Fforde, Jasper (The Fourth Bear)

Strangest Degree Course: Gone are the days when only traditional academic disciplines were offered for further study. A quick trawl of UK prospectuses reveals that Faringdon University offers a 3-year BA in 'Carrot husbandry', a course that is only mildly stranger than Nuffield's 'Correct use of furniture' or Durham's 'Advanced blinking'. Our favourite is the BA offered by University of Slough in 'Whatever you want' in which you spend three years doing... whatever you want. Slough has reported, perhaps unsurprisingly, that the success rate is 100 per cent.