h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The Duke of Edinburgh is retiring as Chancellor of the University, and until last week there was only one nominee to replace him, Lord Sainsbury.

Now there are possibly two other candidates. One is Brian Blessed (a group of graduates are trying to collect the requisite 50 nominations). The other is Abdul Arain, the owner of Al-Amin, a wonderful shop in Mill Road. It's been described in the news as a 'corner shop', but it's much more than that: it has a whole room full of herbs and spices, and another with grains and pulses, a counter for ready-prepared Indian dishes which you can take home and heat up (and they have cookery demonstrations), and a post office. Abdul is a great community activist, and has been the Chair of the Mill Road Winter Fair committee - he says he plans to stand on an anti-Sainsbury's ticket, because Sainsbury's want to open a 'local' shop immediately opposite his place (currently a snooker hall).

http://www.varsity.co.uk/news/3625

Unfortunately I think many of the people who were active in opposing the Mill Road Tesco might have run out of steam by now ...

And from the other student paper:

http://www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/issue/news/cambridge-university-chancellor-nomination-bandwagon-gathers-speed/

And Mary Beard's take on it (described by a friend of mine as 'snide and inaccurate'):
http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/2011/06/cambridge-university-chancellor-the-race-the-runners-and-riders.html