As the annual league tables hit the news pages, London's Birkbeck College has come up with a ruse to place itself as pick of the crop. It has devised an alternative league table based on this year's performance in University Challenge . While The Diary despairs of those who criticise league tables before proposing an alternative that invariably sees them move upwards, it can't help but admire the audacity of Birkbeck's approach. But as all the league table statistics are at least a year old, Birkbeck would actually be stuck with its record low score.