose Southampton Institute as "accident-prone".

Massive queues to bet on the election being called by the end of the week after Scottish secretary Michael Forsyth awards the entire Scottish Office education budget to the University of Stirling.

April

Several universities go bankrupt simultaneously. Coopers & Lybrand protests that it gave them precisely the same service as other valued clients such as Robert Maxwell.

Loughborough's award of sports scholarships to the entire England cricket team backfires when they are beaten in a practice game by nine Asian teenagers and a golden retriever found playing in a local park.

May

New data emerges on the connection between local football success and university attractiveness to applicants. Mass suicides among admissions tutors at the university of Brighton, while Wimbledon College of Art records a 1,965 per cent increase in applications.

The General Election. The electorate subjects the Conservative party to "efficiency gains", ruling that it can do its job just as well with 53 MPs rather than 325. New Tory leader Eric Forth condemned as a "loony leftie" by Prime Minister Tony Blair.

June

The Oxford Brookes' attempt to find a new vice chancellor in line with government thinking on HE policy suffers setback when David Blunkett's dog refuses the job.

The new Labour government reforms the English syllabus under the slogan "Tough on verbs, tough on the causes of verbs".

July

A new opportunity for the Camborne School of Mines, in collaboration with Lampeter, as the smallest units of assessment in the Research Assessment Exercise are merged, creating a 150-strong powerhouse of activities based in the hilly bits on the left hand side of the map. "The overlap is so obvious we should have done it years ago," say the directors of the new joint institute of Celtic Studies and Mineral and Mining Engineering.

August

Reports that Elvis is working at the Higher Education Funding Council for England turn out to be founded on a postroom joker stamping outgoing mail "Return to Fender". But HEFCE's denial that Martin Bormann is working in the quality unit is generally felt to be less convincing.

September

Top-up fees introduced. Oxford, Cambridge and the flasher bits of London form the Stella Artois group. John Patten refuses the chair in geography at Exeter University after Sir Geoffrey Holland offers to plug it in.

October

Two month interregnum during which Sir Ron Dearing is not chairing a government inquiry.

Oxford academics complain of a blatant breach of standard practice when the university accepts a massive donation from an unimpeachable benefactor.

November

London Guildhall University featured in the new series of Survival. Several senior members of CVCP confined to mental hospital suffering from identity crises after The Guardian again describes the organisation as politically effective.

December

After the acrimonious divorce of the year, Coopers awarded custody of higher education ahead of Lybrand.

Enthusiasm for breakaway Scottish pay negotiations grows considerably when staff discover they are to be paid in 12-year-old malt whisky.