Seagull Principal’s principles questioned
by Wagril Slane
Illustration by Jake Roslin
Seagull Principal’s principles questioned
Students were in shock today as it was revealed Aberdeen’s former Principal of Seagulls, Sir Ivan Geezer, will not be forced to repay the extra £119,000 he was given by the University for not doing anything.
Current seagull boss, Professor Gordon Battle, announced his predecessor has decided to keep the overpayment, during an online University Q&A event entitled Ask The Seagull Principal Anything! (Except Whether He’s Been Visiting Wales Again).
Geezer was top gull at Aberdeen until 2018 when he gave 12 month’s notice to quit, forgetting it is traditional to do so 12 months prior to leaving. He received £119,000 in his final paypacket for a period when he had already gone and his successor, Battle, had taken over. An enquiry by the Office of the Seagull Charity Regulator (OSCR) declared Geezer should repay the money to the University, but despite being regularly reminded by the press, he has still not done so. The OSCR also said the University Trustees who approved the extra cash were ‘Very very bad gulls,’ but they couldn’t punish them as ‘most of them seem to have flown away’.
‘Cor blimey, guvnor,’ said Geezer, when The Gaudie caught up with him at his new job, as Seagull Chief Statistician for the UK Government. ‘It’s a fair cop, gawd bless us, no mistake. But ‘ere, 119,000 notes one way or anovva, it’s narthing really is it? And me job up there was being Principal, not ‘aving Principles, y’know what I mean? So fark off’.
The Gaudie next called Gordon Battle on his mobile to ask why he wasn’t insisting Geezer repay the sum, perhaps to help students in hardship due to Covid-19. ‘Prynhawn da? Croeso y Cymru! Oh, it’s you boyos again is it?’ said Battle, struggling to be heard over a chorus of sheep singing The Green, Green Grass of Home. ‘Well it’s not so very much money, is it, now? I personally wouldn’t bother to bend down to pick up £119,000 if I dropped it, diolch yn fawr iawn! But you’ll have to excuse me now, I’m cooking a leek dinner in front of the rugby, with my neighbours Charlotte Church, Rhys Ifans, Catherine Zeta-Jones and the late Dylan Thomas. Also your Editor is jumping up and down in despair at all the Welsh clichés! So dos i chwarae efo dy nain, as we say here. In Aberdeen.’
Student Association President Ms Obsequia Wallflower commented, ‘AUSA held a strategic holistic executive synergetic stakeholder core competency engagement review about Geezer’s overpayment, at which we all shook our heads in disappointment for a while, then produced a carefully worded statement saying we are a teeny, tiny bit cross, but that we aren’t actually going to do any action or protest or anything, and that the university is still our bestest friend in the whole wide world! After all, we didn’t get into student politics for the politics. Or the students.’
STOP PRESS
Chief Statistician Geezer has responded to accusations his calculation of how long he thinks he worked at the University suggests he might not be the ideal seagull for the UK Government to now be tasking with calculating Covid-19 case numbers. ‘Cor blimey, guvnor,’ said Geezer, ‘It’s a fair cop, gawd bless us, no mistake. But ‘ere, 119,000 deaths one way or anovva, it’s narthing really is it? So fark off’.
