Just had a quick look at Matthews blog - he is suffering from that dreadful pestilence on humanity, examinations. I would have to agree with him that exams are a very poor way of ascertaining the quality of a students knowledge. I was fortunate in that most of my work on my honours course was course work, essays, dissertation and the like. The authorities forced us to have at least a couple of subject each semester measured by the old fashioned exam method. Our psychology lecturer spent a semester telling us why that system was a ridiculous way to ascertain knowledge and understanding. The discovered his subject had been picked that year to be the exam-not-essay sacrifice. He nicely removed the subject of psychological implications of stress from the exam as he figured that the last thing we needed in a stressful exam situation was to answer a question on stress.



So I do have some sympathy with Matthew and, after all, moaning about actually having to do studying and coursework is an essential part of any degree work. Gives him an excuse not to be writing his Firefly piece for the Alien. Sorry, Matt; couldnt resist a wee dig while you are down. And it is nice to see Firefly finally coming to the UK SciFi Channel. Pity it is after the show was canned. Matt has sung the praises of this last effort by the god-like Joss Wheddon for a while now and must be getting excited that at least it is going to get some UK exposure, even if it is posthumous. Firefly, Farscape, Wtichblade - why is it all these damned good shows keep getting cancelled while vacuous garbage like Fear Factor and Temptation Island go on?