decision a writer makes - it's an inevitability." After the second series of Joking Apart had been transmitted, Ptaszynski revived Moffat's original idea about a sitcom set in a school. In an article for The Guardian newspaper, writer and comedian Richard Herring observed that Moffat has not used the show "as a soapbox from which to satirise the government’s educational policy, preferring to concentrate on being funny ... yet beneath it all is a much more broadly satirical swipe at the implicit pointlessness of the way we are educated." For this article, Moffat told Herring: Secondary School is a big waste of time. What are French teachers doing? None of us can speak French. How much maths can you do? Do you know any history? What is the point in training people to do things that none of us can do? The system seems designed to qualify you for the Indian Civil Service in 1911. We all leave school unable to drive! Now that would be quite handy. Moffat discussed similar institutional and political issues with The Independent: Staffrooms are funny places, full of articulate, mad people. They have a tremendous sense of black humour, but there's a layer of dust over them. They are immature because they're in a children's environment all the time. They have a strange perspective; because they spend all day with kids, they are more aware of kids' culture than adults'. When they read about a former pupil who has become head of ICI, they always say, 'But that boy's an idiot. He's crap at geography.' The boy is condemned forever because in the 1960s he didn't know all the capitals of the Third World. The Independent reported that Moffat "stresses that Chalk is a sitcom, not some banner-waving, agitprop pamphlet", but is still "passionate about education". Moffat criticises "the [Conservative] government talk about the specially talented needing more education, but that's absurd, the equivalent of hospitals for the healthy." Moffat expected that teachers would find the show funny because it "has certain notes of accuracy", recognising familiar myths such as the dead teacher and teachers' contempt for their pupils. Moffat continued to say that teachers would "also recognise the pathological preference for science over arts and all that league-table shit. An official teaching organisation couldn't say, 'It's a very faithful portrayal,' but I hope they'd say, 'It's a comedy series. Why take it seriously?'