Well, I did get an A* on my English GCSE, which is brilliant considering the effort -or lack thereof- that I put into it. (Hint: I read McBeth two days before the coursework was due and on the day of the exam, found out ten minutes before the starting time that it was happening elsewhere).

Doing your English GCSE after your degree is a bit like running up and down your garden after the London Marathon, but still, I was fairly invested in it, since language is something that I love. For a few terrible moments last night I was almost beginning to regret having gone for unusual interpretations of the exam questions (you'd be surprised what you can make of a question as insipid as "Write a letter to a friend advising him/her on better ways to spend their time") and for semi-humourous answers (I did stop short of dedicating the letter to a lovely, fair examiner though).

Anyway, obviously the AQA markers are not quite as humourless as I imagined and the story has a happy ending. Back to the Open University Creative Writing course, where the marking is just a tad more demanding.