Tall tales

There's nothing like slightly outre academic expertise to get the odd phone calls coming in.

Roderick Floud, the provost of London Guildhall University, is also a leading authority on height through the ages - and he once established that the ideal stature for a long life is 6 ft 2 ins, which just happens to be his own height.

This appears to have got him fingered as an expert on physique in general and he periodically gets phone calls from tabloids asking him to comment on breast sizes.

Light relief from the pressures of running a university but, he admits, not terribly productive for the papers in question.