London Road

It's not something I'm supposed to advertise but as long as you lot promise not to share this, here goes.

As a leading authority in Cigs, I'm part of the examining board that sets the Cigs curriculum, sets out the syllabus and writes the questions etc for the various exams at school and higher education levels. 

So when the Scottish Government announced there would no Nat5 exams in May 21, it was a blessed relief. No 6 weeks next June spent marking drivel on why Cigs Sucks Youts Boaby (after said legend appeared on  Calton Road in 2016). But instead of the examination, Nat5 candidates will instead be assessed on their coursework. And the examination board have been asked to assist with  assessing some of the submissions.

The latest batch arrived yesteday. Oh. My. Goodness. How standards have fallen. I know there was a considerable kerfuffle with the regradings in the summer, but to me it was clear that students are not grasping the most basic concepts. I'm not sure if its the teachers not having enough time,  or that the students are distracted by the pandemic but ...geez.  Algorithms do not hide the fact that the current crop of young people learning have no clue.

The blip was one submission from a students field work, citing this example of Cigs  they found at Meadowbank as an important new development in his hand style. Whilst the s is trade mark, the student pointed to the C as 'a bold new departure from the cyrillic alphabet into a more modern Sans Serif typography '

I nearly wept with despair. They continued  that 'the bravery of the artist is to be commended with such a radical shift from a widely recognised brand into a total overhaul of an iconic Edinburgh institution.'

You'll be pleased to know I submitted this to Private Eye for consideration in Psueds Corner.

Alias is not a Cigs alias.  MrSmith is deeply repentant.