June 13th 1973

“Maths Second Paper 9:00am – Quite hard but easier than mock”
Do I detect a certain cocky confidence here?
This isn’t going to end well, is it?

June 12th 1973

“Masses of Maths done for O-Level tomorrow”
A-ha! – so that’s why I did no revision yesterday then… I planned to do it all – “masses” in fact – today!
This kind of diary entry really doesn’t lend itself very well to commenting upon does it? Even by minutiae standards this is pretty minute. If you can [...]

June 11th 1973

“Not much done in the way of revision”
Nice to note that I am taking my upcoming examinations seriously isn’t it?

June 7th 1973

“Bog broke at school. Melody Maker news – ELP split from Island, now on Manticore/WEA. Magninimous amount of revision achieved”
Who broke the bog?  Did I break the bog? Did the school only have one bog? All these questions and more are answered in the special blu-ray “director’s cut” of this blog, available from Amazon and other [...]

January 18th 1973

“Found out that I had passed mock by the jammy margin of ½% – PHEW!” / “games – didn’t score but set up 3″ / “Larst Monty Python – Funny – Charwoman – BOOM!”
Blimey! Talk about “skin of my teeth” result regarding my maths exam.
Thank heavens I was – *ahem* – a much better football [...]

January 17th 1973

“No maths results yet” / “Only free days to go until I buy Moving Waves – Focus” / “More copying up” / “Asked Rob if I could borrow two Deep Purple cassettes of his”
I was obviously ’sweating’ on my maths results….. *gulp!*
I love that I am anticipating my purchase of the Focus album. I often [...]

January 16th 1973

“2nd Maths Mock o’level – BLOODY hard” / “After two weeks of solid revision, had to do piles of copying up” / “Got Quid for Focus ticket” / “Got Tarkus tape back from Precision”
A diary entry that has made me both remember AND forget things in equal quantities.
Firstly, conveniently forgetting that my Maths mock was [...]

January 15th 1973

“Found out that I’d got 26/60 right in multiple choice. Calculated that this was 48.3 recurring %”
Do you detect a certain element of irony in today’s diary entry regarding the results of my mock Maths O-Level?
Bloody smart-arse

January 10th 1973

“1st Maths Mock O’level – multiple guess choice – VERY HARD!” / “Decided to buy Moving Waves by Focus by selling ticket” / “I think I have got the flu – have got very bad frote”
Ah, that was why I was doing all that swotting!
I think I have already said that I had been chosen as [...]

January 9th 1973

“Hard amount of revision on maths done (phew!)” / “History book saga is still continuing” / “Found out that Focus concert don’t end until 1 o’clock – gonna flog ticket”
Q: What the difference between a boy of 15 and a man of 50 regarding not wanting to stay out at a rock concert until 1a.m.
A: [...]

The 1973 Diary (II)

This shows how hard I worked as a 15-year-old schoolkid!
Here’s my school timetable, at least (presumably) for January – July 1973. (The diary makes no reference to a timetable from Sept 1973 onwards… maybe it was the same schedule?)
I had Economics (as in ‘world financials’, not ‘home economics’ and all that cookery nonsense) to kick [...]