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I am sure academics will endorse Bruce Charlton's views on the latest piece of bureaucratic dottiness from civil servants, although whoever chose the title "transparency" obviously has a nice sense of irony (Soapbox, August ).

The usefulness of time-sheets is illustrated by an extract from an earlier exercise of this type:

Principal investigator : Archimedes
Industrial sponsor : The King
Date : June 3, 210BC
Time : 3pm-4pm
Activity : Had a bath

Archie Campbell
Cambridge