Don’t jump, Felipe!

Peering over my son’s shoulder as he forced himself through a pile of practice IGCSE maths papers in readiness for this week’s exams, I was shocked both by the absence of pounds sterling and by the ardently international imaginary first names dreamed up by the question-setters. That ‘I’ stands for ‘international’ — and goodness, you’re not allowed to forget it.

‘Nyali paid $62 for a bicycle.’ ‘Alejandro goes to Europe for a holiday. He changes 500 pesos into euros at an exchange rate of…’ ‘Abdul invested $240…’ ‘At 05 06 Mr Ho bought 850 fish at a market for $2.62 each…’ ‘On 1 January 2000 Ashraf was x years old. Bukki was 5 years older than Ashraf and Claude was twice as old as Ashraf…’ At the sight of the final question, ‘Felipe stands 7 metres from a bridge’, I couldn’t help envisaging Felipe as a boy in suicidal mood, having had to navigate both this gruelling maths and the zealously multiracial landscape.