Is this a Census I see before me? Wednesday Ramblings
Stabroek News
February 4, 2004

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ClassicBooks.com

Census and Non-Sensibility

Thrilling novel from the pen of the sensational Jane Austen in which heroine Marianne, a census taker in 19th century Somerset, hides her data under her petticoat for 12 months. It takes the dashing and fiery Mr Willoughby to recover the results after a spirited drawing room tussle.

Price $2002 Place your order now

Hamlet

By William Shakespeare

The classic story of the Prince of Denmark and his existential dilemma over whether to publish the figures of a census conducted by his murdered father given that his mother married, a little too hastily, the Chief Census Taker.

To wit the famous soliloquy:

"To release or not to release that is the question

Whether to suffer the slings and arrows

Of the political ramifications of mass migration

And possible ethnic imbalances

Or to sit on the census

And by doing so

Look really, really bad"

Price $2002 Place your order now

Romeo and Juliet

The unforgettable tale of two young lovers caught between their families, the Pippissias and the Sophias and how a long overdue census seals their fate.

Here is an excerpt

Act II SCENE II.

JULIET appears at a window in Freedom House

Romeo (from behind a drinks cart): But, soft! what light through yonder window of Bureau of Statistics breaks?

It is the initial census data and Benjamin is the sun.

Arise, fair census and kill the envious opposition parties

Who are already sick and pale from waiting.

For the figures show a mark-ed decline

To make the politicians sick and green

It is my census O, it is my love!

JULIET

O Census, Census! Wherefore art thou Census?

Deny thy controversial data not;

Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,

And I'll no longer be the daughter of the Chief Census Taker.

Price $2002 Place your order now

Please allow at least 14 months for delivery

Calypsos are so So So

Modern calypso songs are so lame

It must be to do with the brain drain

Always attacking so and so minister

For doing stuff dey say is sinister

Everything seems to rhyme with the

vowel 'e'

like adultr'y, unity and equality,

or road safety the bauxite industry

and let's not forget bad melody

Or they going on about national pride

Guns, drugs and minibus rides

That's why we say Stop de Calypsos

Yes Stop de Calypsos,

Dem stale with nothing to say

Like a neighbour who won't go away

Yes Stop de Calypsos

They talk nuff about domestic 'voilence'

But see woman as having little conscience

The songs are so overtly political

If they were a patient they would be

critical

Another wrote about rice farmers

He must think he is CN Sharma

And how can you be witty

Preaching correct ethnicity

While cleaning up the city

Making vacuous comments about

national unity

Preaching tolerance for those with HIV

Then make fun of a man called Titi

While going on stage and whining

your beetee

That's why we say Stop de Calypsos

Yes Stop de Calypsos,

Them stale with nothing to say

Like a neighbour who won't go away

Yes Stop de Calypsos

(Etc etc etc)

Question of the week

Aren't you just thrilled about the new religious TV station?