Testing times

THESE are testing times for Northern Ireland…especially for the 12,000+ P7 children about to sit ‘unregulated’ tests for 8,000 grammar school places.

Against a backdrop of bickering politicians, burning vans on the front pages of newspapers, a recession, and the prospect of harsh cuts in public spending, anxious children and their families are occupying their times in the final push of revision and associated nerves.

Applied mathematicians are currently calculating the probability of common sense breaking out in the post primary transfer debate.

They are basing their calculations on the number of years the fiasco has been going on, the number of pointless statements being made by both sides, the acreage of Scandinavian forests cut down to meet newsprint demand for pointless re-treaded arguments and the capacity of a Northern Ireland politician to make sense in two consecutive sentences.

It is anticipated that the mathematician who cracks this puzzle will be in line for a Nobel Maths prize…and a well-earned break.