Results are in!

Yes, its true. The most important part of the week was the announcement of results.

And the verdict?
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Serbia's Marija Serifovic won with 268 points. And the UK scored just 19!

(oh, there were some LPC scores as well but I'll come to those later)

Now that's not to say that I have no life and can afford to spend hours watching the creamed cheese of Europe pratting about on stage. Well, actually I do have no life but I wasn't watching Eurovision-scout's honour.
I might have channel surfed onto it at the start in that sort of 'attracted to car crashes' way-but that's all.
At this time I year I begin to feel my age and the chasm that's developing between me and the youth of today-luckily Eurovision has a timeless quality that keeps it as naff and nauseating as it was when I was a nipper.


This was the first (and only) week this year when a Bank Holiday intruded into the timetable. This meant that my Monday class got postponed to Friday afternoon. If I had could ever get into a routine I would find it very irritating to have to keep changing it.
Luckily I haven't, so I'm not.

Tuesday's workshop had a familiar feel-the tutor for the other criminal group who meet at the same time as us was sick so our tutor thought that he would combine the groups again.
This was pretty disasterous last time but he must have reckoned that he had it sussed now. Most of the session went fairly well, since he has learnt that presentations in a room the size of a hanger for small aircraft is a no-no and it was easy enough to set problems to the room and use our combined intellect and researching skills to blunder blindly to the correct result.

The problem occured when he decided to follow his lesson plan and get us to role-play (spits) the role of the prosecution and defence in a drink-driving/spiked drinks scenario. With a class of over 30 that's a lot of bodies to keep occupied.
Firstly we were split into two separate trials. Then 6 people were randomly selected to make up the magistrates benches. This still left about 6 people to sort out the roles of 'prosecutor for this', 'defence spokesman for that'.
I had been posted on a prosecution table (and with me not being particularly in love with the CPS at the moment too...). There were not enough of us prosecuting types to get a role each so I was happy to slack off and settle back and relax.

With hindsight this was not smart.

The defence team had to distribute out the roles of defence solicitors and also the witnesses. And that's where it all falls down. Rather than be impartial and give the evidence that was in the case facts, one of the defence witnesses thought they would try to be the 'life and soul' and quibble pedantically with the prosecutors.
Unfortunately, every laugh he got made him feel even more important and thus more determined to carry on. Not content with arguing semantics from the 'witness box' he thought he would improvise some factual details. (Amazingly these helped his clie-sorry the defendant's story and tore holes in the prosecution line)

At one stage he was actually telling the defence 'solicitor' who was examining him what questions to ask-a true first in the history of British justice. A witness leading the solicitor!

That's why I am annoyed with myself-so sickened I was with this childish showing off that I got involved as a prosecutor and got caught up in this sideshow-but I hadn't planned my questions (having mentally turned off earlier) and got short shrift.

His performance was enhanced by one of the magistrates looking to interrupt the prosecution case whenever she could (oh she was from a defence table too-how amazing!)

I have no idea how many trials he has witnessed (I imagine it's quite a lot-he's very keen) but in the ones that I have seen both at magistrates and Crown-I have never seen such an arrogant and cocky performance.
Once when at Torbay magistrates I did see a young man who was being tried for possesion of cannabis and an offensive weapon adopt a cocky smile and a smug look. In all the others I have seen the defendants/witnesses have all looked either frightened or repentive.
For the record the smug guy got a maximum fine, a community work order and confiscation and destruction of the drugs and weapon-he didn't look so cocky after that...

That's the point, if you go into the witness box and are argumentative, cocky or know-it-all, do not expect the magistrates to say, 'You have a formidible intellect and we all bow down before you. Please walk free and here's ten pounds for your trouble'. You will get warned about your behaviour and probably slapped down.

But our magistrates couldn't (or wouldn't) do that. The witness carried on with his 'I'm the centre of attention act' right through and only looked less than cocky once, when right at the end I made the comment,

'When this trial finishes can we have one for perjury?'

Amazingly, the magistrates found the defendant's excuse of spiked drinks to be valid. Did this have any basis that on the fact that two of the magistrates came from the defence table and only one from the prosecution table? And after the 'trial' everyone had to rejoin their table-mates?

Interestingly the other group found the defendant's excuse not to be valid-but of course they had two members of the prosecution table making up their 'bench'.
Co-incidence?
I don't think so!


For Welfare there was a definite mood of apprehension. Rather than the cosy little world of immigration we are now thick into calculations of various benefits and credits. The session was not helped by the star student in the group being away leaving just 3 of us on our table.

On top of this, the other two guys are not so comfortable with numbers. I might have struggled through if I had been on my own but I had a feeling akin to baby sitting that afternoon. One of them reminded me of a hyperactive 5 year old whose mother had fed him too many e-numbers. Any time he did a calculation he felt he had to waft his calculater in front of me to confirm that we had agreement.
Unfortunately the other person on our table was struggling and I was going slow to make sure that she was following what we were doing.

So we have manic on one side and glacial on the other.
I was shattered at the end of that.

This was not helped by overrunning by a full 30 minutes! We were given 10 minutes break before the same tutor took us for our large group lecture. Most of the group had visions of a finish well past 6:15 but luckily the lecture was a short one (non-existant is a slightly better description-it still ran for over half an hour though!)


So to Thursday. Results day. I had spoken to a lot of my colleagues during the week and got a wide range of responses. Some could not be bothered, some were nervous, one was hyperactive to a wild degree and expected no sleep at all on Wednesday night (oh, we've covered him already! Aha! That may just explain his behaviour in welfare!)

The results were to be posted up on campus from 8:30 am on. They were also due to be published on the college web-site from 9:30 on. I was interested to see what I had got but not interested enough to walk to college at 7:30...

So, I went on the net at the appointed time (well, a bit before if true be told) and got-

-a message saying that the site could not be accessed. Not surprisingly, it seemed that everyone was going on-line at the same time to check. So I casually logged off and went back to my consolidation.

Then checked again a few minutes later. Still nothing. A bit peeved now, I signed off and went back to consol.

And so this continued until about 10:20 when I finally got through. I ran down the list to find my candidate number and got the following;

• Business: 76% (5% up from the mock)
• Property 63% (9% down from the mock)
• Litigation 70% (20% up from the mock!)
  

I had expected my scores to all go down from the mock so I was delighted. Even better I have two distinction marks and a commendation. On a casual glance if I can get two distinction marks from my electives and get 211 out of 300 then in theory I will get a distinction (sadly, my fail in advocacy comes back to bite me in the butt again).
But, better news is that provided I pass my electives then I should get a commendation (That is provided I don't get exactly 50% for each of them!)

We also received marks for conduct-there have been various conduct questions included in exams/mocks/assessed work throughout the year. I was awarded 32 out of 40. This means that I only have to get 18 out of 60 on the set conduct paper-which is lovely since I will not be able to revise that paper as fully as others since it on the same day as my far more important welfare paper.

I also passed the last two assignments-drafting and legal research.

All in all, a fine morning. I certainly waded into the rest of my consolidation that day with renewed vigour.

One bit of bad news though, a friend from our original tutor group phoned me to say she had failed a paper by 2%. (I actually knew this already-I had checked her results earlier and decided not to phone her to be the bearer of bad news).
I hope that she can find something on her paper to scrape those last two marks. I have advised her to check and double check everything, in my view she must try to find something to appeal against-it's so important for her (like all of us) to pass first time.

Since then I've come across another in our group who failed one and a young lady who still hasn't even checked her results yet! Her view is that it won't be good news and if she does check it'll demotivate her further...

So saying, I have come across a couple of (minor) horror stories. There are two students here who have scored over 70% in all their compulsaries and would be shoe-ins for distinctions except they failed either drafting or legal research. (One of which is actually averaging over 80%).

And one guy who has a training contract with a huge 'Magic Circle' firm and is set to start on a monster salary drafting client contracts and agreements.

...except he failed drafting...

Onto Friday-my first Friday-in for about 3 months and I'm delighted to see that Friday PM apathy is universal. Despite all the best attempts of our 'wetter than a squid's tentacles' tutor, we were bereft of enthusiasm. This may have been to do with the day itself but probably had a large contribution from drinking to celebrate (or forget) the previous night.

We were in the murky waters of sexual harassment and I discovered another difference between the majority of students and myself. In the scenario a woman is asked for a date by a man at the Christmas party. She turns him down and in front of her work colleagues he makes a comment about her loose morals and calls her a 'bitch'.

When we came to discuss it, I focused on his accusation that she is of easy virtue whereas the rest of the room was more concerned about her being called a bitch. That must be an age thing!

The rest of the session was spent drafting a reply to a form-yep, that's right-padding out the session!
Just like for the compulsaries, at least two of the electives appear to be struggling to fill the full number of weeks. Only welfare is still going hell-for-leather. Knowing that tutor, he'll still be sending us points to note and last minute emails on the morning of the exam...


I have mentioned age a couple of times this week-it is on my mind at the moment. In this coming week I 'celebrate' my 43rd birthday. How the hell can I be 43? OK, I creak a bit from time to time and move as slow as sloth with piles but 43? That's almost old!

Just a thought-does middle age begin when you're closer to a Saga holiday than an 18-30 one?

NB Under new age discrimination-there are possible court cases in the pipeline about younger people wanting to take part on Saga holidays-can we expect retired people to start applying to go on 18-30 shagfests if they win?

Just a thought, don't mean nothing by it...