"THREE SQUAD CARS and eight plod in flak jackets" was how Andrew Malcolm, the renegade philosopher-cum-publisher who set up a shop selling his work on Broad Street last term, described the force summoned to remove him from Borders bookstore on Magdalen Street last Friday, October 4th.

Malcolm was due to have been signing copies of his two books, Making Names and The Remedy, the publishing of which has been the centrepiece of a long-running battle with the Oxford University Press (OUP), and many column inches in this paper and others last year.

Borders cancelled the event at lunchtime on Friday, apparently due to a lack of interest by the general public. However, Malcolm arrived just before the official start time, despite having been informed of the event's cancellation. Malcolm proceeded to remove the notices advertising the signing's cancellation and determined to continue as he had planned, despite, according to Border's general manager, no members of the public turning up to take part in the event.

After refusing to leave, Malcolm was escorted from the premises by police. Staff at the bookstore called in the authorities in the hope of avoiding a protracted stand-off with the trouble-making philosopher. Malcolm believes the event was an attempt at censorship of his work, declaring "forget Stalin and Saddam - try this place!"

Eleven years ago, Malcolm sued the OUP over refusing to publish his first book, a court case that he won with a judgement that also precluded staff of the university from publicly denigrating Malcolm's work. Considering this term of the judgment to have been breached when Alan Ryan, New College Warden, criticized the book in a letter to The Times Higher Education Supplement, Malcolm took further legal action in a court case which he subsequently lost. The shop that Malcolm opened last year on Broad Street, Akme Expression to sell his published works and to jibe at Oxford University, has since closed over the summer leaving only the empty shop front to view.