|
It's always such a pleasure to be able to demonstrate how public-spirited I am, although it's far from easy. The older I get, the more I appreciate that opinions differ where this is concerned, and although I'm much less bothered now than I used to be about all the rubbish that people insist on pouring out over me, at the same time my empathy is much greater than before, to the point where I can only hope that I won't soon be joining the ranks of the serially soap quiz addicted. But I've been growing accustomed even to that, and so these days whenever a confrontation of this kind crops up, I grab my keyboard and select from the vast array of thoughts those that make me laugh the loudest. So, when I hold a chocolate sweet between my thumb and index finger for, say, three minutes, more chocolate ends up sticking to my thumb than to my index finger, prompting as a conclusion that the human thumb must be warmer than the human index finger. You ask what could possibly be the use of such information? Well, it's a growth market, you see, and one in which it only takes a split second to let the goose that lays the golden eggs slip through your fingers, as a sort of alternative Van Gogh syndrome, if you know what I mean. But ah, the feeling when the blistering fire of the golden idea courses through your veins, when you think you've got one by the scruff of the neck. Take heed: you've always known that Americans, just like us, dislike sticky fingers, but they are the inventors of the kind of chocolate that does not interface with the human fingertips, and so they'll soon open up again to the unadulteratedly natural, following which the brand of chocolate that sticks the most will be reaping the unexpected rewards. Of course you'll be buying its shares - unlike me, otherwise I wouldn't have brought it up. But there's more. In the paper (NRC, 30 December 2002) I read a report about the proposal to place the police under a performance contract, the idea being that the boys and girls in blue should be obligated to produce greater numbers of fines. Which implies that we are implicitly called upon to commit more offences, as the only way of lending greater support to our fellow citizens. Putting all banter aside for a moment, do you appreciate the core problem? I used to think that alongside the hopeless task of tracking down criminals, prevention should be the main task on which the police force should concentrate. After all, one doesn't go running around in a uniform, frisking people, in the hope that the pick-pockets will be thick enough to let one catch them red-handed, if I may take the liberty of imagining what the life of a uniform wearer would be like. Clearly this is something that has changed in the past year, what with the Minister of the Interior now imploring the police at all cost to ensure that our offence rate is boosted, thus enabling this contract too to be duly complied with, neatly and without anyone getting their hands dirty. Again I empathise with you. It takes a while to figure out how not to behave, but you'll soon be used to it, and the thicker the administration, the sooner a sense of solidarity is reinstated. |