31 May 2004

CONNEMARA RAINBOW 2002 ..........................................................................................................   A pal of mine, a Londoner, sent me this slight anecdote.  It concerns no more than an overheard brief encounter, but I found its theme of individual talking to individual across lines of ethnicity & religion oddly cheering.   I go to an evening class every Wednesday at Hackney Community College in East London. I was there last Wednesday and it was a glorious, sunny, summer evening as I walked across the vast square inside. An Asian girl in black, a Moslem, was sitting on a grassy knoll, wearing the headscarf, but not the mask, draped in black from chin to toe. She called to a passing friend, a girl of Afro-Caribbean extraction, who was wearing a very bright pink number: "Hi, you look great. Pink really suits you". The other replied: "Thanks. It's new; I bought it on the weekend. Thanks. You ... er ... you look shit!" They both laughed. I laughed too and thought that maybe, just maybe, there is hope ..   This fragment of the email folk process may well have passed around your workplaces so stop me if you’ve heard it.  It amused me for its easy applicability to the British political context.  Apologies to any humour-free Kerry supporters.   A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost.  He reduced altitude and, spottIng a woman below, he descended a bit more and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me?  I promised Ted, I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."  The woman below replied,” You’re in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You're between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude." "You must be a Republican," said the balloonist. "I am," replied the woman, "How did you know?" "Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is, technically correct, but I've no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I'm still lost.  Frankly, you've not been much help at all. If anything, you've delayed my trip." The woman below responded,” You must be John F. Kerry!" "I am," replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?" "Well," said the woman, "you don't know where you are or where you're going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise which you've no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems.  The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it's my fault."   9:58:30 PM    Mmm? []

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