See me, Ah'm an inspiration!

Hard-drinking, string-vested, professionally challenged Glaswegian television hero Rab C. Nesbitt has proved an inspiration to competition entrants.

Students and their tutors on a distance-learning modern Scottish history course run by Dundee University in association with the Open University had to write 1,500 words on "Rab C Nesbitt: Scottish cultural observer or Scottish cultural cliche?" The prize was donated by a fellow student.

Tutor John Kemp, joint winner of the Pounds 50 competition with student John Shone, wrote a spoof academic paper praising Robin Chalmers-Nesbitt's "pioneering work at the Centre for National Stereotyping at the University of Buckfast" and his involvement in the supposed political machinations of forming and reforming the national cultural identity.

Mr Kemp claimed Dr Chalmers-Nesbitt was involved in the first successful creation of a deliberately manufactured cultural stereotype when he worked with Professor Alfred Garnet, head of the Institute of National Cliche at Cambridge.