About

Completely fictional episodes at a fictitious UK university involving fictitious academics. I myself am fictitious!
I trust my point is clear. (July 2013)

I left my career as an academic in UK higher education last July and decided to write a comedic, satirical blog based on my experiences, clearly fictional but utilising heightened reality. The idea was to write 24 episodes to cover the two semesters of an academic year, primarily dealing with internal politics, management and administration faced by academics, rather than what most really enjoy, namely their academic disciplines and working with students.

Although episodes may appear critical at times, I have huge respect for what HE tries to achieve. However, these days it is very much a high level business or industry as well as, for many, their vocation. What I did not expect when I began to invent was that I would end up having great affection for some of the principal characters, particularly VC Kevin Flute and cleaner Deirdre Wetherby, his confidante. I’ve very much enjoyed writing unistorynorth and will now take time to think what to do with it. If anyone out there has enjoyed reading the episodes and has any polite ideas what I can do with unistorynorth please get back to me.

For those outside HE I assure you that reality is much more bizarre than fiction sometimes. Many years ago I was part of a committee that decided to take a vote on a certain issue. It was questioned whether this was allowed under terms of reference. Someone suggested that we have a vote on whether to have a vote. Someone else said that this itself was not allowable but others disagreed. Therefore it was agreed that we take a vote on whether we should have a vote on whether we could take a vote on the issue. After a sequence of votes the issue was resolved.

Yes, I loved my career and have found unistorynorth most cathartic after its ending.
Thank you for reading. (March 2014)

I think I shall update and amend episodes, now that all characters are established in my head, and reblog week by week through the 2014-15 academic year. I may tire of this but do feel that I should ‘do something’ with the piece eventually.(September 2014)

Well, I continue to re-write and update and blog through another academic year, for fun. And what of the implications of Brexit? Hey ho! (October 2016)

Well, after re-writes, additions and editing, I’m sbout to self-publish through Amazon, first on Kindle, with the book title UNIVERSITY NORTH  Episodes In The Life Of (June 2017)

Thank you for reading!