Frighteningly enough I spoke to my ex-boss this weekend, who is now head of Classics at the sixth-form college at which I used to teach. She told me that, unprecedentedly, she now has to deal with a few blatant, openly creationist students for the first time. And she teaches Classics and English Literature, not biology. Apparently these miniature teenage creationists insist on trying to get their petty history-denying agenda into everything they do, from essays on Oedipus Tyrannos and Aristophanes to work on Milton, Shelley and W.H. Auden. They are all disgracefully homophobic, closed-minded and conservative also, given that they are the unfortunate victims of religious brainwashing. It pains me deeply to see the potential of young minds stymied and shackled in such a way. It has been only two years since I last taught there, and we had nothing of the kind at that time. It worries me terribly. Even more worrying, this is an affluent area of leafy Surrey and a college renowned for its tolerance, diversity and liberality.