Urban Myth: A philosophy student receives his exam paper, on which the only question is: "Is this a question?" The student, in his infinite wisdom, writes: "If this is an answer." He gets an A.

This is clearly fibbery of the highest order.

Urban myth: Again a philosophy exam, the question is 'What is courage?' Answer: 'This is'. He gets an A too. Bollocks.

And of course, Philosophy student gets the question "Why?", and answers "why not?".

Again, clearly a big stinking supergay lie.

I once went into an RE exam totally unprepared and having paid no attention all term. To the question, "Who led the Jews to the promised land?" I wittily answered "Father Christmas" - which apparently was so very wrong that not only did I not get an A but I had to write a formal apology to the head of Divinity, who had apparently had a nervous breakdown while marking my exam paper.

Okay, he didn't, he just got a bit pissed off. After all, I was mocking his entire career, the God-bothering fuck.

Our combined science teacher told us this...

An exam paper began. Please read all questions before starting. There were 100 questions, the last question said. "Don't answer any of the above questions".

1. That's not a question,


2. It's bullshit.


3. He has over 15 job interviews at other schools in one year and didn't get a single one.

Our R.E. teacher once set us the homework question "what is the meaning of life?" Only slightly beyond the scope of a 2nd year religious education course. What if one of us had got it right, though? That would have fucked him up.

Our RE teacher, before her nervous breakdown, was a rabid Christian of the very worst kind. Unfortunately she was responsible for marking the end of year exam paper in comparative religion. We were asked "What are the main features of Taoism?"

Those of us who answered correctly did extremely badly on this exam, as the answer she was looking for was something along the lines of "godless heathen mud people."

I took the exam mentioned in which the first instruction was to read all the instructions, and the last instruction was to ignore all the other instructions and do nothing.

It wasn't a formally assessed exam; the assessment came during the exam as those of us (a surprisingly large number) who had actually read all the questions sat smugly whilst our contemparies did such things as " 4) If you are the first to get to this instruction, say in a loud voice 'I am the best at following instructions'" and "13) Stand up and turn all the way around once".

Most impressive was the insistence of one of the hapless spazzes, who claimed he did read all the instructions and knew that he wasn't supposed to do anything, but did it anyway for reasons he chose not to divulge.

I had the following question on a philosophy degree finals paper: "Could you have done anything other than answer this question?"

Being a philosophy student, I'd spent all my time drinking red wine and wearing berets in a fug of existential despair instead of doing any actual work, so to this day I have no idea whether I answered it or not.

What a treat! Another exam based urban myth for you to enjoy, posted, we might add, at no small personal risk - last time we poached off Snopes we had them chucking rocks at the LOTP skylight all fucking night.

Four college students get monumentally pissed the night before an important exam. They wake up late the next day to find they have missed the exam, so they all go off to see their tutor. They explain that they'd gone on a trip the day before, but had got a punctured tyre leaving them stranded miles away with no chance of getting back for the exam.

The tutor agrees to give them the benefit of the doubt and lets them take the exam the next day. He places them all in separate rooms and gives them a question paper each.

There are only two questions. The first is fairly straightforward and worth 5%, and all the students answer it easily.

They turn over to the second question, which is worth 95% - "Which tyre?"

A good old fashioned comedy double-take is, I think, implied.

This lesser-known modifier to first the worst (qv) turned the original second person into the worst and promoted the hairy chested third person to being the best. The hero and the best could then argue amongst themselves.

The name of a rugby ball headed zip-for-mouth know-all bastard in the children's series Rainbow. He would put his hand to his mouth, wiggle his fingers, and laugh at people. Also a name for a boy who manages to catch his banjo string in his zip flies. This can result in a lot of blood, and certainly did at our school. Despite the massive wave of sympathy we all felt for a fellow male who has had such an accident, it didn't stop him being re-christened "Zippy" from the very second he left the nurse. It was always guaranteed to throw him into a fit of rage, so consequently he spent the rest of his time at that school in a fairly bad mood. Our Rainbow impressions improved no end with all the practise though...

Just in case you were really interested, the actual name for the d100 is the Zocchihedron. Have a look at this: http://www.multimania.com/arjan/num100.htm

Look at that. We start and end with zocchihedrons. How circular life - and the zocchihedron - is.

The name of a game invented in an attempt to hint at our wonderfully run down comp that we would not tolerate cheap fixtures and fittings. We discovered that the inside of a biro, coupled with the classic 'rubber band catapult' operated twixt finger and thumb could result in much fun. Fired at precisely the moment the teachers back was turned the aforementioned biro bits would stick in the polysterene roof tiles, much to our glee. Given that teachers are so wont to turn round, by the time the class was over the pre-selected roof tile would look like it had in fact been attacked by a tribe of minature Zulu's (albeit Zulus who attack miniature Michael Caines with the inside of a pen). Although immensely popular this game faded out as quick as it had arrived, replaced by the infinitely more dangerous, and therefore, more fun 'Zulu Fat Kid's Arm'.

Zwee,

1. Interjection. Impressionistic ejaculation, connoting the personal peculiarities of a muscular, bright-eyed, possibly gay English teacher with wiry forearms and hands. He was in the habit of spreading his hands dramatically on the table as he leaned forward talking rapidly and precisely. The synaesthesic verbal summation of this was, obviously, Zwee.

2. Noun. A mythic creature resembling a hand walking on its five digits; a copiously veined, disembodied hand with eyes. Draw the creature on any spare sheet of paper and have it say in a speech bubble, 'Zwee.'

Graphics : 8 colours, including cyan and magenta. These two colours, part of the CMYK professional printing colour model, were presumably included to promote the use of the machine as a serious desktop publishing workhorse. Could not deal with more than two colours in any 8x8 "character" area of screen.

Sounds : sounds were made using the BEEP command, specifying pitch and duration. Basically a monophonic mobile phone. Best use of this method remains Manic Miner's rendition of "In The Hall Of The Mountain King".

Magazine : Crash

Main rival, and why it was shit : The Commodore 64. How people argued that the Spectrum was better - and they did - was beyond me. Both computers were shit; the Spectrum was shitter.

The Spectrum was better than the C64 precisely because it had the horrid colour palette. Because it devoted a pittance of its memory to graphics, the Spectrum was all about getting the most out of the underlying program, and in fact had more processing power than the C64 even though it had 16k less memory.

In summary: C64 games looked nicer, but Spectrum games had more substance to them. Style vs substance is an argument that continues to this very day, and is entirely fuelled by disgruntled Spectrum owners who have yet to relive the glory days of JetPac.

Phil, I love you dearly for trying, but you're talking out of your arse. Style over substance is the classic bleat of the loser. I use it today to defend my Gamecube, and I know I'm lying.

The theme music to C64 classics Monty Mole : Impossamole, Metrocross and Bounder alone are sufficient cause to ditch your rubber keyboards. And I don't care if the first spaceships actually had less processing power than a ZX Spectrum - that's as effective a defence as Atari ST owners bleating about their built-in MIDI ports, and saying that KLF used one once.

Just as I never became a famous musician, I doubt many Spectrum owners ever became fucking astronauts.

Guys, if you carry on like this we'll end up with discussions of Blue Peter versus Magpie. Ask yourself if we really want that.

Anyway the BBC B was better than both of them put together.