Prince William the visiting scholar: Nice university course if you can get it The phrase "visiting scholar" seems to me to have some pretty clear implications, chief among them that the person to which it refers is a "scholar," who is "visiting." William, I'm afraid, fits only one of these criteria, and the other one isn't fulfilled by his place at the university to take a 10-week course in agricultural management. This isn't even an existing course: it is, we are told, a "bespoke" plan of study "designed to help provide the Duke with an understanding of contemporary issues affecting agricultural business and rural communities." I hope it's not too screamingly controversial to suggest that his father's role as patron of the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership might have played a part in the decision to invent an entirely new course so that William could learn how to run a farm. If this thesis, outlandish though it is, holds any water at all, its depressing that a supposedly meritocratic institution would go along with it. And it's even more depressing that no one else seems to mind. Twitter: @archiebland