Don't worry if you fail tomorrow

Believe me, it won't.

There might, of course, be a slight hitch. There might even be a total disaster, complete wipe-out. No matter. They might not get the course they want this time round. Might not get one at all unless they get their act together and do some serious studying. So? They are young, they still have world enough and time. There are plenty of other things they can be doing.

Once upon a time A-levels were just exams, not matters of national debate. There weren't great articles in the paper about them, no ecstatic pictures of people with five As leaping up in the air with excitement, while the one with two Es crept quietly away. There were no helplines, no special supplements in all the broadsheets, no league tables.

But now there's so much fuss that it sometimes seems as if the whole country is crossing their fingers for tomorrow, putting ever more pressure on all those students. Especially those who fail.

Yet, when you think of it, it's daft.

When our children were young we knew we never expected every child to learn to walk on the same day, or to talk at the same time, or to put those little starry, triangle, square shapes in the right holes at the same age, so it seems odd to expect them all to reach their teenage intellectual peak in the same month. Some take longer than others. Some take a lot longer.

Some are just slow or lazy or undisciplined. Others might simply have better things to do.

So let's just ease the pressure off a bit.

For a start, it's not their last chance. These days education is more than ever a pick-and-mix where you can select courses, modules, full-time, part-time, or while at work, this year, next year, or sometime when they finally decide to grow up and get their act together.

Then maybe they just need to chill a bit. If they haven't got the grades they want, and if they have a contingency plan, then fine, go for it. But please don't panic and rush into the first course that will have you, because believe me, it will only end in tears and yet another failure.

There are other ways of learning. And maybe holding down a basic job for a year can be a useful experience too - not least in discovering how more qualifications could get them a more interesting job with more money. Yes, you've told them till you're blue in the face, but they have to find out for themselves.

If you - or they - do well tomorrow, then congratulations, it makes life a lot simpler. A-levels are a very useful means of getting on to the next step.

But that is all they are. There are other steps, other paths and other years. And unlike the grown-ups, teenagers still have time on their side. Enjoy it.

CHRIS Woodhead, Chief Inspector of Schools, (pictured, above right) has attacked vocational degree courses - such as media studies, golf course management or knitwear - as being pointless and not leading directly to employment.

Quite possibly.

On the other hand, I studied one of those traditional subjects he presumably approves of - English - which meant that for three years I lazed around reading a lot of novels, plays and poetry and occasionally bothering my head, very slightly, with such niceties as the Germanic vowel shift. All of which, when I was finally turfed out into the real world, qualified me for absolutely zilch.

Frankly, golf course management sounds a much better bet.

I'M intrigued by the current McDonald's ad showing how long a plumber needs to work to earn a Big Mac. Interesting to know how long a McDonald's employee would have to work.

But then, advert breaks aren't that long, are they?

WHAT spoilsports! Snogging in the back row of the cinema has been banned by the Birmingham Odeon, which reckons some courting couples were going too far. Well yes, they probably did - but what's new?

Back row canoodling is part of our great British heritage. The cover of darkness gave many a young lad the courage to try a tentative arm around the shoulders and to chance his luck from there. If his luck wasn't in, you usually heard a strident female voice saying firmly: "Here, have some popcorn instead..."

Otherwise you got down to action during Pearl and Dean and came up for air at about the same time as Sean Connery was dusting off his cuffs and a few more villains.

My local flea pit was such a staunch supporter that the back row was nearly all double seats. In a prim Welsh town, that was as close to hedonism as we could get.

I am happy to say that through most of my teenage years I went to the cinema nearly every week and I'm not sure I've yet seen a film all the way through.

Maybe one day someone will tell me what Dr Zhivago was all about...

SO Anne Diamond has gone all pudgy again. As one who is permanently pudgy, my first instinct was one of strong sympathy - plus a dash of indignation that she should be photographed in such an unflattering light.

Then I remember that this was the woman who just made a lot of money out of a video wittering on to the rest of us about how easy it was to lose weight.

I looked at her bulges in a new light. And - sorry - I grinned. There is justice after all.

NATALIE Nighting is a stupid, greedy young woman who has betrayed us all.

Four years ago she claimed she was raped by a tramp in Newcastle's Exhibition Park. What's more, she was given a £7,500 payout by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board.

Now it transpires - congratulations Newcastle CID - that she made it all up. There was no tramp. She wasn't raped. Instead she had willing sex with a lad she knew.

And next time those CID officers are called to a rape case, you couldn't blame them if there was niggling little doubt at the back of their heads. Natalie's criminal greed has probably set back the treatment of rape victims by ten years.

She's awaiting sentence at Newcastle Crown Court on charges of wasting police time and obtaining property by deception. The pity is that there's no charge that will cover making life harder for future, genuine rape victims.