From the Crikey grapevine, the latest tips and rumours …

Tertiary Tips. Tips has been running inside gossip from our nation’s fine universities (including this one about a senior staffer leaving a uni after an alleged physical assault by a colleague). Here are a few more. Guess who?

Which uni vice-chancellor “checks email traffic of their senior management team — ask any of those that have recently left”?

Is Victoria’s Swinburne University of Technology “playing dirty with donors”? A tipster reckons the Pratt family “paid for much of the Lilydale campus”, which the uni is now shutting down to save money. Certainly the Pratts have a close association with the uni (the late Richard Pratt was the inaugural chancellor).

If any other uni moles have some gossip to relay on the truth beneath the dreaming spires, email us here (and you can stay anonymous).

Grub’s up. Which figure associated with an art gallery held a banquet recently at which a meal was served up under a silver lid: his girlfriend laid out naked with apple in her mouth? Don’t get too outraged — she was still alive. We hear a lot of rumours about this gallery, and this one may not be true …

Crikey Crossin the line. On Friday we mused over a tipster’s claim that boned NT Labor Senator Trish Crossin was “huddled in the corner” with some CLP types at a recent dinner. We’ve heard back from Crossin, who hinted our source might have been partaking a little too freely of the Bacardi Breezers:

“Crikey, that is one decorated version of the true interactions between myself and some other politicians at the Australian Hotel Association Awards. To correct your (perhaps oversauced) NT source who must have had something in the eye, [CLP Chief Minister Adam Giles] was seated behind me at the awards. We were literally back to back at dinner, for all but a moment when he asked me how I was. And as far as being huddled in a corner with him and [federal Liberal MP] Natasha Griggs, the three of us were never together at any one moment. In fact, the only interaction I had with Griggs was on my way out of the awards, when she stopped me and kindly asked how my husband was going, who has been in hospital with health issues. You might need to huddle in a corner with your NT type and check your sources a little more thoroughly.”

So perhaps don’t hold your breath waiting for Crossin to jump ship and join the CLP.

Rupert explains Allah. Some Islamic scholars spend a lifetime understanding the Koran. Rupert Murdoch has nailed it in under 280 characters:

Rupert, who is Tips’ favourite tweeter (he doesn’t hold back and is anything but diplomatic), has been firing up on a few fronts recently. He offers advice to Tony Abbott and voters, touches on climate change, tax, immigration … now Tory golden boy David Cameron had better watch out:

*Heard anything that might interest Crikey? Send your tips to boss@crikey.com.au or use our guaranteed anonymous form