Having a go
Isn't it exasperating when the wrong question comes up?
There you are, thoroughly briefed on the Romantic poets.
And do they feature in the exam paper? They do not. Instead, the examiners, blast them, want to know about Pope and Dryden.
Alex Salmond faced a comparable conundrum today at Holyrood.
He was yearning, just yearning, to have a go at Labour over their stance on the budget or the release of Megrahi or, indeed, almost anything.
Did Iain Gray oblige by raising these topics?
He did not. Instead, he pursued the subject of schools in Renfrewshire and their use of non-teaching staff in classrooms.
Trading insults
Mr Salmond answered extensively and in full detail - about schooling in North Ayrshire where they have been floating such ideas as a four-day week (since rejected.)
Why the disjunction? Because one council is led by the SNP and the other by Labour. Guess which is which.
Mr Gray and Mr Salmond duly traded insults for a spell - to the irritation of Margo MacDonald who later raised a point of order suggesting, broadly, that they might stick to their own responsibilities and leave local councillors to do their job.
As the rhetoric grew still more vehement, Mr Salmond could stand it no more.
He made the point he had been itching to make from the outset: that the Megrahi affair and Labour's no vote in the budget, despite offered compromises, proved that his chief rival led "an organised hypocrisy".
As I recall, that is a jibe first directed at the Conservatives by their own leader, Benjamin Disraeli.
He probably couldn't get Gladstone to ask the right questions either.
'Odious deal'
Mr Salmond's rhetoric drew hoots of derision from the Labour benches - and gentle chiding from the Presiding Officer who said that Mr Gray was perfectly entitled to pick his own topics for question time.
Still, the FM will be content that he got the attack in.
And he was given another opportunity when he was questioned about Megrahi by Annabel Goldie.
She asserted that Scottish ministers had been willing to do "an odious deal" over the potential inclusion of Megrahi in a prisoner transfer agreement.
Mr Salmond was answering the Conservative leader - insisting vehemently that there had been no false dealing whatsoever by his government and that the published documents confirmed as much.
But he kept darting meaningful glances in the direction of Mr Gray who opposed the compassionate liberation of Megrahi while UK Labour Ministers were actively attempting to facilitate his release.
Tavish Scott elevated the tone by pleading for Scottish government support for the National Centre of Excellence in Traditional Music, based in Plockton.
Mr Salmond noted that central funding for the school had been transferred to Highland Council - but, without offering a precise promise, there was a decided warmth in his replies which might indicate possible progress.
I'm 
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