On the towpath north from Oxford station the moored barges give way to the backs of long gardens often containing rotting wooden dinghies and exotic grasses. Ducks wander up and catch sight of their reflections in the conservatory windows behind the houses, which are mostly owned by University Professors.

In one of the kitchens, two professor’s wives were opining about their husband’s trysts with postgraduate students. “It’s not the bloody affairs” said Bella waving a bucket-sized glass of merlot, “it’s the joyless transactional nature of it.” “It sucks us all in.” agreed Sylvia, her next-door neighbour, refilling her own glass.

“And the fucking collections! My garden has over 100 gnomes in it! He says they’re priceless but they look like they’ve come from Homebase to me! I caught him talking to them about his latest floozy last night!” shouted Bella.

“At least they don’t move!” cried Sylvia. “Mike’s turtle collection is distressingly mobile! Last night I found two of them in the bath with me. They care more about them than us!”

The wives had been cleverer than their husbands as students 50 years before, but had given up their careers as their men were promoted. As 70s feminists they would have considered a big kitchen and local Waitrose to be poor reasons to preserve the patriarchy and a sham marriage but here they were with only wardrobes full of well-made clothes, holidays in Tuscany and an inexhaustible wine cellar as consolation.

“If we can’t divorce them lets teach them a lesson” said Bella

Sylvia looked at the garden with a cunning, inebriated smile.

Later that evening Sir Michael Handiford- Gregg (Head of Testudine studies at Fitzwilliam college) and Jeff Sullivan (Author of “Structural Marxism and Garden Figures in Postwar Britain”), arrived home to discover what looked like a burglary had taken place.

Their wives were hiding beneath an upturned dinghy waiting for the moment the ruined collections were discovered. The ensuing anguished screams, delivered in unison, were they agreed, definitely worth the effort.

The Dons immediately called the police and the entitlement of their voices, plus an invite to a college dinner for the chief of police meant that a young probationer, PC Liam Potts of the Oxfordshire Constabulary was despatched to discover and arrest the perpetrators. It didn’t take him long to follow the sound of drunken snickering from under the upturned boat.

Bella and Sylvia were released at 3 AM, when the Professors reluctantly agreed to drop the charges. By this time, 17 damaged gnomes had been recovered from the canal and a liberated tortoise had been spotted on Banbury Rd. (It was spotted again the next morning, 8 inches further on). PC Potts was relieved to get rid of the “old bats” who had been singing “we shall not be moved” in the lock up for most of their incarceration. They had now fallen fast asleep.

Having, with great effort, delivered them to their doorsteps, he was about to leave when he felt movement within his cap. He took it off and a tiny terrapin leapt from his head and into the gleeful hands of Professor Handiford-Gregg. “Shakira!” cried the doting academic, “I thought you were lost forever. Thank you, young man!”

“No problem” said PC Potts “and if you want my opinion you’ll keep your possessions firmly under lock and key from now on!”

“Don’t worry we intend to” said the professors in unison.

They were as good as their word. Locking the doors to both their spare bedrooms as soon as they had carried their snoring wives in.