The mysterious "fifth man" - or was he the sixth? - in the race to be chancellor of Oxford is fuming - Andrew Malcolm's nomination was barred by the university's registrar on Tuesday afternoon. He won't be facing Sandi Toksvig and three distinguished gents in next month's election. For the ebullient philosopher who conducted an epic feud with Oxford University Press after they pulled the plug on a book deal, the incident is one more skirmish in a long war. Last summer he rented a shop opposite Balliol College in the city centre as a "centre for disaffectees" to reveal Oxford's faults to rather puzzled Japanese tourists and raise money for legal costs. Putting himself forward an hour before yesterday's 4pm deadline on a ticket to "eradicate corruption, cash-for-places, croneyism, fustian bureaucracy and the many other such problems that have bedevilled and lately publicly disgraced the university," Mr Malcolm was later informed that he not been duly nominated. "As with all candidates, we have now checked all the nominators listed, and have found that only 44 of those listed are acceptable as valid nominators. One nominator signed twice, in ten cases no degree had been conferred, thus rendering the person ineligible to nominate, and four names could not be identified," stated Richard Brooke, head clerk at the university offices.

Not so, says Malcolm. "I have no doubts about my nominators, except possibly two. The registry is now declining to tell me who are the ineligible ones and why. As far as I know, they are all valid." We can be sure Oxford hasn't heard the last of this. Another candidate - whom the university declined to name - was also ruled out because of invalid nomination yesterday.

But just how many candidates are there? EducationGuardian.co.uk received this today from the office of Sir Adrian Greenwood, DFC, announcing his entry into the race. "Sir Adrian, veteran political campaigner, has been out of the limelight since he decided not to contest the seat of Much Hadham in 1974, which he had retained since first entering the House in 1951. During the Second World War Sir Adrian enjoyed an illustrious career in the RAF Balloon Command, receiving the DFC for his action during the balloon attack on Heligoland which acted as a much-needed distraction for the Nazis on D-day. "A life-long right-winger, Sir Adrian entered the House of Commons in 1951 and quickly rose to be minister without portfolio (economic affairs) under Eden in 1956. His famous eat-a-piece-a-cheese-a-day campaign won plaudits from all sides of the political spectrum and increased stilton sales by 20%. Despite his obvious talents Sir Adrian returned to the backbenches after the Suez debacle and remained there for the rest of his political career. He was knighted in 1963. The highpoint of his backbench career was his private members bill to introduce blue belisha beacons to pedestrian crossings after his own research showed this was better suited to the reactions of the colour-blind. Sadly the bill ran out of time in the commons, despite strong support from the then prime minister, Harold Wilson.

And it goes on. "Sir Adrian has spent the past thirty years expanding his geranium collection. He took up taxidermy in the late 1970s and has won several international awards for his work. He has also been an active president of the Austin Allegro Owners' Club for many years. Sir Adrian's shock candidature at the age of 92, was prompted by (in his own words) 'the political pygmies who are throwing their hats into the ring. Who is this Scandinavian woman anyway? If no-one else is going to bother they might as well have me'."