Assignments Done .. Finis .. Finito

Next stop - dressing like a knob

It's over. I've handed in my last undergraduate assignment. So barring any retakes, that's me done for the second time. Let's be honest I've worked a bloody sight harder this time but I achieved that once I'd actually turned up for some lectures in my final year. It has been great, super, smashing , lovely. To all (well nearly all - it is exceptions that make rules fun) my fellow undergraduates a massive thankyou for putting up with me and catering to my inner juvenile. Both the juvenile and I have had a blast.

Similarly I have almost nothing but good things to say to the English Department at BCU. And today is not the time for the minor gripes. Regular readers needn't worry though because the Overgraduate has not forgotten his war with the forces of evil. I'm coming for you Howard (not his real name of course) with my steel toe-capped Converse. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Or not. You decide.

So what have we learnt these past three years. In no particular order:

• Governments see it as a point of principle to bollocks up education. It was like that when I did my first degree but the charlies in charge back then had nothing on the current crew. Yesterday David Willetts (who went to KES so I suppose we shouldn't be surprised) proved that if he really has got two brains, neither of them works in the morning, not at least when he is on the Today show.  
• Despite the politicians the young continue to make a fist of combining learning with pleasure. Quite bloody right.
• I think I may finally have put my 'A' level English result from 1978 behind me. It's been bugging me for all that time and I knew I could do the subject really.
• I can't play golf. I didn't have to go back to college to prove this but I am entering a phase of acceptance.
• Corman McCarthy - brilliant.
• Angela Carter - ditto.
• J.G. Ballard - ditto
• Dylan Thomas - ditto, I like a bit of pyrotechnics with my poetry.
• Christopher Marlowe - ditto. If he was alive today he'd probably be dead by now. You know what I mean.
• I still like Guinness. This is an affordable vice.
• I like Barolo. This is not.
• Evelyn Waugh - I had a crisis of confidence on this one but I'm over it now and turns out I was right all along - brilliant.
• Jonathan Bate - outstanding critic.
• I like Philip Glass and I discovered this by accident. If you keep looking (or more accurately in this case listening) you will find nice things. And bad things. But if you don't look, you will discover nothing and that is a spiritual crime.
• I enjoy acting and wasted three decades before I got round to it. Don't wait like I did. Next stop Shakespeare if someone will have me. How old do you think Enobarbus might have been?
• Years of rugby wrecks your body but it is totally worth it.
• People still read Steinbeck. This is a good thing.
• It is never too late to become a feminist.
• Or a post-structuralist.
• It is though too late for someone like me to become a teacher. The various institutions that rejected me will all I'm sure have good reasons but, you know what, sometimes you might want to take a punt on an unusual candidate. We might bring something to the party.
• If I'm absolutely honest I had a considerable downer on me at the start of this course. I have improved and am now nicely ambivalent about myself. Progress.
• Tonight I am going to have a big pizza. On Sunday I do my first triathlon. What's the worst that could happen? Don't answer that.
• You cannot have too much of Shakespeare, which makes him even better than Guinness or Barolo. Praise indeed.
• Most importantly, I owe Sharon so much for letting me have this much fun. God bless you sweetheart. I now fully appreciate why people have always said I don't deserve you. I hate it when people are right.