The Times Higher Education Supplement ran a long piece in September, talking up the prospects of Doncaster College (Eyes passim ad nauseam) metamorphosing into the University of Doncaster by the year 2010.

Education was key to the town's regeneration, said Doncaster mayor Martin Winter, who made such a big impression on THES hackette Claire Sanders that she referred to him throughout as "Martin Walker".

But because the project is in the hands of such masters of bollockspeak as Winter and Doncaster College principal George Holmes, it is not called anything as mundane as "Doncaster University". Rather, it is "Education City", a concept so surrounded by buzzwords as to be almost invisible.

Homes, who says his mission is to lift the people of Doncaster out of poverty and ignorance, has made a good start. On himself. He gets by on a modest £166,000pa, free Mercedes, and a free flat.

Alas, three is one big cloud on the horizon. Two years ago Doncaster College failed its Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) inspection. If it fails another one, due this week, it could lose the right to provide higher education altogether.

Naturally every effort has been made to ensure that the college presents itself in the best possible light when the inspectors arrive. So staff who turned up for a pre-inspection meeting last week were not impressed to discover that the college's head of HE, Peter Hymans, and his deputy Graham Stevens had sent apologies. They were away on crucial business abroad... a booze cruise to Calais.

Private Eye No.1092 31st October 2003