Canopy canapes

Sussex University may be well clear of the safety net, but a group of its staff and students are preoccupied with that not entirely dissimilar artefact, the parachute. They work as social service placement volunteers for a physical therapy day centre, among whose proudest possessions is a parachute whose multicoloured canopy is used to simulate the senses of sight and touch. All very tasteful. So tasteful, reports the Sussex University Bulletin, that a labrador named Bertie wolfed large chunks of it, and the centre now has to raise Pounds 150 for a replacement.