Air smiles
The embattled Pro Vice-Chancellor of controversial Swansea university, Hilary Lappin-Scott (HLS) gives her New Year predictions to a male colleague ©, as Edwin Phillips listens.
C: (Wearily) you’ll give them to me anyway, so I may as well ask — what are your predictions for 2017?
H L-S: (Still upbeat) well, if I am still employed by Swansea University, I foresee many trips for me at home and abroad, as well as many dinners — all quite rightly paid for by the university.
Before my jealous critics start jumping up and down, these trips will now be the principal part of my new responsibility for External Recognition.
It is obvious that ‘external’ means external to the UK so in other words I have responsibility for GLOBAL recognition of the university, and there will be even more chance to meet old friends in Royal squares, er, I mean circles.
C: (In a mischievous tone) does the University Council know that you have now apparently been given even more freedom to swan pointlessly all over the world at the university’s expense?
H L-S: Who?
C: (Louder) THE UNIVERSITY COUNCIL!
H L-S: (Sounding confused) oh, them.
I, er, don’t take any notice of what they say.
Perhaps they do, perhaps they don’t, but that’s not a problem.
By the time I come back from wherever it is globally, it is too late for them to do much about it.
Anyway if I say I attended a conference or presented my one set of PowerPoint slides at a seminar, it looks good and the council members don’t know enough of the detail to argue or to ask difficult questions.
In any event, nobody dares to question anything to do with gender equality or diversity.
(Sounding triumphant) my job is completely safe.
C: (Heavy with irony) so I guess 2017 will continue in the same way as 2016 with those tweets we look forward to so much, to say nothing of your enormous contribution to the university.
H L-S: (Not picking up on the irony) yes, more of the same — bring it on.
I already have travel plans for 2017.
C: (Wearily again) do tell me about them — I can see you are about to talk about all the past places you have visited.
H L-S: Yes, as you know last month I tweeted: “Amazing year for Women Scientists in Australia. Such progress across Australia in work towards gender equity. More to do but let’s keep the global chat going”.
It is obvious that 2016 has been an amazing year for them, as I said, because I visited Australia to give my PowerPoint lecture.
My trip to Oz (as we seasoned travellers call it) and my extremely important lecture, charmingly described as “a load of recycled old dross”, was detailed in that awful website The Eye.
(Apparently to self) we were quite right not to give them information saying they were “vexatious”.
(Louder) but there is of course far more to my tweet.
We girls know about code and coding and this tweet is also an excellent example of coding.
There are two coded messages here.
But you are a man and probably would not see through the subtleties of my message.
C: (Again heavy with irony) no indeed.
H LS: Let me explain.
First, when I wrote ‘more gender equality work to do’ — what I really meant was ‘I will have to go to Australia in 2017 to help them out in this vital globally-important endeavour’.
To paraphrase somebody who is much less famous than me: ‘my work in Australia is not yet done’.
Second, when I wrote “… let’s keep the global chat going” what I really meant was ‘book me on the next Qantas flight to Sydney (business class), and schedule it for when the weather in Swansea is miserable’.
C: (Becoming more confident) I still do not understand what you, supposedly representing Swansea University, can usefully contribute when Australia has many of its own gender and equality champions.
H L-S: Yes, but no, but yes, but no, yes — the thing is, those Aussies are so fond of listening to me that they keep inviting me back.
They say that meeting me makes them feel superior.
It takes attention away from that absurd petition calling for better degrees, and the ridiculous Piercy business at the management school I oversee.
I mean, Nigel really hit the nail on the head with his book “Market-led Strategic Change”, even if pages were omitted.
Everyone knows “Duckpond University” at the “end of the railway line in Wales” is Swansea.
When he said: “There’s a heavy left-wing presence in Duckpond University” and there was “direct opposition from low-performing staff and their union supporters” that says everything.
Anyway I always get a particularly warm welcome from those Australian sisterly scientist colleagues who also talk about equality and gender (to self) (why do people say ‘bang on all the time’?) for whom I am then able to arrange reciprocal trips to Europe, including the UK and Swansea.
It is all part, er, of academic back-scratching, and networking, which you wouldn’t know much about being a mere lecturer.
C: But why do you need to go to Australia, or to any other country for that matter?
Why can’t you simply use Skype and tele-conferencing?
H L-S: Have you forgotten about the opportunities to relax and sightsee, which are so important for someone of my calibre, after delivering my exhausting lecture and having to attend expensive official dinners?
(To self again) And think of all those air miles.
(Louder) that’s why I am, for the moment, still a Senior Pro-Vice Chancellor at Swansea University and you are a minion.
And note that this is not as derogatory as ‘pleb’ so don’t go off whinging to HR or the lawyers.
Blewthin Newy Thar (as we say in Swansea) — and I trust that Her Maj. will not carelessly overlook me again for an ‘honour’ in the coming year.
On Monday — Professor Lappin-Scott congratulates staff about the policy of honouring celebrities, including Wales football manager Chris Coleman.
That week — The Eye shows how she gets her facts wrong on the first woman professor, as the Western Mail proclaim they are ‘excited’ by a new women’s history project.
