It always happens, around this time: someone brings up the Cakes and Ale story. I personally say this is an urban myth. One, because this time last year I asked my friends in Cambridge about it, and they said it was cute, but bollocks. Two, because of the little line in the story: "At this point, the student produced a copy of the four hundred year old Laws of Cambridge".

Which, of course, would be permitted materials for his exam. Considering permitted materials for my exams generally range from 'None' to 'Dictionary for those candidates for whom English is a second language'.

In any case, relating all this at the dinner table led me to what had come of the conversation I had with my Cambridge pals. Another friend, from Glasgow this time, reported that in their old university rules was something that, in essence, said that should you challenge your lecturer to a duel, and be victorious, you got an automatic A. Rendering this into its modern equivalent (as with the cakes and ale), we came up with 'uzis at dawn'.

B^k didn't know what an uzi was. I explained that it was a sort of machine gun, notorious for its bullet spray. You effectively hit everything but what you were aiming at.

J^e likened this to a certain fellow's pick-up attempts. This led to much laughter, and the suggestion that he was: "Wildly inaccurate, but fatal at 50 paces."

Well, we gotta get through the exam period somehow.