Mr Gumbo Jumbo PBUH

By -
No doubt he had a crush on Lisa. No doubt it was not reciprocated. We think he was a dentist. Certainly he was a gentleman. And a regular. Occasionally, he would come in wearing a business suit, and once, a paisley pattern jumper. But his normal attire was an immaculate white dishtash, his dancing dress. He would drink bottled Heineken with an ever-widening smile and a sparkle in his crossed eyes, waiting for the band to play his request, the one he thought was called Gumbo Jumbo. Then he'd get up and dance. If Lisa let him have the mic, he'd sing - ya ya gumbo jumbo ya ya yai. He liked being happy, was polite to everyone, died suddenly and will be missed. Mr Gumbo Jumbo, peace be upon him.

Comments

  1. EyeOnDubai14 August 2008 at 11:20

    A moving and beautiful vignette. Thank you.

    EoD

    ReplyDelete
  2. Para Glider14 August 2008 at 15:00

    EoD - thanks for dropping by. Our friend was just a laid back guy, and not much over 50. Great shame.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dubai Photo Story16 August 2008 at 11:28

    Beautiful tribute. I like your style of writing

    Cheers

    ReplyDelete
  4. Para Glider16 August 2008 at 17:46

    d.p.s. - Thank you, and welcome to this strange corner of blogdom.

    ReplyDelete
  5. i*maginate15 September 2008 at 21:49

    Oops. Well, he jammed to a happy song.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Para Glider17 September 2008 at 18:20

    He did indeed, and that should count well for him!

    ReplyDelete
  7. i*maginate18 September 2008 at 20:47

    And your magical words do a happy soul proud.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Para Glider29 September 2008 at 12:56

    Thank you :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to weigh a car using a tape measure and a tyre pressure gauge

By -
There are two pretty good ways to weigh a car: Drive it to the nearest public weighbridge and wait your turn. Look up the manual under General Specifications, ‘kerb weight’ But let's suppose the nearest public weighbridge is fifty miles away and you've lost the manual (and temporarily forgotten how to use public libraries and the Internet) and the burning urge to weigh your car just won't go away- what can you do about it? The good news is, you need hardly any equipment. All you need, for a reasonably accurate result is: a hand-held tyre pressure gauge which can be analogue or digital a retractable steel measuring tape a calculator, pencil and paper, or a good head for mental arithmetic The method Park the car on some clean, level concrete Observe that the car is held up by its four tyres (!) Measure the width of the tread of one tyre: e.g. 6 inches Measure the length of tread in contact with the ground: e.g. 7 inches Work out the area of tread touching the ground: e.g. 6 x
Read more

The need for pragmatic politics

By -
Personally, I see no convincing evidence for the existence of supernatural beings. But even supposing I am wrong and the firmament is positively teeming with spirits, ghosts, angels, demons, saints, archangels, deities of every flavour, even that would not be reason enough for our political life to concern itself with anything other than immediate secular pragmatism. Politics, like ethics, should not ask "How did we get here?" Apportioning credit or blame for the status quo is an exercise for armchair philosophers. Government should address two questions: "Who is suffering genuine hardship?" and "What can we do to help?" There is work enough in a programme based on these two questions to keep politicians busy for years. If in doubt as to the meaning of genuine hardship, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a good starting point. As long as we have people struggling to find food, shelter and basic security, we should not even give ear-time to the complaints o
Read more

Gamma corrected payscales

By -
Instead of wasting time with prime ministers, chancellors and 'independent' pay review bodies (all of whom seem only to understand percentages and not very well at that), we should give the task of resolving the various pay disputes to a Broadcast Engineer. Here's how it would then work: Decide on the salary level at which nobody can really justify a further increase right now. For argument, let's say £100k. Call that 'peak level' and normalise to it. Now apply gamma correction to the entire workforce earning less than £100k. By this approach, the hierarchy is preserved (i.e. nobody overtakes anyone else) but those most in need receive proportionately more generous increases. This is far cheaper and fairer than applying a flat rate percentage. It is also simpler. Having fixed the peak figure (e.g. £100k) it only remains to decide on gamma. For example, for gamma = 0.7, someone currently on £10k would receive an increase of £9,950, someone on £50k an increase of
Read more