Ye gods, what is the world coming to?
News at the weekend informs us that one examining board has included study of a tram timetable as part of the English Lit A Level.
(Funny, but we used to learn how to use timetables in Maths, at primary school, along with being able to work out mentally how long it would take five workmen to lay 5 miles of train track if it took one workman two days to build a brick wall, if you don't believe me just check out any episode of Ask the Family.)
After my initial 'dismayed of Tunbridge Wells' moment though I think I can see how this might work.
Q1) "Platform 2b or not 2b, that is the question."
(Shakespeare, Hamlet)
Referring to the text provided, Supertram, Timetable, May to November 2008, explain the dilemma facing Hamlet, his possible options and his musings upon these.
Q2) "A Brief Encounter" (Noel Coward) is set in a railway waiting room. With reference to the timetable provided, re-write the first scene with the action taking place at the University tram stop.
Q3) In The Great Gatsby, (F. Scott Fitzgerald,) the drama unfolds during a summer season in the Hamptons.
With reference to the text explain how the story could be different had Gatsby not owned the motorcar and had had to rely on public transport.
Yeah, there are possibilities there.
ianrthorpe
Platform 2B or not 2B
Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer
the crowds and noise of outrageous Meadowhall
or to take refuge in the lofty arcades.
Of of stately Leeds, that is the question
Can I take the tram or do I need to
get the car and drive, there's the rub our kid.
Hamet is suffering an inner conflict, his green principled being chanllenged by his desire for an elegant lifestyle as he struggles to come to terms with the knowledge that his mother is having an affair with his father's brother who owns a double glazing firm.
With all the certainties on which is life was founded Hamlet finds it hard to make the simplest decision Hamet agonises for two and a half hours bewfore deciding to go to Leeds where he is set on by a gang of chavs and beaten to a pulp.
I think thatv deserves a merit point.