Today is the first day of the rest of your life

It's a bit of truism, to be fair, but sometimes it's worth bearing in mind.

The news is full today of young people who have achieved fantastic results in their 'A' levels, including one who now has a tally of nine As andA*s. For lots of these students, their immediate plans of university or other training can now proceed; they've reached the particular hurdle their careers had been set and they've cleared it. Their lives will change but largely in ways they had expected.

For some, however, the news was not so good. They worked hard - sometimes possibly not as hard as they should/could have done - but for whatever reason, the grades they needed just haven't happened. Having been in that position, I do know how it can feel. I felt sick. Gutted. Unable to speak. My world had ended. My results were so catastrophically awful there was no point even trying to go through Clearing.

But fast-forward to nearly five years later, and I was collecting a degree in a subject that I hadn't even studied for that first disastrous set of results (an advantage of going to the local sixth form college for resits, with the timetable limitations that included), coming close to getting a First. It was something I couldn't have envisaged happening when I failed my 'A' levels first time round. I ended up doing a much broader degree course too, which in hindsight was much better for me.

There's another oft-quoted cliché, 'When one door closes, another door opens.' When you've just collected the letter that says you've failed, you're probably more interested in closing your bedroom door and sinking into a private gloom than thinking about other opportunities. But they're out there. Cunningly disguised as 'what failures do' on occasion, but take a look. You might be surprised at what you find.

So congratulations to all of you, whatever your result. Today is the first day of the rest of your life and the beginning of a new journey - even if at the moment you have no idea where it will take you.

In honour of my father's birthday

My father would have been 85 today. He was a softly-spoken man, who read widely and almost continuously, and listened to (mostly) classical music at what felt like full volume. I say mostly, as he introduced Led Zeppelin to me, after hearing them on the Radio Three programme 'Sounds Interesting', and I first came across Gryphon courtesy of my father. More usually, though, it was some variant of classical music that rattled the rafters in our house, sometimes as part of a game we played in which I had to identify first the period, then the nationality and finally the identity of the composer. I did quite well at this game, but it helped that I had a reasonable idea from an early age of what he had in his record collection and therefore what the possible limitations were.

Saturdays followed a very regular routine in our household. Various chores needed to be done, but my mother always ensured that my father was able to watch the TV at 4 pm, when the wrestling came on. It's not something I ever developed a taste for, and I suppose there must be some wrestling as part of the Olympics, but I won't be watching it, even if Team GB are potential medal winners. But it was part of who my father was and part of my childhood.

So happy birthday, Dad, and here's a poem sort of about you.

Tea with my father

Saturdays, it was always the wrestling on tv

             - the only sport he liked -

and then, after the football results have been intoned,

milk-drenched poached mushrooms

on toast made under the grill and enhanced by the risk,

and weekend tea, made in the teapot,

aromatic loose-leaf Ceylon black

with a spoonful of gunpowder,

warming the pot first of course;

afterwards, arguments over the chores,

clear or put away, wash or dry,

and who has to tip the tea-leaves over

a distant rose-bush that retains its glory

for a sunnier day.