He's still conscientious, he still has integrity."Another friend who knew him pre-celebrity says: "I think he's made a strenuous effort not to go all Hello! magazine about it. In many respects you wouldn't guess he's a feted millionaire He still wears dodgy clothes. Maybe his leather jackets are a bit more expensive." Hornby's reaction to the glamorous spin-offs, when "famous people you've never met ring up and say: 'Let's get together' " is straightforward: "It's like: 'You can be friends with us now.' Yuk." He himself says he was "surprised" at how little sudden wealth changes you "if you don't want it to".Eventually, the contradiction between the Ordinary Guy and the Extraordinarily Successful Writer may be too much for Hornby to sustain; the success of How to be Good may finally make the tightrope walk impossible. For now at least, however, Hornby continues to tread the conspicuous, invisible line.Life StoryBorn: Nick Hornby in 1957, in Maidenhead.Family: Son of Sir Derek Hornby, a successful businessman Parents divorced when Nick was 11 years' old. One sister, Gill, who is married to author Robert Harris.Married: Separated from his wife Virginia Bovell in 1998. One son, Danny (born 1994), who is autistic.Education: Maidenhead Grammar School with an A, a D and an E in his A-levels. Degree in English from Cambridge.Career: English teacher at a comprehensive school; Worked at Samsung teaching English to Korean businessmen; Wrote about soul music and American film in Time Out magazine; Reviewed novels for literary magazines; Music critic for The New Yorker; Columnist for The Independent on Sunday.Publications: Contemporary American Fiction (1992); Fever Pitch (1992); High Fidelity (1995); About A Boy (1998); Speaking With the Angel (2000); How to be Good (2001).Recreations: Football and music.He says: "Whatever the great moments of your personal life are, either they've been a long time coming or they're undercut by something else, whereas when the ball hits the back of the net, it's something you always want."They say: "The best author of my generation." Julie Burchill..
Exam boards admitted yesterday they were short of markers to handle this summer's GCSE and A-level papers. Exam boards admitted yesterday they were short of markers to handle this summer's GCSE and A-level papers.The Joint Council for General Qualifications (JCVQ), the umbrella body that oversees the exams, has issued an appeal to schools and colleges to find more teachers willing to become markers.One awarding body, Edexcel, has offered a bounty of £200 to existing examiners if they recruit a colleague to help out.The JCVQ said there were still shortages in six subject areas: English, information and communication technology, general studies, media, art and psychology.Exam boards said they needed to recruit an extra 8,000 markers because it was the first year that pupils would be sitting the new AS-level exams worth half an A-level and taken at the end of the first year of the sixth form.Teachers' leaders said yesterday that many teachers who would normally volunteer to mark A-levels had pulled out because of the extra workload involved in introducing the new exam.John Dunford, general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, said: "It is because there are so many papers to be marked, and also because teachers are under so much pressure many have decided not to volunteer."A spokesman for the JCVQ said: "If we don't get the number we need we could redistribute scripts to the examiners we have. Examiners could also be switched between awarding bodies to cover shortfalls."A spokeswoman for Edexcel said the "bounty" offer "has paid dividends for us"."We have had a considerable number of approaches from new examiners. We were aiming to recruit a surplus in each subject as you can anticipate a 5 per cent drop-out because of sickness. The small shortfalls we have can be catered for by asking existing examiners to do the work. We feel it is likely that other examining bodies will follow our example next year."The deadline for recruitment is in effect the first week in July.
Examining groups usually meet between three to seven days after the final exam in their subject to decide on the distribution of papers. The last paper is due to be sat on 28 June.No figure has been put on the shortage but it could be hundreds short of this year's target total of 48,000.Dr Dunford said: "I would rather existing markers did more papers than that the standards for becoming an examiner were lowered to recruit more."The admission of the shortage in England, Wales and Northern Ireland has come after the revelation last week that pupils in Scotland, where last summer the computer network of the Scottish exam body failed to cope with a new and complex exam system, face another crisis.The Scottish Qualifications Authority announced it was 1,250 markers short of its 9,420 target despite a promise to double pay. Examiners in England, Wales and Northern Ireland earn between £9 and £10 per hour Those in Scotland currently earn £7.50.. Stress and overwork have been blamed for an increase in sick days taken by teachers last year, which resulted in a record number of pupils having their lessons disrupted. Stress and overwork have been blamed for an increase in sick days taken by teachers last year, which resulted in a record number of pupils having their lessons disrupted.Teachers missed nearly 2.7 million days of school last year because of illness, a rise of 6.4 per cent, according to new government statistics.Nearly 60 per cent of teachers in England took sick leave last year, each missing an average of 10 days. The figures will dash ministers' hopes of reaching their target of cutting sick leave in schools to two million days by next year.Ministers have admitted that children's education suffers if teachers take time off. But teaching unions and Labour's political opponents blamed the stress of the job for the rise.Doug McAvoy, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "Setting targets about sickness is not a sensible way of dealing with the problem.
