- Bishop Hill blog

Someone - not me - has got hold of the Climategate emails of UEA's Chancellor, Brandon Gough. This is a slightly odd choice of target, as university Chancellors are usually figureheads as far as I know.

However, it did throw up two things: one trivial but odd, the other just rather funny.

The trivial-but-odd thing is that a whole host of Spanish universities wrote to Brandon Gough in the wake of Climategate pledging their undying support. I would have waited for the investigation to finish myself.

Secondly, a rather amusing job application sent to Gough shortly after the emails hit the internet:

Dear Sir,

I am inquiring about the possibility of employment at the University.

I was recently sacked from my previous job for conspiring to distort company figures. Before that I was fired for gross incompetence and for losing critical corporate data; and before that for attempting to corrupt audits by getting my mates assigned to the role, and for attempting to cover-up my dishonesty by criminally inciting others to delete incriminating files and emails.

I was thinking maybe something in your Climate Research Unit, but I'm concerned I
may be over-qualified.

I also have two convictions for fraud. Is this enough?

Please advise soonest.

Yours Sincerely,

Update on May 5, 2011 by

Bishop Hill

ZT in the comments appears to have found Gough's response ;-)

Dear Lord Oxburgh,

Thank you for your recent application for a position at the UEA's internationally renowned CRU. You are indeed eminently well qualified for the arduous and painstaking work performed at the CRU, upon which the entire human race depends. It is a tremendous privilege to be able to draw on the talents of preeminent and studious researchers, such as yourself, in our cutting edge creative climatological research.

However, I fear that your predisposition to the forthright disclosure of minute details may render the work of the CRU burdensome. I will keep your resume on hand, if I may, as I feel that your talents may be of value in an entirely independent inquiry which I am about to institute (though you will, of course, need to suppress that forthrightness and focus on a selection of papers independently selected by my esteemed colleague, Professor Philip D. Jones).

Yours, as ever, Lord Rockingham of Daventry, formerly B. Gough Esq.