Published: Press and Journal 29 August 2011
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Our network of North Scottish colleges waited many years to be awarded a charter to properly call itself a university. Many moons ago they were dubbed the University of the Highlands and Islands. We thought it does what it says on the tin.
Then someone pointed out that it wasn’t a proper uni yet and wouldn’t be until it began handing out proper gongs. Calling it a uni without the ability to award degrees would just be ridiculous. That would be like having a proper local authority in a democratic country which only did things which were approved by a tiny, extremist, religious minority. Absurd. Could never happen here.
So they scratched their learned heads and wondered how they could quietly drop the word university. They needed to demonstrate their emphasis on rural studies and renewable energy. So it became the College of Rural and Alternative Power Studies. Wonder why they dropped that.
Then they said let’s tell them that our new name is just UHI. We’ll use that until we can call ourselves the real thing. Many sneered and said, look, these guys can’t even spell uni. So UHI, or Unconfirmed Hallowed Institution, it has been.
That all changed this year when it was awarded the full status of Uni of the Hi and I. They had a shindig to celebrate with everyone splogged up in their academic robes. Slightly spooky it was – like being on the set of The Wicker Man.
The highlight was the flypast on Thursday. Despite the defence cuts, the RAF found an under-used Tornado GR4 jet at XV Squadron in RAF Lossiemouth to fly slowly over the 13 UHI sites. In Stornoway, it was due at a quarter to one, sorry 12:45 GMT, sir, and hundreds of students and staff trooped outside to witness this magnificent historic event. I had my camera set on rapid shooting.
Supposed to just zoom over from Invershneggie in 10 minutes, that was the problem. Tornado jets don’t do slow. It suddenly appeared and I grabbed the camera to follow it in the viewfinder as it roared high over my head but I overbalanced and ended up flat on my back, camera still clicking away.
Thankfully, the assembled academic masses never witnessed my humiliation. They too were craning their necks following the Tornado as it descended to practice bomb Sulasgeir.
Using acronyms instead of proper words isn’t new. I remember when Great Bernera got rid of its bulls because they were chasing post vans, a man came from town to attend to the forlorn Friesians and the sombre Shorthorns.
I’ll always remember how my parents used to simultaneously furrow their brows when I, an inquisitive nine-year-old, used to ask who was the cove in the big rubber apron going into our byre. “He’s just the AI man, that’s all. Now finish your porridge.”
So what did he do, I kept asking. AI? What did AI stand for? “Nothing. He just goes to talk to the cows, that’s all. And AI doesn’t stand for anything interesting, does it, father? You tell him. You should be the one telling the boy about that sort of thing.”
Why should Dad be the one to tell me the man in the apron in the byre wasn’t there to do anything but talk to the cows and that AI didn’t stand for anything at all? It didn’t stack up. Then I heard Dad saying they would have to pay him to whisper these sweet nothings to Buttercup and Sooty.
OMG, I thought. That must be Dr Dolittle in our byre. Wait till I tell them in school tomorrow. They’ll never believe it. But they did, because Dolittle had also been doing nothing much to speak of in their byres.
Many years later I found out what the letters AI actually stood for. I was shocked even then but at the age of 34 I tried not to let on Dolittle was in our byre and what he was up to. Up to his elbow, by the sound of it.
Acronyms are also a brilliant way to communicate difficult unpalatable facts to people who don’t want to listen. I had a serious problem myself recently after I installed new software on my computer. I read and reread the manual but it still wasn’t working right.
There was obviously something wrong with the computer or the software as I was convinced I had done everything the book said. In desperation, I called a certain computer geek I know. Having been the first person to tell me a spreadsheet was not a duvet for a double bed, I’d maintained a degree of respect for his vast knowledge. He somehow connected his computer many miles away to mine in Stornoway. Then he hummed and hahed a lot before eventually telling me he’d found a serious malfunction. See, I said. I’d told him there was something wrong, didn’t I? Was it hardware or software, I asked.
Neither, he’d decided. He was going to have to come to see me. This was all down to a severe case of PEBKAC. Er, excuse me. We’ll have less of that kind of filthy talk on the phone to my house. I told him straight. Oh, that’s the name of the problem? Sorry, I thought you were just being rude to me.
So what is PEBKAC? Is there a cure? Will it cost much to fix? It was, he told me patiently, an engineering acronym. And it stands for Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair.
