Higher tables

Mark Thompson will probably look for tips from former colleagues over the next year, if he really wants an academic wind-down at Oxford University - as hinted by Ephraim Hardcastle. Former Newsnight and News colleague Mark Damazer, leaving Radio 4 in October, has said he got the gig at St Peter's College through headhunters - though its not clear who approached whom.

Thommo's old college, Merton, is sorted for a while, with Sir Martin J Taylor, fan of maths and Man Utd, ready to take over from Jessica Rawson. Tim Gardam, (another BBC brain - like Marky D a double first) is the first male Principal at St Anne's, and has been there since 2003 - but probably Thommo would like to plough a new furrow. He's a member of the congregation at the Oxford Oratory, but to lead their associated college Blackfriars Hall would require him to become a Dominican monk.

And maybe Governing Bodies, at Oxford and elsewhere, will decide that BBC alumni are a bit passe. We've noted Patricia Hodgson at Newnham College, Cambridge; and Pat Loughrey, (MA in rural anthropology, then BBC education producer before becoming Director of Nations and Regions - a post now culled) is soon to be Warden of Goldsmiths, University of London.

PS Does "Putting Quality First" match up to a Ph D paper?