The son of an acquaintance of mine has recently landed a good job on a national newspaper. For the past few months I've been reading the articles written by this boy – let's call him Derek – and thinking how delightfully original they were. Last week I ran into Derek's mother and told her that her son was brilliant and that she must be proud of him. She rolled her eyes and said he hadn't always been a star. He had been expelled from his state comprehensive school at 15, failed dismally academically and had spent his teenage years off the rails. So how, I asked, did he land this most sought after of jobs, one that Oxbridge graduates kill for?
我一位熟人的兒子最近在一家全國性報社找到了一份好工作。過去幾個月，我一直在閱讀這個小夥子——讓我們叫他德里克(Derek)好了——寫的文章，令人高興的是，這些文章是如此具有獨創性。上週，我遇到他的媽媽，我告訴她，她的兒子非常有才氣，她一定爲他感到驕傲。她轉了轉眼睛不屑地說，他並非一直那麼出色。15歲時，他就被一所公立綜合學校開除了，從此他灰溜溜地中斷了學業，誤入歧途地度過了他十幾歲的青春。於是我問道，他是如何獲得這份牛津和劍橋(Oxbridge)畢業生都夢寐以求的工作的呢？
