Thursday 8 February 2018

Attila the Gobbet

You'd have to have a heart of stone not to feel sorry for Faiz Siddiqui, the lawyer who studied at Brasenose College, and sued the University of Oxford because he says that only getting an Upper Second in his History degree cost him a high-flying career in the Law.

And I've just got the results of the scan back. My heart appears to be pretty much pure flint. So I'm the Archdruid for the job of not feeling sorry for him. Let's go.

After all, it's not like a 2:1 at Brasenose is a bad degree. You could say all the best people got a 2:1 at Brasenose. Toby Young  got a First. So that proves it.

The Daily Mail manages a brilliant article where it clearly doesn't know that an Upper 2nd is a 2:1...
"Mr Siddiqui had claimed 'boring' tuition and staff being on extended sabbatical leave had meant he only got a lower 2:1 instead of the higher upper second or first he was hoping for. "
 But then it also manages to grab off Google Street View a picture of what I think is basically Exeter College, so I don't think they put their Oxford Special Correspondent onto this job.

And you know the problem for Mr Siddiqui now? He's going to be known as the bloke who lost the case that it was his college's fault he's not a very good lawyer. Which is roughly equivalent to advertising himself to future employers as not a very good lawyer.

On the bright side for Mr Siddiqui. A few years before he picked up his Attila, a shiny-faced, entitled youth called David Cameron left Brasenose with a first in Politics, Philisophy and Economics. He went on to prove that, in at least two of those categories, he was useless. So you know. A first ain't everything.



Want a good laugh? Want to laugh at the church? Want to be secretly suspicious that the author has been sitting in your church committee meetings taking notes? Then Writes of the Church: Gripes and grumbles of people in the pews is probably the book for you.

From Amazon, Sarum Bookshop, The Bible Readers Fellowship and other good Christian bookshops. An excellent book for your churchgoing friends, relatives or vicar. By the creator of the Beaker Folk.

4 comments :

  1. Game, set and match Archdruid. As ever,

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  2. As the owner of a level seven vocational qualification, I can have some sympathy with the failed lawyer, because I too failed to get a higher qualification. My failure was to not pay enough attention to the Leadership qualities that I needed to display to get above level seven in my working life or attaining enough odd qualification from experience to advance more up the slippery pole of progress. And off course, academic snobbery means that anyone with the lowest academic attainment of a 2:1 degree is able to sneer at me. I couldn't care less, I have three pensions and a comfortable life style, after early retirement and can return their sneer from a position of complacency.

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  3. Picking up a Douglas from an Ancient never did me any harm. I deserved it and indeed it has been strangely rewarding.

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  4. I got a Desmond, and it didn't get in the way of anything. In fact, I don't remember anyone ever asking me what degree I got

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