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We all have to feel rather sorry for Oxford chemistry graduate Sam Kay. First, he missed out on funding for the postgraduate work he wanted to do. Then, as a direct result of this initial misfortune, his winning team has been disqualified from University Challenge.
Now, his shame is bruited on the nation's front pages, accompanied - on the grounds that femaleness trumps relevance - by photographs of his team-mate Gail Trimble. The poor fellow will as long as he lives be "that Gail Trimble cheat bloke". The saddest thing is that he isn't really a cheat worthy of the name.
The cheat who cheats with ingenuity and elan - who is exposed at the last in an act of shameless skulduggery - is the subject of ostentatious but admiring disapproval, or cheered openly to the echo.
Who doesn't have a soft spot for the "coughing Major" and his absurd attempt to swindle a million quid out of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Who does not, secretly, applaud the bent financier Bernie Madoff for his sheer chutzpah? Even George Bush showed a glimmer of promise when he first won an election by cheating, and then declared a war on the same basis.
This, I think, was where Corpus Christi went wrong. What a wet dishcloth of a deception. What a shabby filing-error of a reason to be disqualified. Had they done some properly imaginative cheating - implanted a Morse-code receiver in Gail Trimble's bicycle clips, for instance - they would have had the love of the nation. As it is, we all feel a little disappointed.
To harp on, as politicians often do, about the "traditional British sense of fair play", is to ignore the equally traditional strand in our national character that cherishes and admires the cad and the bounder.
The names of Falstaff, Flashman and Roger the Dodger resound through the ages. Willie Donaldson's masterwork Rogues, Villains and Eccentrics tells you all you need to know about our island story, and is far more interesting than Our Island Story.
Gamesmanship is at least as important in this country as sportsmanship. Let us not forget that it was the former that got us our empire and won us two world wars, and the latter that lost us that empire and squandered all the fruits of peace. And every gambler knows that a pound won at cards is worth twice as much as one earned honestly; and that a pound won cheating at cards is worth twice as much as that.
Cheating, above all, should be fun. For my late uncle, it was an article of faith that the purpose of our annual family games night was to amuse himself by cheating at charades. He regarded any games night that did not end with my aunt in tears of helpless rage as having been a slight disappointment.
For my own part, one of the most enjoyable evenings I passed at university was the one in which I cheated continually at strip blackjack and everyone else was too drunk and too naked to notice.
The key thing is that pride in your ingenuity should prevail over shame at your deception. I used to be much better at internet Scrabble, for instance, before my fiancée crept up behind me one day and caught me using an online anagram engine to see if my rack contained a bingo. It seemed such a dull piece of trickery to be caught at that I haven't done it since.
The late Auberon Waugh was reputed to have been a shocking cheat at croquet, and he was right to be: it is a game, like golf, whose vital spirit is extinguished by decency, dull competence, and adherence to the rules. Both are classic games of these islands.
The younger generation is at it too - entire magazines are devoted to cheats for computer games. One of the best card games to play with children is called "cheat", and I have seldom had a more vicious - and yet more philosophically chewy - row than when my brother caught me cheating at it.
Our very education system is set up to raise a breed of cheaters worthy to unleash on the rest of the world. What, after all, are the purposes of those steeplechases through the winter drizzle that schools have for generations inflicted on British teenagers?
Surely they are there to punish the plodding dullards who run the course as instructed and wheeze, brick-faced over the finish line in first place; and to reward the initiative of those who cut a giant corner through the woods at the first opportunity, smoke half a packet of cigarettes and amble out an hour later, refreshed and happy, to join the back third of the pack.
The levels of cheating in schools are rightly regarded as an indicator of the decline in public education. At the same time as grade inflation has made exams easier, the internet has made cheating easier. The problem is that in both cases the bar has been lowered to the extent that there's no point in doing either.
Any damnfool child with a working pair of forefingers and a broadband connection can cut-and-paste an essay from the internet - and any damnfool teacher similarly equipped can cut-and-paste it back into a search engine to catch them at it. Where's the challenge in that? What will either of them learn from the exercise? If we're to recover our national self-respect, we need to do better than that.
To adapt the great Samuel Beckett: Try again. Cheat again. Cheat better.
Moral Maze: Find out how far you bend the rules
To find out just how much of a cheat you are, Nick Curtis has devised the perfect quiz. But no cheating, mind.
1. Which of these quiz cheats would you be most likely to emulate?
a) Sam Kay, who "inadvertently broke the rules" of University Challenge?
b) Major Charles Ingram, who allegedly got a colleague in the audience to cough at the correct answers when he appeared on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
c) Charles van Doren who was given all the right answers by the producers of TV show Twenty One, and was later immortalised by Ralph Fiennes in Quiz Show.
2. In terms of unsporting behaviour, which of these figures do you identify most closely with?
a) the Aussie cricket fan who tried to put England star Phil Tufnell off his game by shouting, "Oi, Tuffers, lend us your brain. I'm building an idiot."
b) Diego Maradona, who accepted a helping hand from God to put a ball past Peter Shilton in the 1986 World Cup quarter-final.
c) Olympic fencing champion Boris Onischenko, who rigged up his rapier to register non-existent "hits" on his opponent.
3. Which quote indicates the biggest love cheat?
a) "I wasn't kissing her, I was whispering in her mouth." (Chico Marx)
b) "I did not have sex with that woman." (Bill Clinton)
c) "The wild days are behind me." (Darren Day, while cheating on pregnant fiancée Suzanne Shaw)
4. While editing your cv, which of the following might you consider?
a) Lying about your age.
b) Lying about your education, like Apprentice winner Lee McQueen.
c) Lying about your gender.
5. In the media, which of the following would you be most likely to forgive?
a) A journalist changing names to protect the innocent.
b) A journalist faking tears to make a story more emotionally hard-hitting, like William Hurt's character in Broadcast News.
c) A journalist making absolutely everything up, like the New York Times's Jayson Blair.
6. In terms of trustworthiness, are you more like
a) Jeffrey from Rainbow.
b) Jeffrey Archer.
c) Jeffrey Dahmer.
7. which quote most reflects your attitude to truth?
a) "Beauty is truth, truth beauty." (Keats)
b) "The truth is rarely pure and never simple." (Oscar Wilde)
c) "It's our old friend, 'being economical' with the actualite." (Alan Clark)
8. Hypothetically, would you
a) Cheat in a maths exam by sneaking in a calculator.
b) Cheat in an English exam by ordering past exam papers over the internet.
c) Cheat in a metaphysics exam by looking into the soul of the student next to you? (With apologies to Woody Allen.)
9. In real life, do you consider it acceptable to cheat on:
a) Your expenses at work (and stuff from the stationery cupboard is fair game, too).
b) Your tax return (and it's fair enough to pay your cleaner and your builder in cash, too).
c) Yourself when playing Patience.
10. You consider it acceptable to lie:
a) To spare the feelings of a friend or loved one.
b) To do a colleague out of their promotion.
c) When on trial for murder.
Answers:
Mostly a - you are basically honest, but liable to utter the odd fib or cut the odd moral corner now and then.
Mostly b - you have an ambivalent attitude to the actualite and see nothing wrong with using deception or untruth to get by.
Mostly c - you are a being of gross moral turpitude and corruption, and I would trust you about as far as I could spit a housebrick.
Reader views (8)
This wasn't cheating, it was typical BBC incompetence. He put his dates on the form, the BBC should have checked them. And in any case the rules should say that each team member should be at the university at the START of the competition, not all thru it. It would be absurd to change team members half way thru. Can't the BBC get anything right?
- Stephen, Cambridge
Lying is a word tweaked, perfected and thoroughly implemented daily by the ruling labour party.
- Peter Noterfed, Paris, France
I loved the coughing major. He was such an utter loser, he was very funny...
- Jim, London
Yes, Sam Kay sat there and (on three occasions) told millions of viewers that he was studying chemistry, when in fact he was practising accountancy; but, as he has since pointed out, he didn't intend to deceive anyone!
In mitigation, though, perhaps he was part of a conspiracy of silence that extended even to the BBC. Presumably, the entire Corpus Christi team connived at his untruths; likewise college staff; to say nothing of his family, friends and colleagues - the very souls of discretion. Was a diplomatic reserve also constraining the BBC? Quite possibly they knew the facts but had decided to keep quiet about them - and had asked everyone else to do so - in the hope that the abuse would not be exposed and the competition not ruined. This might explain not only Jeremy Paxman's unsupported claim that Corpus's transgression was obviously innocent but also the excessive magnanimity of Manchester as the debacle unfolded. The entertainment-value of University Challenge has always depended upon its audiences' cooperation in not divulging the result before programmes are broadcast, so we know the production team is well versed in the ways of 'omerta'.
- Phil, Amersham, UK
Feel sorry for him? Are you kidding? The man LIED. He sat there, 5 months after leaving university and 2 months after starting full-time employment, and said he was a student at Oxford studying for a doctorate. That is LYING. That is despicable, dishonest. Frankly, I also blame the team's captain, Gail Trimble. I suspect she and the other team mates knew he was no longer a student.
- Ben Adamson, New York, NY
Surely University Challenge needs to sort itself out so that 1 competition does not extend into a 2nd year. Otherwise this means that all final year students are disqualified unless they can guarantee postgraduate funding when they first start trials for the University team- an extremely unlikely situation.
- Susan, swindon
A work colleague was a winner of University Challenge back in the 70s. He was the only sitting student on his winning team!
- Simon, London, N5
Come off it- I don't feel sorry for Oxford graduate Sam Kay, who announced live on TV that he was a student - when is a PwC trainee accountant. Fraud by any other name? Or should the blame go to the programme's lax production assistants? If so, heads should roll.
- Come-Off-It, Colchester
