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My third was due to not going to any lectures or tutorials after October of fourth year. (Due partly to undiagnosed panic attack type things I got in lectures, but partly to sheer laziness.)
Missed an exam, too, due to not knowing about its existence. Probably due to not going to any of aforesaid lectures. Phoned up about it and they said "Oh, ok, we'll just average you out of 13 exams instead of 14." And they wonder why people think standards are dropping...
We used to call a third a Douglas Hurd (he's not very well known now - I imagine "Thora Hird" might be more current), and a first a Geoff (Hurst). Can't remember what a 2i was, which is miffing 'cos that's what I got too.
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"Whisky-wa-wa," I breathed - she was dressed as Biffo the Bear.
That's not what a "Douglas Hurd" was a euphemism for in my time!
2i's could be "spectacles" I suppose? Or "contacts" (I'm keeping vaguely on topic there since it appears in the questionnaires! Whoo-hoo!)
There was a coffee shop in, I think, New York where folksingers performed in the 60s called the 2i's (a worthless piece of info which, you never know, might come in handy someday)
Sadly the closest I ever got to a degree was a temperature :(
My 'third' was due to initial overconfidence, changing courses after the first year (because staying in Biochemistry required passing a Maths unit that was heavy on Calculus, but transferring to Zoology didn't), and spending too much of the time roleplaying rather than doing extra studying. Not much alcohol involved...
Yes, Douglas Hurd was Mr Whippy-hair. Wasn't aware of the alternative Cockernee rhyming slang meaning (round my way, we prefer the euphemism "Brad Pitt"), but I suppose I should have guessed. See also "J Arthur Rank" = bank/something else ending in "-ank".
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"Whisky-wa-wa," I breathed - she was dressed as Biffo the Bear.
I once met someone who informed me that the proper collective noun for bankers was a "wunch". I don't normally like off-colour humour, but this one was kind of clever... :-D
That's fabulous! Reminds me of the time someone referred to the (British former MP) Kenneth Clarke as a "shining wit" to which someone hissed, "that's a spoonerism..."
My university career was a little haphazard too. I did a joint honours degree (stop sniggering at the back !), which meant my studies kind of fell between two separate departments. I didn't realize that anthropology had been a compulsory part of my second year Archaeologystudies until I saw my name on the exam list, two weeks beforehand. With the help of a friend's reading list and some past papers, I managed to pass the paper successfully, and got a decent grade without anyone apparently noticing that I hadn't shown up for a single lecture or seminar, and hadn't written any essays.
I did even better in my third year. I got the day and the date of my Agricultural Communities exam muddled, and thought I was sitting it on the Saturday - uncommon but not unknown. I got back from an afternoon's shopping on the Friday, and found someone from my course waiting for me at home to tell me that I'd missed the exam. I contacted one the tutor's the next day. told them honestly that I hadn't seen anyone from the course since the exam, except Stella (which they knew about), and was allowed to sit it the following Monday. I sat the exam on my own, in a lecturer's office, surrounded by the relevent text books, and was brought a cup of coffee halfway through. It was rather civilzed; I wasn't even being watched by anyone ! I got a reasonable mark on that exam too, which pleased me as it was a subject I hated and had never managed to revise for more than 20 minutes at a time.
Sirius _
Re books... 'Monstrous Regiment' and 'Paladin of Souls'?!? Have they actually been published already, wherever you are, or did you manage to get proof copies?