No 3646 Set by Margaret Rogers
To mark the girls outsmarting the boys at their A levels, we asked for verses from the girls celebrating this event ("There is nothing like a dame", perhaps?) or from the boys lamenting it ("We don't need no education"?).
Report by Ms de Meaner
There is nothing like a bit of chanting and one-upwomanship to get the head nodding, the fingers clicking and the body moving. I enjoyed them all. Hon menshes to Anne Du Croz for "What Becomes of a Guy with E Grades?" (sung to "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted?" by Jimmy Ruffin), Katie Mallett for "Anything Boys Can Do, Girls Can Do Better" and Alanna Blake for "Thank Heaven That We Are Girls, For British Girls Get Smarter Every Day". £20 to the winners; the vouchers go to Geoff Thurman. The winners picked "Mother's Little Helper", "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina", "Imagine" and "Sixteen Going On Seventeen" to get their claws into.
We don't brag too much, doing well.
Girls do better day by day
All the Boards and teachers say -
As they worry how far boys are going down.
And that laddish thugs and yobs
Won't be qualified for jobs
As we girls' brains prove real belters,
No more mother's little helpers,
But the A-brain in the house
A superior kind of nous -
Let's not brag too much, doing well.
We're the tops (A grades and stars):
Boys just mooch around in bars
While we're proving force and power lie with us.
Brains don't need testosterone
And we're brighter on our own -
But we shouldn't patronise,
Cut the thick lads down to size -
What they need's more care and shelter,
Stay at home, be mother's helper
While we slag them off, doing well.
D A Prince
It wasn't easy, you'll think it weird
When I try to explain how I failed,
How I got E in English after all I had done.
You won't believe me
When I say to you how little I knew;
How I got an F+ in Maths,
Though I'm sixes (sevens?) with you.
I tried to let it happen, I tried to swot,
Couldn't spend all my time in the bed,
Playing with my gamemaster, staying out late at clubs.
So I chose the birds,
Running around trying everyone new;
But nothing entered my thick brain -
I never expected it to.
Don't cry for me, Angelina,
The truth is I never did a tap;
All through my class days
My lad existence, I kept my promise:
Not to stay level.
John O'Byrne
Imagine there's no future, it isn't hard to do,
Apart from dole and office jobs, and no real pension too.
Imagine all the dockyards quietly boarded up . . .
Imagine being my father. He's never been the same
Since losing four jobs in a year. Well, I won't play that game.
Imagine all the hours I've wasted sitting here . . .
You may say I'm a thicko. But I'm not the only one.
You should meet my brother Julian; my sister Jill's the clever one.
Imagine no production. Nothing left to sell,
Apart from stocks and services. A mad imported hell.
Imagine all the people sat on their arse all day . . .
Imagine there's no teacher. It's easy if you try.
No one to wave the ruler; above us only sky.
Imagine all the people living for today . . .
You may say I'm a thicko (etc)
Geoff Thurman
I am seventeen, going on eighteen:
Unbroken As, no Bs.
Cytokinetics, Kantian ethics -
What don't I know of these?
Do I need someone older and wiser
Telling me what to do?
You are eighteen, going on nineteen
(But that's only your IQ).
Totally unprepared were you for your C, D and E
Never mind pr2 - were you
Beyond your ABC?
You are eighteen, going on seven,
Thicker than two short planks.
Boys are all plonkers, short pants and conkers
Go out with you? No thanks.
David Silverman
No 3649 Set by George Cowley
Edward Skidelsky wrote in the NS (14 August): "'Philosophy' is just a word for a certain manner of being confused." Philosophers, he opined, often forget there is a world outside: "This conception of philosophy . . . has a whimsical, Alice-in-Wonderland quality to it." Could you send in some philosophy as written by Lewis Carroll. Don't forget, when you use a word, it means just what you choose it to mean, neither more nor less. Max 200 words and in by 5 October.
E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk
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