Thursday 15 March 2012

Report Card

To Mr Ian and Mary Cameron:
We need to talk a bit about your son.
We’re sure you only want the best for him,
But, sad to say, the news is rather grim.
So we, the faculty of Eton College,
Have deemed it best to bring this to your knowledge:
The boy’s a dunce. He can’t be taught, we quit.
We’ve tried our best, and that’s the end of it.

You’d think that sixty grand a year you paid
For David’s education would’ve made
The slightest bit of difference to his brain,
But no – his head’s so addled with champagne
(Which, strictly speaking, he’s too young to drink –
That mad boy Boris gave it him, we think),
That learning simply fizzes out his ears
Into the ether, then just disappears.

Take History, for starters, as a case:
His lineage, you’d think, would help him ace
That class on FDR and the Depression –
Instead he seems to think that a recession
Is cured by slashing public sector pay
And letting corporations have their way!
Such ignorance on such a scale’s unreal,
And quite insulting to the old “New Deal”.

Of Sciences, Zoology’s his best:
He likes the way that birds all line their nests;
And once, at hustings for the class election,
He spoke at length on Natural Selection,
And, though he likened Darwin’s book to faeces,
We think he’s read The Origin Of Species,
For though we teach The Bible as a rule,
That dog-eat-dog stuff really made him drool.

His grades in English are the worst by far –
His grasp of definitions is sub-par:
He always gets confused by ‘do’ and ‘don’t’,
And ends up doing the thing he says he won’t.
Grammatical constructions are a maze,
So one can’t fathom anything he says,
And as for adjectives, he’s off the wall:
He thinks ‘conservative’ means ‘wreck it all’!

But worst of all, the boy just won’t respect us,
Or learn the values preached in our prospectus:
The tolerance, integrity, and thought
A high-priced education really ought
To inculcate in children David’s age.
So, since no words of ours will assuage
That strong desire to give the kid a smack,
We think it’s fair we pay your money back.

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