Consternation at outcome of recent FU 'self-evaluation' process

There has been widespread concern at the 'Result Withheld' which the Free University awarded itself after completing its recent self-evaluation process. It is not immediately clear why the internal panel gave such a rating and the result has caused a degree of friction amongst the staff and management in the Free University.

Prof. Shifty Mc Gonagollogus, the Director of Counter-Propaganda at the Free University, commented that the result "should be seen in the context of the Free University endeavoring to postulate for itself a unique selling point, a key market-place differentiator, a means of distinctly branding the institution in a manner which our competition had not contemplated heretofore."

However, this view was not universally accepted. Horatio Hornblower, the Chancellor of the Free University gave an emergency briefing to all staff earlier today when the result was announced. He was flanked by Sargent Major Dennis Bloodnok, the Minister for Financial Undersight at the Free University.

According to insider reports, the two protagonists presented a fearsome sight, with Sargent Bloodnok toting a fully loaded AK74 machine gun, black face-paint and a particularly stylish Italian suit.

Sir Hornblower sported combat fatigues, a bandoleer of bullets and a colourful blood-red handkerchief wrapped around his toupee. According to one source, the main content of his terse statement was as follows: "This result is grotesque, unprecedented, bizarre, unbelievable, shocking, horrid, indescribable, totally erroneous. We cannot understand how this has come to pass. Let me reassure the stakeholders in the Free University and make it very clear- there will be a full-scale investigation headed by myself and Sargent Major Dennis Bloodnok. We will leave no stone unturned, no page unturned and no dessert returned until the odious individual or individuals who signed off on this rating are discovered. When the malevolent, odious, sniveling worms are found, I will personally ensure that they are subjected to the full rigours of the sanctions permitted by the bye-laws of the Free University. These bye-laws will be published just as soon as my minions have finished typing them up from the free-hand notes I gave them earlier today and I will personally rubber-stamp them prior to the next meeting of SCUM. Read my lips - there will be no more tactlessness on the part of the Free University during my watch."

Sargent Major Dennis Bloodnok concurred: "This is exactly the kind of flexibility envisaged under the Croak Park Agreement."

It is not known whether the disappearances, drive-by shootings and summary executions of another era, memories of which still strike terror into the minds of even the most fossilised staff at the Free University, will make a return. We will keep our readers posted on any further developments of this fast-moving story.