Jeremy Paxman,
BBC2.

     Dear Jeremy,

     At the start of the University Challenge match between Merton College Oxford and Selwyn College Cambridge, you referred to the Merton Time Ceremony as "counteracting the temporal vortex". That was not correct.

     As you know, University Challenge reaches our homes because of differently-coloured balls dropping from the top of the Crystal Palace mast into a very large pool of water, causing ripples to radiate outward.

     But there is no vortex at the centre of those ripples. If there were, then the vortex in Australia would go the other way round, causing Home and Away to be broadcast inside-out. And at the equator there would be no radio or television at all.

     The reason why everyone walks in the same direction (anti-clockwise, which you omitted to mention) is because the elementary particles involved (or, to be precise, chronicles) have anti-clockwise spin. This spin is perfectly normal, and indeed is essential to existence. The Time Ceremony creates a physical vortex which couples to the spin, and, loosely speaking, causes time to fall downward, to be replaced by other time flowing radially inward. There is no circular flow of time, and no temporal vortex, either in the problem or in the remedy. I enclose an old leaflet which gives more details.

     If you wish to see for yourself, you are welcome to attend this year's Time Ceremony (bring this letter with you, or they probably won't let you into the College). In full academic dress, of course.

     Long live the counter-revolution!