Alarming behaviour

More late-night fun and games at the UUK conference involved semi-naked people and a cigar.

Nothing Clintonesque about it, though. Merely that some bon viveur was apparently enjoying a fine cigar at 4.30am on Thursday morning, as one does, and set off the fire alarm in one of the Aberystwyth University blocks of student flats in which vice-chancellors, UUK staff and journalists were staying.

Most people managed to throw on some clothes and stagger outside, bleary-eyed. But some later admitted to being so disoriented, having been wrenched from their stupors, to find themselves in a strange room filled with ear-splitting racket that they spent several minutes desperately trying to find the nonexistent alarm clock.