Читать онлайн «A Life in Questions»

William Collins

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This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2016

Copyright © Jeremy Paxman 2016

Jeremy Paxman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Cover image © Carsten Windhorst

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Source ISBN: 9780008128302

Ebook Edition © October 2016 ISBN: 9780008128319

Version: 2017-05-04

Here richly, with ridiculous display,

The Politician’s corpse was laid away.

While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged

I wept. For I had longed to see him hanged.

Hilaire Belloc

Contents

What do we know of our lives? I am certain my blood group is A Negative, because the nurse vaccinating me before some trip to a war zone sent a blood sample off for testing.

I noticed that, in private, we all scrawled our blood group onto the back of our helmets, in case something awful happened. I know I passed my Eleven-Plus, took two attempts to get good enough marks at my Common Entrance exam, failed Maths and Latin O Levels at the first attempt, got pretty average A Levels, won an exhibition to Cambridge and got a 2:1 in my final exams. The mere facts which categorise you aren’t interesting. If only one could tell children that once you’ve finished your exams, no one cares much about how you did, or even asks to see your certificates. Instead we expect them to play the game we played.