2 1GT Monday October 26 2020 | the times

times

T

he failure of world

leaders who have

access to the levers

of power to initiate

substantial action on

climate change. That

is, apparently, what

keeps Prince William

awake at night. In a recent interview,

the Duke of Cambridge said that, as a

person in a position of responsibility,

he felt “most troubled” by the inertia

he witnesses in the higher echelons of

power. Hence the sleepless nights.

Me? I’ll see your altruistic fears

about the end of all humanity and I’ll

raise you a hefty dose of self-obsessed

hypochondria. Because that’s

what mostly keeps me

awake. Fear of my

imminent demise.

These days it’s

usually heart

attacks. I seem

to know of a

suspiciously

substantial

quantity of men

who, in their mid

to late forties

(me!), have suddenly

died of heart attacks.

And so, naturally, I lie

there in the dark, staring at

the ceiling, listening to my pulse

banging away in my ears, digging my

fingers deep into my carotid artery

and waiting for the big one to strike

while a myriad of bizarre questions

tumble through my wide-awake brain.

Will it be painful? How long will it

last? Will there be total silence after it?

Will I wet the bed? Will I float above

it, staring down at myself and my

fading life, filled with regrets? Why

didn’t I finish that last novel? That

book deal was rubbish. And I can’t

believe they backed out of the movie

adaptation too. What did they mean

by: “Nobody wants to see a film about

a middle-class white guy who moans

a lot!” That is literally the history of

western literature right there. God,

life is so unfair!

There’s also cancer, obviously.

Testicular, especially. There are so

many sombre men’s awareness

campaigns, terrifying media reports

and highly publicised “genital

self-exam” segments on morning

television that the spectre of testicular

cancer now resides deep within my

Kevin Maher

My bad

genes. It

all adds up

Finally, I’m off the

hook. It’s not my

fault. Scientists have

discovered that a

particular gene, called

ROBO1, is responsible

for our ability with

numbers and for

producing the grey

matter in the part

of the brain that

comprehends

quantities. And if

ROBO1 doesn’t give

you enough number-

friendly matter you

become, hey presto,

a maths dummy.

Which makes so

much sense to me.

As a child I was an

“A” student in every

subject, top of the

class, head boy.

Then, sometime about

13 or 14, I stopped

understanding maths

and had to drop down

into the “lower” class.

I’d meet my egghead

buddies in the school

corridor as they were

heading gaily into their

“higher” class, and

I’d just squirm with

embarrassment.

And when finally

back together in

science class, in

conversation, they’d

cruelly refer to lower

maths as “spa maths”

before suddenly

remembering that I was

also now, you know,

one of them! If only I

knew then... I would’ve

told them that it wasn’t

me, it was my genes.

Blame ROBO1!

It’s a dark

day for the

black stuff

was kombucha. But

now their obsession

with producing noxious

beverages has gone one

step too far — they’ve

precipitated the

removal of alcohol

from Guinness!

Yep, to crack the

rising £3.4 billion youth

market in booze-free

drinks, Guinness is

today launching its

new 0 per cent alcohol

stout, aka Guinness

0.0, aka that same

Guinness taste with

none of the fun.

As a regular

Guinness drinker, and

someone who has taken

at least 20 years to

finally, fully embrace

the brand’s “unique”

flavour of old socks

mixed with burnt

cheese, all I can say

is: good luck with

that kids! The whole

point of Guinness

is that the booze

neutralises the taste.

Without it? Sláinte!

Health-conscious

millennials. First they

gave us kefir. Then it

subconscious and only emerges in the

bleak sleepless bedroom hours.

I’ve spent entire nights lathered in

anxious sweat while gingerly prodding

my way around the crown jewels (no,

William, the other ones), asking

myself: “Is that it? Is that a lump? No,

that’s a lump. That’s definitely a lump.

No, that’s a lump!” Somewhere about

6am, as the curtains begin to lighten,

I usually drift off, T-shirt sodden, legs

apart, hand still clinging desperately to

my, well, distress.

Money too is another sleep killer.

I’m in the middle of a house move,

and you wouldn’t believe the amount

of anarchic internal havoc that your

mind can wreak at 3am while

you’re juggling the

likelihood of the buyer’s

chain collapsing

(already happened

twice), the cost of

the interim house

rental, the van

hire, the storage

unit, the last-

minute repairs (to

nullify any survey

claims), and the

ever-widening

mortgage gap between

the two properties. That

can usually get you straight

through till breakfast.

And then there’s work. The little

details that niggle away and nag at

me, like a review that I didn’t quite

nail, or, as happened recently, the

actress I interviewed whose nervous

LA publicist, before disappearing

completely for the weekend, sent an

urgent email requiring a serious

discussion about “something” that had

“occurred” during the course of my

conversation with his client.

I couldn’t imagine what it was. Had

I broken the rules? Did my question

about her love life push her over the

edge? Was I going to be sued?

Cancelled? Or worse? That’ll be no

sleep for me, thank you very much. It

transpired, eventually, that during the

interview his client had mentioned

wearing a large prosthetic penis for

a scene in her new movie, and he

didn’t want me to focus on that in

print. And, of course, I’ll comply.

Won’t refer to it ever again.

So, yes, large prosthetic penises.

That’s what keeps me awake at night.

Beat that, Wills.

A big thing is keeping me

awake at night, Wills, but

it’s not climate change

T

hroughout tis year,

my 13-year-old learnt

next to nothing.

Over lockdown his

comprehensive

provided no live-

streamed tuition since

apparently this would

cause safeguarding issues. There was

no recorded teaching either — even

my gym managed that. There was just

a barrage of homework with a maze

of links that sometimes worked and

suggestions such as “build a drum kit

using things you have in the house”.

Work was set across a range of

platforms and my 15-year-old suffered

a panic attack on realising he’d missed

a month of physics.

When I tell my husband about the

launch of an online private school that

costs a relatively reasonable but still

chunky €7,000 — or £6,341 a year —

he says instantly, “Could we do that?”

Further inquiry reveals this to be the

price of taking five GCSEs or two

A levels at King’s College Online

(no relation to King’s College School

in Wimbledon, or King’s College

London), which will serve years 10 to

13 in the UK. So a child might take five

GCSEs in year 10, and another four (at

an additional cost of €1,500 — £1,

— per subject) in year 11, making the

total cost of nine GCSEs over two

years £11,813. Four A levels could be

completed over two years at a total

cost of £12,680.

Meanwhile, even a no-frills private

school in the suburbs costs over

£21,000 a year. The online private

school — wisely non-selective — has

been developed by Inspired, a co-ed

independent school group that already

educates more than 50,000 children

on about 60 (physical) campuses

worldwide, including Fulham School

in London and Reddam House

Berkshire in Wokingham.

From Wednesday students in China

and New Zealand can register for live-

streamed courses that start next

January. (The initial focus is Asia

because teachers for this “soft launch”

are based in New Zealand.) However,

courses will be available to students

in Britain and Europe from next

September. I’m so despairing about the

provision of my sons’ school over

lockdown, I tell Nadim Nsouli, the

chief executive officer of Inspired,

I had taken an interest in King’s

College Online before I was asked

to write about it.

“My view is that the pandemic

has exposed a lot of the failings of

schools,” Nsouli says. And not only

in the state sector or the UK. “We

operate in over 20 countries, and in

some, such as those in Latin America

and Africa, the learning these children

are getting is only one hour of

broadcasted lesson per day.” Pfft. We

should be so lucky.

One hardly need ask why now, but

Nsouli says that when the pandemic

struck, its school in Vietnam was the

first to shut down. “We were able to

go live very quickly. We made sure to

have as close to a normal timetable as

possible with live full-day synchronous

learning from the teachers as if you’re

in class. What we didn’t want to do is

upload homework and have parents

deal with it.”

Not dumping their job on parents

proved successful, and they shared

what they had learnt about online

education with their schools around

the globe — from safeguarding, to

what was helpful for younger children,

to how heads might best communicate

with staff.

When Inspired’s ten schools in Italy

closed, lessons were live-streaming

within 24 hours. Nsouli says, “As we

were doing it, we thought it would be

crazy to waste all this intellectual

property that we’re developing.”

Well, quite.

Parents I know are compensating

for inadequate teaching by forking out

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The private

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costs £6,

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it’s all online)

Teachers on email, streamed lessons.

Would you send your teenager to the

world’s first digital school for their

GCSEs and A levels? By Anna Maxted