At a store near you...

I thought updating your blog three times a day and punching in a new status message on Facebook before the ink even dries on the old one, had there been ink to dry, was the ultimate egotistical exercise. Who’d want to hear about your lame life when I’ve got my own to gripe about?

But taking narcissism to a whole new level of grandiosity is the phenomenon of The Book, where every academic worth his half-a-dozen degrees thinks he’s doing a great literary service by compiling a lifetime’s worth of lectures, during which time actually stopped, into a book. His mother has bought a few copies to display on the table by his graduation photos and to hand out as Christmas gifts, and his colleague has picked up a couple to burn; the rest are stocked in dusty corners of university libraries until someone decides it’s time it went on the essential reading list for his hapless students.

It’s another example of an education system gone mad. When I write my book, a whole chapter shall be devoted to just exactly what I think of this.