Crumbling certainties
Deng Xiaoping, the so-called "paramount leader" of China, is still presumed to be alive. However, recent reports from Beijing have revealed that any utterance of the patriarch must be "interpreted"...
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Don's Diary
SATURDAY. Heathrow. LOT flight to Warsaw. A strange journey indeed. Read Primo Levi. Reflect on his words about being so preoccupied by power and money that we forget our essential fragility - "...
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Masterly nonsense
What a lovely spoof ("All-year study is inevitable", THES, April 12)! But a little over the top. The evidently fictitious "Lady Blackstone" (nice touch) was clearly too remote from the realities of...
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Triffid compulsion to reference
Sarah Nelson's article "Best footnote forward" (THES, April 12), seems to me to be based on cultural misunderstandings between the world of journalism and the world of academic writing. I frequently...
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Fears over school pupils on courses
I write to place your front page article, "Colleges plan to enrol children" (THES, April 5) in perspective. The initial enquiry (to me) related to the Dearing report and in particular my attitude...
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Grade inflation: true or false?
As the academies warn that research capability is under threat, Colin Lawson suggests ways to protect standards in teaching. In the past 20 years the most likely degree grade has risen in many...
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Aficionados of Italy fall at the first hurdle
I wish to draw your attention to a particularly absurd example of Italian protectionism with respect to the European labour market. Among the special hoops that foreign (EU) applicants must jump...
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Hell was best fundraiser
In more religious times the fear of hell, of long spells in purgatory, or of divine retribution provided a powerful motive for philanthropy. "Five hundred poor have I in yearly pay who twice a day...
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Report's sad note
When one of a report's recommendations is deemed "intriguing" even by its chairman, it is probably a suggestion that requires plenty of hard thought. 11 = /And a quick read of this week's National...
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Protests at Rhodes University and the University of Natal
* Rhodes University and the University of Natal have been hit by mass protests with students angered by, among other issues, alleged mistreatment by staff. At Rhodes University, 168 students and...
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Halifax society building
Halifax, Nova Scotia is looking hard at its seven post-secondary institutions in a possible blueprint for other parts of the country. Earlier this month Nova Scotia's education minister, John Mac-...
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Students demand more power
Students at the University of Zagreb in Croatia have protested against legislation on student unions due to go before parliament later this month. The government, they say, drew up the bill without...
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A parrot learns to count, after a fashion
Scientists claimed to have taught a parrot to count items and identify objects and colours. The grey parrot, called Alex, was cited as an example of how complex cognitive capacities existed in a...
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Sleep perchance to study dreams
Searches for an explanation of consciousness that do not take into account the complexities of dreaming are doomed to failure, according to psychologist Steven LaBerge. In fact the study of lucid...
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No real consensus on the old politics
Assumptions that there was a post-war, pre-Thatcher political settlement owe more to A. A. Milne than to Machiavelli, said Peter Kerr of Birmingham University. He compared the assumption to Winnie...