Crime Always Pays: One Is Not Amused

Have you heard the one about the Irish author who wasn?t qualified to talk about his own novels? Quoth the Belfast Telegraph:

He?s a crime writer of renown, and his books have been on Queen?s University?s curriculum.
? Yet in a twist that Kafka would have been proud of, Colin Bateman has been left baffled after the university ruled him out of lecturing in creative writing ? because he doesn?t have a degree.
? The Bangor author recently applied for a post as a lecturer in creative writing at the university.
? Bateman, who currently teaches creative writing at the South Eastern Regional College, received a letter on Wednesday telling him he was not getting an interview.
? When the author, recently listed in a Top 50 Crime Writers of all-time poll, queried this, he was advised that staff are bound by job specifications and as he does not have a degree, he could not be shortlisted for interview.
? He has branded the decision to refuse him an interview for the post as ?ridiculous? and ?crazy?.

? For the rest, clickety-click here ?
? Personally, my greatest fear is that Bateman - already, sans first name, half-adrift in the culture, and whose latest series features a ?Man With No Name? masquerading as the owner of the No Alibis crime fiction store in Belfast - will take the decision so badly that his identity with be reabsorbed into whence it came, thus creating a rift in the space-time continuum into which will be sucked Queens University. That, or he?ll write some kind of post-modern comic novel about, y?know, some author who isn?t qualified to tell people about his own books, and is thus obliged to hoik out ye olde blunderbuss and go on the rampage.
? Either way, it won?t be pretty. If you want to add your voice to the protest against Queen?s University?s decision, or just want to join in the general mischief-making merriment, clickety-click here ?

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