Saturday, August 16, 2008

Who to turn to? How about Kelly Osbourne?

With Pixie Geldof having been the first to offer advice to people struggling to cope with disappointing exam results, you'd have thought that young people would, by now, all be fine.

But apparently Pixie wasn't enough on her own to solve the problems, so the Sun have drafted in Kelly Osbourne, who brings her own advice about coping with adversity:

I’LL be honest, I’m not a huge fan of exams and the stress they put on people.

Thank you, Kelly, for your brutal honesty. Thank god someone is prepared to stand up to exams.
I make no secret of the fact that I didn’t sit mine.

Given that you grew up in public and had your every motion explored by MTV, you'd find it difficult if you wanted to, surely?

But you know what Kelly's found? It turns out, hey, these exam things - they could be quite, you know, important:
But since joining Radio 1 for my Sunday Surgery show and taking calls from worried teenagers, as well as speaking to experts, I can understand why so many of you think exams are important and what the best ways are of dealing with the stress they cause.

You'll note that this is since she took a job on Radio One talking to listeners about their problems. Somehow, the BBC had managed to take on an advisor who didn't understand that exams mean a lot to teenagers.

Somewhere in the Sunday Surgery office is a large flipchart, a line down the middle, and lists of 'good' and 'bad': vegetables, work, condoms, sleep - good; stress, unemployment, chlamydia - bad.

Kelly then goes on to churn through some vaguely-worded advice:
You’ve always got options — and lots of them. Doing your exams again is something lots of students do.

Bear in mind she's meant to be offering advice to A-level students, and yet she's writing as if for someone who has just failed to identify three out of five flashcards.

As she turns to suggesting getting a job, I was going to do a "why not speak to your mummy or daddy and see if they can find you a job with a friend who owes them a big, big favour?" parody, but I don't think I can top what Kelly actually wrote:
But what about getting a job doing something that’s your passion?

It may not be for everyone but you’ll get paid and learn from the best people already doing it.

It could be great fun.

And, let's face it, you never really wanted to be a doctor anyway. Does Kelly really not think that, perhaps, people were doing the exams because they wanted to follow their passion but needed some exam passes to get to the starting point? "I've failed my a-levels, so I'll just go and become a barrister straight away, then instead."

Kelly wraps up:
Talking to your family — and not comparing yourself with your friends — is so important.

You’ve got to remember that, whatever you decide, you’ve got to make sure you’re happy.

Life is so much more than making the right grade.

Curse the demands of space - she didn't have room for "it's always darkest before the dawn" and "chin up."


1 comment:

Mikey said...

One day the BBC will do something that indicates that it's not run and staffed by insular, self-regarding tossers.

One day...

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