After a fractious meeting or two and some very colourful emails, I have now made sure that the right ticks are in the right boxes for all of our students will be able to do their external English exams (rhymes with STOIC) at no cost to them. It's the small victories, eh.

Not ... the dread Brotherhood of Luxor Death Ticks?

Death Tick
Death ticks are clockwork menaces resembling ticks, but about the size of a man’s hand. They are programmed to seek out a living target, jump onto that target, and siphon the victim’s life fluids. Once the enemy is a dry husk, the tick returns to its sender. Any tick failing to reach the sender in 10 hours releases a corrosive acid and destroys itself.

And you surely can't mean ... the foul Prairie Tick?

Prairie Tick
Prairie ticks are the scourge of the High Plains. These horrid bloodsuckers live in underground burrows and are controlled by a single, giant queen that rules over each nest.

[Stevie] The only ticks I am experiencing are those of the clock marking off the seconds of the exam that I spend thinking of all the ways I could be using this time more productively if I wasn't required to be here watching students do an exam.

Never mind, at least Saturday is open day, an entirely DIFFERENT way of wasting time...

I'm running another episode of the increasingly hysterical Planet Mercenary RPG. You could join us if you weren't doing something else.