Dear TechCrunch,

Just thought I’d write to catch up and discuss peace terms as a member of the “old guard” and “going down without fight”. Based on your commentary – which I must praise you on as it reminded me of the Pulitzer prize winning photographs from Vietnam for its reportage. When I think of the years of oppression that led to the Arab Spring, I can easily see how you would see responding to a survey as “the old guard not going down without a fight”. I often reminisce over the day I was stopped in the street by a market researcher and asked if I preferred butter to margarine. If I had only known then that answering “Margarine” was effectively conscripting myself into the Margarine Ingestion Liberation Front (MILF). Seven years later, many friends dead, war crimes trials concluded I can’t even eat toast without having flashbacks to the Charge of the Low Cholesterol Brigade. Had I only known what answering a survey actually meant, if I had only taken the time to read more into it.

I should stop at this point to thank Tony Blair for taking time out from his role as Middle East Peace Envoy to solve the Spread Wars. His diplomatic skills and commitment to the truth is something for which I shall remain eternally grateful.

It also seems that writing a “strongly worded letter” is “freaking out”. I always assumed “freaking out”, being some sort of irrational, excessive response might involve some unnatural anger, or perhaps psychedelic drugs? It turns out all I had to do was write a letter! Boy do I now regret all those toads I licked trying to gain access to higher levels of consciousness.

I should stop at this point to apologise to the frogs and Native Americans whose traditions I bastardised in the hope of freaking out. I now realise an English Colonial invention – “The Strongly worded letter” would have sufficed. For this I blame the education system, which I am defending. Wow, I am a hypocrite. Thankfully I am not freaking out though, as I have no headed paper nearby on which to write a letter. I’d send an email, but I resist online experiences. I mean, what if I freak out every time I send an email maaaaan?

The Californian University system isn’t the biggest in the world ( 234,464 students, 18,896 faculty members, 189,116 staff members ), as two, just two, count them TWO TWO TWO of the UK universities total more students (249,120 students). Other countries, one suspects China and India might have even larger systems than the UK, but I don’t feel it is up to me to do any research. Also, as an old guard private it is my turn to man the watchpost and so I can’t do much research at the moment. I am not looking forward to tonight’s watch as I am worried someone may write a letter and freak out. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is often common amongst letter writers and sometimes on watch it gets too much for some people. A lot of the old guard have gone AWOL recently, or as we sometimes call it in our soldier slang “being made redundant” or “not getting tenure”.

I should stop at this point to suggest you make a regular donation to “Professor Veterans of the Online Learning War”. A lot of academics who wanted to teach in their own way, and may have been excellent teachers, did sadly suffer when asked to spend a 100 hours of their time making content rather than educate the people who pay their wages. If you adopt just one academic for one pound  month then they can send a strongly worded letter and freak out. This is the first step in reintegration these poor souls back into the University system.

However, as the law makers and the coalition of tech companies stand on the other side of the Grand Canyon (is this the official SI unit of separation) we are but to wonder over where we go next.

I should stop