Exam woe / Vote-o hell

Well nail me to a tree and call me Messiah - is it Thursday already?

You know the form by now. Stories. Choose.

Duke of Kent - "A bath full of Um Bongo, you say? How extraordinary!"
Octopus - "It was at the precise moment that Barbara Windsor caught him in the small of the back with a punnet of raspberries"
Exams - "Build a bridge? At this hour? You can't get the wood, you know"
Diet Club - "As the bottle of baby oil slipped from his hands and landed at matron's feet, he knew he was in for a rough night."
Yvette - "'Je t'aime! Je't'aime!' she cried in ecstasy, and as she bestowed the Order of the British Empire upon the errant sailor"

Vote me up, sir!

S Duck, BSc (almost)

Who says exams have been dumbed down? This week, I sat a rigourous* three hour examination for my Open University degree course in Democracy.

I was expected to recall facts on historical models of democracy; the writings of Plato, Wollstonecraft and Marx; structural theories of democratisation and their application in a globalising, corporatist world.

So, I turned up on time, sat at my designated desk in the Rembrandt Hotel in Weymouth and filled out the forms awaiting me. Fellow examinees shuffled spare pens, snacks, lucky gonks as I cracked my knuckles.

Begin.

I turned over my question paper and read:

One question: "Draw a big picture of a penguin. Extra credit will be given for style control, damage and aggression."

Result!

Pity, though, the poor guy taking the maths test who was clearly struggling in his quest to construct an unspecified farm animal out of various root vegetables and cocktail sticks. More fool him for taking the smart-arse course.

* I could have been a judge you know, but I didn't have the Latin.