For even the brightest teenager, the question is probably a no-brainer. What would you rather do? Sit in an exam room for hours, toiling for a qualification everybody keeps telling you is dumbed-down, or go to The

X Factor audition, win the show, get a million quid and make every front cover of Heat magazine for at least a month?

That's the dilemma facing Scotland's 16-year-olds, because tomorrow morning The X Factor comes to Hampden Park for its first round of auditions (or humiliations, call them what you like) and on Tuesday - the day of the Standard Grade English exam - there will be callbacks.

There have already been reports of pupils asking for Tuesday off, but they're just the polite ones - not to mention optimistic, as they've obviously mentally blocked out the Monday scrum and fast-forwarded to their inevitable triumph on Tuesday, when Simon and Louis will be speechless with awe at their talent, while Dannii showers them with kisses and Sharon begs to be their new mum.

Enough of the madness. All you wannabe Leona Lewises, put down those hairbrush microphones and listen up. These are the reasons you should do your exam: i) Leon Jackson won last year. He's a Scot, so there's no way they'll let another one win straight after. ii) I don't care if your dad took you out of school to watch Celtic play in the 2003 Uefa Cup final.

The Celtic squad have more chance of winning individual Nobel prizes than you do of getting past Simon Cowell. iii) Ask any half-decent employer whether they require a qualification in English. Now ask yourself, where is Gareth Gates now? iv) If anybody who knows you thought you had one iota of talent, you'd already be having music lessons. v) And if you're still thinking “But I'm a winner, me!” please, go ahead. You're evidently too thick to be doing Standard Grades anyway.

Here's a statistic: 57% of Scots can't recognise Ben Nevis. I'm not surprised. I doubt I could recognise Ben Nevis, and certainly not from behind. In fact, I'm more amazed that 43% of us can recognise it. Well done all of you. What gives it away? Is it the pile of exhausted Munro-baggers on the top?

These figures come from a survey by the hotel chain Travelodge into Britons' knowledge of Britain and its landmarks. Results indicate that some people think Ben Nevis looks exactly like Mount Everest, others confuse it with Table Mountain or Mount Kilimanjaro; a third of those questioned thought Hadrian's Wall was the Great Wall of China; and some respondents could only identify Edinburgh Castle as “a chateau somewhere in Europe” - including one in six Edinburgh residents.

It's sad when so many people in our capital don't recognise the place where they live, but if this survey tells us anything it's that the British are an unobservant people who spend more time abroad than they do at home, and also that Mountain Recognition evidently needs to become a core subject on any new curriculum.

Never having paid much attention to the shape of Ben Nevis, I admire those cosmopolitan travellers who are brave enough to hazard exotic guesses like Mount Kilimanjaro. Although I vaguely know what Mount Kilimanjaro looks like, I wouldn't want to commit myself unless I could see some nearby antelope. I also like to think I could recognise Mount Everest, but as for Table Mountain (although there's a handy clue in the name), unless I had a particularly non-table-shaped mountain to compare it with, I wouldn't feel confident at all.

Far more depressing was the news that most people wouldn't visit Scotland because of the weather, because we can't change that. But it may explain why so many of us are unable to identify Scottish landmarks. You can live in Edinburgh quite a while before the mist rises high enough to reveal the castle. So if people were shown pictures of it in the sunshine, no wonder they hadn't a clue what they were looking at.

A new report by Audit Scotland shows participation in sports is falling - cue howls about our nation's shameful reputation for inactivity and obesity - but it only takes into consideration the numbers of people attending council-run sporting facilities.

These have indeed dropped, partly because many council pools and fitness centres are shabby, uninviting and full of screaming kids. But what about the thousands who prefer to walk, run or cycle - whether it's along the street or up a mountain - and keep fit that way?

We're so used to being told we're unhealthy, we tend to accept it, but in this case we might simply be getting in shape without council help. And, of course, some of us go to private clubs, because by paying that little extra we can convince ourselves that nobody will pee in the pool.

Scientists at the University of Glasgow have been forcing fish to yo-yo diet. Sticklebacks that endured a repeated feeding regime of feast then famine died six months short of the usual two-year lifespan, so it was concluded that people who yo-yo diet will die 25% younger than everybody else.

Why? Surely the extent to which this research applies to you depends entirely upon how much you resemble a stickleback?

Do you spend 100% of your

time underwater? Do you weigh

just over a gram? Do you

continually binge on mosquito

larvae then starve yourself? Then,

I'm sorry, but chances are you'll

only live 75% as long as people

who don't.

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