I was in the airport a few months ago and there was this sad little man at the bar, moping in his beer.
Being a gregarious sort I struck up a conversation. Seems he was visiting our fair country for the first time and was suffering a bit of culture shock - he had one of those Central European accents that - to my yokel-ish ear - sounded vaguely German but could easily be Czech or Hungarian.
As well, turned out he worked for the IOC and he had what he thought was an insolvable problem - what route for The Torch to take on it's way to China.
His choices (for reasons not clear ot me) were down to Washington D.C., Denver, or a third site - the latter being a sort of a wild card pick like we use for American Football.
Anyway, he didn't know the country well and he'd been to D.C. and the climate was 'ok' but politically it was dicey, what with Bush being a hated and reviled figure on the world stage. He visited Denver first but ... mile high city and he caught a dose of altitude sickness. So .. bad politics or runners passing out and dropping the torch.
Poor guy.
In my Mock Serious Tone I suggested ... San Francisco. He brightened. I went on to mention the pluses - the generous climate, the Golden Gate .. and heck it turns out that while he had only the vaguest notion of our domestic politics he was a huge fan of 'Charmed' so he was familiar with at least the Hollywood idea of San Francisco.
He pumped my hand, said danke and hurried off to catch his flight home to Zurich or Hamburg or whatever.
I thought it was a classic case of two kidders kidding each other.
A few weeks ago I saw him on BBC and learned to my horror who he was and what had happened ... but by then it was far too late to call him up - as if I could even get through to him.
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Date: 2008-04-10 04:52 am (UTC)Oh that was me!
I was in the airport a few months ago and there was this sad little man at the bar, moping in his beer.
Being a gregarious sort I struck up a conversation. Seems he was visiting our fair country for the first time and was suffering a bit of culture shock - he had one of those Central European accents that - to my yokel-ish ear - sounded vaguely German but could easily be Czech or Hungarian.
As well, turned out he worked for the IOC and he had what he thought was an insolvable problem - what route for The Torch to take on it's way to China.
His choices (for reasons not clear ot me) were down to Washington D.C., Denver, or a third site - the latter being a sort of a wild card pick like we use for American Football.
Anyway, he didn't know the country well and he'd been to D.C. and the climate was 'ok' but politically it was dicey, what with Bush being a hated and reviled figure on the world stage. He visited Denver first but ... mile high city and he caught a dose of altitude sickness. So .. bad politics or runners passing out and dropping the torch.
Poor guy.
In my Mock Serious Tone I suggested ... San Francisco. He brightened. I went on to mention the pluses - the generous climate, the Golden Gate .. and heck it turns out that while he had only the vaguest notion of our domestic politics he was a huge fan of 'Charmed' so he was familiar with at least the Hollywood idea of San Francisco.
He pumped my hand, said danke and hurried off to catch his flight home to Zurich or Hamburg or whatever.
I thought it was a classic case of two kidders kidding each other.
A few weeks ago I saw him on BBC and learned to my horror who he was and what had happened ... but by then it was far too late to call him up - as if I could even get through to him.