Now that the nights are drawing in I’ve been looking for something to do with my evenings other than flick through TV channels or pretend that surfing the internet actually constitutes “doing something”.
So I’ve been looking at adult education. Not your conventional evening classes, you understand.
I don’t live in a 1970s sitcom (except for that time the vicar came round and the dog had run off with my trousers) so Conversational Spanish or Wine for Beginners at the local Scout hall are out.
It’s not just that they’re only a ruse for getting off with the local Felicity Kendal, I refuse to speak Spanish until they realise bulls have feelings too. And wine is just booze, so what’s to learn?
No, what I want is stuff that might actually increase my understanding of the world.
Stuff like learning to read Egyptian hieroglyphics (I’m sure they didn’t say “Sideways man, duck on a bucket, evil-looking dog” when they wanted to buy a loaf).
Or astrophysics for the thick. Or the history of Scottish slavers (as in the exploiters of Africans, not drool north of the Tweed).
I don’t want to get a job with this new info, I’m just interested. But there are a couple of problems.
First is that they tend to be proper courses at educational institutions so they’re not free, and I object to that.
Yes I’m mean, but I also grew up in the era of free education, when the government would give you money to study things so that you could become a useful citizen without bankrupting yourself and your relatives.
And that still seems a sound idea education freely available to everyone, even ageing dilettantes.
Second is that they have exams at the end. And to hell with that. I sat my last exam in 1979 and resolved that it would be my last one ever. And ever. Amen.
Never again would I suffer stomach cramps and nocturnal sweats as an uncaring system tested my total recall and nerves rather than my knowledge. Not even to find out how King Tut asked for a medium-cut Hovis.
I suppose I could just do the course and not turn up for the exam. But then I might not be asked to the end-of-term cheese-and-wine with Felicity Kendal.
Ach well, maybe there’ll be a new series of Sherlock.
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