Gum conundrum

Nice to know that Britain's academics are just as keen to sort out life's little annoyances as well as its larger questions. Envelopes for example. Don't you just hate it when the flaps are not well enough gummed?

John Griffiths, admissions tutor for colour chemistry at Leeds, felt compelled to write to his university's news-sheet about it. "There is nothing quite so irksome as a recalcitrant non-adhesive envelope flap, particularly when one still has the curious taste of the gum in one's mouth," he huffs.

The world of colour chemistry must be peculiarly irkless.