It's GCSE season. This brings all sorts of Bad, Bad Shit, but on the other hand, the End of Latin. Well, for me. Sadly, I suspect we shall be learning it long into the future.

Indeed, today was the last of my three Latin exams, and I can now forget every conjugation, every declension, and every nuance of Roman culture. Oh, the hours spent memorising "-or, -ris, -tur, -mur, -mini, -ntur". I weep just to contemplate it.

On a more serious note, I really would say that Latin is a good GCSE to take if you are good at learning by rote. Since some 50% of the exam is simply set text, the ability to learn a story word-for-word is vital - but if you can do it, then you'll find good marks easy to come by.

It's also at least a little useful to know about the Latin culture, and many of the derivations are interesting to those of a curious nature. Latin might be a dead language, but for some, it's a remarkably easy route to a good grade.

This will seem all very stupid if I now get a poor grade, as if it didn't already.