Two philosophical questions came to the fore this week, one minor and one of
greater import. The first you may even have anticipated: how do chickens wager
on the boat race? I was surprised that they knew of the boat race between
Oxford and Cambridge.
“You’re discussing the boat race?”
Mimo, “Yes, yes.”
Appenzeller, “We like to have a bit of a flutter.”
Pecorino, “Now and then.”
“A flutter?”
Mimo, “When the sun comes out.”
Pecorino, “After the boat race.”
“Not before?”
They walked in circles, as they do when a proposition seems absurd, “No, no.”
Mimo, “Why would you have a flutter before watching the race?”
“Perhaps you could describe the experience in full?”
Appenzeller, “All perfectly normal.”
Pecorino, “From time to time…”
Mimo, “…usually when we’re sheltering under the Juniper…”
Appenzeller, “…that’s that bush over there.”
“I know what Juniper is.”
Appenzeller, “Just checking…Gods can be surprisingly thick.”
Mimo, “Long story short…after we’ve watched the dog chase squirrels around the
boat, we step onto the concrete for some flapping.”
Pecorino, “Gets the bugs out.”
Appenzeller, “We call it a flutter.”
The more important question is whether or not chickens are capable of worry.
We know that they anticipate danger, practice evasion and alarm drills, travel
in a pack, but do they stay awake at night worrying that they might miss the
bluebells' bloom? That sort of thing? I have decided the time is ripe and
that I shall apply for a grant to pay assistants to study the matter. If any
of you would like to be put on a list of potential all-night chicken observers,
send me a note and I’ll let you know when the money comes through.
Just for fun I thought I’d ask the chickens what they thought of Brexit.
“No, no,” said Pecorino.
“No, no,” the other two were absolutely in agreement.
“What does that mean?”
Mimo was sticking to monosyllables, “No.”
“No what?”
“No thank you,” said Pecorino, minding her manners.
“You’re not in favor of Britain leaving the European Union?”
Appenzeller, “What’s that got to do with cheese?”
“Well, everything. It’s a cheese issue. Also wine and…so on.”
“No idea what wine is,” said Mimo, “but keep the cheese coming.”
I should explain that Mimo’s eggs have been thin to the point of collapse. We
tried ground oyster shells to no avail, so I’ve been feeding them scraps of
cheese, thinking that calcium might help. It builds loyalty and seems to be
working on the egg shells.
“So when you say no to Brexit,” I asked, “you mean what exactly?”
“The current form of breakfast must not go away,” said Appenzeller.
“No threat to our cheese,” said Mimo.
“Cheese is whizzy,” said Pecorino.
“Very,” said Mimo, for exmphasis.
I found a list of the web, “ten mistakes not to make when cleaning your home
for resale.” I decided to draw up my own: one, do not use fire; burning your
house down decreases its value. Two, do not hire the Four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse cleaning company; reviews have been poor. Three, small may be
beautiful but cleaning everything with a toothbrush could take too long. Four,
goats don’t do a great job on interiors. Five, you remember that genie who
came out of the bottle when you bought some product with ammonia in it? Fraud
alert. Six, inviting the neighbors to a clean-my-house party doesn’t work.
Seven, moving furniture to cover carpet stains only works if you don’t own
cats. Eight, if you want to clean naturally go ahead, but do put your clothes
back on before the realtor and clients arrive. Nine, you know the fish in
Thailand that clean dead skin off your feet? They work with toilets, but you
must remember at the finish not to flush. Ten, hand grenades aren’t the best
for de-cluttering a living space.
Who would want to go to Vietnam? I have read of Veterans’ trips and of people
who went because the food and drink and so on are cheap. And of course the
president of America went there to meet the leader of North Korea, so you might
be wandering in the footsteps of people who believe themselves to be leaders.
L and I went more foolishly, pretty much by accident. On New Year’s Eve we
were watching an old movie when my wife said something like, “There’s a cheap
fare, do you want to go to Vietnam?”
I, of course, said, “No.”
So we went.
Before we took off I read stuff and reflected. What did I want to see and why?
We agreed to spend our limited time in two places so we didn’t do that tourist
thing where you drop in like a crow, peck at the offerings, move on. I decided
I wanted to compare bomb damage. In Europe you can still see scars of the
Second World War. America had dropped huge tonnage. What was the result?
Answer: there’s little evidence in Hanoi to suggest it was once bombed. Of
course the same is true of Ludwigshafen in Germany except in Ludwigshafen it’s
clear everything is new. Not so, Hanoi. The oldest university in Vietnam was
half destroyed by bombs. You have to look closely now to see that some of the
bricks are new.
I saw three guys of war age wearing U.S. Marine’s uniforms, complete with
identity tags. I was reluctant to walk up and ask, “What does wearing that
mean to you?” But I should have. Victorious Victorians adopted “Highland
Dress” because by then wild highlanders had been tamed. I assume something
similar was going on in Hanoi.
On the middle floor of the Women’s Museum was testament to the sacrifices
women made during the long, long fight. Girls attacked military posts with
home-made wooden swords. There were tales that reminded me of the stuff I’d
listened to when I wrote an oral history of the French Resistance And what
came of this heroism? A return to capitalism so complete that there are few
reminders in Hanoi that Vietnam is a Communist state. I couldn’t access the
BBC website, and there were one or two Socialist Realist statues, but that was
about it. The conversations I had with contemporary students suggested their
ancestors’ heroism had brought them few gains. Two female students told me
that the president and vice president of the country currently are women. I
checked. The current president is Nguyen Phu Trong, a man. The vice president
is Dang Thi Nogoc Thinh, a woman. I thought maybe someone meant that the Prime
Minister is a woman, but no Nguyen Xuan Phuc is male. I think we had a failure
to communicate.
David Ritchie,
Portland,
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