What are they hiding under there?

Watching a huge crowd of Oxford students pour out of an exam somewhere up the High St yesterday I admired their huge flowing formal gowns but couldn’t help but wonder if the university has overlooked the enormous capacity for swinish cheating that these gowns provide?

Forget writing the answers on the back of your hand, you could hide the entire encyclopedia britanica under there!
It’s been a while since I took a sit-down exam. I never cheated but I did enjoy antagonising the invigilators during my a-levels by finishing the exam early and then carefully painting my nails.

But the world of academia is a sinister one. As Stephen Colbert pointed out with regards to leather elbow pads, what do professors do behind those lecturns all day that so wears out the elbows?