Re: High school essay

["Ross \(Goldie\) Goldspink" <goldicom@powerup.com.au>]

Were the tangaras built by the yanks?

Yank engineer managers built the gas pipeline control centre at Young
(NSW) - the aircon was bloody awful, which is strange for something built by
the Yanks.  Ten years later when extensions were being built we found big
ducts on the south (solid wall) side, and small ducts on the north (plate
glass window) side.  Yep - set up for the northern hemisphere!

Goldie


"Bradley Torr" <btorr@bigpond.nospam.com> wrote in message
3916aedd@pink.one.net.au">news:3916aedd@pink.one.net.au...
> 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
>
>
>
>
>