Professor Seamus Toupé, the defiant and “notably unrepentant” Vice-Chancellor of the University of Afpuddle delivered an uncompromising message to alumni today as part of the University's now traditional Christmas Eve raid on old members’ trouser pockets. In what is clearly an attempt to supplement its ongoing regular giving campaign as well as other miscellaneous ad hoc fund-grabbing assaults, UADAR’s latest missive is designed to capitalise on the current "popularity"* of the VC as well as to maximise the revenue impact of his “completely unforeseen, wholly expected, not-at-all-controversial, highly suspicious, early, timely departure”**. Critics have been appalled by the big cheese’s temerity in wishing them “A Happy Christmas” at what many believe to be a uniquely dark time in the institution’s more than 800-year history.
*the Afpuddle English Dictionary defines "popularity" as "a state in which an individual, institution or event, is much talked about, written about or otherwise exposed to public comment - though not necessarily to its advantage".
**In a somewhat ambiguous statement, a spokesperson for the VC explained several weeks ago that “the end of the pandemic together with the irreversible removal of all CONTRIK-69 restrictions and the clear certainty that no new measures will ever be needed now ar at any point in the future - provides us the perfect opportunity to say goodbye to the man whose decisive stewardship and unremitting personal efforts have almost single-handedly brought us to this point”.
Despite overseeing [a] a worsening financial crisis as various of the University’s commercial and property, development, sports, entertainment and hospitality portfolios have shown unusually catastrophic returns [most notably the "ill-timed" investment in the salmonella-hit UofA Kebab and Ckick'n Shack franchise; [b] a morale-sapping campaign to encourage on- and off-line whistle-blowing with regard to perceived misdemeanours in the staff refectory [eg taking more than one slice of toast and one pack of butter in the All-Inclusive Mega Breakfast Super Deal] and [c] an accommodating attitude to all who would reform, reshape and repurpose what remains of the University’s academic mission, the Vice-Chancellor delivers his final Christmas message in “a surprisingly upbeat, notably bullish and possibly even flippant manner”.
Anti-VC-er and “Just Say No to the Toupé” Campaign co-ordinator Bantha Combe-Over** believes that the VC’s tone in the broadcast appeal is appropriate “neither to the times nor his own increasingly untenable position’. Vowing to boycott the compulsory screening of the VC’s Christmas message and urging others not to "return the compliment", he encouraged fellow dis-affectees to stand firm in a disciplined, fully-masked [ie CCTV confusing] and socially distant fashion and to eschew all forms of physical violence save those directed at the VC himself.
** If the name seems familiar, it might be helpful to note that Dr Combe-Over was also the [in the end unsuccessful] architect of the Stop The Alma Mater Library Campaign as a result of which, his is almost the only name not to be engraved on the completed building’s Dishonours Board which otherwise names and shames in perpetuity all those who refused to “cough up a single penny” towards the building’s wholly unnecessary construction.
Fellow anti-Toupé agitator - Alma Mater College’s Amanda J Gewindeknochen Visiting Professor of German Literature [Dr Herr Losse] - said today: “Es ist schwer zu sagen, was skandalöser ist, die neue College-Bibliothek oder die Botschaft des Vizekanzlers - beides ist übertrieben, grotesk, unangemessen und allgemein widerlich. Ich wünschte, ich wäre nie hierher gekommen" ["It's hard to say which is the more scandalous, the new college library or the vice-chancellor's message - both are over-inflated, grotesque, inappropriate and generally sickening. I wish I'd never come here”]. Unbelievably, Herr Losse’s tenure continues; the V-C's doesn't.
THAT VIDEO IN FULL
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