Sunday Times

  • March 30, 1997, p. 31

    Bennett's Beat: "Uni by degrees"

  • by Rob Bennett

    The Bleeder has made a return, albeit under a different name..

    No, not Norman Gunston, though some of the material in it would be up his alley.

    Last year an irreverent spoof of the UWA newsletter Campus News, called Rumpus, was published and distributed anonymously at the uni.

    But just as it seemed the underground publication had turned up its toes, it has risen under a new name, The Bleeder, a play, I on the newly-named Campus News, The Leader.

    On the front cover is a photocopy of uni bosses Vice-Chancellor Fay Gale and her deputy Alan Robson in the hallowed halls of the uni.

    They are above the heading, UWA Senate exonerates UWA chiefs (in regards to the archaeology scandal) and has Al mouthing the words "I was only following orders" while Fay is quipping "I was only following advice".

    The lead article is about UWA's "new professor of music", Rolf Harris, an obvious shot at the uni decision to fast-track Aboriginal writer Sally Morgan into a professorship.

    There was a witchhunt to try to ferret out the people responsible for Rumpus to the, point that a senior administrator called in a literary expert.

    He concluded there were three authors.

    It all sounds like a case for Sherlock Holmes.


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