IN ONE of Britain’s most ancient and revered centres of learning – yes, we’re talking about the University of Oxford – doors in some of the more modern, 20th-century buildings were designed so that they close automatically, for fire safety and heat conservation reasons. Unfortunately, more recent regulations aimed at preventing accusations of sexual harassment require that tutors never hold tutorials with students of the opposite sex with the doors of their offices shut.
So, there’s a problem: automatically closing doors that need to be kept open. Chairs, rolls of exam papers, waste-paper baskets, shoes, stones and lumps of lead provide a temporary solution. But what happens if there is a fire? Doors wedged…
