The Crappiest Day of the Year

Some people would say I'm not the most sociable person in the world. This may sound odd for someone who voluntarily does stand-up comedy and public speaking about science on a regular basis, but may sound about right for someone who prefers to communicate in text form via electronic mediums. Your interpretation is your own, enjoy it.

But I can see the point of people who would consider me unsociable, as outside of ones where I'm there to perform a specific task or duty, you won't often find me in situations where I would interact with other people in a social situation. It's not that I don't like people, although there are some people I don't like, obviously, and other people I do like. That's normal, isn't it? It's more to do with contexts and environments.

I like to think I'm my own person, I know what I like and what I don't like, and I seek out the former and avoid the latter. And one of the things I really don't like is what I term 'enforced fun'. You won't see me at the big festivals, night clubs, town centres on a Friday, raves, crazy parties or anything like that. Lots of people go to these things because they actively enjoy them, and more power to them. But I don't, so I avoid them. If I did attend these things for some reason, no doubt I'd be considered a killjoy for not enjoying myself like everyone else no doubt would be.

I'm not a killjoy though. I have no problem with other people's joy, certainly not to the extent that I'd want to kill it. I'm not one to commit homicide on an abstract concept, I never signed up for the war on terror for this reason. I just avoid things that I don't. Like most people do, if I'm not mistaken.

I'm indifferent to live music, not brave enough to experiment with narcotics and am actively repulsed by even slightly dirty toilets, so the big festivals would be a massive waste of unhygienic time for me. I don't like dancing, loud noises, overpriced drinks or inhaling the hormonal sweat of strangers, so night clubs have never done it for me. Some people might take genuine pleasure from them and that's cool, but for me there are limited returns on standing in a corner of an overcrowded dark sauna, clutching the only warm lager I'm able/willing to afford while an inebriated stranger bellows in my ear and is still unable to make himself heard (it's never a 'herself', I'm not someone who has ever known the experience of random women talking to him). As fun as that sounds, it get tiresome after 3 hours. And as unreasonable as it sounds, town centres on weekends are out, as I've always had a bizarre aversion to having my face repeatedly smashed into a paving slab by an enraged steroid abuser in a Ben Sherman shirt. I've always been picky like that, so sue me.

I'm being facetious about that last one, of course. Plenty of people go to a city centre on a weekend and never curb stomp anyone. But I was asked to meet up with a comedy mate of mine recently in Cardiff City centre on a Friday night. I never see him usually, so I agreed, and it was quite a bizarre experience for me. I've not been out in central Cardiff on a weekend for many years, and it was refreshing to discover that this wasn't an oversight on my part. I just don't get it, the appeal of getting hideously pissed as quickly as possible with similarly dressed strangers. Nobody got violent while I was there, but then I left before 10.30, so maybe they were waiting for me to go in case I told the police or something. Everyone was giving me a wide birth though, which surprised me. I'm not the most physically intimidating specimen, and with my nerd jacket, glasses and 'keep libel laws out of science' badges, I don't think people saw me as a violent lunatic waiting to lash out. I guess if I was I could be using some reverse psychology thing, but most people didn't seem sober enough to be worried about such unlikely leaps of logic.

It turns out the reason I was making people steer clear of me was how I was looking at them. Whereas most people were looking at each other in one of several familiar, acceptable ways ('potential conquest', 'potential rival', 'alcohol supplier' etc.), I was apparently looking at people as a scientist would look at a rat in a maze; with an unnerving level of calculating scrutiny. Most people, quite fairly, are put off by this. I understand, I didn't mean to do it, I just couldn't help myself from thinking 'why are you doing this? What's your motivation? What pleasure do you obtain from this environment and why?' When I get curious after a few beers, I have trouble preventing myself from adopting my 'amoral scientist' expression, which makes people think I'm on the verge of whipping out a scalpel to cut out their eyeball so I can attach it to the monstrous chimera I'm creating in my attic. Hence, I don't really belong in these places. So I avoid them.

It all boils down to the fact that I really resent being told to enjoy myself when I'm clearly not in a situation where that is likely to happen. When you're in a social gathering context, whatever it may be, there is an expectation to enjoy yourself in the same manner as everyone else, and it's hard to do that against your will, to the point where I actively resent it. Charlie Brooker has a brilliant rant about parties, and I have to agree with him to some extent. Parties are fine if they're just allowed to happen organically, but it's the 'instigators of fun' I can't abide. People who have scheduled games, party pieces, name cards and the like, just to make people talk and engage with each other to enhance the 'fun', rather than just treat people like adults and let them engage with others in a manner which suits them (or, more importantly, allow them to actively avoid engaging with the obvious dickhead that every party is seemingly legally obliged to include). It's probably a holdover from children's parties, but children are more energetic and less adapted to social norms, so games and the like helps them interact and focuses them while the parents can crack open the illicit wine without their dear offspring noticing. But these things don't always translate well to the adult world.

I went to a social once where the fun instigators had spent so long meticulously planning people's enjoyment that they had lost all sense of logic and reason. When you arrived, you were assigned a name badge. On the badge was a famous person or character that matched your gender. Mine said 'Kenickie'. Apparently the aim of this was that you had to seek out the other half of your 'famous couple' amongst the other guests. I was expected to go and find a woman wearing a badge with 'Rizzo' on it, and then… it was never established what I was meant to do then. Talk to her? Re-enact some scenes from Grease? Consummate our fictional relationship? This was never confirmed. And I don't even see how this works as an interaction catalyst. I am not a fan of Grease so my knowledge of it is limited, so exactly what conversational aides can be derived from this approach? Apart from "I see you are the opposite gender to me", or "I see you have been randomly assigned a fiction character that is associated with the one I have been assigned", what exactly is there to be said about this connection? But you could tell the organisers were so concerned with making people interact they didn't give any thought to the rationale beyond this. One guy had a badge that labelled him as 'Jim Corr'. Not sure if he's part of a famous 'couple' per se. I left when I saw a miserable looking girl with a badge that said 'Maxine Carr'. She didn't know where her counterpart was and seemed to be in no hurry to find out. I was him I'd have just turned and left as soon as they gave me my badge, and no doubt he did just that.

Overall, I don't like anyone who would look at you and decide that you aren't happy enough, and decides they must interfere until your enjoyment levels meet their personal standards. I'd wager most people feel this way.

All of this preamble is just a roundabout way of saying that's why I think the 'Happiest day of the year' doesn't get nearly as much press as the 'most depressing day of the year'. Don't get me wrong, it get's far too much (i.e. some), but the most depressing day seems to get a lot more widespread attention than the happy one. Admittedly, I base this purely on the fact that no media sources have ever asked me to comment on it. As opposed to my regular humiliations when getting involved with the most depressing day. Believe me, I've had more than my fair share of dealings with that car-crash of nonsensical pseudoscience. Nobody has ever contacted me from the media to comment on the happiest day. Except for via twitter that is, I had people nudging me (metaphorically) to point out that that yesterday was the happiest day of the year (according to the BBC even! Got no link for that though).

I immediately thought my old nemesis Cliff Arnall had been up to his old tricks (well, trick). But no. He does have another laughable equation to pinpoint the happiest day (apparently coughed up like a media-friendly hairball at the behest of Walls, makers of sausages and ice cream and other things that benefit from people being cheerful enough to have barbecues), but it's in mid-June according to him. So August 6th is the happiest day of the year not according to Cliff Arnall, but Nectar Card. It's always someone shamelessly corporate who comes up with these things, weirdly enough. When the Cochrane collaboration makes a claim like this, then maybe I'll pay attention. However, rather than a nonsensical equation pulled out of the mind-arse of a shameless quack (meaning Cliff Arnall, just to clarify) this claim is, seemingly, based on a slightly more logical principle of just asking people when they're at their happiest. 30% of people say Saturdays, 20% of people say August (I'm really hoping these figures were based on separate questions in order to suggest some sort of useable specificity, but I'm not holding my breath), so overall Saturday in August is the happiest day of the year. Although, last I checked, August had at least 4 Saturdays, so why this one in particular? That's not revealed in the article I could be bothered to read.

It's at least a somewhat logical approach. When are people happiest? Ask them. But there are still myriad problems with this approach. People may say they're happiest in August and on Saturdays, but it doesn't automatically mean that an August Saturday is the happiest day of the year. Someone's favourite foods may be cheesecake and pizza. This does not mean a cheesecake topped pizza is logically their favourite food. Happiness is not a metric measurement that can be added and multiplied in this manner. Happiness is such a nebulous, hard to quantify term (like depression) that any efforts to pin it down to specific date and time like they've done quickly become meaningless.

Also, to suggest that there are predictable regularly occurring external factors that affect people's moods to the extent where the majority of the population are in the same emotional state is, to put it mildly, bollocks. This is seriously underestimating the complexity and variability in the lives, routines and events in the lives of a typical human being. The only figures that can reliably be said to predict depression in large swathes of the population are the ones churned out my the stock markets lately. That, or the viewing figures of Top Gear, but to each their own of course.

I bring this up as, at a recent Winchester Skeptics in the Pub talk I did (and it's a great night if you're nearby, please go to it), a guy in the audience, I believe his name is Ben, suggested you could determine the most depressing day of the year (I do rant about it considerably in my talk) by surveying the self-assessed mood levels of a significantly large group of people over a year. This is probably true, but there are several issues with this that mean it would not produce any useful results.

Firstly, you'd need a subject group big enough to provide decent statistical power and a reasonable cross-section of the population in general. Anything less means you'd have to narrow the focus of your investigation, i.e. The happiest day of the year for University students/pensioners/parents/unemployed/men-who-wear-those-really-low-cut-vests-for-some-undoubtedly-alarming-reason. Then you'd need everyone to agree on and use some universal mood ranking self-assessment scheme. It's no use collating all this data if some people rank their happiness on a scale of 1-10, some use percentages of maximum happiness, others go for a 'not at all - moderately - extremely' ranking of happiness. You can't just mash all these different measurements together and derive some sort of consistent conclusion from it, you'd end up making a complete Arnall of yourself!

Also, you'd need to get your subjects to measure their daily happiness levels for a whole year, not just ask them which day was the most/least happy for them. That would be just as reliable as flat out guesswork, which is what it essentially is. So, after all that, if you have a sufficiently large group of people reporting their happiness levels (or whatever) using the same system of measurement for a whole year, you could run the numbers and, quite possibly, you'd end up with one day that scores higher than all the others (or lower, if you're measuring depression). So you could feasibly say that this particular day is the happiest/most depressing of that year. Whether this day's score would deviate significantly from the norm for the year (or month, or quarter, you'd expect some ups-and-downs during holiday periods or bad weather periods etc. so it might be valid to take them into account), I'm unable to say. But given a large enough group of people, I'd say it would be highly unlikely that enough would feel depressed at the same time to make a dent in the measurements to that extent. But I deliberately said the happiest/most depressing day of THAT year, because that's all it would be.

This method would give you a report of how people felt in response to events and circumstances that happened that year. Any other year, it would be fantastically unlikely that the same things would happen in exactly the same manner. And even if they did, people would be somewhat desensitised to them now, so the ratings would still be different. The idea of a basic equation that can effectively predict all the variables that affect the mood of THE ENTIRE POPULATION is so ridiculous and unbelievable that it was bound to end up in the Daily Mail

Overall, I think the Most Depressing day bullshit seems to have got more media traction than the happiest day bullshit because it offers a get-out clause, as it means the media are saying 'you feel depressed? It's not your fault, it's due to factors beyond your control'. Ironically, I'd wager people are cheered up by this notion as it removes responsibility for a depressing situation and possibly offers hope for improvement. Also ironically, the 'happiest day' is quite annoying, it suggests that if you aren't happy then there's something wrong with you. It's like a fun instigator for the whole population, and we know what I think of that sort.

So yeah, the media or bogus scientists can't tell you which day of the year is the happiest/saddest for you, you can only tell them. And if they ask, tell them to mind their damn business. They won't ask though, they'll just hack your phone if they want to find something out.

And to close, some important points on Cliff Arnall, the main man who seems to have initiated this whole best/worst day debacle we have to go through every pissing year.

• Cliff Arnall is often described as a Cardiff University Psychologist. He is not. Cardiff University has a top-ranking psychology school, it's actually a world leader in the field and often ranks in the top of listings concerned with these things. To be a Cardiff University Psychologist you have to be a member of the psychology school, conduct research there and preferably get it published in reputable journals. This is something some people have done (e.g. Myself), but Cliff Arnall has not. He does apparently have a psychology qualification (a very broad term, but will give him the benefit of a doubt there), and he did teach once (for a few months) at the Cardiff Centre for Lifelong Learning, which is essentially evening classes for adults. Nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't mean he's a Cardiff University Psychologist. It's been alleged that the Cardiff University PR department are happy with this state of affairs as it means they get free publicity. Possibly some are, but all the members of the department I know would like to put a bounty on Cliff Arnall's head, so I'm guessing they'd rather he stopped doing this.
  
• Cliff Arnall is apparently not a research psychologist or sociologist as his output would suggest, but a 'life coach'. I'm not a fan of this field. Fair enough if you are, and no doubt there are plenty of life coaches out there who have nothing but good intentions and a desire to help people, but to me it's always seemed a bit self-limiting. The very concept means people in need of a life coach (for whatever reason) are going to end up in a submissive position. They've employed a life coach to begin with, which suggests that they feel they are incapable of making their own decisions, and even if a life coach does everything to boost their confidence and get them back on track, the whole concept can be boiled down to someone vulnerable paying a stranger to tell them what to do in their own daily lives, which is about as personal and invasive as it gets outside of reality TV (not that there's much
  difference). Even if the life coached does end up feeling better, they will always know it was thanks to the interference of a 'superior', a powerful message that they should always obey others and be a good little peon in order to remain happy. Their lives are not really their own, it's external factors that make the difference. Cliff Arnall is a life coach, and he is famous for telling people when they should be happy/sad. Adds up somewhat, now.
  
• Cliff Arnall has 3 children. This was mentioned in the article I read about him, apropos of nothing. I can't see how this fact has any bearing on anything to do with his work, but I'm restating it here in case there's something important I'm missing.
  
• I have never met Cliff Arnall. Odds are he's a perfectly nice guy who's figured out how to make money from a relentlessly shallow and gullible mainstream media. And he's undoubtedly doing a lot better than I am. But his actions have caused me ire and humiliation on several occasions, so I shall continue to lay into him on my own blog until I see a decent reason not to.
  

Lastly, apologies to any regular readers wondering where this blog has gotten do. Had an insanely busy time of it in July. But now I'm fully employed as a Psychiatry tutor, so have a reliable schedule and will hopefully have a lot of interesting brain-related things to talk about in the coming months

Email: humourology (at) live.co.uk

Twitter: @garwboy

On your marks…

My wife is currently doing some exam marking, for the module she lectures in. She's also swearing a lot more than usual. I'm not sure if these two things are related, but it seems likely. Admittedly, marking large volumes of work is quite an annoying process, but one that needs doing. I know, as I've done a lot of marking myself in the past, and may be doing some more very soon if the Medical Psychology students I lectured opt to answer the questions based around my lectures. While I'd be pleased if they did, they may wish not to, as I can be somewhat puritanical when it comes to marking work.

Unlike a lot of my peers, once I got into it, I actually got to quite enjoy marking. Be it essay assignments, exams or practical reports, I got to do it at some point. For those of you who may not know, it's standard practice (in Cardiff University at least, but I'm told it's the norm elsewhere) to get postgraduate students to do a lot of the day to day marking in return for some extra cash or, in these constrained financial times, magic beans, or the opportunity to spend an evening with their family or loved ones who are struggling to remember what they look like these days.

I've never marked anything submitted by School students (G.C.S.E's, A-levels, finger paintings etc.), so my experience is solely in the Higher Education realm, but it's still quite an education to do some marking (excuse the deliberate irony of that statement). It's a bit worrying for some people, when they find out that the assessing of students work in Universities is done like this. Most people see Universities as big places where students go to be taught useful things in exchange for increasingly ridiculous fees, so it's disconcerting to hear that the assessment of the students output, which surely should be of primary importance since a) That is the function of the University, and b) they've saddled themselves with a lifetime of debt in order to pay for the privilege of being assessed, is a task which is handed down the ladder of responsibility until it reaches the bottom rung, namely the postgraduate students who don't have anyone else to dump it onto and are desperate enough for money to actually do it.

It's also weird and alarming to some people how the marks for a group of students are invariably adjusted to fit a predetermined pattern, usually the famous bell-curve, or normal distribution. It's assumed that all students in year will have a normal distribution of marks. In fact, it's assumed to thoroughly that it's actually made to happen every time. Too many students failing suggests the course isn't being taught properly or efficiently. Too many getting high marks suggests the assessment process is too easy, and therefore invalid. These things can risk an institutions funding in the long run, so they don't happen. This may seem a bit harsh. In a year that has an unlikely but still plausible number of driven, intelligent students who all score well on exams, the threshold for outstanding marks is increased so that only a 'normal' number of students achieve this. On the flip side, I know of several people who have final degree scores that even they agree they didn't really earn, because too many people got low marks and the standard for a higher mark was lowered.

But everyone does this, it's prevalent in our society. Even something as widely varying as intelligence is decided by the bell curve. The average intelligence of a population is 100. No more, no less. If 99% of the people in the country suffered blows to the heads tomorrow and lost half their cognitive abilities, the average IQ of the country would still be 100. It would just be a lesser 100 than it was previously. So any so-called scientists claiming that other races have IQ's lower than 100 is talking out of his arse from the off. Saying a country/society/race has an average IQ of less than 100 is like saying the metre there is 80cm long; it doesn't work like that. Although if they say they've marked student papers in that country, I can understand why they might feel like that.

I jest, of course. It's not a bad job, even if it does cut into an already overloaded postgraduate schedule. The lecturers and professors are busy with more important things, such as writing grant applications, shouting at postgraduates, and writing grant applications. But I actually grew to quite enjoy the whole process, to the point where I actually got complaints about my marking at one point. As a neuroscience postgraduate in a Psychology department, I got handed a lot of the marking for all the neuroscience and bioscience students doing psychology modules, of which there was a worryingly large number (worrying, in that I found it out after I'd agreed to do the marking). There were only two of us doing it one year, myself and my office mate. He was a great bloke, but more interested in doing actual research than marking the scribblings of undergraduates (which is unarguably the way it should have been for me too, but there we go). He was also French. Not just regular French, but French to the point of cliché in many ways. E.g. constantly playing the 'Amelie' soundtrack in the office, and having an authentic 'hee-hon hee-hon!' laugh. But more to the point, English wasn't his first language. His English was fine, better than mine in many respects, but when you're trying to read dozens of documents that you don't really care about, written by inexperienced authors using technical terms in a language that isn't your native tongue, I can't imagine your eye for detail is going to be that focussed.

I felt differently. I was a lazy student in my undergraduate years, to the point where if I could meet myself as I was back then I'd not hesitate to give myself a thorough beating to hopefully knock some sense into myself. Causality-violating autobeatings aren't an option though, so I have to do the next best thing; discourage that sort of behaviour in others via the medium of intense scrutiny in marking. This eventually resulted in a complaint being made about me to the course supervisor who, unluckily for them, was my PhD supervisor. Apparently, half the group of students were upset that the marks they were getting from me (overzealous and through) were lower than the others were getting from my office mate (French, busy elsewhere, didn't care). They felt this was unfair. The fact that there was an imbalance between the average marks they received and the ones who got the lower marks felt they were being treated unfairly to the point of officially complaining tells you everything you need to know about your typical British student. I'm not being deliberately patronising, odds are I would have done the exact same in their position. But I was the one who was following the marking scheme, so their objections to getting lower marks had no actual grounding for anyone to do anything about it. I never heard any more of this, presumably the students didn't bring it up again lest the focus turn to why the other group are getting higher marks than would be expected.

So I carried on marking, drunk on the insane power granted to me to directly influence the success of students who mimicked my own actions, in a veritable orgy of self-loathing and megalomania. Long may it continue.

And so, a lighter note to end on. In my experience, a typical piece of work is from an undergraduate student that falls into at least one of several categories. Marking is a long, repetitive and rather boring chore, but I you're keeping score with something that does help to break the monotony. So if you find yourself in the position of assessing students in this manner, make yourself a scorecard and see if you can fill it. Or even better, if you are a student who is writing something that is due to be assessed, check over your work and see if you fall into one of these categories.

THE 'LETTER OF THE LAW' STUDENT:

The LOTL student is not necessarily a bad student, just one who doesn't really have a great deal of this 'application' going on. Typically, a student it equipped with handbooks and notes explaining how essays, practical reports and exams work once they're signed up to a course, and are regularly told important details and requirements for successful writing. The LOTL student will observe all of these requirements but completely fail to show any evidence of appreciating why they're necessary, or what they even mean in some cases. An integral study or report is cited, but after a vague or generalised section which is only peripherally linked to what that study is about. The report sections are all in the right order and format, but don't contain much in the way of useful information. Diagrams are presented in the specific, required manner despite having no bearing on the matter being discussed.

At some point in their education, a LOTL student usually just have an epiphany and 'get it', and become a reliable, decent student. Until then, they can be quite amusing to read. The best LOTL example I got was regarding references. This being a scientific report, it had been repeatedly explained how important proper referencing is. The issue of referencing websites had also been raised, and it was made clear that it's a judgement call, but it's unwise to use anything that's not properly edited or peer-reviewed for accuracy or authenticity. One LOTL student had obviously grasped the importance of the referencing, but not understood the whole thing about reliable sources. His/her references read as follows.

1. [Main Module Textbook]
   
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/somethingslightlyrelevant
   
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/somethinglessrelevant
   
4. http://www.pubquizhelp.com/
   

THE 'BIPOLAR' STUDENT:

Maybe it's a side-effect of too many pro-plus, maybe some students find certain things far more interesting than others, maybe it's just genuine mood swings or varying temperament. Whatever the cause, some students display wildly varying levels of quality and care in a single piece of work. This is baffling, and a little distracting. A beautifully structured introduction section can be a followed by a methods section which is essentially them saying "this iz wot we dunn for the asperiment!" One question answered in an exam paper will be a work of genius, another could be just as worthwhile if written in crayon. It's possible that these students assume that the effort they put into one great section will drag the average up, so the other sections/parts don't need such thorough scrutiny. They're right in some cases, but the disparity itself will work against them. It's a seemingly unavoidable fact that any examiners that markers will always assess a piece of work in comparison to others they've marked recently. A very good section will only serve to underscore how bad the poorer sections are.

This is assuming that the piece isn't actually the work of two separate students, or one with a split personality. If the handwriting changes drastically as well, then it's worth considering these possibilities.

THE 'SUBJECTIVE' STUDENT

Writing at an academic level can be a bit of an adjustment, particularly for the scientific disciplines. You have to refine your style to be as neutral as possible, while including all the relevant information and sources, and you have to do this as accurately as possible. Any conclusions or declarations you make have to be shown to be the carefully thought out result(s) of all the available information, and your argument has to be justified in comparison to the alternatives. Gut feelings, opinions and emotions are not really something you can include. Some students take a while to realise this. This is when you get flashes of feelings and opinions in something that should be more sterile than an OCD sufferer's toothbrush.

I've seen questionable scientific experiments described as 'completely pointless', dubious government decisions described as 'undeniably stupid', ethical principle violators that 'really should have known better', and so on. I've not seen perpetrators of seemingly sadistic psychological experiments referred to as 'psychotic uncaring bastards', but several times I've read papers where I wouldn't be surprised to see it. It's hard, separating yourself and your viewpoint entirely from what you're writing about, but if we don't learn to do that, what would we end up like? Homeopaths, that's what! And there's plenty of them already, no need to further dilute the supply [insert your own inevitable dilution joke here, I can't be bothered any more].

THE 'NON-TERMINOLOGICAL' STUDENT

I imagine this one is more specific to the science fields, and it's quite ironic that 'non-terminological' is not a recognised term for describing students. NT students do seem to understand what's going and what they're supposed to be talking about, but also seem to have a blind spot when it comes to remembering the accepted terminology for scientific or technical measurements. I've seen students that switch from metric to imperial within the same paragraph. Science reports have to be as consistent with their details as possible, and the details have to be accurate. So when I see a practical report which says 'the experiment is over when the subjects face stops dissolving', I tend to get a bit alarmed. It was a visual phenomenon experiment, where the transference of a motion after-effect from one eye to the other was investigated. Once the phenomenon had been induced, the students had to look at the faces of their partners and observe the 'movement', so to speak. At no point was a highly corrosive substance liberally applied to the face of anyone involved. Such a manipulation would have no bearing on investigation of the motion after-effect, even if ethical approval could be obtained. Which is couldn't. So don't even ask.

It's often apparent that NT students know what they're talking about and what they mean to say, but they hamstring themselves by not being able to make this clear in the accepted fashion. You could argue that this is more the fault of a rigid, dogmatic assessment system that values format and style over actual demonstration of knowledge and understanding. You may be right, but I'm not going to get into that here, lest I end up sounding like Patch Adams. As a doctor who also tries to do comedy, that's a constant fear of mine.

THE 'TANGENTIZER' STUDENT

A tangentizer student is, by and large, a good student. Often a very good student. A thorough, thoughtful and dedicated student. They even, horror of horrors, do background reading, sometimes with sources that aren't listed as required reading on the course handouts! They go the extra mile, in other words. Thing is though, they really want you to know that they've gone the extra mile. And more often than not, that mile is a straight line in the wrong direction. Undergraduate students haven't really refined that ability to incorporate several studies into one seamless narrative (no reason why they should have, I still haven't). As a result, a tangentizer student will go to ridiculous lengths to direct the narrative toward the very impressive study they found all by themselves, even when it has little or no bearing on the subject being discussed. It's understandable, you go to ridiculous lengths to discover something nobody else in your group will have found, you're going to want to make sure that it gets noticed and appreciated, right? Otherwise, you'll have put a lot of work and effort into something for no reward whatsoever, and that's not fair, is it? …is it?

Welcome to academia, kid.

THE 'TERRIBLE BLUFFER' STUDENT

You were a good student at A-levels, you know you've got this University lark figured out, but suddenly they're using a lot of unfamiliar terms, these lectures are making no sense and they're making you write things that you've no real idea about. When in doubt, what do you do? That's right; bullshit your way out of it! It's a common tactic, used by everyone at some point, to just sound like you know what you're talking about, try to blend in, and hopefully people will assume you know what you're talking about and leave you be. In group situations or in situations where everyone is doing that all the time (e.g. corporate trading), you can get away with this. However, in situation where your output is being scrutinised by some misanthropic bastard with a grudge (i.e. me) it stand out like a flaming clown on an iceberg, and is just as hilarious.

I'm obviously coming at this from a science background, but I'm sure it's just as ineffective in every field (more or less). When students include big words, complex terms and profound observations to show they understand what they're talking about, they invariably give the opposite effect. It seems that they're under the impression that their work will be assessed by a bored secretary or fellow student who has as much understanding of the subject matter as they do. Desperation, wishful thinking, or some bizarre manifestation of the Dunning-Kruger effect? Do these students think they can get away with this because anyone who assess their work will be, at most, as smart as them? Do they genuinely think their surreal observations will go unnoticed? I imagine it varies between students, but it does occasionally provide an opportunity for a cruel, cynical laugh when you're marking your umpteenth paper in a row. My personal favourite was again the motion after-effect reports. Some TB student decided to end his/her report with the obligatory profound summing-up of all the data by saying the following.

"It is often believed, quite wrongly, that the eye that is open is the one we see with". That's not belief isn't wrong, that statement is. It's not one I would have closed with.

THE 'WHY AM I HERE?' STUDENT

And of course, you get the ones who just don't do the work. They submit something for ever assessment and exam, but you do sort of wonder why they bother. Pretty much always hand-written, which isn't against the rules, but discouraged as a) it's much harder to mark, and your marker becomes resentful, and b) there are invariably dozens of computers and printers available for students to use, if they're willing to leave the house. The latter is often too much for some people though, so we get hastily scribbled reports and essays, which are usually slightly-reworded versions of the core text, or practical experiment reports with barely a paragraph for each section, and a pencil graph for which a half-chewed beer matt served as a ruler.

If you want to go to University and not do the work, fine. It's your money at the end of the day, it's not a mandatory procedure. But why embarrass yourself and infuriate your assessors by doing less than the bare-minimum of work required to even stay on the course. It is, quite literally, a waste of time for all concerned. Some people work hard to get into university and never make it, so if you're not going to take it seriously at all why not work out some sort of exchange programme like in the Prince and the Pauper? I won't have to mark shit work, and you might get a made-for-TV film out of it.

I swear once I got handed in a paper that had cat footprints on it. If it had been used to line a litter box, I'd understand. It was already covered in shit, might as well go for broke.

Email: Humourology (at) live.co.uk

Twitter: @garwboy

How evil is the Pope? An assessment

For those of you who don’t know, the Pope is currently in the UK. Some people in the UK aren’t happy about this. These people seemingly outnumber those who are pleased that he is here, so it’s weird how the latter group ended up with what they wanted. Perhaps it isn’t so surprising though, as those who protested the Iraq war would point out.

But is it fair? Should the Pope be as maligned as he is? In recent months the image of the Pope in general society seems to have crossed a line, going from a sort of ‘corrupt politician/leader’ to ‘fictional super-villain’. Is this fair though?

In a recent on-line discussion, I mentioned the whole ‘protecting child molesters’ thing the Pope does. An angry Catholic then called me a fool for ‘believing what your told and not looking at the facts’. When I regained consciousness after being hit by such a massive blast of hypocrisy, I decided I would address this ‘concern’ in the only way I know how; scientific analysis. So, just how evil is the Pope? Let’s see how he fares on the villain scale.

POWER HUNGRY:

Every major villain seemingly wants power. It’s uncertain to what extent the Pope wants power because he clearly has power. ‘Pope’ is, in the real world, about as powerful a position as it’s possible to occupy. But obviously, he had to work his way up to this position. I’m not sure how this works with regards to the inner-workings of the Catholic church, but it can’t be particularly easy what with there being so many of them, even if you automatically disqualify all the women. To have climbed to the top the ancient and convoluted of the ancient structure that is the Catholic Church must have taken some considerable drive. And although it seems like he’s on top, many devout Catholics believe the selection of the Pope is made via divine influence. If this is the case then the Pope isn’t quite at the very top yet, and if he is truly power hungry we may yet see him try to dethrone God.

However, it could also be argued that someone with a genuine desire for power would use a medium other than religion, which has seen better days in terms of global dominance and has a pretty poor track record of producing doomsday devices. But this is largely a subjective viewpoint, seeing as it could also be argued for those who are Catholic that the Pope has control over their eternal existence, and the closest runner up to this is whoever controls the process for gaining entry into the USA.

POPESCORE = 7/10

APPEARANCE

Super villains are generally rather arrogant. Where it could be argued that a truly smart villain would perform their evil deeds anonymously so no blame or retribution can ever affect them, what’s the point of being powerful if nobody knows who you are? In order to differentiate themselves from your run-of-the-mill criminal or corrupt bureaucrat, super-villains tend to look or dress rather elaborately. Presumably, the fear and respect your image causes and the subsequent ego gratification this provides offsets the risk of standing out from a mile away (or any distance within the range of a standard sniper rifle).

The Pope, as it happens, is one of the most gaudily attired individuals on earth. With a signature (and massive) hat, more flowing robes than the bridal gown industry and a selection of jewellery that would embarrass even the most self-aggrandising princess, the Pope does indeed look ‘unique’. Points are lost, however, for wearing things which most people would regard as rather feminine. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, unless you’re Catholic, which I’m reliably informed the Pope is. Whether or not he shits in the woods too is, as yet, undetermined.

POPESCORE = 8/10

DECEIT

Super villains are quite prolific liars. This would seem a logical necessity, as an honest super villain would be unlikely to get very far. “Hello, I’m evil. Will you give me all your possessions and obey my commands as I pursue my plans for world domination” is an opening conversational gambit that is unlikely to pass unnoticed at the UN. So your typical super-villain presents an acceptable public facade and says the right things while being a right bastard when no-one important is looking.

The Pope, already being a high-profile powerful public figure, seems to not feel the need for layers of deception in his dealings with people. If anything, he’s refreshingly honest about what he believes. He seems to relish in being abrasive by spouting his archaic viewpoints.

The Pope has, however, tried concealing the truth via the covering up of child molesters, and spread outright lies regarding the effectiveness of condoms in preventing AIDS, but these are very straightforward lies/concealment, the sophistication equivalent of a child breaking a vase and hiding the pieces, then denying it to his mother. Just swap ‘vase’ for ‘the mental and physical well-being of hundreds of children and the lives of millions of innocent people in the third world’

POPESCORE = 5/10

HENCHMEN

Every super villain needs trusted henchmen to carry out their evil deeds or help out with controlling the evil empire. One man cannot do it alone; they just don’t have the time. A trusted henchman is a must for any super villain. The Pope, the lucky beggar, has a number of choices available to him when he needs someone to go and be ignorant or affronted by something on his behalf. Most up to date example at time of writing is Cardinal Kasper, the crazy bastard.

The Pope appears to have gone for quantity over quality with his henchmen though. As far as I’ve seen, none of his Cardinals are particularly identified as a ‘right hand man’ sort of individual, and they all seem to be middle-aged to old men; it seems unlikely that the Pope could rely on any of them to give James Bond a good pasting if it came down to it.

POPESCORE = 6/10

MINIONS

Every super villain needs disposable minions in order to exact their will on the masses who may not really want to obey the instructions of a diabolical madman. Minions are needed in order to combat any groups which actively resist the plans of a villain. They means they are likely to take heavy losses if it comes to actual battle, so need to be loyal to their master but inconsequential enough in the scheme of things so that their demise doesn’t really mean anything to the overall plans, hence ‘disposable’. It could be said that the Pope could command the obedience of all practicing Catholics, which would certainly give him the advantage of numbers.

However, and this can’t be stressed enough, the vast majority of Catholics are undoubtedly decent, pleasant, well-meaning people who probably wouldn’t have the fervour to oppress others just because the Pope said so. The Swiss guards might count, but they are apparently loyal to anyone who employs them, and how useful are soldiers from a neutral country anyway?

When it comes to minions, the Pope can probably rely on the priests and missionaries around the world. This is still a decent number, but the Pope loses points for showing concern; a real super villain wouldn’t have covered up the deeds of the child molesters, but would have thrown them to the wolves and watched as they were torn apart, cackling all the while.

POPESCORE = 5/10

LAIR

Every super villain needs a lair, or fortress, or hideaway, or base, or just somewhere where they can make evil plans and hoard their ill-gotten gains out of sight of the prying eyes from the world outside. The Pope has the Vatican, which almost fits this description perfectly. Thousands of years old, so giving it a mystique which helps give gravitas and impress the masses; vast and convoluted, housing the mind-boggling wealth accumulated from thousands of years of spreading the word in a way which is NOT AT ALL LIKE PLUNDERING! It’s architecturally impressive and intimidating, with even a perfect set-up for addressing loyal followers. The Vatican is even a country in its own right, so outside influence is minimised.

The Vatican loses points, however, for location. Whereas most super villain lairs are ‘secret’ lairs, the Pope has his smack bang in the middle of the Capital city of a developed nation, one that is a global tourist hotspot to boot. Plus, he makes no effort to keep people out, the closest thing to guards at the gates of the Vatican are the people selling refreshments or catholic souvenirs, and they surely can’t be trusted to ward off those who want a look around.

POPESCORE = 8/10

MAGIC POWERS

Whereas many super villains are just evil men with sufficient resources, in other cases they’re actually imbued with super/magical powers of their own, with which they can combat similarly powered superheroes who would challenge their evil plans. The Pope’s main powers seem to be based on his influence and control of the resources of the Catholic Church, which is nothing to be sniffed at. However, he also has some powers which enter into the ‘magical’. It is believed that the Pope is the representative of God, so has the power of Papal infallibility, which means the Pope never does or says anything wrong with regards to morality and faith. Catholics apparently believe this, non-Catholics look at the evidence and risk dying of laughter at the ridiculousness of this claim.

The Pope also has the power to abolish (and presumably create) metaphysical concepts such as Limbo. This could be said to be an example of the Pope having the power to create and erase entire universes, or just a mad man changing his mind about something that was never there in the first place. The Pope’s magical powers depend on who you are and what you think, and that’s not very powerful when you think about it.

POPESCORE = 3/10

WEALTH AND INFLUENCE

As previously stated, the Pope’s main powers are based on the resources and influence of the Catholic Church. In a surprise twist, even the most overblown of comic super-villains can’t match the might of the Catholic church when it comes to pointless wealth and undisputed influence over others (unless we’re talking sci-fi or fantasy, where super-villains may have multitudes of planets under their control, but it’s all relative, as the equivalent of the Catholic Church in this situation would have 87 galaxies and solid platinum spaceships at their disposal, for no reason at all).

The Pope is clearly one of the most influential people on Earth, but his influence is limited to those who believe in Catholicism; he’s not really that popular with non-Catholics, for many reasons. His access to Wealth is also formidable, but he appears to be satisfied with using it for ‘bling’, rather than constructing some devastating space-laser. We should be grateful for small mercies, I suppose.

POPESCORE = 9/10

TECHNOLOGY

One way in which super villains gain power and influence is through their use of superior technology to oppress or overcome those opposed to them. As previously stated (again) the Pope gets his power form the Catholic Church, an institution which was only ever really at the forefront of technological developments for a few years in the 14/1500’s, in the field of torture implements. This is to be expected for a body which rewards scientific development or curiosity with imprisonment or ridicule and denial

The Pope’s main concession to technology appears to be the Popemobile which is some sort of armoured car/aquarium cross (shout out to my friend Stuart Vale for that one). This does suggest developments for anyone who needs to regularly transport aggressive fish across reasonable distances.

POPESCORE = 2/10

INTELLIGENCE

In order to get to the top and stay ahead of the game, super-villains tend to be smarter than average, or even super-intelligent. From Lex Luthor style scientific/economic genius, to the practical street-smarts of Proposition Joe to the warped view of morality of the Joker, most super villains have the advantage over others in at least one area of mental ability.

In contrast, the Pope seems like an idiot. And this isn’t some mega-cynical ‘anyone who believes in religion is an idiot’ crack, because that’s simply wrong (and quite hack these days), and clearly the Pope has to have some wits about him to rise to the top of a major and ancient institution like he has, but the Pope seems to have trouble grasping simple issues, e.g. ‘Children = liked, Child Molesters = disliked’, or ‘Sex = popular, AIDS = Unpopular’. It may be a pretence or face-saving act, but when the Pope makes statements or does things that will obviously be offensive to vast numbers of people, he and his cardinals seem genuinely shocked and angry that people get offended. This inability to grasp cause and effect is not particularly encouraging in an assessment of mental ability. But as George W. Bush demonstrated, this proves no barrier to having power over millions these days.

POPESCORE = 3/10

TROUBLED PAST

Most super villains don’t start out that way. If nothing else, it’s very difficult to form world-conquering plans when you’re too young to form memories or digest solids. Many super villains can explain their evil and twisted tendencies with some sort of traumatic or disturbing experiences in their past (e.g. Magneto’s time in a concentration camp).

The most commonly known fact about the Pope’s childhood is that he was in the Hitler Youth, which suggests it is likely that he was the traumatic event in the lives of other people (which is very much still the case, arguably). Many Catholics defend this rather worrying aspect of the young Pope’s life by pointing out that registration in the Hitler youth was compulsory at the time, and that we should not judge the Pope for something that those in authority made him do. This is a fair point, and it’s good to see that this traumatic experience has prevented the Pope from ever using overwhelming authority based on intolerance and nonsensical theories to control the lives of others. . . . . what?

POPESCORE = 5/10

SEXY LADY OPERATIVES

Super villains are overwhelmingly male. This makes sense, seeing as self-aggrandising and dominating behaviour tends to be largely testosterone powered. The people who take them on are, invariably, male also. The whole heroes-villains thing is a very macho area. To take advantage of this, a super villain will sometimes employ a beguiling female to charm their enemies and possibly snap their necks once their guard is (or certain garments are) down. This is a questionable strategy as a particularly noble and charming (and unfeasibly well sculpted) hero can entice the female operative into changing sides, but your typical super villain should always have a sexy woman involved in their operations in some capacity, if only to keep the male minions distracted from what they’re actually doing.

At the risk of sounding alarmingly shallow, the Pope fails massively at this aspect of villainy. It is probably due to the Catholic churches utter contempt for women in general that seriously reduces their options when it comes to employing glamorous agents. If the Pope were in a situation where he needed to have a man seduced (how this would come about, I don’t know) then his only options seem to be send a Nun (some men like a challenge, but even the most sex-addicted male bozo would probably realise he’d have better luck elsewhere) or Ann Widdicombe (as seen above, and about whom you can make your own conclusions)

POPESCORE = 1/10

ENEMIES

A villain isn’t really a villain without someone to test themselves against. If nobody objects to what you’re doing, how is that villainy? Every villain needs a nemesis to defy and scheme against. The Pope is head of the Catholic Church, which over its history has amassed a collection of people and things its fundamentally opposed to which would make even the most rabid sociopath feel embarrassed, and since his appointment the Pope appears to be adding to this list at a frightening rate. Thus far, the Catholic Church appears to have as its enemies; Protestants, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, Greek Orthodox Church, 7^th Day Adventists, Muslims, Hindus, Socialists, Humanists, Atheists, Women, Homosexuals, Journalists, Education, Dan Brown, The British, Liberals, Environmentalists, Darwinism, Amnesty International, the Red Cross, Condoms, contraceptives in general, abortion clinics, ice cream adverts, scientists, secularism and the laws of reality itself.

For sheer belligerence alone, the Pope deserves a round of applause.

POPESCORE = 10/10

FINAL SCORE = 5.54/10

So there you go. The analysis reveals that the Pope can be regarded as a super villain, just not a particularly good one. This is arguably the worst of both worlds, so feel free to mock him all you want.

E-mail: Humourology (at) live.co.uk

Twitter: @garwboy