The Life Academical

Or

‘Four Academics’

A Pastiche of Monty Python's Flying Circus’ Four Yorkshiremen sketch.

Inspired by Twitter, and presented with tongue firmly in cheek.

Four academics, dressed in ‘smart casual’, sit around a low coffee table. There is a buzz of conversation in the air around them.

FIRST ACADEMIC: Aye, very passable, that, very passable panel.

SECOND ACADEMIC: Nothing like a good conference panel, eh, Josiah?

THIRD ACADEMIC: You're right there, Obadiah.

FOURTH ACADEMIC: Who'd have thought thirty year ago we'd all be sittin' here enjoying a conference panel, eh?

FIRST ACADEMIC: In them days we was glad to have the price of a colloquium.

SECOND ACADEMIC: A one-day colloquium.

FOURTH ACADEMIC: Without lunch.

THIRD ACADEMIC: Or biscuits for us coffee break.

FIRST ACADEMIC: Or a coffee break.

FOURTH ACADEMIC: Oh, we never had coffee breaks. We used to have to bring coffee in from t’ Starbucks, and drink it during presentations.

SECOND ACADEMIC: The best we could manage was half a bottle of stale mineral water.

THIRD ACADEMIC: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.

FIRST ACADEMIC: Because we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Funding doesn't buy you a submission to an Open Access Journal, son".

FOURTH ACADEMIC: Aye, 'e was right.

FIRST ACADEMIC: Aye, 'e was.

FOURTH ACADEMIC: I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to work in this tiny senior common room with no heating.

SECOND ACADEMIC: Senior Common Room! You were lucky to get a senior common room! We used to work in one cubicle, all twenty-six of us post-docs, no desk, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling through into t’ archaeology labs.

THIRD ACADEMIC: Eh, you were lucky to have a cubicle! We used to have to work in t' corridor!

FIRST ACADEMIC: Oh, we used to dream of workin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to work on a pile o’ journals in t’ campus library. We got woke up every morning by having a load of soddin’ beanbags dropped on us heads! Common Room? Huh.

FOURTH ACADEMIC: Well, when I say 'Senior Common Room' it was only a desk in the coffee shop, but it was a Senior Common Room to us.

SECOND ACADEMIC: We were evicted from our coffee shop; we 'ad to go and work on a satellite campus thirty mile out of town, wi’ the bloody Department for Strategic Business and Optometry Studies.

THIRD ACADEMIC: You were lucky to have a satellite campus! There were a hundred and fifty of us working remotely from us homes.

FIRST ACADEMIC: On departmental laptops?

THIRD ACADEMIC: Aye.

FIRST ACADEMIC: You were lucky. Two hundred of us shared wifi, lecturing via Skype on a reconditioned iPhone 6. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, grade thirty first-year papers, give the department’s survey course lectures for fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home we’d write two book reviews for TMR.

SECOND ACADEMIC: Luxury. We used to have to get to us cubicle at six o'clock in the morning, grade sixty first-year papers, lecture for twenty hour a day for tuppence a month, come home, and then write two REF-able articles before we ‘ad us tea!

THIRD ACADEMIC: Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to refill the library vending machines at twelve o'clock at night, and grade eighty first-year papers. We ‘ad to sit on a departmental working party on curriculum development, give twenty-four hours of lectures a day in t’ department for sixpence every four years, and when we got home we’d write four REF-able papers before tea, and a revised monograph after.

FOURTH ACADEMIC: <Rubbing hands> Right.

I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, grade one-’undred  an’ twenty first-year papers, chair the departmental working party on curriculum development, give twenty-nine hours of lectures a day for t’ department, and pay t’ university for permission to use me own notes. And when I got home, reviewer two would tear up us manuscript in front of us, while I spent fourteen hours on Twitter, tickin’ off with some tenured professor for beating down on post-grads.

FIRST ACADEMIC: And you try and tell the young post-docs of today that ... they won't believe you.

ALL: They won't!