The point I made about Rock Schools in my last column so inspired me that I have decided to address the topic more fully. I know you will permit me this indulgence. After all, did the great Phil Collins, that fantastically versatile actor, musician, and all-round good guy, not return time and time again to the subject of his wife having left him for a painter and decorator?

This approach has produced such masterpieces as "In The Air Tonight", about a man who rescues another man from drowning while his wife is carrying on with a painter and decorator, and "Another Day In Paradise" about Phil walking along seeing all the poor people starving and thinking "it’s all right for them, none of their wives have gone off with painters and/or decorators". Also there was that fantastic Genesis concept album, Then There Were Three.

By the way, some of you may have been taken in by the occasional digs I have at Phil Collins in these columns. As with Eric Morecambe and Des O’Connor, this is all done in showbiz esprit de cameradie. I am in fact good pals with Phil, and we often go golfing together whilst his young wife (lovely girl) supervises the painting and decorating of his LA mansion. And so it is I give you…….

It is my firm belief that the British educational system is so incompetent as to be little more than a lottery, and, dear reader, I present myself to you as living proof of this. On paper, according to the aforementioned system, I am thick as shit. When I was at school, I failed everything. Absolutely everything - even art and English, at both of which I am pure dead brilliant. Some people are just no good at passing exams. Conversely, there are others who are good at passing exams and nothing else.

Consequently I spent my precious teenage years struggling to pass exams when my time would have been better spent doing precious teenage things such as jacking off and making model aeroplanes, to use Kurt Vonnegut’s memorable phrase. Night after night trying to commit useless nonsense to memory. What passes for "plot" in the works of Jane Austen (some man has looked at some woman - "oh how handsome he is" "he looked at you" "no he didn’t" "yes he did" - for about three hundred pages then they get married), the English imperialist version of history (as my friend and collaborator Mr Camden Joy has pointed out, "all of history is written by a man called Victor") and maths. Eventually, after much struggle, I managed to scrape by the English literature, the history, etc, but I could never get to grips with maths.

"In real life there is no algebra" - someone on "Twin Peaks", the 3^rd best TV show in the history of the world, said that. (The Simpsons and Dr Who when Tom Baker was in it, since you ask).

Later on, when I was struggling in vain to find a job, constantly being asked if I had passed maths, constantly saying no, I suddenly had a brainwave. What if I lied on the application form? What if I simply put down that I had passed maths? I did so. I got a job straight away.

No one had told me the most important thing of all, which was this: in later life I would be able to put whatever qualifications I like on application forms because the stuff you learn in school is largely bullshit which never comes up again, and nobody checks.

If you want a job just to earn money, and don’t want to become a brain surgeon or go on "Late Review" talking artwank about some book that some guy wrote, you can get clean away with lying every time.

I am fully of the opinion that you get all the education you need in everyday life by the time you are about 10 years old, and the rest is a big brainwash thing that determines what use you will be to capitalism. So: just as there is nothing morally reprehensible in stealing stuff from work, there is also nothing morally reprehensible in lying to get work. You’ve learned all the maths you need in everyday life in junior school. The vast majority of people will never be required to find the value of X (it changes the next time anyway so what’s the point?) When my brother was at school he sat next to a chap called Billy Ellis. Whereas I was incapable of passing maths, Master Ellis took things a stage further: he was unable to comprehend the very reason for its existence. He was once asked one of those questions that go "John goes to the shop. He has a pound. He buys three oranges a banana and a box of matches (etc)… how much is a box of matches?"

Billy Ellis wrote down "6p", which was self-evidently nowhere near the answer. Asked how he arrived at this, he replied "I bought a box of matches yesterday, and they cost 6p". I put it to you that this is true enlightenment.

While we’re at it, you may as well lie about a few others. English literature, art, in fact any subject that’s not likely to come up in whatever job you’re applying for. As the educational system is a lottery in which thick people pass loads of exams while smart people such as myself fail everything, you are very unlikely to be found out. And what if you are? You don’t get the job, which you wouldn’t have got anyway. Tis logic!

I am telling you this because I don’t want you to get too worried about Rock Schools.

They are (A) unworkable and (B) contrary to the very spirit of rock music. I will explain:

School weirdoes have been the lifeblood of rock music ever since rock music began. Elvis Presley himself was a school weirdo. School weirdoes know in their hearts if not their brains that education is a big brainwash thing, the main purpose of which is to determine what use you shall be to capitalism. What is to say that school weirdoes would do any better at Rock School than they would at plain regular ordinary school? Indeed, they would probably do worse. As I touched on in my last column, examples of people who would have most likely failed rock school in their day: the Sex Pistols, the Stooges, the Beatles, Hendrix, Captain Beefheart, and indeed the Manic Street Preachers (who appear to be the only high-profile contemporary band who are actually fulfilling their rock-star duties IE being feisty, awkward, and thought-provoking, a matter I will address in a future column. Eminem is about as thought-provoking as the Tory Party Conference). And just to show I am being even-handed and not playing favourites; The Smiths. And as I said last time, Phil Collins would pass rock school. This would surely be an intolerable state of affairs I think you’ll agree.

When I get into an argument about the educational system with one of those dimwits who think they’re smart just because they’ve got a degree or several in something useless, they usually say I am resentful because it failed me, which of course is true. I am resentful because I have been condemned as stupid for life by an arbitrary system, well ex-cuuuse me, what do you expect? The other thing they say is "what would you replace it with?" Well, I have many ideas re: what I would replace it with. (EG: English literature… let people read what they like rather than compulsory Jane Austen and that Welsh-hating racist bastard Shakespeare. Maths: see Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos). However, that ain’t gonna happen until we get our Worldwide Socialist Utopia in the 25^th century, so meanwhile I would advocate not setting so much store by it… hence the lying through your teeth guerrilla-tactic advocated above.

In the case of Rock Schools I have a very good idea indeed. Education is compulsory, we’re not going to get away from that. As with politics, people who most wish to become rock stars are often the least suited. For this reason, if Rock School is to exist at all, it should be compulsory. Certain round rules and fixed penalties should be rigidly enforced, whereby, rather than people being qualified for becoming rock stars, anyone falling below a certain level would be irrevocably disqualified from rock-stardom.

As some of our most excellent rock stars include Mark E Smith and David Thomas of Pere Ubu, it is obvious that musical ability, personal charm, and physical appearance should have no bearing on the matter. Here are some suggestions for misdemeanours. things that points would be deducted for:

1) BEING THE SON OR DAUGHTER OF AN EXISTING ROCK STAR OR SHOWBIZ PERSONALITY

Almost entirely without exception, the sons and daughters of existing rock-stars are mere 2^nd rate imitations of their parents. Julian Lennon! Dweezil Zappa! Frank Sinatra Junior! Etc. I could never see the fuss when Jeff Buckley died because surely there would be another one along in a minute (Hawksley Workman).We could logically extend this argument to include Mockney Pipsqueak Damon Allbran whose dad was a roadie for Soft Machine. He recently condemned Westlife as "mind-numbingly dull" which is as blatant a case of pot-kettleism as ever I have come across. Have you noticed them Blur guys are always trying to get cred-by-association? Hanging out with all that crap Brit-artwank crew. My favourite Damien Hirst piece is Self Portrait Bisected In Formaldehyde. He hasn’t made it yet but I live in hope. And whoever told Keith Allen he was Welsh? But I digress.

There was only one person ever in the entire history of the twentieth century who made a worthwhile fist of popstardom despite having a well-known showbiz personality as a father, and this person was curiously enough the daughter of one of the most influential figures in the entire history of showbiz. I refer of course to Nancy Sinatra, who was (A) nothing like her dad and (B) very good indeed (The argument for exclusion of Nancy from showbiz would have been purely academic however because her daddy would merely have sent some of his, er, acquaintances round to have a little word…) Sean Lennon isn’t doing too badly either but he is cancelled out by Julian.

Think about it: we may lose a few top stars this way but think of all ones we’ll get. Ones who got there on merit alone rather than just because their dad was a roadie for Soft Machine or in the Beatles.

2) BEING THE BROTHER/SISTER OF AN EXISTING ROCK STAR OR SHOWBIZ PERSONALITY

Similar scenario to last time. Less-talented sibling gets in on act. Chris Jagger, Nicky Wire’s brother. Mark E Smith’s sister Pat E Smith. When have they ever been worth the effort of listening to? There were hundreds of James Taylor’s relatives being signed at one point. Whilst few of these people are ever really really bad, they are never really worth taking any notice of either.

We go now back in time to the Eno household, sometime in the seventies:

(pages go back onto calendar in slow motion while ambient music plays…)

SCENE: front room. Dad Eno, knackered from his job as a postman (which, interestingly, concerns communication), is resting. Mam Eno is in the kitchen cooking (in some ways cooking from a recipe resembles the oblique strategy composition process used by Brian, interestingly). Roger is sat there making a model aeroplane. Enter Brian, hanging up his ostrich costume.

DAD: Oh hello Brian what a surprise, what have you been up to? How’s Roxy Music?

BRIAN: I have left them and been doing Ambient music, it is really interesting.

DAD: What’s that then?

BRIAN: It is a new form of music I invented where not much happens and you ignore it. ROGER (looking up from his model aeroplane) Do you have to dress up and do gigs and that?

BRIAN: No, you just play about five notes, put it on repeat whack some echo on and call it something off an ordnance survey map.

ROGER: Oh, that sounds interesting, can you show me?

As with the example of Julian and Sean Lennon, Noel and Liam Gallagher cancel each other out, but they have a third brother, Paul Gallagher, who manages some terrible indie-wuss band whose name I have forgotten.

Also : Frankie Gaye, Tyka Nelson (sister of Prince), Jimmy Lydon, Radiohead bloke's brother, Livingston Taylor and the hundreds of Taylor brothers and sisters who all emerged from the woodwork when he sung that song "Fire And Rain" about how he’d taken heroin and it made him not very well (well I could have told you it’d do that you stupid get). Billy Yule, worst drummer ever in the fake Velvet Underground. Nick Drake’s shameless cashing in on his sister Gabrielle’s role in Crossroads. Chris Wyatt (only in the Welsh scrum thanks to the selectors fondness for Rock Bottom). As with example one, we’d lose a few goodies but the end would justify the means.

3) PLAYING A TOY ACOUSTIC GUITAR AS IF IT WAS A REAL ONE. Acoustic guitars have no place in Rock Music. Acoustic guitars strummed rhythmically and inaudibly whilst being drown out by electric guitars, electric basses, electric drums, electric tambourines and electric kazoos doubly so.

4) NOT BEING AN OUTCAST/ WEIRDO AT SCHOOL

The difficulty with this one is that swots and goody-goodies would go out of their way to be weirdos at school, rather than, as they do now, waiting until they are at college when it is nice and safe. I would therefore propose that "rock star grading" is continuously assessed, and a secret dossier on every pupil kept until graduation. Not for behaviour in Rock School, but in all the other classes as well. Sitting at the front, paying attention, and not chewing in class would result in marks being deducted.

A good friend of mine was at school with that Brett Anderson out of Suede. You know what he was like? A posh boy goody-goody maths nerd. I put it to you ladies and gentlemen that whilst posh boy goody goody maths nerds might have their place in society, IE finding what X is for the rest of us who can’t be bothered, it ain’t nothing to do with the wonderful world of rock’n’roll. As evinced by the fact that Suede… well, they’re crap aren’t they?

To conclude: the idea of the Rock School would appear to be unworkable, as Rock Music is such an unquantifiable thing and what makes a great band is so elusive. But, are we perhaps being narrow sighted? Perhaps, as with Trout Mask Replica and the Popstars TV series, all you have to do is lock a load of people up and brainwash them, and a pop group comes out.

Or perhaps, as a certain Prof. Thomas Adelman in Vermont has speculated, the very ability to rock out itself is genetic. One either has it or one hasn’t. Prof. Adelman has postulated that it is theoretically possible to isolate the rock gene and "breed a master race of rock stars sort of like Boys In Brazil".

Do you have any ideas for rules, which would govern a rock school such as the model I have postulated above?

Well don’t go sending them to me.

You can see more of Colin at his website.