My run for Oxford professor of poetry was crushed by viral campaign – and a distinguished rival

"If you can meet with triumph and disaster And treat those two imposters just the same, Then you're a bloody idiot." I'm trying to recall all those election-night broadcasts I've watched where the party that's just been crushed somehow makes it sound like an electoral triumph. "Kevin Phillips-Bong, you polled no votes at all; are you disappointed?" "Absolutely not, David. This is an excellent result for the Slightly Silly Party, and puts us in a good position for the election in 2015." Oh God, I just can't keep it up. When you poll 81 votes in the election for Oxford professor of poetry from a potential electorate of around a quarter of a million, you need to have the ingenuity of an England cricket captain to find positives. At least there was no deposit, or it would have been lost with interest. Why on earth did I stand? That question has been bugging me for a year. Drink played a part. I concocted the plan with some colleagues in a champagne bar at the 2009 Hay Festival, where Ruth Padel had just announced her intention to stand down after less than a week as prof because of her alleged involvement in a smear campaign against fellow poet Derek Walcott. It was meant to be an enjoyable wheeze, but Oxford's switch to online voting robbed the contest of its theatre. As someone who can barely log on to a computer, it also greatly disadvantaged me, as I was left trailing by septuagenarian Beat poet Michael Horovitz's energetic viral campaigning. I implored Roger Lewis, standing as an anti-poetry candidate with the support of large numbers of Boris Johnson's extended family, to spread gossip of a sexual nature that would allow me to withdraw elegantly, but he refused. And performance poet Paula Claire beat me to the punch in pulling out over claims the Oxford establishment were biased in favour of Geoffrey Hill. They were, of course, but Hill was also by far the most distinguished candidate in a rather motley field of 11, and we should not begrudge him his handsome victory. Especially as the poor man will now have to give three lectures a year at Oxford until he is 83 for a measly annual stipend of £7,000. Suddenly I feel a little better about things. Now where's that application form to be controller of Radio 4?