DURS, the Department for Userping Riteous Society, is a mafia-style organisation which masquerades as a university department here at Rending. I am only able to tell you these things under the condition that I agree to conveniently "get lost" after completing this, the most dangerous assignment of my journalistic career.

When you join DURS you join for life. There is no turning back. DURS is the be all and end all. DURS is life and death.

Hiding in this modestly reddish concrete abomination is the headquarters of DURS. The building looks functional: its looks are not deceptive. For on many occasions I have crept up to the ten foot high electric fence which surrounds it and, as I peered thr ough the wire mesh, the roof panels have silently hinged back as the two hundred foot long missile launching tower extends gracefully and silently into the night sky.

Quite why I don't know. The thought of a university department attempting military world domination using prehensile nuclear technology is baffling, not to say comic. Why the department which turns out town planners should become so ambitious is unclear - though it has been suggested that the departmental canteen is to blame. Their uncompromising range of so-called "BLT" sandwiches, featuring a tasty filling of bacon, lettuce and tomato plus a hint of mustard, has been known to cause more than one academi c feud to boil over.

The secret photograph which I obtained through means both cryptic and deadly which are copyright (although I can reveal they involved a camera) shows an end-on view of the facility. The warheads, as you can appreciate, are kept well below ground, not on t he first floor. Conversely the coffee machine, which intelligence reports suggest may have a folded up piece of A4 paper wedged under the front left hand side castor to stop it from rolling across the corridor, is located on the first floor - much to the disappointment of the security guards who constantly stand outside the warhead storeroom in the basement.

The fact remains that DURS is a deadly threat to civilisation as we think we know it. Until it is wiped out, I for one will not breathe easy. To this end, I have two proposals. One - pass the Ventolin inhaler. Two - wipe out DURS. Forever.

Tricky as it may seem, I believe victory is within our grasp. As my secret confidante Herman T. Krueger says, "if you grab 'em by the balls they won't know what's hit 'em." I have a plan.

Firstly, we must infiltrate the facility, like Clint Eastwood in 'firefox'. Then, when no-one is looking, we will pull out the piece of A4 paper from under the left-hand front wheel of the coffee machine on the first floor. The coffee machine will then ro ll across the corridor, trapping the so-called "heads of the Department" (more affectionately referred to as "Dons") at the end of the West Wing. As heavy artillery closes in through the North Portal, we will sneak into the basement through a ventilation shaft, turn all the warheads off and quietly make our getaway.

Now all I need is volunteers. Anybody free this weekend, for a spot of liberation of the Free World?