Trials (and Tribulations)

Life right now is a tad depressing.

It’s near the end of term, but not near enough. The Christmas spirit is building, but we’re still in November. It’s getting cold, dark and the heady days of September are a distant memory. Stress is rising, patience evaporating and enthusiasm for learning waning. But the real mood killer, the real punch to the guts in this time of despair is one word: trials.

Trials, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, are the school's internal exams that take place at the end of the Michaelmas and Summer halves. They last for a week, with the upcoming ones beginning next Wednesday and continuing till the following Tuesday, and are just a notch down in intensity from public exams.

Having talked to friends at other schools, arranging exams at the end of term is unlike the norm of having them at the beginning. There are pros and cons to each system I guess, but I have to say that despite the pressure of sitting multiple exams on the back of a long and stressful term, I’d rather do them then than have to chew on Christmas cake with revision at the back of my mind.

For most people, revision for Michaelmas trials begins after St Andrews day. Keen beans will start earlier, and lazy bones delay it for a week, but knuckling down after short leave will give you a good fortnight in which to cram.

Where that cramming takes place is a question of taste. About half stay in their rooms, comfortable in their own habitat, while those who find this endeavour too solitary will head elsewhere.

Typically, this is a library and as the main one School Library is always rammed with people at this time. Spare desks can be in short supply as a result, and even if you do find one it’s no guarantee of a decent working environment.

This was my experience at least when I secured a desk earlier this week, only to suffer the mannerisms of the people near me who, if they weren't whispering to each other, were coughing every five seconds, chewing on gum indiscreetly, listening to music that I could overhear or messaging friends to arrange Tudor Stores’ trips. Honestly, it was so off-putting I think a strip club would have been less distracting.

After a while I retreated to my room where I have resolved to stay for the near future, or at least go somewhere that I know will be tranquil (the top floor of the music schools, ironically, isn’t a bad shout).

In their timings and organisation trials follow a military-like precision. A fortnight or so before kick-off a timetable is sent around, detailing the exact time and location of each exam. Everyone is given a candidate number, designed to eliminate bias by examiners, and there are a plethora of rules to be aware of regarding items allowed into the room, what ink you can write with, when you can leave early and so on.

Crazily, once they are all over everyone’s results are returned the very next day, also the last day of term. For those beaks therefore marking exams sat on the Tuesday, this must mean having to work around the clock without sustenance or toilet stops! 

Each exam is graded between 1 and 9, 1 being the highest and 9 the lowest, as well as ranked against everyone else sitting the paper e.g. 120/250. Those who come first in an individual exam are awarded a trials prize.

‘Distinctions’ are bestowed upon the top 35 or so boys who perform best overall in trials, whilst a ‘merit’ is given to the next 40. A merit, it has to be said, is a fairly token award, but a distinction is important because three of them in a row or four in any order qualifies you as an Oppidan Scholar, with the letters OS added to your name, e.g. Bill Jones OS.

As with any kind of exam, getting your results back is always a nerve-wracking experience. F, E and D blockers are obliged to attend ‘reading over’ in the Farrer Theatre, a short ceremony in which the headmaster announces those awarded trials prizes, merits and distinctions. If you’re aiming for one of these then it’s like the Oscars, minus the cringey speeches.

Afterwards, everyone goes to collect their results in full from their tutors, presented in the form of a trials and detailing the marks of each exam on it. This is then brought to your house master, where a pat on the back or a dressing down is in order, depending on your performance. Then it’s home and freedom!

Sitting trials for the first time can be a bit of a shock. It certainly was for me in F block at least. I remember basing my revision strategy around that which I had used for mocks in prep school – do nothing till the night before! Given that I had always considered myself naturally clever until this point, I felt I could get away with it.

However, I was in for a nasty surprise. When I went to pick up my trials card I was shocked to see it littered with high numbers; 4s, 5s, and even a 7. Indeed, in this last exam I had ranked 240 something, perilously close to a fail. Unsurprisingly my house master and tutor were far from impressed and didn't hold back in their criticism of me. 

The seriousness with which the whole thing was treated was unexpected, and to make matters worse it turned out that one’s performance in trials is a legitimate source of one-upmanship. Runty in particular was keen to rub it in, wafting his own superior trials card in front of me when I told him my results.

I was humiliated, but also livid. Not with Runty so much as with myself. I knew I was cleverer than him and most of the people who had teased me, but now I would have to wait a whole 6 months for the chance to redeem myself.

However, they say that patience is a virtue, and come the summer trials I began revision extremely early. This was done discreetly to avoid suspicion, and I spent the hours poring over my notes and essays.

In the end it paid off, brilliantly. When I showed my trials card to other people (feigning nonchalance of course) their jaws dropped in shock. Runty especially was taken aback. 

‘How’d you do that?’ he asked.

‘Victoria spolia’ I replied haughtily.

‘What’s that mean?’ 

‘To the victor the spoils…’ I said, and under my breath, ‘…loser!’

St Andrew's Day

It was St Andrew’s Day this Saturday. As the patron saint of Scotland, this moment in the school calendar is a special occasion for all those on the wrong side of the border, and is celebrated by some by the donning of garish tartan trousers (though thankfully kilts are forbidden).

St Andrew’s Day is basically an open day, where parents come to catch up with their son’s housemaster and take a look at various various events, including a jazz concert, a fencing exhibition and a water polo match. Oh, and yes, the wall game.

The wall game is probably the defining image of Eton to the outside world. The sight of twenty schoolboys, colorfully dressed up and sporting war paint, piled against a crumbling red brick wall with their peers watching on from above is just too irresistible, a symbol of tradition in its purest form, both quixotic and ludicrous.

To an outsider the wall game must look quite fun, but ask anyone who’s witnessed it and they'll tell you it's rather dull. The pace is excruciatingly slow, with the ball often trapped beneath a pile of bodies for ten minutes at a time, like a modern day trench warfare without the blood and guts. Scoring a shy or goal is difficult, the latter in particular being so extraordinarily rare that witnessing one is an ‘I was there!’ moment.

As a result there is a tendency towards draws. This isn’t such bad a thing however, since an easier scoring system would turn the games into one-sided affairs. This is because on one side you have College, the scholars’ house, and on the other side the Oppidans, the collective term for every single other house in the school. Consequently there is an enormous mismatch of resources, with the ratio of boys to choose from roughly 22:1 – a David and Goliath scenario.

This imbalance in numbers does not go lost on the collegers, who nurture an ‘us against the world’ mentality. It’s fair to say they care more deeply about the game than the oppidans, and those of them not playing gather in support behind the ropes, with their opposite numbers perched high on the wall like sinister birds of prey.

To be honest it’s quite surprising that going up on the wall is still allowed in this day and age, what with health and safety and all that. I can say from personal experience that the drop on either side is not inconsiderable, and even the unbeatable view of the action on the one occasion I scaled it couldn't make up for my sudden bout of vertigo .

My talents are far too limited to make the team next year. Besides, my single experience of the wall game back in F block was not exactly a positive one. I was assigned to the position of '1st wall', my role being to crouch over the ball at the base of the wall. It was a bit like being told to dive on the last i-pad in a Boxing Day sale, as everyone else around me jabbed and kicked me. With my head pinned against the wall I also learnt about the exfoliating qualities of brick, useful should I ever run out of Nivea face scrub. 

This year I only managed to catch ten minutes of the action as my mum and dad got caught up with other parents. For the past two years they haven’t attended St Andrew's Day, leaving me the freedom to wander around at will. But this time they turned up and not surprisingly got distracted by the gossip.

I was curious to find out what my (generally blunt) Dad thought about Runty's parents. Disappointingly he found them ‘very personable’, which now the only possibility that Runty’s was brought up by a psycho nanny who fed him wild berries and horse meat.

After glimpsing the wall game we headed over to Mespots for the OE football match. This was far more entertaining and we stayed there until it was time for absence (registration) and short leave.

Whilst in the car on the way home I flicked through the St Andrew’s edition of the Chronicle (the school’s main magazine), and came across a story questioning who I, as this mystery blogger, could be. I knew in advance that something like this was going to appear, but it turned out to be wittier than expected, with speculation that I was Ian ‘Belly of the Beast’ Bone or even Nick Clegg.  

So far I've resisted the temptation to write about this blog (it seems a bit self-indulgent), but the fact is that attempts by my peers to unmask me have as yet been unsuccessful. Most people are nonplussed about the whole thing and don’t even read this, but a few individuals have taken it upon themselves to be High Inquisitors, posting links on Facebook, drawing up shortlists of suspects and whittling these down after interviews and finger poiting. People have even resorted to approaching the IT bunker geeks for information on my internet history.

I can’t deny that all of this has been unsettling, especially since I wasn’t expecting such a strong reaction. But on the whole people have greatly underestimated the planning that I have put into this blog:

Firstly, people think that I would actually include details of my life on here by which I could be identified. There are obviously some elements of the stories which are not taken from my own experiences, but instead have been borrowed from others. When I was in F block my room was on a corridor with several C and D blockers, who frequently entertained me with tales their time in the house, and those of the older boys too when they were in F block. So roughly 5% of the blog is drawn from them, and the rest is all me. 

Secondly, people think I wouldn’t have the foresight to not use the school internet when posting things. This was probably my first concern when the idea came to me, and I have circumvented it by doing everything on 4G. I write the content on my computer, save it as a draft on a non-school email address and then copy and paste it using my phone. In theory the geeks could trawl through every single piece of internet history in the school to check all email drafts, but I doubt they can be bothered and it would also be an invasion of privacy.

Finally, people assume that how one expresses oneself on paper is identical to one’s personality in real life. Often people will have thoughts and ideas which they struggle to express in person, and I am one such example. For this reason especially I have escaped suspicion and should continue to do so.

As a side issue, I have received emails asking me to criticise other boys and beaks. This isn't the purpose of this blog –  it’s a school, not a parliament and I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it (except under pseudonyms), especially if I were to be found out.

Anyway, that's enough for this week. It feels kind of meta to be blogging about a blog, so if I don't turn up next Thursday it's because I’ve been drawn into an Inception-style otherworld where I'm saving America and the fit girl.

                 

Away Matches

Every Saturday Eton is invaded. Not by aliens (thank goodness), though if you’re counting tourists then maybe, but by boys from other schools who come to take us on at rugby, football and a host of other sports.

Their being in the school gives the place a different vibe. Whilst you can wander around comfortably during the week, not caring what you look like or who you might see, things change on a Saturday. Go past the Burning Bush then and there's a good chance you'll bump into a visiting sports teams. If so, it's best not to be wearing your tails, for a barrage of verbal abuse is likely to come your way. 'Penguin!’, ‘posh boy!’ and 't**t' are among the most frequent terms of abuse..

Naturally, any invasions of Eton are reciprocated by us as we go and challenge our opponents on their own turf. This sounds like fun, an exciting step into the unknown, but in truth away matches are a pain in the neck. No-one likes them, mainly because it takes time to get there and back, whereas if you're playing at home you can be changed, showered and ringing for a Dominos before 5 o'clock.

The one upside to away fixtures though is missing last div on Saturday. This depends on the proximity of the school in question, but in general proves to be the case. For any away match ‘formal change’ is worn; that is a shirt, a jacket, tie and trousers of your choice. School uniform is unsurprisingly forbidden.

The journey to an away match is normally quite dull. The views are unspectacular - motorway embankments or suburbia - and the unforgiving nature of the coach seats make buttock cramps inevitable. It's a relief to arrive.

Who sits where on the coach is always a big question. Whilst you might think it was a case of cool people at the back and losers at the front, for sports matches it's different. If there is more than one block on the  bus e.g. the 15 As and the 14 Bs, then the older boys will take the rear seats. However, if all teams are from the same block e.g. 16 As, Bs and Cs then, generally, the better players will sit at the back, with perhaps a few wannabes among them.

I remember back in F block the away journeys being quite lively. There was plenty of ‘banter’ and often pranks played on suspecting victims. Nowadays it's different. The mood is sedate, a result of the ubiquity of smartphones which plug everyone into music or TV. A shame in some ways, but not if you like peace like me.

Another characteristic of the away day is the packed lunch. Provided by Bekynton, the school’s main cafeteria, they are neither handmade nor lovingly prepared. Consisting of a supermarket style sandwich, a packet of crisps, confectionery, fruit and a drink, they are very samey and only just edible.

If you can survive the food and the journey, you will eventually pull into the opposition school. This is always a nervy moment as you get the feeling of trespassing into enemy territory. Everyone stumbles off, does a stretch or two and compares the surroundings negatively to  Eton. If it's a co-ed school a group of girls might walk past, which has everyone fumbling with their quiff and posing like a model with hands on hips.

After a few minutes hanging around, someone arrives to direct you the changing room. Usually this is a pokey outpost miles from the fields, with drab whitewashed walls and a severe lack of clothes pegs, which leads to a scramble for who gets to hang up their jacket. Whilst changing a groundsman will enter to remind you of the ‘no boots indoors’ policy, which if you haven't seen the massive signs plastered everywhere means you can't wear boots indoors. Got that? No boots indoors!

One of the advantages of Eton is its very flat pitches. We get accustomed to playing on surfaces nearing horizontal, which unfortunately makes stepping onto anything with a bit of a slope a massive shock. Many of the schools we play against have nightmare pitches, verging on ski slopes in some cases, which sends us into a frenzy of confusion. Nothing else is talked about in the pre-match huddle, and typically the simplistic strategy of ‘don’t concede this half and we’ll do them in the next!’ is decided upon.

Another potential problem of away games is the ref. This is particularly true of rugby, as each referee has his quirks for the scrum and the break-down. Getting used to these can be tricky, and if the ref isn’t the lenient sort then any loss will definitely be put down to bias. Footballers are quick to complain too however - I’ve had teammates who have conceded penalties yet negated all responsibility, even when they've all but hacked the opposition player in two.

An away match is a bit like playing doubles or quits with your emotions, since they feel twice as strong depending on the result. Winning is an incredible feeling; you've gone and beaten the other team on their home patch. But losing is awful. The whole journey back is left for ‘what ifs?’ and bitter regrets.

As a mediocre footballer I’ve had my ups and downs over the years. On more than one occasion I’ve scored the winning goal in a game and been named man of the match! Moments like these give you a sense of invincibility. You can return to your room with the whole weekend ahead of you, a delicious pizza on the way and a movie to be watched.

On the flipside, being the cause of a defeat is gut-wrenching. I remember one match putting the ball through my own net in the dying seconds, handing the opposition the win. Rather than being an unfortunate mistake it was a straight up howler. That was a long journey home.

People often trot out the cliché of ‘it’s the taking part that counts’ or 'you can only try your best'. I understand the sentiment, but it doesn't help much. A better saying  is ‘you win some you lose some’. For everybody, including the best teams, lose at some point. You just have to make sure it happens as little as possible. Especially when you're playing away.

Reward and Punishment

I got a show-up on Monday. It was my first one for ages so it felt kind of good. A show-up is the school’s equivalent of a merit - a recognition of good work. It's called a show-up because if get one you are obliged to show it to your house master for his approval.

From the school’s point of view show-ups help to maintain the high academic standards. Eton’s GCSE and A Level results are impressive so this isn’t be an easy task, as it's more likely they'll move down than up. Giving everyone an incentive to work hard therefore on every piece of work they do makes it less of a challenge.

Other rewards exist too. A strong performance in a subject over the course of a term might see you commended for good effort, otherwise known as getting a commended card. 

More impressive still is to win a trials prize, awarded to the person who comes top in each subject in the school’s internal exams. Getting one of these is a real feat, especially if you’re up against 250 other boys as is often the case in F and E block.

Most subjects also have additional prizes, often entered voluntarily and similar to an exam. These are generally open to C and B blockers only since they test knowledge not otherwise included in the curriculum. They are funded by grants from old boys, meaning that a lot of money can be earned from winning one, often hundreds of pounds, and their prestige is enhanced by the external examiners who oversee them, typically university professors. The most famous is the Newcastle scholarship, although to win any is a real feather in your cap. 

However, perhaps the most elusive prize of all is the semi-mythical ‘sent up for good’. I say semi-mythical because a sent up for good is so infrequently awarded that only a handful of boys from each year group will ever receive it. Essentially, it is like an über show-up, reserved only for pieces of work that are so exceptional that you question whether the author is mortal or not. The work in question , rather than being shown to the house master, is fast-tracked straight to the head or lower master, where it is retained to be archived in college library.

Looking over all the past sent up for goods must be a fantastic experience, and there are bound to be some famous names among them. Indeed, I wonder if the whole thing is a money-making ruse, designed to anticipate the future rich and famous whose work can then be flogged off once it becomes valuable. In that case Prince William must have been chuffed when every other EW he did was sent up for good.

Incentives work on most boys, but for those whom it doesn’t there are plenty of deterrents.

The least severe of these is a‘sign for information’ or ‘info’. This is a warning that the work in question is of an unacceptable standard and must be brought to the house master's attention. 

The next rung up the ladder of doom is the rip. The rip, in my opinion, is one of Eton’s finest traditions, blending an unashamed academic rigour with a powerful symbolism. It consists, quite literally, of your work being ripped by the beak as a sign of disgust. Back in the day this used to be done in front of the whole class and would be a full-on tear down the middle of the page, but now it’s more of an incision in one of the corners. 

Personally, I find this a shame because if only to wield this power I might consider becoming a teacher myself. The effect of a rip is powerful, or has been every time I've had one. Just looking at that tear in the page is enough to shame you into never making the same mistake again. Which of course proves true for only a month or so, at which point the process is repeated.

After the odd rip or two things start to get serious, and thankfully I have little experience of what happens here. There is something called a white ticket, issued I believe to any serial offender who must have it signed daily by his beaks and house master. If this doesn’t cure the patient then the only remaining option is rustication, and then expulsion.

Anyway, to return to my show-up this week, it felt like being back in F block, when getting one was like winning the lottery and a rip was pretty much the end of the world. As soon as I received it I took it straight to my house master so that he could admire my academic credentials, useful for any positions of leadership (*cough-cough house captain*).

I remember how in my first few weeks of F block I received a show-up that still makes me smile whenever I think about it. It came in a Latin div in which the average ability of the class was way above my own. It was a real struggle at first and to make matters worse I had to sit next to a boy with an annoying, weasel-like face. This individual wouldn’t stop talking about his prep school being Latin-this and Latin-that, as if it had been some nerdy re-enactment of Ancient Rome. Plus, although he was one of the best in the div he would never help me out with things I found difficult, so I began to resent him.

Each week we were given a grammar or vocab test and I completely bombed the first few. The beak warned me that if I didn’t improve quickly he would be giving me a rip. In contrast, Weasel-face was sailing along and bragged about revising for tests only 10 minutes before the div.

Fourth week came and we were given our vocab test as usual, and this time I decided that I would really nail it, no matter how long it took to learn the words. As a result, I spent the best part of Sunday afternoon shovelling some of the most obscure vocab I had come across into my unreceptive brain. 

Indeed, the words were so difficult that as we waited outside the classroom before the test there was a flurry of protests, from Weasel-face in particular. As the tests were handed out, I saw that with a bit of luck I would get a high mark. Weasel-face on the other hand was struggling, fiddling with his pen and glancing over at my paper. To counter this, I very deliberately curled my left arm around my sheet and smiled at him smugly.

After handing it in I looked forward to the next div all week. It didn’t disappoint. As we walked in the beak was stood stiffly at his desk with a terse look on his face. Once seated, he then launched into a diatribe against us, telling us that we were a disgrace, that we weren’t at prep school anymore and that if we wanted to stay at the school we would have to change our attitudes.

I felt like he was talking to me but at the end he said, ‘The only one, the only one amongst you to put in a half-decent effort was Eton Boy, and for that I have given him a show-up. But to the rest of you - if I don’t see a marked improvement in your tests next week you’ll be going straight to the lower master!’. 

As twenty pairs of eyes fixed jealously on me I turned a deep shade of red. But inside, I felt like a champion.

The only question now was how badly Weasel-face had done. Our tests were the last to be handed back, and as the beak passed me my show-up I looked instinctively over at Weasel-face’s sheet. There, unmistakably, was a large rip running across the top of the page!

Sometimes in life it seems that no words are necessary, and this was one of those occasions. As I held my show-up in front of me I couldn’t help but smile, and like a king weary after a victorious campaign, I leaned back in my chair and surveyed the conquered land.