Tuesday 6 September 2011

On your way, kids

So. Graduation today. Usually, it's a time for scrubbed, shiny kids to celebrate their entry into adult life and work. Not this year though. Thanks to their elders and betters, the smiles have been wiped off their despicable young faces. My friends, it's a great time to be a misanthropist.

My first graduation was quite fun, and I think it's important, in the midst of all the drudgery, for students to be simply congratulated for their achievements. For me, the bloom was slightly taken off by a supposed friend, in front of all our parents, telling me that I didn't deserve mine: we'd both spent three years plotting and scheming working hard at the students' union. I took a First, she took a Third. Privately, I rather agreed with her, but for the first and last time in my life, I decided to trust to the wisdom of authority.

Enjoy your day: for most of you, graduation marks the end of the only period in your lives when you had the chance to take some intellectual risks and splash about in the pool of knowledge without pressure to earn or impress.

Time to get my robes on. Imagine a pair of heavily brocaded 1980s Laura Ashley curtains in maroon and yellow. Draw those curtains over a short, porky git. What a lovely mental picture.

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