Striking ideas

Descriptions of various forms of picket line have been reaching The Diary after last week's strike by the Association of University Teachers. Plans by three Heriot-Watt academics to picket a small research outpost on Orkney were thwarted by severe blizzards that blocked all the roads. Instead, the trio gamely mounted a "tele-picket", pledging to ring the other two to report themselves if they got the urge to work. Meanwhile, Dundee University brushed off reports that the Princess Royal had a rough time crossing the AUT's picket line when she arrived to name the new Queen Mother Research Centre. Cries were heard of "Off with her head". An official statement reads: "A group of four or five pickets did wave as she entered the campus and there were a few seconds of good-humoured banter that did not upset her in the slightest." Just as well - she might have set the dogs on them.