I press the STOP button on the last oral exam recording, an action which usually heralds the first thoughts of the summer (the March sun shining, the first grass cutting of the year, a sense of the exams nearing the end).

Whereas ... this year, snow still lies on the playing field, temperatures are some way below zero and everyone seems to be starting or recovering from yet another cold.

This isn't the place to talk about individual performances but I do sense a trend of ever more superficial reading, of ideas grasped at mid-height without roots in the writing itself. It's increasingly rare to find the student who has read the text thoroughly - re-read it, even more rare - and is prepared to dwell on a page, on a sentence, on a word. At the risk of being boring, is this is the inevitable result of the screenager, a generation so 'in touch control' they're out of touch with what's right in front of them? (Samsung announces a new phone technology which will even respond to eye movements for a richer life experience. Can they be serious?) Scrolling, skimming, grazing ... generations of sheep nibbling the tops of the grass. Wasn't it Nietzsche who advocated ruminating over a text? O for a student with the stomach for reading!