Angela Epstein

It’s been forty years since I took my A-levels. Yet one particular dream still gatecrashes my sleep with irritating regularity: I'm in the exam hall, about to turn over the paper, but I’m trembling with terror because I haven’t done enough revision. Spool forward four decades and it might seem slightly nuts to think that despite being in my late 50s, the remembered stress of sitting A-levels should still stalk the subconscious. But given so much was riding on the outcome, perhaps it makes some degree of sense. It's why I have every sympathy for the 821,875 students who sat A-levels this summer and who will receive their results this morning.

The UK has a peerless reputation for producing some of the catchiest and most imaginative pop music on the planet. Little wonder that a dazzling and diverse roster of home-grown artists (pop stars in old money) have exerted dominance over the international music charts for decades. Yet despite the fact we gifted the Beatles, David Bowie, Kate Bush and even the Spice Girls (well, they were massive) to the world, when it comes to producing a Eurovision winner, we are – to put it impolitely – absolute pants. And with this year's contest only a few weeks away, our 2025 entry looks unlikely to change the status quo. In case you missed it – and it is entirely missable – representing the UK in Basel this month is country pop trio Remember Monday with their tune 'What the Hell Happened?

Can the passage of time ever assuage parental guilt? After all, brooding over what can't be changed is a pointless diversion. Unfortunately, guilt is a duplicitous bedfellow – and one which never sleeps. So even though, in my own case, my children are 'all grown up' (two married, one living abroad and one at university 100 miles from home), thoughts are often triggered about my deficiencies as a mother during their upbringing. Not least thanks to the ubiquity of the so-called work from home 'revolution', which frequently leads me to pick at the past.  You see, my name is Angela and working from home made me a bad mother. Not for the reasons just given by Ofsted head Sir Martyn Oliver, who last week said that parents working from home 'makes children feel school is optional'.

Merry Christmas – or perhaps, I should say, Season's Greetings. The festive period can be something of a minefield for the culturally sensitive: even a presumptive or mis-worded greeting, however well meant, may be misconstrued as an affront to diversity and an expression of non-inclusivity. Not least to those who don't celebrate Christmas, perhaps due to their ethnicity or religion. Being Jewish, this must surely then include me. After all, I don't sing Christmas carols or believe in the chap with the white beard. So shouldn't the greatest care be taken when offering greetings of the season or making mention of pigs – pigs! – in blankets? When I make Friday night dinner throughout the year I often riff on the Christmas menu Bah humbug.