The day I gave up Jurisprudence at Oxford and read English Literature instead.

‘That, Mr...errmm...Didlington, was in my 40 years …ah…experience of teaching…ah… Jurisprudence, the most inadequate, immaterial and…ah… insubstantial essay I have had to listen to, exploring as…ah… it did, the previously uncharted depths of…umm… legal irrelevance and vacuous pomposity!’

Silence gave in only to the antique grandfather click ticking accusingly in the corner of my tutor’s dusty rooms on the first floor of the New Building.

‘Oh…Where exactly would you say I went wrong, Professor Hale? You see, I thought I had explained quite fully the legal implications of a storm flooding a river and thus sweeping a piece of my ground away and adding it to my neighbour’s across the river…’

‘Mr...errm...Dullington, ‘rather well’ cannot…ah… be utilised to describe anything in that essay except, perhaps, your use of the...umm…full stop.’ Professor Hale regarded me dryly over the rim of his frameless reading glasses, with distaste, such an affectation I used to think, as though I was a piece of invasive putrefaction adhering inappropriately to his Chinese rug.

The late afternoon summer sun slanted through the huge, old oak trees and across New Meadow, illuminated in a golden yellow a bald patch of faded rug near my left foot.

He continued, as though with an effort of will to focus at all on such minimal pusillanimity. ‘Your style is both obtuse and…ah… pretentious, your main points are obfuscated and random, your reasoning is…ah…feeble and inconclusive, your reference to obiter dictum impertinent, your use of legal precedent is…ah…unprecedented, your…ah… understanding of the Roman law, frankly, leaves me…’

The voice, dry as brown winter leaves, rustled its wounding way through the literary critique. For a moment I ceased to listen, caught up suddenly in a burst of literary self congratulation at my seasonal metaphor.‘Ok…ok… I understand!' I interjected after a while, showing just a smidgeon of damaged pride through which self pity oozed. ‘Ermm…What would you recommend I do then?’ My voice wanted to crack and my eyes seemed to peer through hot tears of shame.

‘Well, Mr…ah…Doodlington, that is an intriguing question. You see, I ask myself after witnessing that inane…ah…verbiage, what indeed CAN you do? And the answer is clear to me…little!…ah…very little indeed…!’

The evening sun seemed to hurry now on its way across the floor and flat surfaces of too much furniture, to clear the room and illuminate another, leaving me in the dust and silence and gloom of academic inadequacy.