The Honours Exam Board for the Computer Science, Computer and Electronic Systems, and related degrees met today to consider the classification of degrees that will be awarded to our undergraduates at the graduation later this month. Between now and the Graduation the students' correct title is "graduand". Well done to al my students. It's always a proud day for me when I get to see my students' hard work rewarded.

Speaking of Exam Boards and Graduands, I am immensely proud of the fact that my daughter, Heather, today was awarded a Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine and Surgery (with Distinction) by the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies of the University of Edinburgh.

I'm looking forward to attending the TeachMeet07 tomorrow in Edinburgh. Should be an interesting evening.

Dave's first day of blogging was Scripting News: 4/1/1997. Happy Anniversary Dave! Scripting News, and Dave's blogging tools ware basically what started me blogging. Thanks Dave.

Given the fines served by the Blog Standards Institute I decided to use the 'payment' of these fines as a way to raise money for Comic Relief.

Since the fines needed to be paid in public, a number of students enthusisatically agreed ot help and the Window's Logo shave and colour have been videoed and posted to YouTube. A search for Duncan Smeed on YouTube will reveal all ;-)

According to a ruling I received from the nascent Blog Standards Institute Duncan's Jotter has violated a number of Blog Standards for which I have been fined. Here's the text of the ruling sent to me by the Institute's spokesperson Avril Furst:

Perhaps the most serious violation of our Blog Standards is the fact that Duncan's Jotter - as one of the longest-running blogs - has established a readership measured in some tens and several of these readers are Mr Smeed's past students and, as such, expect the same degree of insight and opinion that they'd come to appreciate whilst a student of his. Duncan's Jotter has manifestly failed to deliver this level of insight over the past six months.

Another major factor in our decision to fine Mr Smeed is that Duncan's Jotter should have kept abreast of the web standards supported by the Blog Standards Institute. Mr Smeed has failed to move beyond the Web 0.2 technologies that he's been using since the mid-1990s.

The Blog Standards Institute decided to impose a fine for the transgression of failing to update Duncan's Jotter. This fine was served on Thursday 22nd March and took the form of a Windows Logo shaved in Mr Smeed's head as reliable sources informed us that this would humiliate him into updating his blog. Sadly, thus level of humiliation does not seem to have had the desired effect and, consequently on Thursday 29th March, the BSI imposed its ultimate humiliation - a public shaving and blue painting of Mr Smeed's head. We hope that this level of humiliation will act as a incentive to all other bloggers to keep their blogs up to date in content as well as in presentation.