The Faculty of Inconsequential Studies has a monthly seminar. Each month, the seminar is hosted by a different department, and the lecture by an enormously erudite professor is followed by an even more enormous Departmental Dinner. It has been that way since before the ivy started growing on the walls.

Next semester’s programme of lectures has just been announced. From the clues, you are to discover the name of each month’s speaker, the title of the talk and which department is the host.

1. Neither the first talk, in January, nor the last one in May is String Lengths: A Comparative Study.
2. The Concept of Lunch in Early Schopenhauer, which is to be expounded in the Logic Chopping Department, is not Professor Scatter’s subject.
3. The March meeting will be in the Nitpicking Department.
4. Prof Madder, the Head of Trivia, will speak in his own department; this will not happen in April, but it will take place immediately before the talk Vagueness Revisited.
5. How to Put Things On Top of Other Things by Prof Dodder is also not scheduled for April.
6. The first talk, given by Professor Plodder, is not about lunch in Schopenhauer, and will not be given in the Footling Department.

I realise I have not mentioned Professor Lupi. Nor have I told you anything about the keynote talk entitled A Hundred Years of Inconsequentialism. We all look forward to that! Even more, we all look forward to seeing which department gets the Best Dinner Award, won for the past two years by the Department of Minor Matters.