'It's hundreds of years old,' said the Bursar suddenly inspired. 'It's…it's protected species. No one is allowed even to walk on it,'

Kudzuvine shook his head in disbelief. 'No one is allowed to walk on it for hundreds of years? So how come it's so short and green and stuff Cuts itself too?'

'No, of course not. The College gardeners cut it but only dons are allowed to walk on it.'

'Jesus,' said Kudzuvine. 'Got a lawn hundreds of years old. That I understand. Whole place looks like it's been here hundreds of years, maybe thousands. Mr Hartang is going to love this.'

'I daresay he will,' said the Bursar, finally beginning to feel he had the situation slightly in hand. 'But not if you bring that truck thing in with those cables and ruin it.'

'Yeah, you could be right at that,' Kudzuvine admitted. 'Okay, you guys, leave it in the street.'

'And I don't think that's a very good idea either,' the Bursar continued. 'The police will-'

'So we move it some place else. Where's the campus parking lot?'

The Bursar tried to think. It had never crossed his mind that Porterhouse might have a campus or even be one. Walter came to his rescue. 'You can always try the Lion Yard,' he muttered. 'Though if you ask me I don't think you'll get it in.'

Kudzuvine turned his attention away from the lawn. 'Did you say…You did say the Lion's Yard?' he asked. Awe wasn't an adequate word now. Horror was more like it.

'He means the car park…the parking lot,' the Bursar explained. 'It has nothing to do with the College. And I assure you there are no lions in it.'

'There are,' said Walter. 'There's a great big red one.'

The Bursar looked at him and shook his head. He had never liked Skullion as Head Porter but there were times when he wished he was back. Skullion would never have allowed this situation to develop. 'Yes, Walter, but it's a stone one. A statue,' he explained with difficult patience. 'It's called the Lion Yard after the lovely old pub that used to stand there.'

'Oh, I remember the Lion so well,' said the Chaplain, who had joined the gathering outside the Porter's Lodge. 'Such a shame they knocked it down. It had a delightful walkway, almost an arcade with leather sofas on either side and little insurance offices and shipping agents behind them. I used to sit there and have coffee in the morning. And of course there was a bar. And I seem to remember some enterprising young man from Magdalene ran a sort of casino there with a roulette wheel. Such fun.'

Kudzuvine and the other polo-necks stood in silent admiration and stared through their blue sunglasses. It was obvious they had never seen or heard anything like this before.

'Ah well, I must leave you good people,' the Chaplain said. 'Breakfast calls. Spiritual sustenance is one thing but, to change the emphasis of Our Lord's words slightly towards the practical, "Man cannot live by wine and biscuit alone" We are corporeal beings after all. So nice meeting you.' He tottered off in the direction of the Dining Hall following the scent of porridge and bacon and eggs and good coffee.

For the next twenty minutes, in the almost serene atmosphere that had been induced by the Chaplain's nostalgia, the Bursar got Kudzuvine to have the video van parked away from the College.

'We'll clear a space by the bicycle sheds, when you need to use it,' he explained, 'though I must say I never visualized such…well, it's like a pantechnicon.'

It was a most unfortunate word to use. Kudzuvine seized on it. 'Professor Bursar, have you said it?' he bawled.

'Well, I think so…' tire Bursar began, but Kudzuvine had grabbed him by the arm.

'Pantechnicon it could be but that's small stuff. We go straight into thirty-five or maybe even seventy mill. We've got this Ball, see, and everyone dancing out in the open air…' He paused and looked puzzled. 'Where do they dance?'

The Bursar smiled. It was to be his last smile for some time. 'Well, mostly in the Hall of course,' he said. 'They clear the tables out, you know.'

'The Hall? Show me,' said Kudzuvine.

The Bursar led the way to the Screens and the Transworld Television team came bunched behind, gaping. 'These are the Screens,' he explained. 'On our left are the kitchens…well actually they are down below but the steps lead down to the Buttery. Now the Buttery-'

'Hold it there. Hold it,' Kudzuvine said, almost pleading. 'You mean you got a place you make your own butter? You mean in wooden churns with fucking handles and milkmaids and…This is beyond incredible. It's wayer out than way. Jesus, that I should have been so privileged. And you said you didn't use quills.'

'I don't, as a matter of fact,' said the Bursar coldly. He still felt very bitter about Mr Skundler's rudeness and the notion that he had to catch a goose every time he made a single entry. And the Buttery isn't for butter. It is where the bread and ale, and of course in years gone by some butter, was kept. Nowadays one buys one's sherry and wine there and the undergraduates can order beer or wine with their meals.'

Kudzuvine's mouth was hanging open. 'You mean you actually encourage kids to get alcoholic in there? I don't know what to say? This isn't happening. It can't be.'

'Not alcoholic Just sensible drinking. It's all part of their education,' said the Bursar, who wished Kudzuvine's last two remarks had been true.

But Kudzuvine's short attention span had switched to the Hall itself, where a waiter had just come through for more coffee. 'Take a look at this, you guys,' he said and went in. Behind him the Bursar cringed. A small number of undergraduates were having breakfast and looked up in annoyance at the intrusion. Kudzuvine didn't notice. He was gazing in rapture at the portraits of past Masters hanging on the panelled walls and seemed particularly enraptured by Dr Anderson (1669-89) and Jonathan Riderscombe (1740-48), both of whom were decidedly fat.

'Shit,' said Kudzuvine, clearly now on some sort of higher than high. 'No wonder the place is called Porterhouse. It's a wonder it isn't Porkerhouse the way those guys look. And we think we've got obesity problems. That's human foie gras up there. I mean you can't get that way naturally. You've got to be force fed. And what's with their cholesterol level? Must been way off the scale like they sweated the stuff. And with pork-bellies like those they can't ever have seen their John Henries. Except in the mirror of course. And look at the roof…'

By the time the Bursar had managed to get them out of the Hall he was in a state bordering on nervous collapse. 'We can't go round the College like this,' he said weakly. 'Couldn't your team go-'

'Right off first time, Professor Bursar. Man, we need your organizational skills,' he said and called the team into a huddle. The Bursar mopped his brow and prayed. It was no use. As the Hartang lookalikes scurried off in different directions, Kudzuvine turned back to the Bursar with even more terrible enthusiasm. 'So we've got them dancing in the Hall,' he said. 'Where else? You said two bands and…'

'Actually we lay a sort of wooden stage over the lawn in New Court and the Fellows' Garden and the marquees…tents are for the buffet and so on and the champagne…'

Kudzuvine listened avidly to the full explanation. 'Oh boy, oh boy,' he sighed. 'Oh brother. And all dolled up in gowns and tuxedos like it's Atlanta with Clark Gable and that Vivien Leigh and it's still Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix time.'

'I beg your pardon?' said the Bursar, as usual most unwisely.

Kudzuvine cringed. 'No, sir, I beg yours, Prof. You didn't hear me say that. I meant it was Afro-American Person time down south which is where I come from. Like Bibliopolis, Alabama, which I'm mighty proud of. That's where I was raised, sir, in Bibliopolis, Alabama, which as you will know is named after the Writer of the Good Book.'