(Bit more) I work in an SFC & held down students' results knowing it could invite criticism, but I & my college refused to inflate. I remain very grateful to LG's Newsnight piece on the topic, which was literally the one time my integrity was acknowledged in the media. Thanks LG. I'm still grateful.

It's particularly instructive to learn there was disapproval of LG's much-needed pieces on the COVID exams crisis, about the jamboree of A level grade inflation that fee-paying schools enjoyed while the state sector - in particular the sixth form college sector - kept a relatively steady course.

A-Level English Literature requires students to analyse Shakespeare and other authors from various centuries, including novels, poems and plays, as well as a bit of literary criticism, in essays of between 1000 and 3000 words, depending on the task. There are two exams and there's coursework too.

Man, I've taught English A-Level for twenty years and many of my students struggle to meet the standard. The subject is declining in popularity largely because 95% of sixth-form students know very well that their composition skills are well below the necessary standard.

Business may be taxed too much, but what about extreme wealth? Easy to confuse productive with unproductive money. The real q is whether any wealth hoard is being fruitfully invested in expanding the economy or simply piled into already-inflated asset markets for a safe marginal return.

Yeah, there's a suspicion of urban & modern life in Lynch that may have some truth to it and is certainly imbued with unfaked decency but leans towards the right politically. He's very rarely interested in educated people, for example. It's a "volkish" world he wanted to live in, I think.

Really well put: "he knows he's fucked up and broken". Absolutely.

Yes, I can't imagine finding Mike Judge a congenial dining companion.

Does Oleanna belong to his good or bad period? It seems to me solidly reactionary right wing, so it opposes most of my students who are mostly leftish. I tell them (and I think they generally agree) that it's crucial to test your views against thoughtful opposition. Some amazing work has resulted.

I agree re Picasso. It reminds me of Atwood's description of a visit to a gynaecologist in The Handmaid's Tale ch 11. ("He deals with a torso only.")

My answer is WB Yeats, a moderate Irish nationalist with English Conservative (we Brits say "Tory") sympathies. A Burkean lover of institutions & traditions, he flirted with fascism in the 30s but was disgusted by violent Irish republicanism. He also believed in fairies & cosmic gyres (don't ask).