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Had a very enjoyable morning meeting up with Jordan Gray for her fun podcast Transplaining. Co-host Rich Wilson was delayed on a train so we went to a nearby Indian restaurant for brunch whilst we waited. Some spicy eggs and strong coffee was an excellent start to the day. If I eat hot food too late in the day it now disturbs my sleep, so maybe I should start having curry for breakfast as this worked fine. I don’t do too much socially any more, certainly with anyone who isn’t in my immediate family, so it was refreshing to be out with a couple of people who I didn’t know (Jordan and her producer) and whose sick I had never had to clear up (not yet anyway).
It was a very enjoyable podcast, though Jordan asked me if being clever meant that my life was lonely. I don’t really think of myself as very clever and if I am lonely it’s for other reasons than being burdened by my intellect. I did well at school and my brain still mainly works, though doesn’t retain information in the spookily efficient way it used to and I have spent so long pretending to be stupid, that I think I might have actually become stupid (and I wonder if I got into being funny because I knew that being clever would make you a pariah amongst school kids, so acting stupid was a way to not seem detached).
Pretty much all comedians are smart, even if they didn’t necessarily get on with school. There has to be some degree of the understanding of the human condition and knowledge of a a wide range of subjects in order to be able to do the job.
On the drive home I thought about how much I liked school and how I did well there. I really wanted to learn and liked knowing stuff and on a couple of occasions got so into studying that I progressed way beyond my pay grade in certain subjects. Interestingly (or maybe boringly, you decide) both notable occasions came about because there was a series of books or cards that you could, if you chose, work your way through. In Middle School there were maths cards that took you through a range of mathematical subjects. These progression appealed to me and I would work hard in class and at home and got way ahead of everyone else in the class and beyond anything we needed to know at the age of 9 or 10. It was sort of swotty, certainly nerdy, but I liked the challenge, of pushing myself and trying to complete maths (I took it as far as Further Pure Maths A level, though sadly all the knowledge I gained at school is now lost to me). I think it was also partly down to liking my teacher Mr Aze, who was funny and keen and maybe I wanted to impress him.
At Upper School, pre-O level I got similarly obsessed with Latin, which unbelievably our comprehensive school still taught (though not for much longer). It was taught by my favourite ever teacher, Mr Moore, who was calm and laid back, but extremely funny. He had white hair and I think I imagined he was in his 60s, but he was still alive last time I checked so might well have still been in his 40s at the time. We worked our way through the Cambridge Latin course featuring Caecillius in class (and this is no doubt where my fascination with Pompeii began) and I loved it so much that I devoured the higher level books too, working my way from the orange set to (I think) the blue and maybe beyond that. I think by the end of that year I might even have made it to the A level texts, but was certainly well into what I’d need for Latin O level. I got 99% on my end of year exam and the 1% was taken off because I had used the wrong form of there/their in one of my translations. I loved Mr Moore and I loved Latin. My friends did too and many of them took Latin O level and A level.
But when it came to O level choices I couldn’t make Latin fit in with my other selections. At the time I thought I was going to study Maths at University and so my choices were more scientific and I think because I did Music as my arty subject I wasn’t able to fit Latin in.
I remember my mum thinking that was a shame given how much I loved the subject and had worked at it. But nothing could be done.
In hindsight it would have been much more useful for me to do Latin than whatever I chose that meant I couldn’t. I ended up studying History and would have been able to translate documents and take different courses at University. Also I’ve ended up working with words and it would have been helpful to know more about their origins. It really struck me today how crazy it was that I couldn’t do a subject I loved so much, and how different things might have been for me if I’d made different choices at 13. And I suddenly felt quite annoyed about it. It wasn’t particularly anyone’s fault and there’s a little bit of hindsight in there. But how the Hell did no one say - this guy can probably already pass the O level and is very engaged in this subject - let’s make this work. I wish I’d just done the Latin in my spare time. Tragically it wasn’t until I was halfway through my first A level term that I realised I didn’t want to study maths at Uni or do Physics A level and made a bold (and again life-changing) switch from Physics to English. I had to catch up on a lot of Keats on my own. But it paid off. I don’t think I would have got to Oxford studying maths.
Sure I was an odd swotty kid, though I suppose that dogged persistence has served me well in my chosen career - I’ve always been prepared to put in extra work, even if it’s for something that I am doing just for pleasure, even if most people would look at it and think how is Latin (or stone clearing) fun?
I bought the Latin course in a recent reprint and there’s a part of me that would like to get back into it, but I think it may be too late for my fading brain. And it turns out that the people who spoke Latin died out about 1500 years ago, so it’s not even any use for holidays now.
