The Wilt Alternative by Tom Sharpe Read Free Book Online

the Empire on England. Curry,

baksheesh, pukka, posh, polo, thug words that had infiltrated the English language from farflung

outposts where the Wilts of a previous age had lorded it with an arrogance and authority he found

it hard to imagine. He was interrupted in these pleasantly nostalgic speculations by Mrs Rosery,

the Department secretary, who came to say that Mr Germiston was sick and couldn't take Electronic

Technicians Three and that Mr Laxton, his stand-in, had done a swop with Mrs Vaugard without

telling anyone and she wasn't available because she had previously made an appointment at the

dentist and...
    Wilt went downstairs and crossed to the hut where Electronic Technicians were sitting in a

stupor of pub-lunch beer, 'Right,' he said sitting down behind the table, 'Now what have you been

doing with Mr Germiston?'
    'Haven't done a bloody thing with him,' said a red-headed youth in the front. 'He isn't worth

it. One punch up the snout and...'
    'What I meant,' said Wilt before redhead could go into the details of what would happen to

Germiston in a fight, was what has he been talking to you about so far this term?'
    'Fucking darkies,' said another technician.
    'Not literally, I trust,' said Wilt hoping that his irony would not lead to a discussion of

interracial sex. 'You mean race relations?'
    'I mean spades. That's what I mean. Nignogs, wogs, foreigners, all them buggers what come in

here and take jobs away from decent white blokes What I say is...'
    But he was interrupted by another ET 3 'You don't want to listen to what he says. Joe's a

member of the National Front '
    'What's so wrong with that?' demanded Joe. 'Our policy is to keep '
    'Out of politics,' said Wilt. 'That's my policy and I mean to stick with it. What you say

outside is your affair but in the classroom we'll discuss something else.'
    'Yeah, well you ought to tell old Germ-Piston that. He spends his bloody life telling us we

got to be Christians and love our neighbours like ourselves. Well if he lived in our street he'd

know different. We got a load of Jamrags two doors off and they play bongo drums and dustbins

till four in the ruddy morning. If old Germy knows a way of loving that din all fucking night he

must be blooming deaf.'
    'You could always ask them to quieten down a bit or stop at eleven,' said Wilt.
    'What, and get a knife in the guts for the privilege? You must be joking.'
    'Then the police...'
    Joe looked at him incredulously. 'A bloke four doors down went to the fuzz and you know what

happened to him?'
    'No,' said Wilt.
    'Had his car tyres slashed two days later. That's what. And did the cops want to know? Did

they fuck.'
    'Well I can see you've got a problem,' Wilt had to admit.
    'Yeah, and we know how to solve it too,' said Joe.
    'You're not going to solve it by sending them back to Jamaica,' said the Technician who was

anti the National Front. 'The ones in your street didn't come from there anyway. They were born

in Brixton.'
    'Brixton Nick if you ask me.'
    'You're just prejudiced.'
    'So would you be if you didn't get a night's kip in a month.' The battle raged on while Wilt

sat contemplating the class. It was just as he had remembered it from his old days. You got the

apprentices going and then left them to it, only prodding them into further controversy with a

provocative comment when the argument flagged. And these were the selfsame apprentices the

Bilgers of this world wanted to instil with political consciousness as if they were proletarian

geese to be force-fed to produce a totalitarian pâté de foie gras.
    But already Electronic Technicians Three had veered away from race and were arguing about last

year's Cup Final. They seemed to have stronger feelings about football than politics. At the end

of the hour Wilt left them and made his way across to the auditorium to deliver his lecture to

Advanced Foreigners. To his horror he found the place packed. Dr Mayfield had