Friday, April 15, 2005

One Off

In addition to preparing taxes, I ended up going through a couple of folders this week in which I had dropped clippings and other ‘oddities of interest’ as I wrote on the folder tabs from about 1988-1994. I shall not bore you with the long litany, but one clipping from the Financial Times caught my eye. It’s from sometime in the early nineties:

Seated beside a very senior officer at an army guest night, the young subaltern tried to open a conversation with: “Do you ride, Sir?”

“No. Tried it once. Didn’t like it,” was the only reply.

A bit later, the youngster had another go with: “Ever go to the opera, Sir?”

“No. Tried it once. Didn’t like it,” the great man snapped again. Then, feeling he wasn’t being sociable enough, he added: “You look about the same age as my son.”

“Your only son, Sir?”, the subaltern said.

I know why I clipped that one.

Posted by Matt on 04/15 at 08:32 AM
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