Chickens?

Explanation of the Readlab pecking order, as described by two knowledgable and trustworthy chickens...

Chicken Number 1: Oh, Principal Investigator, eh, very nice. And how'dyou get that, eh? By exploiting the graduate students! By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society. If there's ever going to be any progress,--

Chicken Number 2: Dennis! There's some lovely filth over 'ere (noticing Dr. Read) Oh! 'Ow'd'ja do?

Dr. Read: How do you do, good lady. I am king of the Read Lab. Whose
Ivory Tower is that?

Chicken Number 2: King of the 'oo?

Dr. Read: King of the Read Lab.

Chicken Number 2: What is the Read Lab?

Dr. Read: Well we all are! We are all Read Lab members! And I am your king.

Chicken Number 2: I didn't know we 'ad a king! I thought we were autonomous collective.

Chicken Number 1: You're fooling yourself! We're living in a dictatorship! A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes--

Chicken Number 2: There you go, bringing class into it again...

Chicken Number 1: That's what it's all about! If only people would--

Dr. Read: Please, *please*, good students, I am in haste! WHO lives in that ivory tower?

Chicken Number 2: No one lives there.

Dr. Read: Then who is your lord?

Chicken Number 2: We don't have a lord!

Dr. Read: What??

Chicken Number 1: I told you! We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune! We're taking turns to act as a sort of executive-officer-for-the-week--but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting--by a simple majority, in the case of purely internal affairs--but by a two-thirds majority, in the case of more major--

Dr. Read: BE QUIET! I order you to be quiet!

Chicken Number 2: "Order", eh, 'oo does he think he is?

Dr. Read: I am your king!

Chicken Number 2: Well I didn't vote for you!

Dr. Read: You don't vote for kings!

Chicken Number 2: Well how'd you become king then?

Dr. Read: The Dean of the Lake - his arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft the Endowed Chair from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Dr. Read, was to sit in the Chair. THAT is why I am your king!

Chicken Number 1: Listen: Strange deans lying in ponds distributing Chairs is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some... farcical aquatic ceremony!

Dr. Read: BE QUIET!

Chicken Number 1: You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery administrator threw a Chair at you!!

Dr. Read: Shut *UP*!

Chicken Number 2: I mean, if I went 'round, saying I was an emperor, just because some damp Dean had lobbed a Chair at me, they'd put me away!

Dr. Read: Shut up, will you, SHUT UP!

Chicken Number 1: Aha! Now we see the violence inherent in the system! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! HELP, HELP, I'M BEING REPRESSED!

Dr. Read: Bloody GRADUATE STUDENT!

Chicken Number 1: Oh, what a giveaway! Did'j'hear that, did'j'hear that, eh? That's what I'm all about! Did you see him repressing me? You saw it, didn't you?!