Well actually No.  It was “Days of Beer and Fags”.  My student days I’m talking about.

I was at Durham in the early 70’s where I “studied” Politics, among other things.

I’d applied to do History but asked as soon as I got there if I could swop to Philosophy and Politics.

“No problem” they said.

As it happens I failed the Philosophy 1st Year Exam.  Friends will no doubt find that astonishing, what with me being a contentious Tommy Opposite.  But fail I did.

“No problem” they said.  “If you do a General History course for your 2nd year you can switch to a second 2nd Year Honours in Politics which will have started by then.”  (In common parlance, a General Degree constituted a remedial class).

“No problem” I said.

At the end of that year I barely scraped through but -

“No problem” they said.  “You can switch to the 2nd Year Honours Politics.  Which I did.

Of course, this meant that this “2nd” year was now my 3rd, so when I completed my final 3rd year I’d actually spent 4 years doing it.  I was what they call ”a slow learner”.

But no matter.  It was cost neutral to me.  You all paid for it through my full student grant.  Not that it went on books, you understand.  Your grant was for spending on beer and fags.

What’s more, the study was scarcely arduous.  Lectures were optional.  In 4 years I never went to one.  On the other hand, tutorials were mandatory.

You generally had one of these a week where you discussed an essay one of your group had prepared.  If the group comprised, say, 9 students, your turn to do the essay cropped up about 1 in 9 weeks, ie once a term.

Tutorials were never scheduled before 10am which would have been a bit of an imposition on my rest and recovery time (hangover).  The exceptions to this were for the Engineers.  These were the intellectually challenged dummkopfs who scraped in with 2 E’s (grades, that is, not pills).  We thought it a huge joke that they had compulsory 9 o’clock lectures on Saturday mornings.

So how was it possible to pass your degree by being so indolent?

Three reasons.

Firstly, Politics was an excellent choice of degree because it was exceptionally easy.  Unlike most other subjects where you needed to be knowledgeable in your field, in Politics a soupcon of fact and a surfeit of opinion was quite sufficient.

Secondly, when it came to exam time I’d obtain past exam papers and predict what was likely to come up this time.  Invariably, the format was that you had a choice of answering 4 from 6 questions.  So I’d bone up on 5 or 6 probable topics a few weeks before the exam day.  Efficient exam strategy, see?

And finally, you’d had to have been especially stupid to fail; the University didn’t like failing students as it reflected badly on their entrance standards and reputation.

And so having tossed it off for 4 years at tax payers expense you would tumble out of paradise to join the elite top 2% of the country’s graduates.

No Problem.