Mindless paper pushers are the bain of modern life Don't get me wrong I think studying at Birkbeck is great but mindless paper pushers are the bain of modern life and unfortunatly Birkbeck is not immune . The university has been trying to chase me up for a form that was apparently sent to me by the Examinations office. If I didn't send it back immediately I would not be able to sit my exams in the summer. So what did the form want me to tell them. Two things. Firstly, are these the courses you are meant to be taking? and secondly do you have any special needs?

Perfectly reasonable questions you might think. But think about it again. Why cannot the Examinations office not ask the department which students are taking which courses and subsequent exams. It doesn't take a genius to work it out. As for the special needs section we are about half way through the academic year surely this should have been assessed at the start of the academic year on admission and the rests made available to the Examinations office.

Anyway I had to get this thing posted. So I went to the royal mail sorting office thinking I could purchase a stamp there. "Oh no we don't sell stamps and more. Try Somerfield." Hang on a minute. This is a massive royal mail building. At that very moment there would have been tens of thousands of stamps in the building. Admittedly attached to other peoples envelopes but none the less it doesn't take a genius to work out that a customer offering good money for a stamp should be able to get one in the biggest Royal Mail building for 30 miles. It's not like they have never sold stamps there they used to. So some Grand Marshall of the Order of the Pillock (First Class) had to issue the order that forbade the Royal Mail from selling stamps to its customers. Anyway I trotted of to Somerfield and asked the guy "Can I have a single first class stamp?" The reply came back "Unfortunately not, we only sell them in packs of 12" so I forked out £3.84!  ¶ 1:38 am