Today we went back to school in Ottignies, back to a class room, from nine in the morning till gone six in the evening. Ugh. This was stage two in the process of earning our international licences for piloting larger motorised boats. We were taught an absurdly vast quantity of complicated material by our valiant and apologetic teacher, from international and national law through night lights and daytime signals to meteorology. By the early afternoon some of our younger fellow students were giggling openly as the teacher galloped through vast quantities of complicated material at great speed. Could you identify the night lights of an oncoming dredger with a barge tied alongside with a deep draught in a narrow shipping channel? Frankly, nor could I, but that’s the sort of ‘tricky’ question we are likely to get in our multiple choice examination in three weeks’ time…