English Language Test

8th March 2007

In yesterday’s newspaper I read the following – ‘The ability to speak English should be a prerequisite for Asian women wanting to settle in Britain, Leader of the Commons Jack Straw said yesterday’. All I can say to this is that it’s a good job that the ability to be able to speak our mother tongue correctly doesn’t extend to people who already live here.
The entire cast of EastEnders would be deported immediately, I should have fought, what you fink guv? And with them a good half of the population of the rest of London and all Essex.
Ian Wright would be a cert to leave the country, along with out television screens, thank Christ.
Any Geordie who regularly ‘gans yam’ instead of going home would likewise be asked to depart our shores.
Residents of Birmingham with their ‘Do yow cum frum Brum?’ and Liverpudlians with their indecipherable utterances which sound like they are coughing up phlegm with every word would be told to hoppit for some other land, preferably far away, although some would say (not me I hasten to add) that there is an excellent argument that all scousers, regardless of their accent, should be jettisoned from the country for no other reason that they are scousers.
Cornishmen, Devonians, ee bah gum Yorkshiremen and Lancastrians, would have to join them, and as for Scots, especially Glaswegians, they would be the first out along with the Welsh, who might also qualify for deportation twice over for the same reason as scousers.
As far as Asian women having to pass an English test before being allowed into the country is concerned however I think there will be little chance of any of them failing test, not if the tests are as dumbed-down as the GCSE A levels our schoolchildren are now being asked to sit by our excuse for a Government. I wouldn’t mind betting that a typical question will be, multi-choice of course –

Which of the following is correct?
(a) I are going to the corner shop to buy some rice for our evening meal.
(b) I am going to the corner shop to sell some rice for our evening meal.
(c) I am going to the corner shop to buy some rice for our evening meal.
(d) I are going to the corner shop to sell some rice for our evening meal. 
(e) Fuck the rice, we’ll have chips instead.

Underline the correct answer. Best of five attempts to count.

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