Peter Rhodes: University costs spiral but students still the same

AFTER Tuesday's item on the Royal Marine convicted of murdering a Taliban fighter, a story from the Second World War. A reader recalls a friend who fought in Burma with the immortal Chindits. He came upon a wounded Japanese soldier who immediately threw a grenade. It failed to explode. The Chindit fixed his bayonet to his rifle and stabbed the Japanese soldier to death. My reader asks: "What would you have done under the circumstances?" A more relevant question is: "How would a modern military court judge such an action?" I suspect the answer, as with the killing in Afghanistan, would be a verdict of murder. As one of the many online commentators puts it, in the words of the author L. P. Hartley: "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."

A GROUP of ukulele players were amusing the residents at our local home for the elderly. Just as they launched into George Formby's immortal When I'm Cleaning Windows, a sponge on a stick appeared at the window, followed by two window cleaners. Entertainment - it's all about timing.

IT OCCURS to me there is no collective noun for these musicians. A pluck of ukulele players?

EDUKASHUN corner. A reader reports the latest baked-beans offer at his local supermarket: two tins for £1 or a pack of four tins for £2.50.

BUT then are we Brits much interested in education? You might assume that with students now having to pay £9,000 a year in tuition fees, our universities would be full of bright, eager young folk clamouring to get their money's worth. Maybe not. An economics professor told me how some freshers arrived so ill-equipped for their courses that the uni had to arrange remedial maths lessons. Another lecturer tells how in his class of 25 students, none had read the first novel on the course. Yet another tweets forlornly: "A literature student told me she didn't like reading." But at least those kids actually attended lessons. Today, if the blogosphere is any guide, non-attendance is getting worse with academics reporting dismal turnouts for lectures, seminars and other events. One admits he and his colleagues are in despair and seriously suggests awarding marks for attendance. A couple of years ago Brighton University examined international concern about student absenteeism and produced a report on "Why a significant number of students seem to have difficulty in engaging fully with their studies in order to become critical and autonomous learners."

PERHAPS they need look no further than the popular Student Room website where, in a large section devoted to excuses for not attending lectures, one youngster declares: "I want sleep. Lecture notes are online and walking up the stupidly steep and long hill to campus is a lot of effort." I bet he got a first.

ULTIMATELY, colleges can chuck out non-attenders, just as the legendary Rev. William Archibald Spooner, did 100 years ago. Famous for getting his words mixed up, Spooner dismissed an Oxford student with: "You have hissed all my mystery lectures."

A COUPLE of weeks after our nearest butcher announced he was closing, our local car-sales company is moving, too, and life becomes a little less rich. The simple pleasure of walking around a dozen old bangers, kicking the tyres and inhaling sharply at the claimed mileage is no more. The nice little runners have run.

I WROTE a few days ago about Arthur Wynne who invented the crossword puzzle 100 years ago. My thanks to all of you who have written to let me know his plot in the cemetery is 4 across and 6 down.