When -- as a student at Oxford -- Richard Barham regularly missed his morning chapel, his tutor demanded an explanation. "The fact is, sir," Barham offered, "it's too late for me."

"Too late!?" the tutor cried. "Yes, sir," Barham continued. "I'm a man of regular habits and I can't sit up until seven o'clock in the morning. Unless I get to bed by four, or five at the latest, I'm good for nothing next day."

[In May 2003, a school in Norway (where seniors traditionally spend much of the three weeks before exams at a series of drunken parties) began giving students an extra two hours of sleep each morning -- to help them cope with hangovers. In 2004, a computer-graphics instructor at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College began holding a late-late class on Mondays and Wednesdays -- from 10:30 p.m. to 1:50 a.m.!]