Iains, I would hardly call anything you've said do far as "taking me to task." Of course, teachers are easy meat for the ill-educated. You've demonstrated a fair bit of failure of focus here, along with a less than fully-literate writing style, that makes me suspect that you should have listened more at school. I've been called a bitter ex-Catholic a few times. Perhaps there's such a thing as a bitterly-ungrateful ex-pupil, typified by you and Teribus, who feels the need to constantly attack those with whom they failed to cooperate in school, stooping even to ridiculing their footwear (you haven't mentioned leather elbow patches yet, by the way). I have this mental picture of you and Teribus sitting on the back row in class flicking bits of paper at each other, in between bouts of more personal distractions...

The last person I knew who used to proclaim loudly that he didn't need no education because he'd learned all his common sense from real life died of alcoholism. It's true!