BC Pires

In sym­pa­thy with T&T's chil­dren whose fu­tures as movers-and-shak­ers or movers-of-fur­ni­tures may have been de­cid­ed by the re­cent Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment ex­am, I fin­ish my own 51-Plus to­day, with what used to be called "the com­po­si­tion" back when stu­dents were ex­pect­ed to com­pose Stan­dard Eng­lish an­swers, not re­gur­gi­tate iden­tik­it Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion-speak "lan­guage arts."

The for­mi­da­ble Bernadette M, PA to the Guardian E-in-C, some­how per­suad­ed the min­istry to di­vulge last year's es­say choic­es, which (edit­ed for length) were:

1. Write your best friend a let­ter say­ing why you en­joyed a book you fin­ished in two days and en­cour­ag­ing him to read it.

2. Write a let­ter to your best friend invit­ing him to the birth­day par­ty your par­ents are throw­ing, giv­ing de­tails of the planned ex­cit­ing ac­tiv­i­ties.

3. Write a let­ter thank­ing a fa­mous sports per­son­al­i­ty for ad­dress­ing your school and ex­plain­ing how the equip­ment do­nat­ed will make phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion more in­ter­est­ing.

Since I've had 25 years' paid prac­tice in writ­ing com­po­si­tions every Fri­day, to in­crease the chal­lenge, I'll com­bine all the top­ics and in­vert their or­der, adopt the per­sona of a pub­lic fig­ure in the news this week, the learned (ex­cept about e-mail ad­dress­es, the In­ter­net and ISPs) Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, and, in­stead of the pri­ma­ry schools all of us left ages ago, I'll thank my sports per­son­al­i­ty for vis­it­ing an in­sti­tu­tion all of us are more like­ly to en­ter to­day.

Dear Jack Warn­er

Thank you for vis­it­ing Gold­en Grove Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison. I over­heard one in­mate say how, watch­ing you in the jail, he could eas­i­ly see the re­sem­blance be­tween you and your big son, Daryan, but I don't see it my­self. I heard an­oth­er con­vict say how he hear Daryan ask you if you-all were still close, and if you would take his bail, and how you an­swer Daryan, "Arks yuh mud­der!" but I want to be­lieve the pris­on­er was con­fused.In any case–that is just an ex­pres­sion, eh, I not talk­ing about any law­suit or pros­e­cu­tion or any­thing, since I have no e-mails in­crim­i­nat­ing you writ­ten by some­one else–the pris­on­ers asked me to thank you for all the equip­ment you do­nat­ed. They un­der­stand, as you re­peat­ed­ly re­peat­ed, that the mon­ey was not bribes, but sim­ply gifts. Many of them promise to give ev­i­dence on your be­half if you should ever need it, that, every­where you go, you just nat­u­ral­ly al­ways give out cash to all sorts of groups, and is not cor­rup­tion, is gen­eros­i­ty. The "equip­ment" made phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion far more in­ter­est­ing in­side be­cause men could af­ford to bribe prison guards to bring in ex­ot­ic dancers.

Now you migh­ta won­der what I was do­ing in Gold­en Grove. I wasn't in­side there scout­ing to see if I could get Bas­deo Pan­day old cell for my­self, which I un­der­stand most high-rank­ing UNC peo­ple do. You see, my old folks de­cide to throw a sur­prise birth­day par­ty for me and I want­ed to in­vite you, and, since I heard you were hold­ing a Ch­agua­nas West in­de­pen­dent can­di­date po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in there, where you woul­da had a true-true cap­tive au­di­ence for the first time in your cam­paign, I fall een to meet you. You know the old folks who throw­ing the par­ty for me so much old­er now that they tell me about the par­ty, and then warn me is a sur­prise and tell me not to tell me!I couldn't have a bir'day par­ty with­out you. You and me just been through too much to­geth­er, al­though we re­al­ly went through it apart. I, eg, was un­just­ly ac­cused of thief­ing my own red sand and you, a few years lat­er, were ac­cused of thief­ing your own build­ing that was re­al­ly a gift from an­oth­er man equal­ly as prin­ci­pled as your­self in Fi­fa. I was thrown out of the Cab­i­net un­fair­ly by a Prime Min­is­ter who jeal­ous me and, a few years lat­er, look what hap­pen to you! I look ex­treme­ly hand­some with a com­plete­ly shaved head and you...well, don't dig noth­ing, all analo­gies does break down at some point; you is still my best friend and you have to come to my par­ty.

I go­ing to have all kin­da fun ac­tiv­i­ty. One par­ty game will be "pass the par­cel" and I re­al­ly want you in that. I have an idea for a game named "pin the tail on the strip­per" but don't tell the madam about that one, and I def­i­nite­ly go­ing to try an­oth­er game of "pin the e-mail on the UNC," even if the first rounds didn't work out so good. You think I could try a Bap­tist let­ter, boy? Any­how, I will stop with that now. Any­time I run out of ideas, I does run out of the con­ver­sa­tion quick-quick be­fore any­body could no­tice. You ent see me pick up my ten mill­stones, sor­ry, Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment, and bus' it out the white-peo­ple Par­lia­ment this week faster than you could say "Patrick Au­gus­tus Man­ning"? Or faster than he could say it, any­how? In fact, f-f-f-f-f-faster th-th-th-th-than you-self, too!But is your pres­ence I want at my par­ty, not your presents. In fact, I go­ing to give you a gift of a book that I fin­ish in two days that change my life. I feel it will be very use­ful to you in your up­com­ing chal­lenges, whether in your gold­en years or in Gold­en Grove self. It's a lit­tle tat­tered, be­cause it get plen­ty read­ing, but it's called, The Art of War. Don't mind the ini­tials writ­ten on the out­side of the pages–PM; they stand for "project man­ag­er."Yours as tru­ly as a politi­cian can ever get­Kee­tos

BC Pires is head­ing for re­form school. E-mail your file-in-a-thong to him at bc@carib­surf.com.