The apparent death of Principal Humbert of Fluxter College of Further Education at the bottom of the lift-shaft provides the Vice-Principal with the opportunity to exercise his core belief that success should be its own reward. At his first, and only, prize-giving, therefore, the prizes will go, not to those who have succeeded, but to those who have tried, and failed. Obviously it would be patronising to have prizes for failure presented by a success. The newly-appointed Chaplain to the college, Archpatriarch Chistoff of the Bessarabian Unorthodox Church, is applied to for advice. He finds the perfect candidate in his landlady, a Mrs Parterre: "a drab and a drunkard, dirty, slothful, deceiving, rapacious and mendacious" - his words. Failure could hardly be writ larger. She"s in. Pevsner has noted Fluxter"s siting at the conjunction of "several interesting canals." It is a feature that has not passed unnoticed elsewhere. For several years past intelligent caring Irishmen have been...