AS IDEAS go it can be filed under "It seemed a good one at the time." That time was about six months ago when in a flush of enthusiasm I thought of signing up for an Open University short course.
Now the course starts next week and having received the details, the CDs and instructions on how to install software and submit electronic tutor-marked assignments, what seemed a good idea in late summer has stirred too many memories in February.
Not least that I've been here before. Quarter of a century ago, inspired by Liz's heroic achievement in graduating BA from the Open University against massive odds, I took a foundation course in technology. I know, I tried to joke about the incongruity of that myself until it dawned that OU essays are no place for humour, at least if you hope to pass.
So restraining my instinct to see the funny side, I ploughed on through the early morning television programmes and tutorials and set books, submitting earnest essays typed on old-fashioned paper of precisely the number of words asked for.
That, I found, was the biggest difference between essay writing and journalism. As some student at every tutorial asked tearfully how they could reduce 5,000 golden words to 1,500, my worry – conditioned by a working lifetime of 1,000 word limits and the editorial maxim that any story can be told in a paragraph if necessary – was that I was over-writing at 1,200.
Other conflicting emotions were involved in that first OU course, not least my belated concern that from O level onwards I had never satisfied examiners to any marked extent, and not for lack of opportunity. For instance, I was given three chances to pass O level chemistry and two more at college level.
I'm fairly certain, positive in fact, I only made it one out of five because the college head of chemistry was our cricket team's number one fan. He obviously decided – no doubt after much soul searching considering that my first result for him was lower than my modest batting average – that keeping a reliable, if unexciting, opener for another year marginally outweighed my scientific cretinism.
If only A level examiners before him and National Diploma in Agriculture examiners later had shared his sporting perspicacity. As it was, my vow never to take another exam after earning the right to put NDA (Failed) after my name lasted 17 years. Then, swept away by the courage of Liz's effort, I returned to organised study, as opposed to freewheeling autodidactic efforts to read as much as possible on absolutely everything.
I passed the technology course and the following year tackled Decision Making in Britain. It took time to decide whether I liked it or not – little post-modern humour there – but I limped over the finishing line eventually with another pass. Then stopped.
Now I'm about to start another course. But it's only 12 weeks, an estimated six hours work a week, with two written assignments. The first – lead me to it – will comprise several short exercises, the second "about 750 words of continuous prose". I can do that – I think.
