Rhona ‘Miscalculation’ McDonald was born on a remote Scottish island now lost in the mists of time. She was brought up by a Highland cow, after running away from her poor harassed parents because they didn’t do what she told them to do. School proved to be somewhat of an obstacle (“moo” not conveying much information when asked to conjugate French verbs or do calculus derivations) but she recovered from the dodgy start in time to become the highest-achieving student in her year, breaking all academic records.

University success duly followed, though briefly marred by an episode involving a taxi, some crème fraiche, a set of bagpipes and the High Street gutter, after which ‘Madame Rhona’ was bound over to keep the peace and forced to join Kilts Anonymous for three months with no option. The negatives have now been destroyed, however, so Rhona’s path to political fame is now assured (as long as she joins the Conservatives).

Rhona then resisted the varied lures of tap-dancing, bee-keeping and accountancy to get a job in the Real World for a while, before succumbing to the blandishments of dare-devil Dr. Ben Davis at Durham University, and agreeing to become his latest lab rat, with the faint promise of a few letters after her name as reward.

She joined the general migration south to Ye Olde Oxenforde in the summer of 2001, and is now frantically chewing paper, chocolate and computer time in an effort to submit her thesis before this unauthorised biography goes to press. She will, of course, fail, but that is only fair since she succeeds in pretty well everything else she does.

Last updated: 11-04-04