Sinister: Advice for exam takers

[honey at xxx.org]

The latest entry for the band diary, again from Stuart, dedicated to
all those taking exams right now.  This will appear on the band WWW
site soon I guess, when Mick recovers from the stunning defeat of
Russia and Latvia by those clowns from Denmark in the Eurovision Song
Contest.

Apologies to anyone from Denmark on the list :)

Honey x


---------- Forwarded message ----------

Diary Of A Band (17/5)

Belle and Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch remembers his years at
Glasgow University

You'll be needing advice on how to get through your exams probably. I'm
the worst person to ask. I failed the same exam four times before I
finally packed it in. The results got progressively worse! How could it
be! The first time I had a real go, and thought I'd passed it. I'd
never failed an exam before! Higher Ordinary Physics it was. I failed
it. I had the summer all planned out, but that really fucked it.

I went to work anyway, my third year at Butlins in Ayr. I figured I'd
come back a month before the exam and stay in deserted halls to get
peace, really knuckle down, discover again the 'artistry' of Physics.
Yeah right. I bought some records. I bought some clothes. I lived in a
sleepy basement. I went to watch Orange Walks!! Actually, that last bit
was a lie, but you get the picture. I did popmobility. I signed on, and
walked by elaborate routes to do it. I made up alternate popmobility
tapes and fantasised about me and the ladies in synch to New Order. My
friends came back from their holidays and laughed at me. I think the
examiner must have had a chuckle too, because I wrote a lot of pish in
the exam.

I don't know why I'm telling you this. I mean, I hope you can avoid
doing the same, but I know there's no way of avoiding your own
fuck-ups.  So I went back and repeated the year. I was definitely in
denial. I even did all the labs again. I'm surprised the staff were as
pleasant as they were to me. I pretended I was a lab technician, to
avoid embarrassment. I went to all the lectures. Partly because I was
paying for it. Mostly because in the year that had now engulfed me,
there was a girl in the class. She had a wee brown splodge on her
temple. She hid it under her bob. I watched the splodge all year. She
watched the blackboard, and passed. I know, because she wasn't at the
resit. How could someone who looked like that be good at Physics. It
wasn't fair.

By the time the resit came around again, all I could think of during
the exam was the four records I was going to buy after the exam. My
friend Lewis said that I would have been better just going in and
writing a playlist.

Later on, on a bog wall in the reading room, I saw written 'Fold your
hands child, you walk like a peasant' It struck me as smart and
mysterious. I was suddenly alive to the possibility that there were
people around who, if they wanted, could bring the country weeping to
its knees with a line of poetry. I set out to find them.

Footnote
Great and classic albums from Summer 1987
Sonic Youth 'Sister', The Go-Betweens 'Talullah', The Fall 'Bend Sinister'

Stuart Murdoch

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