We were allowed to see one of the complaints. It was a three-page diatribe so ludicrous that no sane person would have treated it seriously, including, for example, the allegation that teachers were openly allowing drug-taking and boasting of their own criminal records.

On a more predictable level was the handful of parents complaining that the pupils were made to work too hard. The inspectors, in their interviews with students, found no grounds to substantiate this odd claim. At one point, the lead inspector said that some parents thought the pupils were unhappy. This remark was spoken over the sound of pupil laughter in the corridors - they had not read the script.

It became more and more apparent that beneath the investigations of trivia there was resentment against a selective school being so successful and providing an education that was producing independent-minded young people with the talents and qualities to make a difference in the world. There was, in short, a suspicion of "excellence" and, at the end of the day, when it proved impossible not to grade the school as "outstanding" in every single category, the final summing-up included the gleeful words, "but only just", with the inspector's thumb and index finger pinched together to indicate how grateful we should be for her concessions.