I cannot condemn this in more stringent terms. The Tories at the University of St Andrews have apparently burnt Barack Obama in effigy and then backtracked with all manner of pussyfooting around and the standard issue of apologies. Burning in effigy is a perfectly legitimate form of political expression and has been verified by centuries of tradition.

What’s more, I suspect there’s a bit of the old racism behind the apologies: would anyone have bat an eyelid if Mr Obama’s predecessor had been burnt in effigy by students? I, for one, would have happily joined in both effigy-burnings. The more effigies burnt the merrier. Chesterton remarked “It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged”, and I would suggest effigy-burning is a potentially more wholesome if less efficacious alternative.

If you’re going to burn an effigy, burn an effigy and then stick with it. But the weak-kneed, shilly-shally Tories always want to engage in a bit of old-school fun before hoisting up the white flag and issue an “unreserved public apology”. Rank hypocrisy of the highest order! Ye cannae have yer cake an’ eat it, too!

Part of the problem of returns to Edinburgh is that one is a rather too busy seeing folk to do all manner of exploring that one would like. But then my Leica has been missing for nearly two years now, and it can be such a bore to go exploring without a camera with which to capture things. No, I do not have one of those blasted iPhones. My phone engages in telephonic communication, sends SMSs, and occasionally acts as an alarm clock — nothing more. (Sadly my geliefde Afrikaanse selfoon was stolen on a bus so I’m stuck having English as my operating language).

Arrived Friday morning, lunch at the New Club, which lasted most of the afternoon. Evening Mass at the FSSP, followed by dinner at B.A. & Seraphic’s Historical House™. Saturday: a bit of a morning rest reading the Marquess of Bute’s book on Scottish coronations with a cup of coffee and an occasional glance across to Inchkeith in the Firth of Forth. After lunch with an old uni friend, I enjoyed a glass of wine and an LP of old Italian peasant songs with another friend in his Old Town flat, reached by a very tall spiral stone staircase. (To heck with the Victorians: them Medievals knew how to build). Then to the Guilford, where a decent afternoon of drinks and conversation followed. An evening in, with a glass or two of wine.

Sunday — the usual 11:30 Mass. Rather sad seeing the late Fra Freddy’s usual spot empty. Then tea next door, followed by a G&T at the priest’s residence with the old gang plus some new additions I hadn’t previously met. Completed by the sumptuous Portobello feast our friends do so well, with an occasional firecracker prolonging the rambunctiousness of the previous evening’s Bonfire Night. A Pimm’s-like concoction in the sitting room, followed by dinner: begun with a vibrant borscht, on to the best cottage pie I’ve ever had, topped off with an apple crumble alongside the usual cigarillos and dessert wine.

Seraphic’s description was much better, but you will be deprived of it unto the ages. Needless to say, much was discussed, much was agreed upon, much was diverged upon, but everyone enjoyed themselves. And then an overnight journey back to London… and work the next morning!

WHILE UNIVERSITY rankings within countries have been popular for some time now, especially in the United States and United Kingdom, it’s only been in the past decade or so that worldwide rankings of universities have come to the fore. The most widely known is probably the Academic Ranking of World Universities produced by Shanghai Jiaotong University, alongside the QS World University Rankings from the firm Quacquarelli Symonds, and the T.H.E. World University Rankings from the weekly magazine Times Higher Education. All such ratings employ varying statistical matrices and methods of divination obscure to the outsider but which, one supposes, must have some form of merit. They are more useful for gaining a general impression of the place of a university rather than comparing and contrasting two or more particular institutions.

The aforementioned ranking structures are rather to formal for us to gain all that much knowledge from. Personal interactions, reputation, age, style of architecture, and other such factors carry much greater import when I judge universities. Oxford and Cambridge, whether you like it or not, are still the top universities in the world, even if they might not be our favourites. You just can’t beat them. While they might not be as much fun as other places, they come closest to achieving the balance of age, tradition, interesting people, serious research, good location, and general niftiness.

For a certain type of person, Harvard remains paramount among American universities, but to be a Harvard undergrad has carried a certain social stigma in our quarters for the past two or three decades. Harvard Business School, however, remains perfectly acceptable. In the Ivy League, Yale, not Harvard, is king, followed by Brown (not thanks to its radical professoriate but rather due to the strong Continental infiltration amongst its studentry). Dartmouth is the fun #3 of the Ivies, while the rest are forgettable (well, Princeton’s not bad really — it has the Whitherspoon Institute — but Cornell, Columbia, and Penn are yawn-worthy).

Up to this point, we have been speaking generally, but there are topical institutions of course. If you really must study ‘business’, then there’s Harvard Business School or INSEAD. Are there any other business schools of actual note? In the military realm, Sandhurst is the unquestionable king. The École royale militaire in Brussels is up there — being Catholic, Francophone, and monarchic attracts good elements from outside Belgium. In the States, there is the Citadel and VMI, but not much else (the federal ‘service academies’ have poor reputations except for Annapolis). One doesn’t hear much about Saint-Cyr these days.

Speaking of France, the reason one can’t come up with proper rankings is because some institutions or groups of institutions would be entirely outside it. The grandes écoles are the best example. They are superbly elitist, the absolute top, but they mostly exist in that little French world, with all its delights and limitations.

But for ‘topical’ institutions, the University of London has plenty: SOAS, LSE, the Cortauld, the various institutes of the School of Advanced Study, etc., etc.

There are also those interesting little schools of art history and conservation, attached to museums like the V&A or auction houses like Sotheby’s and Christie’s. The École du Louvre, however, must be the queen regnant of these schools.

Charles Taylor’s presence at McGill alone makes it worthy of note, but one suspects there are other strengths at the university. At any rate, it is still a perfectly respectable place to be an undergraduate. Boston College is also quite strong at the postgrad level, except in the theology school where heresy is widely believed to be thriving. Given the wealth and particularity of America’s universities, there are small and unknown centres of excellence in many unexpected places (for example the quite strong literary translation centre at the University of Rochester).

Rome’s universities of both church and state have shabby academic reputations but still attract for being Roman. One always hears seminarians complaining about the Gregorian, but no one can never really complain about Rome, and being a student or a seminarian is as good a reason to be in Rome as any. Rome also has John Cabot University, an ‘American’ institution divided between Americans on their semester abroad and the full-timers (often the layabout members of larger European families, who also frequent the American University of Paris).

And of course many of the Italian universities are not so much places of learning as conspiracies for the avoidance of unemployment on the part of their academics and administrators. Regrettably, much Italian talent moves abroad for higher salaries and better working conditions (Cavalli-Sforza, to name but one, at Stanford), but the handful of scuoli superiori (e.g. the Scuola Normale in Pisa) still maintain their dignity.

In Spain, Salamanca is well-regarded, and there are a number of newer, private, properly Catholic entities that have been created. Of course, Opus Dei are very proud for having created the University of Navarre ex nihilo. Portugal, meanwhile, has yet to recover from the Marques de Pombal’s disastrous eighteenth-century reform of Coimbra.

If you’re one of those people who actually wants a proper education then, for better or worse, you must go to America. Thomas Aquinas College in California and St. John’s College in Maryland might be the last genuine places of higher learning in the European world. Attempts are being made to found a British Catholic version, and many imitations (Catholic, Protestant, and secular) exist around the United States.

If I could name some other honorable mentions in addition to those featured below, I would add Dublin (Trinity, that is), Bristol, the Collège d’Europe, Leiden, Leuven, Utrecht, Uppsala (and all the old Scandos), Heidelberg (and a dozen other German universities), King’s Halifax, Trinity College in Toronto, some parts of Berkeley, York for graduate study but not undergrad, the C.E.U. in Budapest (despite being a Soros project), and Exeter and Warwick aren’t bad really. Some universities, like the Jagiellonian in Kraków or the Charles in Prague, must be mentioned due to age, but I have to plead ignorance as to any knowledge of their current state.

I’m probably leaving out a dozen places that deserve a mention but I’ve forgotten; such are the limits of our fallen human nature. Here follows, arranged from northernmost to southernmost, our completely arbitrary and biased accounting of the six best universities in the world.

St Andrews

The University of St Andrews, Scotland

It’s almost needless to say that St Andrews is the greatest university on the face of God’s green earth, even if it is known as the ‘auld grey toon’. It’s cold and grey enough during the winter to build character but nothing could be more delightful than a stroll down the West Sands on a late spring afternoon — especially if preceded by a five-course lunch amongst friends. Tweed, the after-chapel sherry, the cathedral ruins, the names of departmental buildings that read like a roll of the inhabitants of Heaven: St Katharine’s Lodge, St John’s House, St Mary’s Quad. With balls galore, and more in Edinburgh if you’re bored, four years at St Andrews will definitely wear out your dinner jacket, and an evening of reels will keep you in good health despite the cigarettes and champagne.

It doesn’t hurt that the university has the royal seal of approval, though that seems to matter more now than at the time. Undergraduate Wales and I overlapped for three years at St Andrews, and his presence was barely noticeable — someone you would pass in the street or mention if he had been present somewhere but otherwise his right to normality was jealously guarded by fellow St Andreans, and rightly so.

I’ve already written extensively about the place, so perhaps it would be best to summarise with the words of John Martin Robinson, the current Maltravers Herald of Arms Extraordinary, who described St Andrews as “similar to some people’s view of the afterlife: still like Earth but purified of the unpleasant elements”.

Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh, Scotland

Edinburgh University is St Andrews’ younger cousin and the relationship between the two is a bit like that between town and country. St Andrews is in a country town made exceptional by its university, politico-ecclesial history, and that weird sport with sticks and balls, whereas Edinburgh is Scotland’s capital and perhaps the finest city in the English-speaking world.

Location alone makes the University a desirable place to begin with, but it’s a respectable institution in its own right, and has a fun and slightly jauntier mix of people than St Andrews. It’s not unheard of for some families in London and the south of England to send their eligible daughters to Edinburgh for a few years in the hopes of finding a suitable mate. Most often this is as students at Edinburgh University or the Edinburgh College of Art, but sometimes they just buy a flat on India Street and enjoy the social life. Edinburgh U. first-years have to live in the notorious Pollock Halls of Residence, however, which definitely counts against the institution.

Durham

The University of Durham, England

Properly speaking, the University of Durham is the third-oldest university in England, though there’s a pedantic argument on this point duly documented on Wikipedia. The town has the greatest cathedral in the kingdom, and if students join University College (one of sixteen Durham colleges) they have the opportunity of living in Durham Castle, the former bishop’s residence donated to the University shortly after its 1832 foundation.

The ancient capital of the County Palatine is far enough away from London to be outside the metropolitan orbit (as Oxford and Cambridge often aren’t) but having Newcastle and Middlesbrough as the two closest cities is not something in Durham’s favour. The dramatic riparian geography of this cathedral city, however, more than makes up for its less refined neighbours.

Sewanee

The University of the South, Tennessee

If the Ivy League universities are America’s Oxbridge, then Sewanee is the St Andrews of America. Student gowns are even worn, although their use is limited to members of the ‘Order of Gownsmen’, initiation into which is quite boringly based only on the very limited criterion of academic grade point average. Students are known for their attire — neckties predominate for gents attending tutorials for example — and a widespread if perhaps somewhat facile conservatism.

The university was founded by the Southern dioceses of the Episcopal Church and is the sole remaining university retaining its Episcopalian status, an affiliation it takes seriously despite being culturally out of step with the rest of the ever-liberalising, ever-shrinking denomination.

The South is the most interesting part of the United States, and, while a small and insular institution, the University of the South reflects much of the old Confederacy’s attractiveness. Sewanee’s gothic campus sits in the 13,000-acre “Domain” of the University (see above) atop the sylvan Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee. It is a tiny university actually — just 1,400 undergraduates and 150-200 postgraduates — but despite this boasts twenty-five Rhodes scholars. Plus its founding bishop, Leonidas Polk, doubled as a Confederate general during the ‘Late Unpleasantness’. It all adds up towards the definition of a unique and fascinating institution.

Stellenbosch

The University of Stellenbosch, South Africa

It would be difficult to conceive of a more ideal location for a university. The centuries-old town of Stellenbosch dominates a small mountain valley in the verdant pulchritudinous winelands of one of the most beautiful lands in the world: the Western Cape province of South Africa. For the Afrikaners, whose language and higher culture developed under the shade of the giant oak trees planted by the old Dutch governor, Simon van der Stel, it is effectively ancient Sumer.

Yet Stellenbosch is not an old past-its-prime ruin but a thriving university town the Financial Times described as “full of well-groomed students with beach-ready figures”. In architectural terms its streets are lined with old Dutch houses alongside modern buildings ranging from the sensitive to the inoffensive.

The town does surprisingly lack a good bookstore, a statement that must be made with apologies to the very capable and friendly staff at the Stellenbosch branch of Exclusive Books on Andringastraat. The Van Schaik Boekhandel in the Neelsie concentrates more on books required by course reading lists, though the Protea Boekhuis further down Andringa at least has a decent second-hand selection.

The town so epitomises leafy comfort one almost forgets the university, its crowning glory. While it has an Afrikaans literary tradition second to none, Matieland isn’t shy of scientific glory: the ‘SUN’ in SUNSAT, arguably Africa’s first satellite, stands for Stellenbosch Universiteit.

As an academic institution of learning and research, its strong points are many: it features towards the top of every list of the best universities in the country and the continent for Law (its most prestigious school), Medicine, Business, Engineering, (Reformed) Theology, Agriculture & Forestry, and of course Afrikaans & Dutch. The History school boasts the unmatchable Hermann Giliomee, but I wonder if Stellenbosch has been losing out on this front to UCT (where Giliomee spent most of his career) and UWC (which boasts Antonia Malan). The closure of the unique Cultural History programme is certainly to be lamented.

More generally, the university’s leadership must be chided for their lamentable decision to turn Stellenbosch into a totally parallel-medium institution (that is, simultaneous course tracks in Afrikaans and English). It will be a sad and loathsome day when a Stellenbosch undergraduate can obtain a degree without taking a single course in Afrikaans.

Otago

The University of Otago, New Zealand

I confess knowing next to nothing about the University of Otago, the oldest in New Zealand, but this accounting makes no claims to be based on actual solid evidence. It might seem curious that Dunedin beat the now-larger cities of Auckland, Christchurch, and Wellington in establishing New Zealand’s first university in 1869, when the town was capital of the Province of Otago. This is explained by Dunedin’s status at the time as the largest city in New Zealand thanks to the Otago gold rush of the 1860s.

When the university set about erecting its first buildings of its own in the 1870s, the administration set the tone for future generations with its choice of a domestic interpretation of the Collegiate Gothic, built in local bluestone faced with Oamaru stone. As Dr D.M. Stuart, the chancellor of the day, commented, “the Council had some old-world notions and liked to have a university with some architectural style”. That fine concept — old-world notions planted firm in fertile new-world soil — undergirds much of the spirit of Otago and indeed the best of New Zealand itself.

Otago is a collegiate university and the names of its colleges harken back to the region’s Scottish roots: Knox, Salmond, St Margaret’s, Cumberland. Aquinas College was founded by the Dominicans in 1954 and it counts among its former students the Right Honourable Sir Anand Satyanand GNZM QSO KStJ, 19th and current Governor-General of New Zealand, and the first Catholic to hold that office. Sadly, the Dominicans left and the college was secularised in the 1980s. The obviously Presbyterian Knox College enjoys a strong rivalry with the Anglican Selwyn College, which was visited by Michael Palin during his 1996 television programme “Full Circle”.

Fra Fredrik John Patrick Crichton-Stuart was born September 6, 1940 to Lord Rhidian Crichton-Stuart (son of the 4th Marquess of Bute) and his wife Selina van Wijk (daughter of the Ambassador of the Queen of the Netherlands to the French Republic). He was raised in Scotland and North Africa (where his father was British Delegate to the International Legislative Assembly of Tangier) and was educated first at Carlekemp in North Berwick and then at Ampleforth. He joined the Order of Malta in 1962, later being named the Delegate for Scotland & the Northern Marches. In 1993 he was appointed Chancellor of the resurrected Grand Priory of England. Fra Freddy became Grand Prior himself when his cousin, Fra Andrew Bertie, died in 2008 and was succeeded by the then-Grand Prior of England, Fra Matthew Festing.

Fra Freddy was a devoted follower and promoter of the traditional form of the Roman rite. He joined Una Voce Scotland in 1996 and became secretary in 2000. Two years later he was named councillor and senior vice-president of FIUV, the International Federation ‘Una Voce’, and briefly served as its president in 2005.

Over the past year or so Fra Freddy had been varying ill but seemed to recover. I am told he was found dead yesterday morning, still clasping his breviary. He was well-known in Edinburgh and beyond, and he will be missed by his many friends as well as those who worked and volunteered with him or interacted with him in his charitable activities.

Scotland has been enveloped in snowfall, and the BBC has put a photo gallery up of reader-submitted images of the recent precipitation. The In Pictures feature of BBC News Online’s Scottish section has for years been one of my favourite parts of the website, offering a new series of photographs every week varying from the startling to the quotidian. Above is Michael Rennie’s view of a rather peaceful-looking Loch Ness.

Waterloo Place looking towards Calton Hill in Edinburgh, from Walter McGillivray.

This pheasant was shot (which is to say photographed) at Duddingston Loch by Kevin Kirk. I love Duddingston, one of Edinburgh’s myriad hidden gems, neatly tucked in the folds of Holyrood Park.

The Church of St John the Evangelist (Scottish Episcopalian) and the Church of St Cuthbert (Church of Scotland) at Shandwick Place in Edinburgh. Taken by Alex Dewars on his way to work.

The ‘Latern of the North’: the sad ruins of the Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity at Elgin; photo by Andrew Paul Watson.

My own alma mater, St Andrews University, awards honorary degrees on St Andrew’s Day. Elliot Reid of Aberdeen took this shot of St Salvator’s Quadrangle on the festal evening.

Jeff Hattie managed this shot of his hill-walking companions at Beinn an Dothaidh in Argyll.

HERE IS A lordly demesne! In East Lothian, thirty-one miles from the centre of Edinburgh and three from the Royal Burgh of Dunbar, sits the Spott House and estate, now on the market from Knight Frank. The property is a whopping 2,463 acres in total, including 1,779 acres of arable land, 214 of pasture, and 356 acres of woodland. The estate has more than quadrupled in size in the past decade, under the ownership of the Danish-born Lars Foghsgaard, who bought just 600 acres in the year 2000.

As The Times wrote of Mr. Foghsgaard, “Clad in tweed jacket, plus fours and Hunter wellingtons, with several brace of partridge in his hand and his labrador at his side, he looks the very image of the country gentleman as he strides though his East Lothian estate.”

“The previous owner was very involved in the land,” Mr. Foghsgaard told the Times. “I am not a farmer, so I employed a farm manager: it’s crucial to have the necessary skills and connections in the area to do the job well, and as a foreigner I did not have those.” But the Dane does enjoy seeing the workings of the farm. “When I walk the dog, I always pass through the cowshed, where we have lambs being born each day — it’s such a joy to see.”

The arrival of grandchildren back in Denmark, however, has caused the owner to head back home and put Spott on the market. This is one of the greatest Scottish estates to come up for sale in many years. The listing from Knight Frank says ‘price on application’, but the agents have told the press they’d entertain offers in the region of… gulp… £25 million (That’s about €29m, $39m, or R279m).

Spott House, with its views to the North Sea, has three reception rooms, a study, billiards room, kitchen, nine bedrooms, eight bathrooms, cellar, gun room, and staff flat, encompassed by the gardens and grounds. The site of has been occupied since 1150, with a tower house constructed in 1640, and remodelled by William Burn, the pioneer of the Scots Baronial style, in 1830.

Originally a family estate of the Hays of Yester, Spot is reputed to have housed Cromwell during the Battle of Dunbar in 1650. In 1830, the Hays sold Spott to James Sprot, who had the house remodelled to its present size and general appearance. The estate remained in his family until 1947, when it was sold to Sir James Hope. It was eventually sold to the Lawrie family, who sold it to the present owner in 2000.

The estate includes additional farm buildings, among them fourteen cottages of traditional construction, a stable yard, cattle court, dovecot, and other such steadings.

Brunt Farmhouse, a sandstone structure at Spott, enjoys views to the south. With three reception rooms and seven bedrooms, it’s currently used for holiday lets and shooting parties.

Speaking of shooting, the estate provides ample opportunities for roe deer stalking, duck flighting, driven partridge and pheasant shoots, as well as trout. In the 2008–09 season, the shooting totals at Spott were 3,859 pheasant, 3,169 partridge, 113 duck, 40 woodcock, 18 roe buck.

The farms feature a high yield of wheat, barley, and oilseed rape. There are also seventy suckler cows, and 400 ewes.

Mr. Foghsgaard is keen to rid any potential buyers of their stereotypes of the Scottish climate: “The rainfall here is less than twenty-seven inches a year compared with the Scottish average of forty-four. Everyone assumes Scotland is wet, but we have lots of sunny days here.”

AS IF, WITH THE recent announcement that a certain St Andrean couple are getting engaged, there wasn’t enough for us to expend our idle chatter about, the University of St Andrews is thrust into the fore on an entirely separate matter. Damian Thompson, the provocative and informative Catholic Herald editor and indispensable Daily Telegraph blogger wrote a blog entry — Catholic students at St Andrews ‘can’t have the Latin Mass’ — relaying the claims of a student that he and a stable group of students have asked to have a monthly Mass in the Extraordinary Form, found a priest willing to say it, and have been denied. Fr. Z, the world’s most famous clerical blogger, soon picked up the story as well and made a few comments of his own.

The reality of the situation, it appears, is far removed from the one student’s claims. The venerable Fr. Halloran, parish priest of St. James and University Catholic Chaplain for decades, recently retired and is now, I believe, in Ghana. ‘Pelicanus’, a commenter on Fr. Z’s blog who is a current St Andrews student, offered the following insight:

Since September we have had a new parish priest and chaplain. He has had many issues to deal with on taking up office: the Chaplaincy building, Canmore, is falling down; £100,000 has just been spent on a new roof; the ordinary form parish liturgy requires an overhaul, not least to the times of Mass, as he has to serve two outlying parishes. The man has a lot on his plate.

A week ago I wrote father a letter asking him for the extraordinary form, which would be celebrated once a month by our local FSSP priest. I am aware that Damian’s source (whom I shall refer to as “X”) has been pursuing the matter and that X has very little patience. Yesterday, I took this item from Damian’s blog to Father as soon as I was made aware of it. Father explained to me that he had only received requests from me and from X (and not fifteen people), and that his response to X had been that while he had made enquiries at the diocesan level about this and that the question was not closed, he wasn’t in a position to take it forward for the next few months.

A new priest needs time to settle in to his parish and the chaplaincy that goes along with it. It’s clear that there’s a certain amount of adjustment the parish needs to make in terms of the regular Mass schedule, and there are pressing financial and maintenance concerns. All the priest apparently told X was that it would have to wait a few months. Pelicanus cautiously notes that X’s actions are a “tactless show of impatience”, and I can’t help but agree.

Meanwhile, there’s a splendid Mass in the Extraordinary Form being offered just an hour’s train ride away in Edinburgh at the Church of St. Andrew in Ravelston, easy walking distance from Haymarket rail station. An hour’s travel on a Sunday morning — I can easily remember — seems a lot to a student. If there’s as many as fifteen who would be willing to attend a monthly liturgy in the Extraordinary Form, I’d be pleased as punch, and obviously the parish-priest/chaplain should be accommodating. But likewise the students must accommodate the priest and be respectful of everything he’s got on his plate at the moment.

The most frustrating part of Damian Thompson’s blog is its opening line: “Why is Summorum Pontificum a dead letter in Scotland?” This is especially irritating because the Archdiocese of St Andrews & Edinburgh is the one diocese in Scotland where the motu proprio has quite obviously not been a dead letter.

Cardinal O’Brien, our archbishop, has been effusively welcoming and, as Seraphic comments on Fr. Z’s blog, “has been a true friend and pastor to those in his diocese who love the Extraordinary Form”. Since graduating from St Andrews I’ve lived in two dioceses — New York and Cape Town — and still, after the local bishop is prayed for in the Mass, I always add “and our Keith Patrick, too!” We love our Cardinal and are very proud to have him.

It sounds like we have a case in which one student has been irrational and excitable and thought to play the media circus card. As usual, it will probably just blow up in his face. I hope that within a reasonable amount of time, after the new chaplain (whom most students are praising) has settled in, provision can be made for a monthly Mass in the Extraordinary Form. Until that point, it sounds like there’s at least one student at my alma mater who needs to learn the virtue of patience.

Boy was Benedict a baddie! Even the council he called passed resolutions condemning him and the cardinals he appointed turned against him. He ended his days maintaining his schismatic claim, holed in island fortress of Peñiscola. The day before he died, he appointed four cardinals, who elected de Luna’s friend Gil Sanchez Muñoz y Carbón as Clement VIII. Or rather, three of the cardinals did while the fourth — Jean Carrier, the archdeacon of Rodez — wasn’t present, so he went and single-handedly elected his sacristan Bernard Garnier as pope, who took the name Benedict XIV.

Garnier was permanently in hiding, and his location was only ever known to Carrier. B-14 did manage to choose four cardinals of his own, and on the antipope’s death they elected Carrier pope, who was inconveniently captured and imprisoned by his rival antipope, Clement VIII. Oddly, having just succeeded the supposed Benedict XIV, Carrier chose to use the name and style Benedict XIV also. A novel by Jean Raspail (L’Anneau du pêcheur) depicts a line of anti-papal successors to the two Benedict XIVs.

As a lecturer, Dr. Rao is both informative and entertaining, and I’d encourage anyone interested to attend the remaining lectures in this year’s series. There’s always wine on offers and little things to nibble on, with a box for generous donations to be made towards the cost of the program. The next lecture is Martin V and the Troubled Return to Rome — this week is the 593rd anniversary of that pope’s election, as it happens.

Also, Dr. David Allen White, retired Professor of World Literature at the United States Naval Academy, returns to New York in December for the Syllabus of Errors Weekend, on the subject of Charles Dickens and the Evils of Modernity. I went to last year’s Syllabus of Errors weekend, and Professor White is entrancingly engaging, a veritable font of knowledge.

IT IS COMMONLY said of St Andrews that it is a place of beauty. This is often a compliment to its natural setting, with open skies arcing over the reaches of the bay, and ancient rock and cliff yielding to the changing rhythms of the waves. At the same time visitors are generally struck by the pleasing combination of natural and built environments: the ruined grandeur of the Cathedral and Priory standing bare to the elements; crowstep-gabled cottages gathered in against the wind; the broad thoroughfares interlinked with narrow cobbled lanes; and the church towers etched against the sky. There is also the scholarly dignity of Deans Court, the quizzical posture of the Roundel, the charm of the courtyards to the south of South Street, the sad ruination of Blackfriars juxtaposed with the aspiring frontage of Madras College, and other evocative sights besides.

Here and there within the midst of all of this stands, physically, historically, and socially, the University. Its contributions to the architectural distinction of the old town are obvious enough. They are, principally, the harmonious South Street complex of St Mary’s College (1593-41) to the west, Parliament Hall (1612-43) to the north, and the Library extension (1889-1959) – now the Psychology wing – to the east; and the North Street set of the Collegiate Church of St Salvator, Gate Tower and tenement (1450-60), and beyond it the west block (1683-90) containing the Hebdomadar’s Room, and to the east and north the College buildings (1829-31 and 1845-6, respectively). There are other smaller and oft-reworked jewels associated within the University: St John’s House in South Street (15th, 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries), St Leonard’s Chapel (remodelled c. 1512), and the ‘Admirable Crichton’s House’ (16th century), but the principal architectural benefactions of the University to the town are the North and South Street college complexes. I have not mentioned the Younger Graduation Hall (1923-9) and the Student Union (1972) and prefer to leave it for readers to determine what might be said of these.

It could hardly have passed unnoticed that the list of contributions dates mostly from the late middle-ages to the nineteenth century, and this fact raises two questions: first, whether in the second half of the twentieth century the University was sufficiently attentive to its role as principal architectural patron; and second, how it might now hope to enhance the built environment of St Andrews. The main in-town developments since 1950 are the Buchanan Building (1964) and the University Library (1972-6) both of which are essentially functional solutions to practical needs rather than exercises in collegiate architecture. It is worth saying that given the conditions obtaining at the times of their creation both could have been much worse in design and building quality. As it is, the first has the merit of being more or less unnoticeable from the street, while the second has the virtue of truth-to-function, looking to be what it is, namely, several stories of book cases.

The simple fact is that the expansion of the University was (and continues to be) achieved without any great endowment or enhancement in its funds. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that in modern times it has been unable to give thought to the aesthetic improvement of the town. But this state of affairs cannot long continue without the charge of philistinism beginning to arise. The University is audibly proud of the distinction of its teaching and research, of its place in various national and international rankings, and of its appeal to well-qualified students from around the world. But the first and last are mortal resources, and approval of is no substitute for determining to do what is right on its own account.

The time is (over)due for the University to address the matter of its material contribution to the environment of the town of St Andrews. It should aim to devise one or more projects whose products will outlast the generations of those managing, teaching, and studying in the University now, and among these projects should be an enhancement of the built environment. The scope for extensive building is limited by the want of plots, funds, and needs. In town there are large sites to the north of the library and to the west of Castlecliffe (1869) but the cost of developing these would be very great and would only be justified by major projects for which there is currently no general call. (The exception is the need of a University art gallery and museum but, important though this is, I set it aside for now).

It would be easy to use the excuse of a lack of means and demand as grounds for postponing the day when the University will set about making a significant architectural contribution, but that overlooks other possibilities. In particular there is the matter of enhancement of existing sites. Landscaping offers one means of pursuing this, and although the University has made some progress on this front it has been too willing to limit itself to the maintenance of existing plantings rather than creating new schemes. But in any case landscaping is at best a complement to building in stone and not a substitute for it.

It is necessary to take account of the funding difficulties affecting St Andrews along with other British universities (and anticipating the possibility that this will worsen for Scottish institutions as a result of different funding and income patterns north and south of the border), but also to remember that St Andrews already has some significant architectural settings, and that its current students and friends are probably better placed than their counterparts in past decades to contribute to projects that are both inspiring and realistic. With these points in mind I would like to propose that a scheme be taken up and pursued by the time of the sexcentennial celebration of its formal establishment in 1413/4. (The 1412 charter of Bishop Wardlaw was confirmed by a series of Papal Bulls issued by Benedict XIII in 1413 and promulgated by him in February 1414).

Where then to focus such an effort? The oldest University buildings are the original St Salvator’s set. It is generally agreed that the most impressive element of these is Bishop Kennedy’s Tower. Rising up above the main entrance to the College it faces in four directions three of which are to the world beyond and one is inward to the place of learning. Its plainness (some might say “austerity”) is offset by the bays of the chapel seen on the North Street side and by the cloister and view across to the College buildings as one enters through the gateway. Here, though, there is a problem.

In 1827 visiting Royal Commissioners judged that the Common Hall and School of Bishop Kennedy’s original 15th century design were “entirely ruinous and incapable of repair”. Their dilapidation meant that nothing could be done other than demolish them and build anew. In 1828 a set of plans by Robert Reid, King’s Architect for Scotland, was approved by the Commissioners and the following year building began on the east wing and was completed two years later. What we see today is in fact something of an assemblage of different ideas more or less linked by a somewhat Jacobean look. Reid’s north section of the east wing was extended in the twentieth century (1904-6) while the north range (1845-6) is by William Nixon who also added the arched cloister (1848) to the College side of the church. Nixon saw himself working within a design established by his predecessor, but while the result is not a failure nor yet is it a great success. The most obvious weakness is the point in the northeast corner of the quad where the two ranges converge, for although the blocks are architecturally related they are not fully integrated and as a result the meeting of the two is visually unresolved. The passage of the two wings north and east is simply arrested rather than merged into a new upward movement; where one might have expected a low tower or other prominent vertical feature there is simply a meeting of roof lines.

The area of the quad is large, but because of the scale and form of the chapel, tower, and hebdomadar block, the prospect from the north combine openness with visual interest. The first view the visitor is likely to face, however, is of the north and east as seen from the area adjacent to the former porters’ lodge entered from beneath the tower. Certainly the College halls are impressive but to left and right there is an absence of prominent or skyline features. The view through to lower college lawn and University House is eye-catching but architecturally low-key, while to the right there is the unresolved northeastern corner.

One architectural ‘improvement’ would be the erection of a tower at the junction of the two blocks but this is fraught with all sorts of difficulties. Another innovation, which I believe would be much preferable, would be the creation of a tall fountain in the middle of the lawn. This could be approached by diagonal pathways leading from the four corners of the quad. These could be cobble edged (as indeed should be the existing driveway). Such pathways would very aptly introduce the saltire into the ground plan and add visual interest by increasing the movement to and fro within the quad. More importantly, a fountain would provide a point of considerable architectural and symbolic importance in the heart of the university. The flow of water would also bring animation to an otherwise featureless expanse and serve as a designed counterpart to the natural movement of the sea beyond.

The question of what sort of design would be most apt is a large one. St Salvator’s Chapel is in the late Scottish Gothic with some Victorian additions. The College buildings owe something to the Jacobean and to the classical. In this context it would be necessary to work again within a recognisable historical tradition perhaps adding a further mediating style, With that in mind I offer a view of a possible design intended more to give the impression of how a fountain might improve the quad rather than as a specific recommendation. These show a three-tier crown fountain based on the French Gothic design of the Stewart Memorial Fountain (1872) in Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow.

With a new millennium having begun, and the six century celebration in prospect, the installation of a fountain would be a particularly timely project and one for which external funds might be especially forthcoming. Such an initiative might also serve as an encouragement to the civic authorities to restore to working order the George Whyte-Melville memorial fountain in Market Street – and perhaps even to recreate the old Mercat Cross which stood nearby from the middle ages until its removal in 1768. Then future generations of University staff, students, townsfolk, and visitors might have further reason to look with appreciation around St Andrews at what the past has bequeathed to them. How better to celebrate six hundred years of the University than to create something of beauty that might survive for as many centuries again?

The Scottish Parliament had declared in 1689 that King James VII had, by his absence, forfeited the throne, and handed the Crown to his Dutch rival William of Orange, who had already seized the throne in England. The House of Hanover succeeded to the throne of the new United Kingdom which had been created in 1707, but the Bank of Scotland was suspected of harbouring Jacobite sympathies. The London government was keen to help out Scottish merchants loyal to the Hanoverians and so, in 1727, King George granted a royal charter to the new Royal Bank of Scotland.

Surprisingly for an institution founded in 1727, the Royal Bank of Scotland did not acquire its own coat of arms until 1960. The arms granted by Lord Lyon were quickly displayed throughout the bank on stationery, uniforms, and currency, as well as the many branches and offices of the RBS. Less than a decade later, however, research showed that consumers had a difficult time differentiating the Royal Bank’s coat of arms from those of the Bank of Scotland, the Clydesdale Bank, and other banks on the High Streets of Scottish towns.

When the RBS merged with the National Commercial Bank of Scotland in 1969, the bank felt the need to create a simple, clear, and unique emblem to distinguish the RBS from other institutions. The bank told its design team to come up with a symbol that would be striking and recognisable in a wide range of sizes, contexts, and materials. In a brainstorming session, the team sat down with a mass of coins arranged in thirty-six piles, six wide by six deep. From this they devised four arrows pointing inwards, representing the accumulation of wealth by the bank in the interests of its customers.

For reasons entirely unknown to me, the emblem became known as ‘the Daisy Wheel’. It was introduced to the RBS’s bank notes in 1971 and, since that time, the Daisy Wheel and the coat of arms have both appeared on every series of notes issued by the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Citizens Bank, an American financial group acquired by RBS in 1988, has used a green version of the Daisy Wheel since 2004, while Ulster Bank (part of RBS’s acquisition of NatWest) has employed the emblem since 2005.

While ‘RBS’ is always maintained, the acronym is elaborated upon in the language as Banca Rìoghail na h-Alba in areas where Scots Gaelic is still spoken.