faggots and Queen's Pudding might lead to a misunderstanding in certain quarters. Dr Cox, Head of Science, had demanded to know what a Multi-Phased Institution was, and what the hell was wrong with faggots, he'd been brought up on them. Dr Mayfield had explained he was referring to gays and the Head of Catering had confused the issue still further by denying she was a feminist. Wilt had sat through the controversy in silent wondering, as he did now, at the curious modern assumption that you could alter acts by using words in a different way. A cook was a cook no matter that you call him a Culinary Scientist. And calling a gasfitter a Gaseous and Liquefaction Engineer didn't alter the fact that he had taken a course in Gasfitting.
He was just considering how long it would be before they called him an Educational Scientist or even a Mental Processing Officer, when he was drawn from this reverie by a question of 'contact hours'.
'If I could have a breakdown of departmental timetabling on a real-time contact hour basis,' said Dr Mayfield, 'we could computerize those areas of overlap which under present circumstances render our staffing levels unviable on a cost-effective analysis.'
There was a silence while the Heads of Departments tried to figure this out. Dr Board snorted and the Principal rose to the bait. 'Well, Board?' he asked.
'Not particularly,' said the Head of Modern Languages, 'but thank you for enquiring all the same.'
'You know very well what Dr Mayfield wants.'
'Only on the basis of past experience and linguistic guesswork,' said Dr Board. 'What puzzles me in the present instance is his use of the phrase 'real-time contact hours'. Now according to my vocabulary...'
'Dr Board,' said the Principal, wishing to God he could sack the man, 'what we want to know is quite simply the number of contact hours the members of your department do per week.'
Dr Board made a show of consulting a small notebook. 'None,' he said finally.
'None?'
'That's what I said.'
'Are you trying to say your staff do no teaching at all? That's a downright lie. If it isn't...'
'I didn't say anything about teaching and no one asked me to. Dr Mayfield quite specifically asked for 'real-time''
'I don't give a damn about real-time. He means actual.'
'So do I,' said Dr Board, 'and if any of my lecturers have been touching their students even for a minute, let alone an hour, I'd'
'Board,' snarled the Principal, 'you're trying my patience too far. Answer the question.'
'I have. Contact means touching, and a contact hour must therefore mean a touching hour. Nothing more and nothing less. Consult any dictionary you choose, and you'll find it derives directly from the Latin, contactus. The infinitive is contigere and the past participle contactum, and whichever way you look at it, it still means touch. It cannot mean to teach.'
'Dear God,' said the Principal, through clenched teeth, but Dr Board hadn't finished.
'Now I don't know what Dr Mayfield encourages in Sociology and for all I know he may go in for touch teaching, or, what I believe is called in the vernacular 'group groping', but in my department...'
'Shut up,' shouted the Principal, now well beyond the end of his tether. 'You will all submit in writing the number of teaching hours, the actual teaching hours, each member of your department does...'
As the meeting broke up, Dr Board walked down the corridor with Wilt. 'It's not often one can strike a blow for linguistic accuracy,' he said, 'but at least I've thrown a spanner in Mayfield's clockwork mind. The man's mad.'
