dédié à la mémoire de Jean-Marc Reiser
F: Guten morgen.
A: Not a question, but good morning, hi, hello, welcome.
F: Wie heissen Sie?
A: Apart from the moniker "astonysh", you mean (you know incidentally that there is a guy in China who also calls himself "astonysh"? Not a problem for me, though I have been using it since 2003). That I cannot really tell you, as I have made some comments about Islam being a load of superstitious junk (it is!), it encourages some people to do some murderous things (it does!), I have challenged them to put a fatwa on me (!), but just being an open target makes no sense. They will have to think (definitely not their strength) and plan in order to find me. Anyway I have this idea of one day just falling asleep in bed, the brain and heart switching off and there being permanent peaceful sleep - great prospect for a chronic insomniac, and of course there will be no after-life!
F: Wie heisst du?
A: Being less formal will not change the last answer!
F: Wo?
A: In Frankfurt of course, where else?
F: Wohin?
A: Context? As in "wohin liegt das?" maybe? You have to be somewhere. I would rather be in Amsterdam still, but things do not always work out.
F: Woher?
A: Köln/Cologne, Amsterdam, München/Munich .... you can toss in Paris, Manchester and Humberside if you like.
F: Wann?
A: How many dates do you want? Interesting that nothing happens twice on the same date though. That actually is not altogether true, I can think of a couple of important things that happened on December 19th in different years.
F: Was?
A: Anything it takes to keep you alive. That said, ever wonder what the chronic homeless (people who know that they will never find their way back to having somewhere to live) do to keep alive or why? Sad. Anyway you're the one who is supposed to be asking the questions.
F: Wer?
A: Whoever was there at the time.
F: Wem?
A: Rupert Murdoch, preferably under the nose and above the chin.
F: Wie?
A: In the most efficient way possible - needless to say.
F: Warum?
A: Ask Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris or Stephen Hawking - they can give you far more lucid answers than I can. I have tried to reason, most people prefer to remain ignorant or superstitious or both.
F: Warum nicht?
A: It maybe still applies. When I was a young man in England, girls preferred guys who were at least 1.90 m tall, smiled a lot, weren't that intelligent but had this line of patter, muscular, glib, extrovert. 1.71 m, quiet, serious, not built like an Adonis, intelligent, shy - not much chance.
F: Was bedeuten Sie?
A: If you know me at all, you will realise that I do not give easy answers - try and work out the complex thinking involved.
F: Was bedeutest du?
A: You should know me well enough by now to work it out - yes, I have lived with women in the past who couldn't work out what I was thinking as it was far too complex, even after several months. There are seven colours in the rainbow, not two - which is why simple yes/no answers do not work, and nor do two-party political systems (if Obama is bad, Romney is a sight worse, so what would be good?).
F: Was bedeutet das?
A: Probably that we are almost without hope!
F: Kann ich?
A: Probably, if you are not trying to build the Eiffel Tower Mark II!
F: Darf ich?
A: If you are male, I wouldn't bother. If you are female, you had better ask my wife first.
F: Soll ich?
A: Certainly. I will give you my bank account details later. Even small donations are welcome, given my current financial difficulties.
F: Muss ich?
A: If you are American, probably, but you will try and avoid it. If you are German - yes. If you are Italian, you will probably say "no" and get away with it. If you are British, you probably will not understand the question in the first place.
F: Hoezo?
A: Hang on, that's Dutch (or Flemish - much as I hate to disappoint any readers in Belgium, the Dutch do see the Flemish as being different from them, and that also comes down to the language in Belgium being called Vlaams and not Nederlands where the Dutch are concerned)! What are you doing here? We'll be having a united Euope and a common currency next (great idea, no more being ripped off by currency speculators and change bureaux and banks!)!
F: Danke.
A: You're welcome - and I really think that this is the best country to live in of all those that I have known. Thanks to you also.
Les anglais - ils sont fous! Et merci, Jean-Marc, on rit toujours!
No comments:
Post a Comment