This is a unique insight into the working life of a senior manager in academia.Centring on events in one Scottish educational institution, the stories expand to cover events affecting higher education across the whole of Britain.This intimate history of one college serves to reveal some of the dark secrets of everyday life in higher education, includingthe demographic time-bomb that wasn’tpolitical chicanery North Sea safety and the Piper Alpha tragedyskulduggery and brilliancesabotage and intriguemedia machinationsquashing the quangoseducational vandalismacademia’s bloodied carpetsthe denigration of public service Quality – the undemocratic essence at the heart of Britain’s Establishment It describes behaviour – good and bad – and its consequences, with understanding and compassion, and not without a little touch of irony.