The Meaning of Life

At the end of the day and when all’s said and done,

And the finishing post at the end of life’s run

Can be glimpsed in the distance – just over the hill

That we all one day roll down whatever our will –

We fall to consid’ring the meaning of life,

Its purpose and pity, its trouble and strife.

Thus exercised, surely we can but conclude

With a shrug of the shoulders, a sagging of mood,

That the nearest to knowledge, the furthest from doubt,

The best guess we have as to what it’s about

Is the Hokey-Cokey:

Knees bend,

Arms stretch,

Ra Ra Ra.

That’s what it’s all about.

Yes, that’s what it’s all about.

Dumbing up, nailing down.

Sinister developments in British higher education: 70-odd of 104 universities (my God, we have 104 universities?  We ARE bright!) have signed up to a scheme that, according to BBC Radio 4, is intended to replace simple degrees over time. This will be an end of course report, written by the institution - of which the degree result will be a part - that details 'other activities' such as volunteering, club and society membership, sporting achievements, roles in the student union and so on.

Designed to "benefit employers, and above all students" (note the order, not the emphasis), in my view this is the logical extension of the patronising and utilitarian straitjacket that increasingly passes for education lower down the brain chain. On being asked rather neatly by the interviewer whether "part of student life is sitting and thinking, sometimes in pubs”, the man (it was 6.40am, I was cuddling my pillow, and I didn’t get his name) simply dodged the question.

If students, who are legally adults whether we like it or not, want to list, promote or fabricate their achievements, they have a mechanism called the curriculum vitae. Universities have no place in either writing it for them or, by so doing, making them mere cogs in a machine that we should continue to kid ourselves they may run one day.