High school essay

["Bradley Torr" <btorr@bigpond.nospam.com>]

Cleaning out my apartment a few weeks ago, I found an essay that I had to
write in an exam for Year 11 General English way way back in November 1994.
You could write an ironic essay on any current issue - and I picked the
parlous state of Sydney's rail network. Enjoy. :-)

Question 2.

CARS DRIVE ME CRAZY! (AS DO TRAINS)

So, it seems once again that the Great Public Transport Debate (no. 472) has
started again [sic], with our illustrious State Opposition Leader Bob Carr
stating that, if he wins the next election, he will build a few more dozen
rail links throughout Sydney. You know, knock down a few suburbs here and
there, and just put a pair of tracks through.... simple, really.

But, it seems that our even-more illustrious Great Leader of the Premier
State, Defender of the Faith, High-Jump Fahey has rejected any plans for
rail links! Oh, damn! I happen to enjoy a few trains running right past my
backyard every night, and you let me down, Fahey!

No, no, no, don't get me wrong. I'd rather have giant electric caterpillars
going through my backyard than a freeway! See, the real reason High-Jump
Fahey doesn't want railways is because he loves to see us crawling through
traffic jams at a record speed at eight kilmetres an hour, breathing
one-hundred per-cent pure smog. I don't know why...... maybe he's a sadist
or maybe he wants us to drive slow enough for us to see the ubiquitous
election posters.

But the real reason High-Jump Fahey (named so after his world-recrod
performance in Monaco last year) wants us to drive instead of ride is
because he knows most people LIKE getting caught up in the daily jams. Just
to prove my point, let us look into the miserable like of a poor,
down-trodden rail commuter (or the few that are left).

He gets up at five o'clock in the morning, gets dressed, quick shave,
cardboard bits that pass as Corn Flakes for brekkie, then run [sic] out to
the bus stop at five-fifty-two to catch the bus to the station. But he
misses the connection, and must wait for the next bus forty minutes later.
He spends the next twenty minutes smelling a pregnant woman's armpits and at
the station gets trampled by a horde of schoolkids who were dying on the bus
from asphyxiation. Arriving at the station, he must join a queue longer than
those during the recent South African elections to buy his weeklies. He
arrives at the window to find that you can only buy weeklies from the
machines. He must read the three-hundred page technical manual before he can
operate the machine, then finds that he needs correct change. His wallet
only containing a $20 note and the monthly mint output of five-cent coins,
he attempts to swap change with the person behind him, who also has no
change. Furious, he jumps over the ticket gate, but as all the staff have
been retrenched anyway, no one catches him. While standing on the platform,
the message that his train has been derailed is broadcast in Swahili over
the crackling P.A. system. No matter, he can still catch a train on another
line, he'll just have to make three train changes. After four hours and
twelve minutes, he disembarks at a City Circle station, where there just
happens to be the whole ticket inspection squad, congregating for morning
tea, walking down the concourse asking the poor commuter for his ticket...
and thus a $50 fine is handed to him. He then arrives at his work, after a
stress-free, jam-free journey.

With a rail system like that, with a railsystem which has a crime rate twice
as high as Harlem, NYC on a Friday night, with a rail system whose staff
strictly speak Arabic and Swahili, who can blame High-Jump Fahey for
rejecting new rail links? Bob Carr (an apt name, perhaps?) stated that the
rail system needs an "overhaul". But Transport Minister and Minister for
Olympic Whingeing, and the Minister for Posh Accents, Bruce Baird, stated
that the system has been "overhauled". He offered Tangaras as an example.
What's so great about Tangaras? They look like something you'd find on the
set of Star Trek, sitting on their seats is like sitting on a jagged rock,
and the air conditioning is set onto Northern Hemisphere mode - cool in
winter, warm in summer.

Personally, even though they drive me crazy, I think I'll stick to my car to
get to work. Even though they turn Sydney into the World's Biggest
Gas-Chamber, and they add to the concrete jungle, at least they get you from
A to B. Without the risk of crime, or the smell of armpits.

TEACHERS COMMENTS:

* Are you against pregnancy?
* The way it stands is racist - you have to soften it.
* The ending needs a bit more to it. Overall good ironic tone, sustained
humour.
* SUGGESTED ENDING: .... or the waiting in queues, or the derailments or the
fines, or the difficulties in comprehension. Where the commuter controls his
own destiny in the race to get to work, or home, in the daily scramble for
commuting space, in search of the all-mighty dollar.

TOTAL MARK: 19.5/20.0