Southern comforts

The Higher Education Funding Council for England will host its 2006 annual conference - the first major outing for the new chief executive when he or she is announced - in Coventry next summer. There is one tiny snag. The event clashes with the Association of Commonwealth Universities conference in Adelaide. Ah, vice-chancellors face such terrible dilemmas.

Policy in Coventry or Pimm's on a terrace in Australia? Just give them two and a half seconds to think it over.