University criticised over masturbation PhD

And other stories from the stranger side of life

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The University of Manchester has been criticised for allowing a student to publish a “PhD in masturbation”, The Telegraph reported. Karl Andersson said he embarked on a three-month timetable of masturbating to Japanese comic books and making notes on each session. “It was necessary to be diligent enough to abstain from the ‘milk and muesli’ of porn during this experiment,” he explained. Conservative MP Neil O’Brien asked: “Why should hard-working taxpayers in my constituency have to pay for an academic to write about his experiences masturbating to Japanese porn?”

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  Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.