Christmas in College - Bill Kirton
A facetious, totally unreliable glimpse into academia PROFESSOR DEELEY: About the rehearsal schedule … DR MCBRIDE: Can’t it wait until later? I really need to finish this critical analysis of that late Beethoven quartet which… PD: We don’t have time, McBride. You know the date, I take it? DM: Of course. it’s the 7th. Why? PD: Yes, the 7th of December. They’ll be here in a couple of weeks. DM: But this Beethoven score – I’m so close to finalising it. That b minor viola shift… PD: I know the feeling only too well, McBride. I felt exactly the same about what was to be my definitive article on Tolstoy’s debt to Victor Hugo. But there are other considerations. We must be realistic. We need to get ready. DM: Damn. Every year it’s the same. Every year I vow I’ll move to some respectable provincial university. But I never do. PD: And why would you? There’s Oxbridge, us, and the rest are nowhere. DM: I know that. But every Christmas, with all the damned tourists, the ca...