Laurie Taylor Column

" Staff will be required to divulge their sexual orientation to help universities demonstrate that they do not discriminate against them " - The Times Higher, April 29

UNIVERSITY OF POPPLETON

To: Human Resources

From: Secretary, Sexual Orientation Committee

Following in-depth personal interviews and appropriate psychosexual tests, we now present our interim report on staff sexual orientations in the department of media and cultural studies.

Professor Gordon Lapping

Apart from a brief boarding school experience with "Richard" on a wet Games Day, Lapping appeared predominantly heterosexual. However, his score of 2 on the 100-point sexual arousal index tended to validate his view that he "couldn't see what all the fuss was about".

File as: Passive inactive heterosexual.

Dr Piercemuller

Piercemuller described his sexual orientation as "continental". He favoured sexual activity of all kinds but insisted that he was "only at his best" when the temperature was in the upper 60s.

File as: Climactically challenged polymorphous perverse.

Ted Odgers

Odgers's belief that feminist and gay campaigns were "a distraction from the class struggle" was noted, as was his predilection for Saturday night "leg-overs" after five pints and an argument about the role of Kautsky in the Russian Revolution.

File as: Neo-brutalist heterosexual.

The Departmental Secretary (Maureen)

Maureen was happy to receive expressions of affection from almost anyone, irrespective of age, gender, status or sexual orientation. But her failure to show any signs of arousal whatsoever to photographs of more than 250 Poppleton academics made a final assessment difficult.

File as: More research needed.

Dr Derek Quintock

Dr Quintock acknowledged that he was a life member of Slap Happy (a venue behind Poppleton Station). He initially claimed this was part of an ethnographic investigation into the leather trade but eventually accepted the committee's designation.

File as: S&M (with a preference for M, provided the S isn't too S).