Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Pregnant pause
I’ve been studying a video clip of the pregnant woman who almost fainted during a speech of president Obama. She was standing right behind him, tottering like a skittle, before Obama sensed what was going on. Not wanting her to collapse at his feet like a devotee of Guru Baba Ramdev, he turned round and patted her. As every American knows, a pat from the president is like sniffing a bottle of smelling salts. She steadied on her feet and was led away to the White House gynaecology room.
The president’s detractors are now saying that the incident was a stage-managed hoax, to make Obama look like a messianic figure whose mere presence gives ladies the vapours. I personally doubt he would need to resort to such fakery. Women were always fainting on me in my circus days – something about being spoken to by a gorilla made them weak at the knees. Obama is no gorilla, but his voice is deep and the woman was pregnant. I can’t really blame her for feeling giddy in the circumstances.
The woman has since been interviewed and denied she was a stooge or shop dummy (as many have alleged). I hope this silences the president’s accusers, because the man has enough on his plate, what with Angela Merkel accusing him of listening in on her phonecalls. She’s making a big fuss about it, but you have to wonder whether she’s secretly flattered that Obama is so interested in her private affairs. He denied it when she called him, but maybe it would have been better for German-American relations if he’d confessed.
“Angela, I admit it all,” he might have said. “I just love hearing you chatter away in your sexy Oberschwester voice, especially when you use words like Wirtschaftlichen and Strumpfhosen. How about sending me a tape of you singing in the bath?”
I hope no one will say that Frau Merkel is incapable of such emotions because she’s German. For one thing, it would be an unpleasant example of national stereotyping. For another thing, a 24-year-old student called Niklaus Knecht has proved that Germans can be as romantic as Troy Tempest, the submariner who fell in love with a mute girl with gills.
What happened to young Knecht was this: Someone stole his mobile phone and sold it to a girl living in Morocco. This girl took pictures of herself with the phone, which somehow got sent to Knecht’s mailbox. The besotted boy then announced on his Facebook page that he’d let her keep the phone if she agreed to have a date with him. The girl has yet to respond to the offer and is no doubt weighing up her options as we speak.
If I were Angela Merkel, I would give Knecht an award for proving that Germans can be as goofy and love-struck as men from Moldova and Azerbaijan. I’ve just noticed that Knecht is Swiss rather than German. What of it? With a name like Knecht he must have German ancestry, right? Let’s not get hung up over nuances.
Labels: Angela Merkel, Barack Obama, Germans, love at first sight, phone-tapping, pregnancy
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Subway romance
A correspondent sends me a heart-warming story from New York City. A young man notices a girl writing in her diary across a crowded subway carriage. Smitten by love, or possibly something stronger, he knows that he must speak to her. But alas! – she alights from the train before he can pluck up the courage to do so. In an agony of heartbroken remorse, he constructs a website displaying freehand drawings of the girl and himself, imploring the good citizens of the metropolis to help him trace her. And mirabile dictu, one of the girl’s friends clicks on the site and recognises her! Mr Patrick Moberg meets Miss Camille Hayton and they appear together on a TV chat show. After basking shyly in their brief moment of fame, they stroll off into the sunset, arm-in-arm.
Love at first sight is a curious concept for a gorilla. It implies that a fellow would fall for Cruella de Vil if her soul were packaged in the right body. Perhaps Ms de Vil would have been more lovable had her physical attributes been suitably appealing. But somehow I doubt it. The pages of history are littered with ladies who were beautiful but bad. The goddess Kali stuck out her tongue at her mortally wounded husband; the lady Messalina trounced Rome’s leading prostitute in a bonking content; Madam Mao Zedong was accurately described as “the baddest bitch in Beijing” by Chinese rap singer Ho Man Fuk. The sad fact is that a woman’s appearance tells you very little about her character, although I am reliably informed that the ones with tattoos make more noise in bed.
One thing that will have surely surprised young Patrick is that comely Camille is in fact Australian. Now, personally, I have yet to meet an Aussie girl I didn’t like. In general, they are easy-going, fun-loving ladies, with bottoms of above-average firmness (for humans). But will Miss Hayton be right for a romantic, sensitive lad such as Master Moberg? How will he respond to being called “a pillock” or “a drongo” in a spirit of playful banter? And how will she react to Patrick reciting poetry while they’re gazing at the New York skyline? Hopefully it will melt her heart, but what if she thinks he’s a poofter? The opportunities for cultural misunderstandings of this sort seem endless.
The picture of Camille drawn by Patrick suggests that her plump and rosy cheeks were a big part of the attraction. I don’t blame him for that. I myself have always had a weakness for women with chubby cheeks. There were several in my circus days who granted me the privilege of pinching their delectable face cushions. (I have similar ambitions for a couple of my female readers, who shall be nameless.) Hopefully Camille will be tickled pink at having a boyfriend who can’t get enough of her tasty chops. Looking at her photograph, another question comes to mind: Is there a polite way of asking a girl to massage your back with her chin? Having been a recipient of chin-to-back stimulation from female gorillas, I can assure you that Camille would be capable of grinding a man’s spinal cord into a state of transcendental bliss.
Perhaps the most amusing aspect of this uplifting tale is that Patrick received e-mails from young ladies who had no knowledge or interest in the whereabouts of Camille, but wished to present themselves in her stead.
“You’re so adorable!” they typically gushed. “Pick me instead!”
This reminds of a circus clown who prominently displayed a large portrait of his sister in his trailer. Visitors always asked him who she was. If he was with a woman he fancied, he would say that she was his late fiancé and break down in tears. Nine times out of ten, he ended up blubbering into their bosoms.
Labels: drongo, love at first sight, pillock, Romance
