Waiting

The people are waiting to hear. News is expected. The decision has been made, but what was it? How will we know? Will it be white smoke puffing up in smoke signals from Penbryn? Will white flags erupt over the visualisation chamber or will we have to wait for the runners to get here from the Old College? When did we revert back to the eighteenth century, in any case?

Even now, people are slightly nervous, waiting for the utterly predictable news. It should be a foregone conclusion but who knows what might happen? 'What if?' lurks in the minds of many, to the right and back and a little from the baguette choices at the cafe and 'what is wrong with the tea this week?'. The recurring theft of football related printed materials from the tea room is forgotten - except by the committed few - and other distractions kick in.

What happened at the Council? Was there a last minute intervention by the Prime Minister? Did anything else disturb the rubber stamping? Good grief, were the legendary Flying Gerbils of Ceredigion sighted, forcing everyone into the Gerbil Shelters deep under the Council Chamber? Are the Shelters still effective after all these years? Anything could have happened! Where are the signals? How should we know? How should YOU know what I'm talking about?

The administration and organisation of universities is always a very perplexing thing. Executives, Senates and Councils all befuddled and confusing. Vice-Chancellors running things while Chancellors are honorary and do nothing. Institutes and Schools and Departments, nested within each other like elaborate structures made of ice. Periodic rearrangements and reorganisations, labels twisting in the wind like confetti, changing nothing but piles of paper none of us will ever see. It's madness.

And so we wait. And wait. Bottles wait to be popped and corks to fly, because if all things go as they should there will be a Mathematics department at Aberystwyth for the first time in many years, and that would be lovely. If we ever find out.

O.