The University Management Team have been criticised for engaging in augury, a practice in which animals are sacrificed, and their organs used to predict the future, in order to put together their long-term building strategy.
The UMT have been sacrificing swans for this purpose.
Speaking to the Harpy, head of UCD’s School of the Occult, Prof. Alistair Nosferatu, explained how the process worked.
“First, we pick ourselves a swan from the lake, making sure to scrub all that nasty tetanus away”, he began, in a voice that reminded this reporter of Ms. Piggy and Bosco’s love child. “Then, we force the swan to watch recorded conferring ceremonies until it dies of boredom, after which we share out the guts, and read aloud what they are telling us to do, like a family taking turns to read their christmas cracker jokes over dinner. We even get little paper crowns to wear.”
Prof. Nosferatu revealed that it was swan guts that had inspired the Student Residences Phase II plan for 1200 extra beds, as well as the proposed Centre for Creativity. “Both of these have unfortunately gone down the swanny, pardon the pun”, he adds with a chuckle.
When asked why the UMT continues to engage in augury despite it literally never working, Prof. Nosferatu became defensive. “Augury has inspired many UCD landmarks, such as the Egg monument. God, the laugh we had when Deeks pulled that out of his section of the guts, you couldn’t write it.”
It was also made clear to this reporter that, in the event that the UMT runs out of swans to murder, they will throw darts at pictures of different proposed buildings while blindfolded, in order to plan their strategy. Should this not work, UCD’s future capital investments programme will be decided by a team of chimpanzees randomly hitting typewriter keys, and hoping for the best.