Motto: NVNC ID VIDES, NVNC NE VIDES.

Coat of arms: a livre des sortileges, attache en cuivre, sur un chapeau pointu, on a field, azure.

There is a UU scarf, basically Burgundy and midnight blue with some tasteless thin yellow and purple stripes. The strikes a extremely symbolic, although not of anything very specific. The University likes to pretend that the eye watering clash is an attempt to portray Octarine,[1] but in reality it graphically illustrates the importance of not letting someone like the current Bursar choose a colour scheme after eating half a bottle of dried frog pills. The stripes have been retained anyway, because of Tradition.

UU is the Disc's premiere college of magic, whose campus is the occult, if no longer the actual, centre of Ankh-Morpork.

The University was founded in AM 1282 (the City count at the time) by Alberto Malich, but Ankh-Morpork dating is always suspect; suffice to say that it was some 2,000 years before the present. The aim was to force some sort of regulation on wizardry, which at that time was quite chaotic, and to permit the existence of an institution that would allow one wizard to meet another without immediately endeavouring to blow his head off with magical fire.

Like on really old universities, it is hard to tell where the University begins and the City ends, and in any case the size of UU can only be determined by reference to the kind of physics that you have to be a drunken physicist to understand.

In a purely mundane sense the main buildings occupied a large part of the river frontage between the Ankh and Sator Square, with various outbuildings stretching out as far as Estoric Street. But a mere floor plan would be quite misleading; UU has rooms and floors where logic says they simply could not exist. It has been a home of magic from so long that this is now part of the architectural inventory, like cement.

There are two ways of getting committed to UU: achieve some great work of benefits to magic, such as the recovery of an ancient and powerful relic or the invention of a totally new spell, or to be sponsored by a senior and respected wizard, after a suitable period of apprenticeship. The eighth son of an eighth son has a right to demand and receive a place.

Er...

All right, the ways - actual entry can be achieved by anyone of either sex willing to scrub and cook and make beds.

Er...

Four ways, in fact - possibly the most famous entrance to UU is via alleyway between the conservatory and the Backs, where a few loose bricks in the wall can be removed to make an informal ladder that has been used by students for hundreds of years. Whatever its original name, the alleyway has been known for years as Scholars' Entry, which in the hands of those inclined to the obvious it is always good for a snigger.

With one exception (during the Archchancellorship of Cutangle), UU has never admitted women. Usually this is said to be on the grounds of plumbing problems, but probably the real reason is a unspoken dread that women, if allowed to mess around with wizardry, would probably be embarrassingly good at it. And less likely to do what they're told.

There is theoretically no age limit on students, since obviously it is better to have anyone with magical talent under the aegis of the University than ... er ... not under it. The normal age of entrants is around sixteen, although in earlier days it was a lot younger and undergraduates as young as four were enrolled. These days, however, few people at UU undertake magical practice clutching a woolly lamb.

WEALTH

UU is immensely wealthy, in a nebulous and threadbare kind of way. It owns large sections of Ankh-Morpork, particularly around Sator Square and also in the Shades, which grew up as a service centre for the new university (a safe distance downstream). However, most of the rents are fixed and tend to be of the half-a-groat-every-Hogswatch-night variety, and the leases are either no longer decipherable or have long since moulded away.

Generally speaking, the University survivors from day to day by voluntary donations, usually in kind. (if you were a greengrocer, living a few streets away from what you perceive as a group of fat and slightly deranged old men sitting on enough raw magic to blow a hole right through Reality and out the other side, then wouldn't you see they got the occasional cartload of potatoes?)

TOWN AND GOWN: UNSEEN UNIVERSITY AND ANKH-MORPORK

As the University is well aware, Ankh-Morpork owes its entire existence to the presence of Unseen. The Shades were the core of the original city but, as the city began to develop its own momentum, the urban sprawl soon encompassed the villages now known as Dolly Sisters and Nap Hill.

Not unnaturally, the early Archchancellors resented any suggestion of control by the growing civil power and there were various trials of strength in the first few centuries, which usually ended with someone being turned into some kind of amphibian. Eventually an understanding was reached: UU would be left in peace to manage its affairs on the transtemporal level, and citizens would be allowed to go to bed the same shape as they were when they woke up that morning, whatever shape that had been.

Strictly speaking, the laws of Ankh-Morpork do not apply within the walls of the University even now, but this is nothing remarkable since they seldom apply outside the walls either. Wizards misbehaving in the city might be locked up by the Watch for the night, but will then be handed over to the Archchancellors' court upon payment of a small fine.

A list of offences under the rules of the cot, and their attendant punishment, includes:

Acceptable Waggishness 50p

High Spitits 60p

Being A Young Rip 75p

Having A Fling 75p

Sowing Wild Oats 33p per oat

Being found Drunk 80p

Being found Rascally Drunk 90p

Been found Objectionably Sober $1.00

Of course, where there is law there has to be crime, and where there is a court there must be policemen.

So it is at UU. Although these days they are really little more than porters, the University does have its 'policemen', known as the Bledlows (origin unknown) or 'lobsters'. They tend to be heavy-set, elderly men with nevertheless a good turn of speed and the sort of head that is made to wear a bowler hat. They a of limited yet highly focused intellect; their whole being is founded on the certain belief that all students are guilty of everything.

They are generally ex-soldiers or watchmen and their traditional cry is 'I know who you are!'

UNIVERSITY ORGANISATION

Despite attendances, UU is not simply a college of magic. There are faculties of medicine, minor religions and lore (history), for example. But these are very small and, in any case, University rules require that faculty members must have trained initially as wizards.

UU government is headed by the Archchancellor, who also chairs the College Council, of Hebdomadal Board (from the Latatian hebes - sluggish or stupid, and domo - to tame on conquer. Hence the purpose of the College Council is to conquer stupidity. It is, say critics, beginning this activity by making a very careful and personal study of the enemy - really getting under its skin, as it were).

The council traditionally consisted of the heads of the eight orders of wizardry. However, since the events chronicled at the end of the Light Fantastic (when the University lost all eight heads but gained some incredibly lifelike statues, most of them now decorating the wall overlooking Sator Square), the ex-officio membership of the heads of orders have ceased and the Council is now directly appointed by the Archchancellor.

The eight bodies, each in theory headed by an eighth-level wizard, are:

The Ancient and Truly Original Sages of the Unbroken Circle

The Hoodwinkers

Mrs Widgery's Lodgers

The Ancient and Truly Original Brothers of the Silver Star

The Venerable Council of Seers

The Sages of the Unknown Shadow

The Order of Midnight

The Last Order, also known as the Other Order

A new student may apply to join any one of these orders, which combine the functions of 'houses' in English public schools with something of the 'fraternities' in American colleges. Despite their names, most of them are not at all ancient - there have always been orders, but their names have been lost or mislaid or muddled by wars and time. The current crop are the results of a deliberate 're-creation' of the orders less than a century ago. Apart, that is, from Mrs Widgery's Lodgers, which is as old as the University; in the very early days of UU the Tower of Art (then the only building on campus) was not big enough to hold all the students and they were boarded at The house of Mrs Widgery, on the site of what is now New Hall.

Wants accepted, the students may study for any one of the university's decrees:

Bachelor of Thaumatology (B.Thau.)

Bachelor of Magic (B.Mgc)

Bachelor of Sortilege (B.S.)

Bachelor of Magianism (B.Mn.)

Bachelor of Divination (B.D.)

Bachelor of Civil Lore (B.C.L.)

Bachelor of Applied Theurgy (B.Ap.Th.)

Bachelor of Impractical Necromancy (B.Im.N.)

Bachelor of Fluencing (B.F.)[2]

Bachelor of Amulets & Talismen (B.Am.Ta.)

Bachelor of Cabbalistic Rites (B.C.R.)

Bachelor of Hyperphysical Chiromancy (B.H.Ch.)

Bachelor of Estoric Ocuultism (B.Es.O.)

Bachelor of Eldrich Lacemaking (B.El.L.)[3]

Master of Thaumatology (M.Thau.)

Master of Magic (M.M.)

Master of Sortilege (M.S.)

Master of Magianism (M.Mn.)

Master of Divination (M.D.)

Master of Civil Lore (M.C.L.)

Doctor of Thaumatology (D.Thau.)

Doctor of Magic (D.M.)

Doctor of Sortilege (D.S.)

Doctor of Magianism (D.Mn.)

Doctor of Gramarye (D.G.)

Doctor of Divination (D.D.)

Doctor of Civil Lore (D.C.L.)

Doctor of Magical Philosophy (D.M.Phil.)

Doctor of Morbid Spellbinding (D.M.S.)

Doctor of Condensed Metaphysics (D.C.M.)

Doctor of Wizardry (D.W.)

In addition to the above, the University also tolerates guest lecturers on 'fringe' aspects are magic (at least, fringe from the point of view of established wizardry) such as shamanism, witchcraft, voodoo and plumbing.

Progression through the eight levels of wizardry is determined in part by the acquisition of degree qualifications and, particularly towards the top of the tree where the number of available places become few and far between (there are only eight eighth-level wizards, at least officially), by a policy of 'dead men's pointy boots', no questions being costs about the manner of their emptying.

(We suppose at this point that it must be admitted, with extreme reluctance, that the formal level is not necessarily an indication of a wizards actual power. Like the whole structure of UU, the levels and degree system is there to control the power of wizardry rather than to further it. It has to be pointed out, for example, that by the University's own rules the wizard Rincewind, having defeated a sourcerer (in Sourcery), is therefore at the very least an eighth-level wizard. No one at UU seems to have worked this out, and it is just as well from their temper that this remains the case.)

Many of the faculties also supports a sponsored Professorship, which, although carrying a sturdy stipend, also carries with it the stigma of actually been expected to teach the students. The current Professorships are:

Patricus Professor of Magic

Magus Professor of Wizardry

Invius Professor of Condensed Metaphysics

Octavus Professor of Civil Lore

Haudmeritus Professor of Divination

Superbus Professor of Astrology

Infandus Professor of Morbid Spellbinding

Flaxus Professor of Sortilege

STAFF

Identified members of the university's staff include:

Archchancellor

Bursar

Chair of Indefinite Studies

Dean of College

Dean of Liberal Studies

Dean of Pentacles

Lecturer in Applied Astrology

Lecturer in Recent Runes

Librarian

Professor of Anthropics

Professor of Astrology

Reader in Esoteric Studies (also known as 'the Reader in the Lavatory')

Reader in Invisible Writings

Reader in Woolly Thinking

Senior Wrangler

Again, the fact is that a University that has existed for two thousand years, and is as rambling as UU, develops all sorts of quirks. There are professors in distant parts of the building engaged in their own pursuits and hardly ever seen; there are lecturers who don't lecture, and research students who are older than most of the faculty. Mustrum Ridcully, Archchancellor at the time of writing, is resigned to the fact that there are plenty of wizards in outlying areas of UU who don't even know who he is. Once in UU, a wizard need never leave. Tenure is automatic. There is always a spare study somewhere, always room in the Great Hall. It is, in short, academic heaven - and a perfect way to ensure that the most potentially dangerous men on the Disc spend their time squabbling amongst themselves and, of course, eating big dinners.

TERMS

The University year is split into eight terms, each of which is approximately one week long in order to minimise the amount of time that the faculty needs to spend in any one room with the student body.

The students, however, continue to live in the University throughout much of the calendar year, undertaking their own research and generally absorbing magic from the fabric of the building and adding to its storehouse of knowledge. (The theory runs thusly: it is very well known that students arriving fresh at any university know all there is to know about absolutely everything. But when they leave, after many years of study, there usually only too ready to admit that there is a lot they don't know. Raw knowledge must therefore have been passing from the students into the University, where it accumulates.)

The University terms follow the Great or true astronomical disc year, despite the fact that most of the world lives by the 'agricultural' year (see Calendars). All really old and important universities have terms links to some temporal scheme now quite opaque to the mass of the population, to show them what they're missing by being so stupid.

The UU terms are: Octinity; Rotation; Backspindle; Hogswatch; Evelyn; Micklemote; Candlerent (Candlerent is rent from a house which continually deteriorates - this presumably has something to do with the Shades, where many of the buildings have deteriorated to the point at which flat ground would be urban improvement); Soul Cakes.

CEREMONIES AND FESTIVALS

The Convivium.

The UU degree ceremony. The University's Archchancellor, Council, eighth-level wizards, doctors and masters proceed through the city from the University to the Opera House, led by (traditionally) the Commander of the City Watch or, in those recent years when there has been no Commander, by a man carrying a cushion on which is a small pot of mustard and a quill pen (because of Tradition). The recession is extremely colourful and popular and has put at least one nautical observer in mind of an entire fleet of galleons running in front of the wind.

In the Opera House new graduates are awarded their degrees in the presence of the Patrician. After the ceremony, the procession proceeds rather more quickly back to the University for a large meal.

Until two hundred years ago the Convivium was held within the university grounds; it appears to have been moved outside as an exercise in impressing the masses; a very similar exercise, in fact, to the Moscow May Day parades in the great days of Soviet power. Look at us, the wizards seem to be saying as they proceed with robes astream - we've all got big staffs, and they've all got knobs on the end. We don't want to have to use them.

Gaudy Night.

When graduate wizards attend a grand banquet in the Great Hall, with each wizard making a greater effort than usual to outbid his fellows in the splendour of his robes. The winner is carried shoulder-high out of the University and thrown on to the Ankh.

Boy Archchancellor.

This ceremony occurs around the turn of the year, at Hogswatch. A first-year student is selected to be Archchancellor for a whole day, from dawn until dusk. For that period he can exert the full power of the Archchancellorship and there a many tales of japes played on senior members of the College Council (hence the expression 'a wizard wheeze'). For this reason the student selected for this honour is usually the most unpopular boy in the University, and his life expectancy the following day is brief.

Head of the River.

Like all riverside universities, Unseen is keen to promote its water sports. Because of the nature of the Ankh, rowing is tricky except in times of serious flood, and races consist of teams of eight student wizards chasing each other on foot up the Ankh while carrying a racing skiff (a similar practice, for different reasons, is found in the Alice Springs Regatta in Australia, which takes place on the dry river bed).

The race itself is known as the Bumps, because of the nature of the surface of the Ankh. The competing crews race from the University boathouses to the Brass Bridge. The winning crew is then awarded a 'brown' (pairs of brown pointy boots to replace the ones destroyed by close contact with the Ankh during the race), and becomes Head of the River, an earthy reference to the state of the members' boots and clothing.

May Morning.

Every Mayday morning at dawn, the UU choir sing an anthem from the top of the Tower of Art, while the faculty and students (or as many of them as are awake at dawn) stand in the University gardens and listen. Since the Tower is 800 feet high, the listeners cannot hear the singing but, since the anthem takes five minutes to sing, they all applaud five minutes after dawn.

On a number of occasions the choir itself has failed to get up in time but the 'listeners' still clap anyway. To sneer at this is to misunderstand the Value of Tradition. If you don't understand this, you are nothing but a foreigner.

The Wizards' Excuse Me.

Quite a new function, held on the last day of Backspindle term. It has been said that wizards don't have balls, but the Excuse Me belies this. It is a large dance to which the cream of Ankh-Morpork Society (or, as they say, at least the stuff which is floating on the top) is invited. There are to bands and, most importantly, a buffet with eighteen different kinds of meat and, of course, cheese cubes and pineapple lumps on a stick.

The Excuse Me is particularly favoured by the current Librarian, as a result of which sales of hair oil soar in the preceding week. He is the only person in Ankh-Morpork who can achieve a parting down his entire body.

Rag Week.

The entire Backspindle term. Wise citizens know enough to be on their guard around this time. The Week house all the normal perils of student humour with the additional seasoning of magic; these are viewed by the University authorities with the amused acceptance that is generally employed vis a vis student activities when baton rounds and tear gas have been found ineffective.

Citizens may encounter, for example, the Short Street Climb, in which wizards armed with crampons and pitons and ropes 'climb', in all seriousness, the length of the street. Many lose their grip and plunge helplessly through the door of the Mended Drum where, in an attempt to revive themselves, much alcohol is consumed.

Another regular feature is the 'borrowing' of certain civic items and taking them to the Mended Drum, where much alcohol is consumed. Such items typically include street signs, potted plants and, on one occasion, the Brass Bridge.

An event often featured in the Week, but liable to break out at any other time, is tobogganing. Traditionally this took place inside the Tower of Art, when students on tea trays - after consuming much alcohol - would slide down the 8,888 steps on the spiral staircase, with many death-defying plunges over the missing ones. By the time they were halfway down, in any case, centrifugal force was pinning them to the walls, and wizards often shot from the doorway at the bottom with enough speed to skim them across the Ankh.

These days Rag Week is more normally held inside the university buildings themselves, where the many curving staircases and polished corridors offer endless opportunity for impressively sudden death.

Beating the Bounds.

(also known as 'Plunkers'.) At dawn on 22 Grune the entire faculty, led by the choir and with the student body trailing behind, walk the ancient boundaries of the University (approximately the Backs, the Maul, Esoteric street and the river frontage). They walk through or if necessary climb over any buildings that have since been built on the line of progress, while ceremonially striking any members of the public with live ferrets (in memory of Archchancellor Buckleby). Any red-headed men encountered are seized by several strong young wizards and given 'a plunking'; this tradition has, most unusually - and subsequent to an incident that left three wizards hanging precariously from a nearby gutter - been amended to read any red-haired men except of course for Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson of the Watch. After the progress, the entire membership of the University heads back to the Great Hall for a huge breakfast at which duck must be served.

Scrawn Money.

('Archchancellor Scrawn's Bequest'.) One of the oldest ceremonies in the University calendar, held in Sator Square. All tenants of University property are required to attend, whereupon they are given two pennies, a pair of long socks and a loaf of bread baked the previous morning. They then file into the University where they are allowed to watch the wizards having lunch.

The Poor Scholars.

When UU was first established a class of students was accepted without the benefit of financial backing or formal seconding by a University graduate. These were the 'Poor Scholars', young men with magical potential. It was felt that it would be in the interests of all concerned if the young men were educated in the ways of UU (in the words of Alberto Malich, the founder: 'We'd better keep the bright young buggers where we can see 'em').

They were not given rooms in the Tower of Art, and many had to live in lean-tos constructed against the walls. Once a month, in recognition of these stoics' determination not to be put off from their studies, the faculty would appear at the upper windows of the Tower and throw food to the 'Poor Scholars'. It was a popular event among the staff because it was quite possible to achieve a knockout blow with a well-gnawed cutlet from 200 feet.

This tradition lives on, even though the University is now physically much bigger and takes no 'Poor Scholars'. Once a year, the entire student body forgathers in Sator Square, where the faculty pelts them with stale bread rolls. Thrown with some force.

'Sity and Guilds.

When the Guilds began to set up their own academic establishments there was a lot of rivalry between their various students, and lone UU students would frequently be set on by gangs from other colleges. Ankh-Morpork has a relaxed attitude to sudden death, and many faculty members prefer dead students as being easier to teach, but the more pragmatic Guild Presidents, and the then current Archchancellor, decided that enough was enough because all those bodies around the place made it hard to open doors, and so on.

They decided to channel the rivalry into an annual sporting contest, to be called the 'Sity and Guilds Match (although A. J. Loop, in the Ankh-Morpork Almanack and Book of Dayes, claims that this was merely a slightly modernized form of a much older and rather sinister contest known as the Ankh-Morpork Poor Boys' Fun, which involved teams of up to five hundred; certainly the old Laws and Ordinances of Ankh-Morpork contain several prohibitions mentioning the term).

The principle was to kick or carry a football from the outskirts of the Shades (the oldest part of the city) to the Tower Of Art (the oldest building on the Disc). The game involved teams of fifty students from each of the principle Guilds, plus UU. Goals were scored by kicking the ball through the door (or, more often, the window) of landmarks along the way, many of them having names like the Mended Drum, Bunch of Grapes, etc. The scoring team had then to be bought drinks by the other teams. After a few years, the Archchancellor ruled that only one goal could be scored in each pub since the match had, three years running, gone on for a month.

UU records suggest that students from the University have not participated recently, but street football with various rules is still an Ankh-Morpork tradition. (In troll areas of the city the troll version of football is still occasionally played, although out of deference to modern sensibilities the 'football' of choice is no longer a human head, and a dwarf is substituted.)

UNSEEN UNIVERSITY: A GUIDED TOUR

The University's main gates open on to Sator Square. They are big and plated with solid Octiron. There is no doorknocker, and at sunset each day the gates are locked by magic (in actual fact by Modo, the University's dwarf gardener, but it pays to advertise).

Take a moment to inspect the interesting frontage, which is an amazing juxtaposition of architechtural styles, although it may be that the word 'confectionery'is more appropriate. From various niches the statues of former Archchancellors, of which UU has a more than adequate supply, stare down over the city.

We may at this point draw the attention of gentlemen in the party to the statue of Archchancellor Bewdley, just over the window to the right of the gates. If they are in a position to do so (i.e., alive), Archchancellors like to influence the style of their commemorative statues; Archchancellor Bewdley always disliked Ankh-Morpork intensely and I think you will agree, when you notice the position of his hands, that this is abundantly clear posthumously.

Note that the various architectural styles suggest that the roof and upper floor of the University were constructed several hundred years before the other storeys.

Now the massive gates open rather jerkily to admit us to the main octangle of the University's campus.

We enter a wide courtyard surrounded by lawns and dominated by some ancient chestnut trees. There are benches under the trees. Around the octangle is a great rambling building or buildings, looking not so much an architectural design as a lot of buttresses, arches, towers, bridges, domes, cupolas, etc., huddling together for warmth. Wizards like quantity. Visitors are asked particularly to note the cunning and disconcertingly alert Gargoyles, a range of beaks, manes, claws and pigeon droppings. Avoid feeding them if possible. They are at least as intelligent as trolls, by the way. You are being watched.

Behind us now is the University Clock Tower, with its ancient cracked bell (rumoured to be of octiron rather than bronze), Old Tom. The clapper dropped out shortly after it was cast, but the bell still tolls out some tremendously sonorous silences every hour.

Crossing the octangle, we proceed up a broad flight of steps to an impressive pair of doors, again made of octiron. Note the heavy locks, curly hinges and brass studs on the door itself and the intricate carvings on the archway. Passing through this entrance, we notice the University's keys on their huge iron ring. Not all of them are metal, not all are visible; some look very strange indeed, as if they are not entirely in this world.

We will go straight to the Great Hall. Around its walls hang or stand portraits or statues of past Archchancellors - full-bearded and pointy-hatted, clutching ornamental scrolls or holding mysterious symbolic bits of astrological equipment. They stare down at us with ferocious self-importence or, possibly, chronic constipation. In many cases they are unfinished, the subject having prematurely expired during the sitting.

However, it is worth seeking out the niche containing not the likeness but the actual body of Archchancellor 'Trouter' Hopkins, whose will stipulated that upon his death the University should continue his own work and pickle his body in alcohol. It sits beautifully preserved in its niche gazing happily at the festivities below, and is occasionally purloined by students and left around the University in a variety of humorous poses (sitting at the High Table with a bib on, wearing a night-cap in the Bursar's bed, etc.).

The floor is decorated with a worrying pattern of black and white tiles, and covered with long tables and benches. There is a big fireplace at the turnwise end and a big clock at the other. A third wall is largely occupied by the Mighty Organ. This magnificent instrument, recently restored, was the work of Bloody Stupid Johnson, fames wherever buildings are constucted back to front.

Genius knows no limitations. Leonardo da Vinci would design lock gates and new ways of soldering lead just as happily as he would paint pictures. In the same way, the reverse genius of people like Johnson also likes to dabble a bit. As he said, 'It's only air going through pipes, it can't be that difficult.'

And, indeed, the resulting construction must be one of the most versatile instruments known to pre-electronic mankind, with its three giant keyboards and range of additional controls seldom before encountered, including the one that floods all the pipes with poisonous gas to kill the mice. Dextrous use of resin, strips of metal, rubber tubing and special pipes allows a whole range of surprising effects, permitting composers to explore whole new areas of music-making (one has only to cite Bubbla's 'Variations On a Man Taking His Foot Out of a Pile of Mud', say, or Fondel's 'Double Top Overture', on the first playing of which the audience were mystified that they could hear nothing but were stunned by falling bats).

No one is now allowed to use the Terraemotus pedal, which opens up the 128-foot pipe known as Earthquake. On the first occasion when it was used the sixteen students doing the pumping were sucked into the machinery, the population of a quarter of the city experienced acute bowel discomfort, and the building moved a quarter of an inch sideways.

To supplement the light from the small high windows, with their gentle patina of antique grease, the Great Hall is lit by a massive, heavy, black, tallow-encrusted chandelier which hangs from the Hall's dark, owl-haunted rafters like a threatening overdraft. It can hold one thousand candles.

The Great Hall is the scene of all major magical activities in the University, and it also hosts the four main meals of the day. The senior members of the faculty used to sit at the High Table which was indeed high, since it could float several yards up in the air, and landed only between courses. It now remains grounded as a result of what is referred to only as the Incident at Dinner.

Also in the main building are the Uncommon Room, with its roaring log fire, summer or winter, the University's small chapel and modest sanatorium (wizards tend to be either in rude health or dead), and of course the classrooms designed on the funnel principle, with thier benches sloping precipitously over the central teaching areas.

Also worthy of note, for visitors who are interested in the subject, is the senior wizards' lavatory, which has real running water, interesting tiles and two big silver mirrors placed on opposite walls.

One room amongst the more than 5,000 known rooms in UU which we may experience visiting is 3B. It is not locatable on any floor plan of UU - but all virtual lectures take place there. That is to say, those lectures that neither the students nor the lecturers wish to attend, but which must have some type of existence since they are down on the timetable, are therefore held in this room which, in fact, does not exist.

In the cellars are a maze of cold-rooms, still-rooms, kitchens, sculleries, bakeries and taprooms that together form the driving engine of the University. It will be noted that while most of the University is in a pemanent state of happy decay, the kitchens are quite modern and also in a permanent state of bustle. An army, it has been said, marches on its stomach; wizards sit holding theirs. Also in the cellars is the curiobiological museum, probably best not visited after a meal, particularly since it is situated next to the pickle pantry.

The cellars also house the washing engines. Each is two storeys high. A huge treadmill connects to a couple of bleached wooden paddles in each vat, which is heated by fireboxes underneath. In full production, at least half a dozen people are needed to manhandle the loads, maintain the fires and oil the scrubbing arms. Were it not for the fact that the machines are very efficient at getting clothes clean, they might have been designed by the famous Bloody Stupid Johnson, although if this really was the case he undoubtedly intended to do something else.

Passing through the main building we come to the University Gardens. Dominating these, as it dominates the entire city, is the Tower of Art, 800 feet tall, and the subject of a separate tour. To our left is the main Observatory, of the Disc Zodiac,[4] and the gym, a large room lined with lead and rowan wood, where neophytes can work at the High Magic without seriously unbalancing the universe. In that building is also the University squash court.

To our immediate right is the Library; access to this glass-domed building is via the inside of the University but is only with the permission of the Librarian.

There is, incidentally, a second observatory in the deepest cellars. It is lined with lead, and is used for viewing ... the other stars.

Further to our right is the tiny-windowed High Energy Magic Building, the only building on the campus less than a thousand years old. The senior wizards have never bothered much about the younger, skinnier and more bespectacled wizards get up to in there, treating their endless requests for funding for thaumic particle accelerators and radiation shielding as one treats pleas for more pocket money, and listening with amusement to their breathless accounts of the search for ever more elementary particles of magic itself. They are, though, nervous of the fact that the students there seem to be engrossed in their work and, in fact, apparently enjoy it. This is always a dangerous thing in a student.

The grounds, with their rose beds and ancient velvet lawns, their neat patterns of gravel paths and hedges, stretch right down to the river, where some of the University's boats are moored to the jetties. A small bridge leads over the Ankh to Wizards' Pleasurance.

The grounds, which incorporate the Archchancellor's garden and ver-andah, are protected by walls twenty feet high, lined with spikes. To our left are the ornamental drain covers, bearing a likeness of Archchancellor William Badger, not a popular man.

And now here is the University's back door, made of normal wood and with a knocker shaped like a dragons head.

If you would like to follow me through this door, which is used by most of the University's 'normal' visitors, we should find ourselves back in the streets of Ankh-Morpork.

Ah ... it would seem that the party now includes an extra person, and he smells very strongly of embalming fluid and alcohol ... those students, eh?

[1] Although octarine is the most important colour as far as wizards are concerned, it is not one that lends itself well to paint pigmentation. It quickly fades in sunlight and, in extreme cases, walks away. Back

[2] A very popular degree and comparatively easy to obtain; a bit like sociology. Most wizards manage to get a B.F. after their name, to the quiet amusement of the citizenry in general. Back

[3] This one is a bit of a puzzler. Back