Our Director of Corporate Affairs Jamie Targett has vigorously denied his involvement in a video clip currently available on YouTube.

This clumsily filmed clip appears to show Targett talking to senior members of his staff about the need for academics to resume their full duties on returning from annual statutory leave.

The person alleged to be Targett refers to the need to "get the buggers back to the grindstone". He allegedly goes on to say: "The trouble with letting academics get away for a fortnight is that they pop off to places like Florence and Barcelona, start reading novels and visiting art galleries, and remembering the time when they were intellectuals. Our job is to knock that airy-fairy pansy nonsense out of their heads as soon as possible. Hit them with some long forms as soon as they're back at their desks."

Targett told our reporter Keith Ponting (30) that he was the victim of "a crude hoax" aimed at undermining the strategic goals of the university going forward.

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Even more psychology degrees

Last week's news that Aberystwyth University would be offering seven new joint honours degrees in psychology was quickly outflanked by our own university's decision to offer a further 15 joint honours degrees with psychology. These include the following:

Psychology with Metallurgy

You will learn the cognitive and perceptual aspects of welding, recognise the personality factors involved in thermal spraying and analyse the interpersonal attractions between metals.

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Psychology with Aerospace Engineering

You will be introduced to methods for controlling stress fractures, learn the relationship between height and emotional arousal (the "mile-high" thesis) and examine the auditory qualities needed to comprehend Ryanair in-flight announcements.

Psychology with Psychology

You will come to understand the psychological reasons why so many people want to take psychology degrees and the psychology of those universities that respond to this demand with more and more psychology degrees like this one.

Letter to the editor

Dear Sir

I was shocked to see yet another scurrilous attack upon the work of my department in The Poppletonian. Although Palmistry is in its early days as an academic discipline it cannot hope to progress while there are people like your correspondent who insist on referring to it as "a load of superstitious nonsense which doesn't deserve a place on the end of the pier let alone in a university".

A large number of people claim to have derived considerable benefit from learning about life lines, head lines and heart lines and the role of the six major mounts in predicting their future. All of us in the Palmistry Department believe it vitally important that these claims are rigorously examined. How else can science advance?

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Yours sincerely, Janet Petulengro (Doctor)

Thought for the Week

This is the time of year when you may find yourself looking out of your tutorial room window at the dull grey rainswept landscape and thinking "stuff this for a game of toy soldiers". But positive thinking can enliven even the dullest days. Let the climate work for you as it does in this delightful seasonal quote.

Let the winds blow their freshness into you and the storms their energy and watch as your cares drop off like autumn leaves.