Thanks to hidden camera footage planted by a disgruntled cleaner, The Cheese Grater can now exclusively reveal that UCL President and Provost Michael Spence is actually a robot mech suit being controlled by a tiny version of himself, akin to a sinister Ratatouille.
Spence — not to be confused with the far more successful Canadian Nobel laureate of the same name — has held the office of Provost for the last five years, but it was only last week that the chilling truth about his metal form came to light.
A cleaner, (who asked to remain anonymous), unsatisfied with the amount of Vegemite she had to scrape from betwixt the fibres of Spence’s carpet, had placed the hidden camera in a decorative plant in the office in the hopes of catching Spence “doing something dodgy”.
While The Cheese Grater cannot show the recovered footage due to its graphic and violent nature, Spence can clearly be seen entering his Provost Cave at 1:47am and readjusting his tie before a hiss of steam erupts from his ears. The Provost’s big bald head then opens, much like the Demogorgon from Stranger Things, to reveal a control centre with flashing lights and dials.
Then, bizarrely, a smaller version of Michael Spence immediately leaps from the neck and gracefully lands on the carpet, muttering gibberish under his breath. This “Small Spence” (as he has come to be known at The Cheese Grater) is proportioned at around 1/12th of the original Michael’s size. He runs around the office for approximately 45 minutes in what seems to be a series of complex capoeira moves — theorised to keep the “Small Spence” fit while he pilots his robot form for the majority of the day.
The Creature then spends the next hour struggling to reach a drawer of his desk, as it is slightly too high for him to open. We can see him attempt to leap (unsuccessfully) from a shelf and construct a paper aeroplane in a rudimentary attempt at flight, to no avail. Eventually, he manages to build a small ladder from pencil shavings that allows him to open the locked drawer.
The drawer contained a series of blueprints, which The Cheese Grater can report revealed the true reason as to why the construction at the Main Quad is taking so long — plans to convert the entire Portico into a complex orbital “death laser”. The “Small Spence” was seen maniacally laughing for several minutes while scribbling notes on the infernal machine’s schematics.
At around 4am, the creature scales the robot body and scrambles into the now fully-charged cockpit, at which point the head of Michael Spence reassembles, and the Provost leaves his office.
What this means for the future of UCL is uncertain, but The Cheese Grater advises not taking the piss for the foreseeable future, lest Tiny Michael Spence decides to use that “death laser” on you.
