Hi, it's David. Today's episode is the second in a new five-part series here on Stories

of Our Times hosted by my colleague Andrew Billan. It's published every Thursday and

follows a bitter dispute at one of the oldest most prestigious university colleges in the

world.

It's time on the feud. Martin came from a fairly ordinary background.

I fathered all the wonderful dogs. There were a lot of dynamic forces that were passed

on from generation to another. It encourages a kind of sense of entitlement or impunity

on the part of those who belong. It does betray a certain expectation that the

dean would be a certain sort of person. If you wanted to get rid of the dean, wouldn't

you be in trouble with the king?

I suppose we're actually appointing somebody that they wanted.

I recall the college sending out some kind of notice to everybody because it splashed all

over the press.

There is perhaps nothing that captures the topsy, turvy world of Oxford quite like Alice

in Wonderland. And so one day recently I decided to watch the famous 1950s Disney version

for research purposes, you see. The strange tale of the little girl who goes down the rabbit

hole seems to parallel the story I'm telling now.

The party's nonsensical arguments course are off with their heads. Perhaps it's because

Alice in Wonderland was a product of this very same universe. Its author, Lewis Carroll,

are for all was a Christchurch academic and he wrote the book for an Alice who was the

daughter of the then dean of Christchurch.

Well we started the series at the beginning when always going well for the new dean Martin

...