Trashed elbow

Interviewer: How would you handle a situation like the one that just developed in North Korea?

Palin: Well, North Korea, this is stemming from a greater problem, when we're all sitting around asking, 'Oh no, what are we going to do,' and we're not having a lot of faith that the White House is going to come out with a strong enough policy to sanction what it is that North Korea is going to do. So this speaks to a bigger picture that certainly scares me in terms of our national security policy. But obviously, we've got to stand with our North Korean allies – we're bound to by treaty....

Interviewer: South Korean.

Palin: Yes, and we're also bound by prudence to stand with our South Korean allies, yes.

***


A few years ago, I did a quick pop quiz of American workmates: how many of them knew the capital city of Canada? The two most telling responses are recorded below, both of them well spoken, educated and intelligent individuals.

ME: Caitlin, what's the capital of Canada?

Lengthy pause

SHE: Don't blame me. Blame my government.


ME: Adam, what's the capital city of Canada?

HE: Who the fuck cares?

Labels: COMRADES, DULLARDS, EVIL, NEWS, WORDS

_{Image from http://www.learntarot.com
Go take a look, you haters}

The dad has, he flatly informs me, his hand in a plaster cast, fallen foul of a hairline fracture or similar. Apparently he did it with his bike, although, as he was walking with his bike rather than riding it at the time, I suspect there may have been some alcohol involved as well.

You'll get bugger all sympathy out of me, I tell him over the phone. This is not strictly true. I do sympathise with him. I'm also stoked that, when I bought his Christmas present yesterday, I ignored the little voice in the back of my head that told me to get him a watch.

The dad has never been in plaster before. Nor had I when I received a similar injury in an incident involving football and a perfidious Frenchman with murder in his heart (see archive of March '06 for misty-eyed rememb'rance) but I regard the fracturing of one's wrist as a beginning out of an ending, much like the death card in a tarot pack.

With one-handed nonchalance, I learned to tie my tie, open up my customary large Starbucks coffee, add a solid eight-second pour of sugar and seal the cup again, beat my flatmate at pool, put together my longest-ever losing streak at left-handed janken, play Happy birthday to you on the guitar and many more things besides.

When I single-handedly split apart my chopsticks on the table with a deft rap, the glowing compliment I got from Wes took my mind completely off the splinters of bamboo stuck in my fingers.

I bestrode the earth like a colossus and feared no man living.

Ahem.

I hope the dad will understand how stoical I'm being about what is, after all, his injury. I'm back home this weekend, so I'll take a marker with me and challenge him to get as many phone numbers as he can before the well of sympathy runs dry.

Labels: CLAN, SELF IMPROVEMENT

I told this to Joe a while back, but I think it's as well to share it with anyone else who might be interested.

In the unlikely event of me being mauled to death by a tiger, I don't want any of this Of course, the last thing Dan would have wanted was for any harm to come to the animal rubbish.

If I meet my end at the claws of some feckless stripy thug, I give my seal of approval to any reprisals. If his pelt decorates my coffin, so much the better.

Labels: NATURE

ME: What the hell's that?

HE: I don't know.

ME: What do you mean you don't know?

HE: I mean I do know, but I don't want to tell you.

Labels: CLAN, WORDS