For some inexplicable reason I was asked to speak at a Rotary club meeting. I don’t know much about the Rotary club, but when I got to their lunch I met with a group of very agreeable oldies. They were mostly pensioners and mostly men, so as I walked in I found myself a little bit snow blinded by the amount of white hair, light summer slacks and sensible shoes.
As old men go, however, they all seemed to be of the pleasant, interested variety, rather than the bitter old grumps I usually come across. They were the type who, if you push the right buttons, will wax lyrical about the workings of the internal combustion engine, Pluto’s geological make up or the sexual reproduction of silk worms. And with an enthusiasm that makes you want to thumb through an encyclopaedia and fill your own brain with similar nuggets of wonderment.
The chairman was particularly excited as he’d just received a new CD-ROM from Rotary International and was looking forward to using it. How thoroughly modern, I thought. I tried to picture him with an iPhone and roller blades but the image didn’t work, so I didn’t tell him about the latest LKPGpod, which covered an outdoor show I organised in the park. (Naturally, young readers of The Local can listen/download by clicking)
During the lunch a nice old man told me that the idea of the talks is to get them thinking about things they might not usually consider. I had been asked to talk about my background and ‘language’s role in comedy’. I spoke about Groucho Marx and Peter Sellers, Hogarth and Shakespeare. High brow, but as I was talking about these things in Swedish, I kept it all simple… It’s an interesting experience to talk about the things I have a degree in in a second language (Yes, my degree did involve studying Groucho).
I finished with the analogy of man being between ‘Ape and Angel’ pulled upwards by heavenly dreams while being dragged backed down by our base animal instincts. The oldies applauded and I was patted on the back several times.
As I was getting on my bike, a man named Bengt approached me. ‘I’ve got a joke in English’, he said…
‘What kind of dog is that?’
‘A watchdog’
‘So, what’s the time?’
I offered him an open spot at the next comedy night….
