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...female Vice-Chancellors out of 125 or so UK Universities that is.

My employer, Oxford Brookes University, has announced that its new Vice-Chancellor when Graham Upton retires at the end of the academic year, will be Professor Janet Beer, currently a Pro-VC at Manchester Metropolitan University. There are currently just sixteen female vice-chancellors in the UK.

About time too I say. In a bout of thinly disguised creeping to our new leader I think this is fantastic news. I can't remember the exact numbers but I am pretty sure we have had more female students than male for some years now (in the hall of residence I live in the balance two or three years ago last time I calculated was more like 60-40 female-male). We actually don't do as badly as some institutions in terms of women in "emerging" senior academic positions (though not nearly well enough), but our institutional heads have always been men.

Janet seems to have all the right credentials, though I am still a bit mystified as to why we all got the opportunity to grill candidates for Deputy Vice-Chancellors a few years back but "out of confidentiality concerns" we did not get the same opportunity with the new V-C. But it sounds to me as if the panel have made an excellent choice. Putting us a generation ahead of that "other" university down the hill I suspect (where they even still have different academic dress for women on the statutes).

Some day the glass ceiling will not just crack but will shatter into tiny pieces. With this appointment we will have an equal gender balance in the Senior Management Team itself I believe (though I'm forever losing count of who the various Pro V-Cs are!) But only two out of seven heads of non-academic directorates still and overall in the university whilst two thirds of all staff are women, only just over a third of senior management positions are filled with women.

So, whilst her gender is clearly not the only reason for appointing Janet, as her CV readily attests, it is a great move for the university and a step closer, I hope, to more widespread equality of opportunity for the majority of our students and staff.

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Of course it's no big secret that I am a complete legalizer as far as drugs go. But it is good to see the police chief constables taking such an idea seriously. We know that a high proportion of property crime and crime against person are perpetrated by drug users funding the criminal underworld market to get their next fix. These crimes cost a huge amount both financially and emotionally on the rest of society, and an even bigger amount to incarcerate people who have perpetrated them, and they are still not getting the treatment while inside to prevent the revolving door.

Complete legalization would still, in my opinion, be preferable by far - as only then would people who are addicted be most amenable to getting treatment when it is not also a criminal thing, but this would be a big step and deserves support. Incidentally the poll on the BBC website covering the story is currently running at 52% in favour of the idea, which is way more than I would have expected - though maybe the Daily Mail hasn't told its readers to go vote against yet.

Give addicts heroin, says officer:

Howard Roberts said prescribing heroin to criminals would cut crime

Heroin should be prescribed to drug addicts to curb crime, the deputy chief constable of Nottinghamshire has said at a drugs conference.

UPDATE: Just saw Professor Griffth Edwards on C4 News laying into this idea. And he's not the first I've seen today - one of the charitable bodies working on drugs misuse said a similar thing - that you're just going to stoke up the problem. that the addict will have the system over a barrel - give me more or I'll go back to crime. Dr Edwards says that the only way is to get people off these hard drugs. I agree.

But I say the way to do that is to make it possible and socially acceptable to acknowledge a problem and get treatment for it. And the only way of doing that is in an open and accepting enviroment. And while they do come to realise they have a problem and seek help, they will also be able to get cheap, well regulated and much safer drugs so they're less likely to die before they get help.

I see from the Oxford Mail that Oxford City Council are considering saving some money by not contributing to crowd control at Magdalen Bridge on May Day morning next year. Not that it bothers me much either way - all I will want next May Day is to be sure that people who want to vote can safely get to their polling place! And I've never really understood why it ought to be a City Council function to deal with the crowds that congregate, ostensibly at least, to watch (if not hear) the choir of Magdalen College serenade the dawn. But it was this bit that intrigued me...

Magdalen College bursar Mark Blandford-Baker added: "The college is not involved with what happens out on the public highway, so I am not in a position to comment."

A narrow interpretation of their involvement or lack thereof I would have thought. Perhaps then they could play their part by keeping their choir inside that day and see whether it makes any difference to what happens outside?

What a bugger. San Pellegrino belongs to Nestle. Did you know that? Are they proud enough to put their logo on the bottle? Are they bollox. Indeed even their original bottled water, Vittel, is only discoverable as a Nestle product by the tiniest of tiny small print on the bottle. But San Pellegrino drinkers do not even get that warning.

Now, this is not a Nestle rant. There are lots of reasons why I try not to consume Nestle products as is my right as a consumer. And I'm not trying to force people to do likewise, merely exercising that consumer right on my own behalf.

So, I know Volvic and Buxton are Coke; Perrier, Vittel and San Pellegrino now are Nestle; Highland Spring is the Makhtoums' I understand. And I steer clear as a result of all of them. The stuff that comes out of my tap is owned by German investors who are about to flog it to whoever wants it, but not the people it belongs to.

Water, water everywhere but not an ethical drop to drink.

I need a friend with a borehole or the Duke of Marlborough to do some better marketing so Blenheim water is on some shop shelves rather than just corporate sales. Otherwise I am utterly dependent on global multi-brands for the very stuff of life.