Dear Varsity,

I don’t know how I managed to ignore the manic morbidity of my early morning commute for so long. Only now does the daily succession of unremarkable names that are blurted forth from the bus radio - a phenomenon that takes up about a third of the station’s airtime - make any sense. Interspersed with the station’s other favourite programme material, that being primarily time- and age-inappropriate dancehall songs (of which my current favourite is a tune consisting primarily of the enthusiastic imperative ‘make me cum’, shaken up towards the end with the introduction of an alluring stammer in the refrain ‘m-m-m-m-make me cum’) is essentially a roll-call of mourning relatives of the recently deceased. A fact which, in itself, is rather unremarkable, yet when combined with its gleeful - verging on demented – delivery is truly something to behold. When ‘nous avons le regret d’annoncer  le décès de [insert dead family member’s name here]...’ is followed by a Sheila’s Wheels-worthy high-octane barrage of name upon name the result is strangely captivating, even if the same content in England would far likelier be found in a surreal sketch show than the 8am national news.

 The issue of irony has proved a little troublesome here, actually. Not only have I already been caught out by village elders giggling silently at the euphoric death announcements on the bus, but I’ve also somehow managed to unintentionally convince two new Guadeloupian compatriots that I’ve hired an agricultural assassin to do away with a trio of cockerels that have been bothering me tirelessly of late. Admittedly I had been musing for several minutes about the prospect of such action in way that might have convinced an onlooker of my sincerity, but this was absolutely not the case (especially now as I have welcomed an immigrant community of mice into our house that I am hoping will overthrow the cockerel hegemony in due course). It is therefore with regret that I learnt today that my new non-facetiously-minded friend is in fact my landlord’s nephew, which explains why said landlord has started to look a little uneasy around me, and protective around his beloved bastard cockerels...

Hax x