From: The office of the vice-chancellor

To: Dr D. Quintock
Villa des Mimosas
Rue de Dufy
Collioures
Pyrenees-Orientales
France

Dear Dr Quintock,

I'm sorry to bother you on your holiday but there is an important matter that I need to bring to your attention.

As you will be aware, article 126(a) of this university's new staff guidelines decrees that the total vacation period for all members of academic staff is now 20 days (plus compulsory bank holiday vacations).

According to article 126(b), all such staff vacations must be itemised on a holiday record card, confirmed and counter-signed by your head of department and then copied to my office where the deputy registrar is charged with "taking all necessary steps to ensure that staff adhere rigidly to the agreed period".

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Recent inspection of this central record reveals a serious anomaly in your own vacation schedules. The records show you spent five days of the Easter break this year in a small hotel in Skegness (The Melrose Hotel, North Cliff). That, of course, means that your remaining vacation allowance is precisely 15 days. However, it has now been established by our senior vacation investigator and the good office of Villa France plc, that you are intending to spend a total of 20 week days at the address that heads this letter.

You will appreciate that this is a serious breach of article 126(a) and I must ask you to return on the first available flight from your present vacation and report on Monday morning to the deputy registrar who may then choose to invoke article 126(c): extended vacation sanctions. These sanctions, as you will know, may involve the surrender of your passport, the confiscation of selected items of luggage or, in extreme cases, the suspension of your car-parking pass.

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Yours sincerely,

W. Pepinster

The vice-chancellor
(signed in his absence by Mrs W. Pepinster)