There is lots of terrible news about the
coronavirus pandemic. It is important to
read enough about the subject in order to understand how to protect yourself
and other people – Wash your hands with soap, stay away from groups, etc. But I think it is important not to read too
much about it. After a while, there is
no more useful information you can get, and all the awful stories will make you
panic or feel depressed.
So you must try to find a few stories you
can laugh at too. Here are three which
made me laugh recently.
1 –Watch what people do, not what they say
When people started panic-buying toilet
paper and pasta in the U.K., I talked with my father on the phone. “These people are crazy,” he said. “From everyone’s ridiculous over-buying, you
would think the end of the world was coming!
They really ought to know better.”
Then when he passed the phone over to my
mother, she told me that there was hardly any room to move in the house because
of all the toilet paper and pasta that my father had been buying.
2 –Cynical citizens
An acquaintance who is an office worker in
a Japanese company overheard an interestingly cynical conversation.
The Japanese CEO was talking about why
Europe and America seemed (so far) to be suffering worse than Japan.
“It is lucky that we Japanese are so
well-behaved, conscious of health and cleanliness, and willing to follow the
rules. Even with an incompetent
government and weak leadership, we can still survive better than many
countries.”
3 – Pretty eyes
My wife sat alongside one of her female
colleagues for several hours at work.
Her colleague’s pretty eyes peeked out from above her mask, which she
wore even indoors.
Then, during a break, my wife got a
surprise when her colleague took off her mask to sip some tea. A bare and slightly red face appeared below
the heavy eye-shadow and fake eye-lashes.
The woman had only bothered to put on the make-up which would be visible
when wearing a mask.
“It saves a lot of time” she explained,
happily.
Vocabulary:
a pandemic–the spread of a disease over
many countries or a very wide area
cynical – distrustful of human sincerity or
good motives
to overhear something – to hear something
by accident
incompetent – not having the skills to do
something well
to peek out – to be slightly visible
I was amazed recently to find that children
are as flexible as snakes.
My son woke up one morning, and couldn’t
walk, or even stand up.
“It’s time to wake up! Come and join Mummy and Daddy for breakfast,”
I said to my son.
“I can’t get out of bed. My knee is painful!” he answered.
I assumed that he was lying. The reason I assumed this was because just a
few days earlier, he had fallen over at the nursery and slightly hit his
knee. The nursery teacher told us that
he wanted sympathy, and dragged his leg along the ground for a while,
pretending that his knee had been badly injured. I thought that he must be doing the same
thing again. Like the boy who cried,
“Wolf!” he was having trouble making people believe him a second time.
But eventually we realised that he was not
pretending, and really couldn’t stand up.
My wife carried him to a paediatrician, who examined his legs. His knee was fine, but his hip joint was
swollen (due to a virus). The doctor
said that this sometimes happens with young children, and that he would
probably get better after a few days rest.
So we encouraged our son to have a rest on
the futon at home. When it was dinner
time, we asked him if he wanted to eat.
“Okay,” he said. “But I still can’t walk. My knee is painful.”
“Do you want Daddy to carry you to the
living room?” I asked.
“No!” he said. “I can do it by myself!”
Then he pulled back the covers he was lying
under, and slithered from the bedroom to the living room on his belly like a
snake. “I am No Feet!” he said happily. “Mummy, look at me!”
No Feet is a character in my son’s
favourite Youtube programme – a Canadian cartoon called “Little Bear”. No Feet is Little Bear’s friend, a snake.
If an adult suddenly lost the use of their
legs one day, they would almost certainly panic. They would worry that they might never
recover, and feel frustrated and fearful.
A three year old’s mind is as flexible as their body. They just pretend to be a snake and happily
crawl around the floor.
My son has recovered, and is running around
again. But I am sure there is some
lesson in life to be learned from No Feet.
Vocabulary:
flexible – capable of bending and changing
shape easily without breaking
to assume something – to suppose something,
without proof
to pretend – to act as if something were
true, when it is not
to drag something – to pull something heavy
along the ground
a paediatrician – a specialist doctor for
children
one’s joint – a part in the body where one area
connects with another, allowing movement
to slither –to move smoothly across the
ground in a forward-twisting motion; to move like a snake
How would a cute little dog with a fluffy
tail feel if it came face to face with a lean and powerful wolf?
How would you feel if you came face to face
with a spear-carrying human who was stronger, smarter and faster than you?
I was reading a book about the early
history of mankind’s evolution. It said
that, based on estimates of the skulls of hunter-gatherer humans from 30,000
years ago, those early humans had brains which were 10 to 14 per cent larger
than our modern brains. Based on
analysis of ancient footprints preserved in rock, those early humans could run
faster than modern athletes.
In other words, we are the human equivalent
of cute little dogs with fluffy tails, in comparison to our wolf ancestors.
Any group of animals which is domesticated
– kept on a farm or in a house and looked after by humans – will experience the
same phenomenon. Their brains will
shrink, and they will become less powerful and able to defend themselves. For farm animals, of course, they will get fatter
and more docile as the farmers select the animals which are the easiest to look
after and which produce the most meat.
Have humans domesticated themselves like
farm animals? A tiny group of humans
called “the government” looks after the rest of us. It is easier for them if we are docile and
stupid.So they give us beer and tv shows.
And we wag our cute little tails happily.
Vocabulary:
lean–without any unnecessary fat; thin but
fit and strong
a spear – a weapon with a sharp point on
the end of a long pole
an estimate – a guess based on good
evidence
analysis – detailed examination of
something
an equivalent–something which is the same
in some way, such as value or function
to shrink – to get smaller
docile – ready to
accept control or instruction; not rebellious
If you didn’t already know, let me tell you
how to fall off the edge of the Earth.
Just walk to the edge, and then keep walking.
*
Adapted from the prologue to Terry
Pratchett’s novel, “The Colour of Magic”:
The Great Turtle comes, swimming slowly
through space, his huge and ancient shell marked with meteor craters. In a brain bigger than a city, with thoughts
moving as slowly as a continent, he thinks only of the weight on his back. On his back are the four Great Elephants,
forever marching in a circle. On their
shoulders they carry the world. The
world is a huge flat disc.
For a long time no one on the world knew
that they lived on a flat disc, which was carried on the shoulders of four moon-sized elephants,
which were carried on the back of a planet-sized turtle. Then people from a kingdom on the very rim of
the world built a large glass box, put some explorers in it, and lowered it
over the edge. These astronauts could
then see the Great Elephants and the Great Turtle living under their feet.
*
Some people believe, or at least say that
they believe, that the Earth is really flat.
They are called “flat-Earthers”. One flat-Earther died last month in the
launch of a home-made rocket. He was
known as “Mad” Mike Hughes, and he was trying to reach a height of 5,000 feet
in order to check for himself whether the Earth was flat.
I am quite happy that the Earth is
round. If it were flat, I might fall off
the edge.If somehow one side of the flat Earth were tipped up slightly higher
than the other, we would all start tumbling towards the lower edge. We might have to live our lives tied to trees
in case this happened.
Mad Mike lived in America, and spent about
18,000 Dollars to build his rocket. If
his goal was to prove that the Earth was flat, wouldn’t it have been cheaper
and less dangerous to buy a round-the-world plane ticket?
Vocabulary:
the edge of something –the outside limit of
something
to be adapted– to be altered or changed;
based on an original work
a meteor crater – a round hole in the
Earth, planet or asteroid where something from space has collided and left a
mark
a continent – a large land-mass, such as
North America or Africa
the rim of something – the edge of
something round, such as a plate or bowl
to tumble – to fall suddenly, clumsily, or
headlong
