"Mary, " "Ah yes, I am so sorry erm." Shit! What did she say? What did she say? No . . . not already! Not again!

Study is a no-go area. If I know I am going to be tested on something the information will, quite literally, go straight through me. At school I was branded thick and left before sitting any exams. In my late teens I sat an evening class in A Level English as some attempt to redeem myself and failed it will a capital 'F'. Within a year of failing it I had my first article printed and I am about to have my seventh book published so I can't be that bad at English.

I remember the afternoon I got the result I was devastated, and sat down and read one of the Keats poems I had been tested on, 'Ode to a Nightingale'. In the privacy of my bedroom, with no exam in front of me, I thought it was rather nice so I learned it by heart to prove to myself I could . . . and can still, at a push, recite it at parties.

Which is the key. If I am interested and motivated I will learn. If I'm not . . . I can't. I'm an extreme version of that basic rule of teaching. I either embrace or reject information absolutely, and if I am put under pressure by some outside force . . .basically a 'learning environment' . . . it's gone.

For this reason I am in awe of academics. I perceive that highly educated people hold in their brains a huge amount more information than me and that makes them a bit scary.

Although, the years have taught me, it is rarely more information, just a different kind of information. For instance John Cooney (director of the Humbert School) knows the name of every pope dating back to goodness knows when (perhaps I'll test him). But could he name 20 Big Brother contestants? And which type of information is, in fact, more useful to one in a multimedia world where a five-year-old can master a Nintendo DS and latin is obselete? In fairness to John he is not a pompous, snobbish old git . . . as are some of the esteemed academics I have met over the years. We may think it a shame young people today are only interested in computer games and boob-jobs but I, for one, am delighted snooty, hairy clevers who have . . . on the occasions I have encountered them . . . tortured my adult life with ancient Greek references and jokes in Irish now have influence that is so remote it is almost obsolete. On reflection, the biggest disadvantage to being formally under-educated has not been in how much I have managed to achieve without it, but rather a lack of confidence in myself.

Think of that now that those leaving results have come in and be kind to the under-achievers.

They might surprise you yet.