The defence

I'm expecting a letter of thanks from the council

“Learned Judge,
I will now explain myself to you so that you will understand why I had to kill my Norwegian teacher with a currant bun laced with arsenic. It all started like this. Our Norwegian teacher writes everything on the blackboard. That in itself was not a problem. The problem was that she wrote in far too extreme "Nynorsk" Norwegian. There are two kinds of Norwegian: Bokmål and Nynorsk. Nynorsk uses many special words that are modelled on dialect. These use lots of "J"s and "A"s, and sometimes people go overboard with this. If you could only see the sort of things she wrote you would have wanted to kill her as well. It really was necessary. I couldn't understand a thing of what she wrote. It doesn't seem possible to have so many "J"s and "A"s in one sentence. It was despicable. No-one else in the class could understand it either. So I did them a favour in killing her. The whole class will surely go up several grades in Norwegian now. I am quite sure that the Nynorsk alone would have been a more than adequate reason to kill her.

Not only that, but it took her for ever to get into the classroom. She never managed to find the right key, but tried them all, one after another. It took such a terribly long time. I can't understand how it was possible. Half the lesson wasted through such irritating incompetence. Even the things she managed to do went so slowly. Oh, so much time wasted. I have saved a whole generation through doing this. Because of all that wasted time, no-one would ever have learned anything, they wouldn't have got good jobs and would not have been able to enjoy a good life. I am quite sure that if you, learned Judge, had been forced to wait half an hour while the steward was fumbling with the keys to try and unlock the courtroom, you would have wanted to kill him or her yourself!

When she finally got the classroom unlocked, and had written a few lines on the blackboard, she would begin rubbing out. I can hardly bear to think about it! She always rubbed from right to left; every single time from right to left. She always used a partly-dry sponge which made irritating scratching noises as it rubbed along the board. It drove me completely insane! It's not possible to live with such things. But even this was not the worst. The worst was that she would only rub away half the sentence. You could still see the upper part of the As and Js. So careless! If she could just hold the sponge a little higher … Oh, learned judge, if you only could have seen it you would thank me at once for what I did!

If, for instance, we were to watch a film clip from YouTube she would ask me (it was always me) to turn on the data projector. This I would do, but the projector then had to find the correct channel. In order for it to do this, the computer has to be turned on. This is something she has not yet understood, so she spent for ever each time trying to find out what had gone wrong when the screen remained blank. When she eventually listened to the class telling her that she had to turn the computer on, she always pressed the wrong button. When she eventually got the computer turned on and was trying to log on, she forgot every time to press Ctrl-Alt-del, so naturally enough she didn't get anywhere. If we (the class) did not manage to stop her in time, she would turn the computer off and try to turn it on again. Can you imagine how much time all this took? When she finally managed to log on and found the internet, she would search for GOOGLE in the Google search field. Anyone at all would have killed her just for that. After finding Google she would search for YUOTUEB and then wonder why nothing came up. After understanding the problem, she would then search for YOUTUBE followed by the subject she wanted. For instance, she would write something like: YOUTUBE BAROQUE LITERATURE and then wonder why there were hardly ever any good results. The lesson was normally over by the time she actually managed to locate a film clip. Oh, so much wasted time!

Then, as the final insult, she would not let me write any more of my fantastic Uncle Bob series in our essay-writing tests. As a result, Uncle Bob was very upset, resulting in a decline in my Norwegian grades. Honestly, my Uncle Bob series is fantastic literature: I can send you a collection of the best works if you like, learned Judge. Then you will see that suddenly not being allowed to write any more about him is a more than good enough reason to kill someone.

So, learned Judge. Now that you have heard all this I am sure that you will agree with me that I simply had to do this and that it was in the best interests of the school and of the community. I'm sure you would have done the same yourself. Obviously you will find me not guilty and I'm expecting a letter of thanks from the council; the school should really consider giving me a medal.”

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