I keep hearing, and reading, "heroes" as "herpes". Homes fit for herpes.
Freedom-loving herpes. That kind of thing.
("So I went to the clinic, and the doctor said I had Hermes." - "Don't
you mean Herpes?" - "No, I'm a carrier.")
This weekend I attended the wedding reception of a Muslim family friend,
a grand if decidedly non-alcoholic affair which took place in the Park
Lane Hotel in London. At one point almost everyone was dancing to
Madonna, followed by S'Express and MC Hammer. Your man Abu Hamsa
would've had a fit.
What I saw on the BBC of the 11/09 ceremonies was fairly much the
mixture of the honourable and the damnable that I would have expected.
The honourable remains surprising and moving, and does I think have the
global resonance that is claimed for it: by all means let the good,
brave and resourceful Americans join the Universal Human Brotherhood
Chorus of the Good, Brave and Resourceful. The damnable is familiar,
more or less, although I was startled and intimidated by the brazenness
of much of it - the willingness to project an image of moral as well as
military invincibility ("herpes...herpes"), which I think will turn out
to be somewhat of a hostage to fortune over the coming year. It means
either "we don't commit massacres, because we're the good guys", or,
"our massacres don't count, because we're the good guys"; and you don't
have to show people too much footage of napalmed toddlers for them to
start taking issue with either of those assertions.
Dominic
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