Our story concerns the father of a friend of mine; we shall call him Phil, for that was his name. Phil was doing a PhD that had started out in architecture, but had metastasised; something about how varying layouts of natural light sources (windows, skylights, light wells) had on the moods of the people who use buildings. It included an abstract combinatorial model of how light propagates from room to room and floor to floor, a discussion of the biology of the human eye and the neuroscience of the optic nerve, a long discursion into psychology, you name it. So, when he finally submitted, he was appointed external examiners who between them would be able to properly examine all the various aspects of the thesis; I forget the exact mix, but let's say it was an architect, a mathematician and a psychologist.

His viva was, of course, a nightmare. All his examiners had totally different ideas about what was required from a PhD and what a thesis should look like, but they were all sure that what Phil had submitted wasn't it. After several hours of argument, he was sent away with several long and mutually-contradictory lists of corrections, one from each examiner.

He toiled away trying to reconcile these for several months, and resubmitted. At which point he was told:

"Ah, Phil. There's been a slight hitch, I'm afraid - unfortunately, one of your examiners has died. But, since your thesis wasn't *really* psychology, we've replaced him with a neuroscientist..."

Cue another multi-hour viva, another set of mutually-contradictory corrections, and another grim few months trying to reconcile and apply them. And then:

"Ah, Phil. Unfortunately, one of your examiners has died. But, since your thesis wasn't *really* mathematics, we've replaced him with a physicist..."

To lose one examiner might be considered misfortune; to lose two was starting to look like carelessness. Nevertheless, he went through another awful viva, another list of contradictory corrections, and another round of revisions. And then:

"Ah, Phil. Unfortunately, one of your examiners has died..."

In all, four of his examiners died between vivas, after which it became impossible to find replacements: presumably everyone they approached declined on the grounds that his thesis was cursed. Phil was thoroughly sick of the whole thing and on the verge of a nervous breakdown. However, there is a happy ending: way back at the beginning of our story, the first version of his thesis had been published as a monograph, and had sold as well as a monograph about the combinatorial psychology and/or neuroscience of window layouts could be expected to sell. Someone at the college realised that, though Phil was clearly never going to get his PhD, he could technically be awarded an ScD on the basis of his published works - a higher doctorate that's normally awarded only to Very Senior Academics.

Phil is now an emeritus professor: his subsequent work has ranged from energy efficiency to history of art, so his interdisciplinary tendencies obviously survived the experience :-)