Look Kiwi! My brother approached me with a square of paper flapping from one hand, a wry grin on his face.

Look what they make us do at school! He sounded almost proud. As in, it can get no more ridiculous.

For homework.

A table of tiny black boxes, with a scrawling pencil cross in each box. Towards the right corner of the box, you can see where he realised he could rule a few long lines with a ruler, and be done. The rest look like dead flies on a swatter.

Six hundred boxes, he said, and we have to put a neat cross in each box.

Sure enough, there it was. "Put a neat cross in each box."

This is homework, I asked, incredulously, this is what they call learning?!

There was a pause. He grinned. Well no. It's the equivalent to writing lines.

I must not talk in class, in box-and-cross format. I didn't dare ask what he'd done to warrant such an imaginative punishment. Someone really put thought into that, I thought, as he walked away shaking his wrist and chuckling benevolently. An adjective which can never normally be used to describe him. Perhaps two hours with a pencil and 600 boxes is all it takes.