Grade Inflation with E Halliday MA Principle of St Chad’s College Durham University 1992

Academics and teachers are a curious breed obsessed with grades.  To them good grades are everything…  What they don’t tell you, of course, is that 27 years later those grades will have been made laughable by grade inflation. 

It’s easy to say this but it’s harder to prove this …or it was until the other day when I unearthed by accident this letter to myself from E Halliday MA the Principle of St Chad’s College Durham University written in 1992.

A number of things seem remarkable reading this letter in retrospect.  Firstly E Halliday MA has typed under the University Coat of Arms “EXEMPT CHARITY” in upper case.  Was this the University motto I wonder? or was E Halliday MA who asked me a lot of questions about my freelance writing career worried that I would twig he was a freelancer too and grass him up to the inland revenue?  The mind boggles.

Did I meet with E Halliday MA at all?  I mention this because although his name appears on the top of the letter it is appended there by sticky label underneath which can clearly be seen the name of the previous Principle of St Chad’s College Durham University David Jasper MA PhD BD. 

I suppose David Jasper MA PhD BD must have seen himself pretty settled in the role of Principle of St Chad’s College Durham for all eternity because he clearly had his own name written on so much of the University stationary that E Halliday MA had to use sticky labels to cover it up. 

Was E Halliday MA on an economy drive or did he simply get some form of schadenfreude in sticking a sticky label over his predecessor’s name? 

Who can tell?

I remember going for the interview distinctly because I had to stay overnight at the college in order to get the feel of the place.  However, while the idea was clearly that we should spend all night in the college there being no prohibition on going out on the town alone I did the latter …only to discover that there was not much of a town to go out on.  There was a cathedral on top of a hill, some shops that were closed and it was very cold.  I ain’t spending 3 years here I thought… not that they weren’t nice people.  Apart from the lecturer in the Physics department who barked at me while watching me fill in a short test form “You should know the answers before you come here!”  Unfortunately I didn’t and so the Russell Group was immediately formed to prevent any repetition of such an educational disaster.

But most interestingly of all …the offer in 1992 was that one could get on the course with CCC whereas 27 years later it seems that A*A*A is required.  It seems to me then that university offers increase by an alphabet letter every 13.5 years.  The question is what will happen to this system in 13.5 years time in 2032 …?  For now we’re at A*A*A there is no higher alphabet letter to go to?  And no more *s save one.  Perhaps then like car number plates the system should start going back down the alphabet again until it reaches Z*Z*Z* before going back up to A*A*A again…?

An open letter to the Chamberlain of London

Dear City of London,

                                    I write with regards to payment of Penalty Charge Notice CL55350099.   I wish to complain to the Council that the money has been obtained by deception.  Firstly the wording of the letter is wrong.  It says “Failure to pay the charge in full before the end of the 28 day period may lead to the charge increasing by 50 per cent to £195".  However strictly speaking this is a 300 per cent increase.  Therefore motorists are forced to pay the fine by deception and unreasonable threats.  The letter further pressurises the customer to pay within 14 days at the risk of the fine increasing rather than challenge the ticket.  However, the small print on the City of London website which is not on the letter tells a different story.

“You have 14 working days from the date of the ticket to make an informal challenge at the discount amount for tickets attached to the vehicle or handed to the driver.

The case will be placed on hold until we respond; if we reject your challenge, you will be re-offered the discount amount for 14 days from the date of that letter.”

Therefore the letter is deceptive in suggesting to the reader that they must pay within 14 days without challenging the fine or risk the fine increasing.  Whereas actually if the driver appeals the fine within the 14 days the 14 day clock is started again and the driver is informed in writing whether their appeal is accepted or rejected at which point they can still pay at the £65 rate.  This automatically forces anyone for whom it is impractical to revisit the locus in quo within the timeframe specified to not challenge the ticket.  Therefore the money taken is being obtained by deception.

The letter then advises the reader that they must not pay the fine if they intend to dispute it which I have done.  However, I would point out that payment is not a one-sided affair.  I sent you a cheque which is a push pull method of payment and asked you to take payment at your discretion.  This means you must make a decision to cash the cheque and be responsible for making such a decision.  I submit that the decision to cash the cheque was so outrageous in its defiance of logic or accepted moral standards that no sensible person who had applied his mind to the question to be decided could have arrived at it and that the only reason you cashed the cheque is that no one had applied their mind enough to question the procedural mistakes outlined above and therefore I would like to apply for my money back.

Yours sincerely

Anthony Miller

Ohhh do the referendum

You vote EEC in
You vote for EU out
In Out In Out
Shake it all about
You do the referendum and U-turn around
And that's what it's all about
Ohhh do the referendum
Ohhh do the referendum
Ohhh do the referendum
Hard Border, Brexit, Backstop, Shout!

Parliament debates how to fit a quart into a pint pot

Yesterday in Westminster MPs from all parties met with the Prime Minister in order to discuss how a pint pot could be made to contain a quart.  Boris Johnson speculated that a quart when accelerated to near the speed of light might occupy less space than a pint while Jeremy Corbyn said that not trying to put a quart into a pint pot would be a betrayal of all the people who wanted to drink their beverages in imperial quantities.  Mrs May speculated that by using a quart that was carbonated some extra space could be made by waiting for the bubbles to evaporate.  However the DUP said that once the gas had evaporated the quart would no longer be a quart and they would only accept a pint.  Mrs May replied that not getting a quart into a pint pot would have grave consequences.  Some people suggested a second pint glass might be used but Mrs May said the public would not accept 2 pints instead of 1 pint and when given such a bribe might think they had been lied to.   The European Commission's chief spokesman Margaritis Schinas said that "It is obvious that you cannot get a quart into a pint pot". Pushed to speculate what might happen if a quart was into a pint pot, he said, it was "pretty obvious you will have some spillage".  However, the Irish government has repeated its stance that it will "not accept any spillage from any pint pot in order to accommodate a quart".  Neither will the DUP.

Gyles Brandreth and the Royal Posterior

It’s easy to make logical arguments about the totally undemocratic nature of the Monarchy but Republicans often struggle for a good emotional argument against the ludicrous real life soap opera that is the British Royal Family.  So I feel it important to say that yesterday I discovered a killer one – it’s called Gyles Brandreth.  

My first experience of Gyles Brandreth was in the 1980s when he seemed to be permanently glued to TVAM’s sofa in a series of loud jumpers.  Later he went into politics and respresented City of Chester with a similar level of vacuity.  He spent a lot of time too in Countdown’s dictionary corner.  If you’re wondering how anyone manages to have such a varied career when their main skills are talking flimsy whimsy the answer is that he was President of the Oxford Union in Michaelmas Term 1969.  Yes, it’s our old friend Oxbridge privilege.  All of these things are forgivable as the Brandreth is by and large pretty harmless…

However, these days when anything Royal happens someone on the wireless or the TV drags out Gyles Brandreth from under a stone as a talking head on all matters Royal.  And then a level of bottom kissing that is beyond satire ensues.  If you’re wondering what qualifications Gyles Brandreth has to be a Royal expert the answer is none whatsoever except penning two crawling “biographies” one about the “love affair” between the Queen and Prince Phillip and the other about the “love affair” between Charles and Camilla.  Whether Brandreth has any real intimacy with the Royal Family or just knows some friends of friends of the Royal Family or has interviewed them one thing’s for sure … he seems to verbally climb so far up the Royal Family’s posterior that it makes one wonder if the late Queen Mother didn’t have a colostomy purely to keep her bowels Brandreth free.  

I’m not saying he’s never said anything negative about the Royal Family but let’s put it this way… we’re never going see a book about the “love affair” between Charles and Diana.

According to an eye witness Prince Phillip’s car turned over because he was startled by the sun and not because he was driving like an idiot…