Link: Chanel: ‘No contract’ for Harry Potter’s Emma Watson – Telegraph.
These are the saddest words I have read this week and should disqualify the young actress who uttered them from a place at any serious University.
"I feel it’s terribly important to continue with my education," she said. "In case acting doesn’t work out for me."
Education is not (pace our idiot government) the same as vocational training. Education is an absolute, life-enhancing, good. It’s not possible to have too much of it at any level you are capable of benefiting from. Even died-in-the-wool capitalists like me don’t put a monetary value on it (though we do on vocational training).
Apparently, as well as being pretty enough to have been rumoured to be "the new face of Chanel" (since denied), Miss Watson is also bright.
"Despite filming for nine months of the year Miss Watson managed to
get four A grades in her AS Levels in 2006 and has said she wants to
read English and philosophy at Cambridge University."
If she applies to a serious university the admissions tutors are entitled to expect a thirst for knowledge, not a desire for an "insurance policy" in
case showbiz doesn’t work out. If she is lucky enough to get a place at Cambridge, it would stand her in good stead even if she never has to do an honest day’s work again. How sad, by the way, that she obviously doesn’t think education would help her be a better actress. I hope that is not a commentary on the splendid actors she has worked with.
One of my partners retired a couple of years ago after a successful (and lucrative) career in law. He had qualified by the old-fashioned "long apprenticeship" route and had no university degree. I was delighted for him that he won a place to study PPP at Oxford in his retirement. Presumably, as he wasn’t going to need it for a career, Miss Watson would think him a waste of the space he occupies? I beg to differ.
The Last Ditch by Tom Paine 
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