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Competition

Published 03 April 2006

Win vouchers to spend in any Tesco store

Competition No 3922

Set by Terry Goodhill, 13 March

You were asked to write an ad for a university to give it greater market appeal.

Report by Ms de Meaner

Even those that didn't make it had some killer lines: "One point per library book borrowed" (Stephen Bibby), "We have no limits on plagiarism" (Sid Field), "No degree, no fee" (H J Glenister), "Apply for a prospectus now and receive a free single-use camera" (El Basilio), and best of all, "We'll send you a T-shirt with your face printed under Einstein's hair" (J H Smith). If someone hasn't already thought of it, I suggest you get printing. You'll make your fortune (I'd buy one!). Hon menshes to the above, plus G M Davis and Michael Cregan. Welcome to newbies Jane Willis and Kim Willing.

And £20 to the winners, the best of whom (J Seery) also gets the Tesco vouchers.

This university is based on the principle of respect for students. We do not rate you. You rate us. We realise that to stay open we need your tuition fees and we treat you with the respect our life-support system deserves. We take pride in our ability to spot potential. Our motto is: "No student is a failure." To read is easy. To do is hard. So our degrees give credit for what is done. A stay in hospital or a visit to your GP, for example, counts as six units towards your medical degree. A spell in gaol counts as six units on your law degree. Our classics degree concentrates on Latin as it is lived - not Virgil or Horace, but delirium tremens, coitus interruptus, fellatio. Try our speciality in joint creative writing/law/veterinary science/medicine, and you could be another John Mortimer, James Herriot or A J Cronin. Many who have taken the accountancy option on this course have featured prominently in public life. Our students get a higher rate of Firsts than any other university. More businessmen buy our honorary doctorates than those of other universities. Registered students who attend no lectures or tutorials get a complimentary diploma in leisure studies. Try us. We dare you to fail us.

J Seery

Brassnose College, Oxford, caters for today's adventurous and talented youth. Why sit in a dull library! Learn from life! MA and MBA (much-in-demand Master of Beach Activities) "travel the world" courses available. More stimulating and fulfilling by far than a mundane "gap year"! After intensive and inspiring orientation sessions with your personal tutor, you complete a series of part-time placings in bars, restaurants, ski resorts, on cruise liners - you choose! Generous travel grants finance your journeys to where the action is. Course requirements are one completed folder per assignment (resort or cruise-company brochures, postcards, menus, payslips, beach photographs, bus tickets), maintaining SMS contact and touching base with your tutor between assignments. Foreign language skills, though not a course entry condition, are a natural spin-off, with each language in which you acquire basic fluency (ordering a beer, pleading "Not guilty") earning honours degree credits!

Shirley Curran

Not only has WLU much to offer, it has many incredible offers. You get free coffee for passing an assignment, free champagne for passing with honours, and free use of the lecturers' toilet for attending every lecture in any one week. Get a distinction in your final project and you are automatically entered for a draw - with a wealth of prizes. These include: a cheque to the value of your outstanding student loan written out by Roman Abramovich; a human organ, freshly donated, that may save your life or that of any close friend or relative (this offer includes a kidney, a liver - or up to three, in the case of philosophy students - a spleen, a pancreas, a heart, lungs, and even a heart and lungs); as well as an opportunity to slap an irritating TV presenter in prime-time viewing (presenters include Russell Grant, Chris Tarrant, Robert Winston, Anne . . .).

Geoff Horton

No 3925 Set by Ian Birchall

Show one half of one of the couples of world literature (eg, Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra, Harold and Madge) professing total ignorance of the "financial affairs" of his/her partner.

Max 175 words by 13 April
E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk

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