A funny guy

Today while in front of the Ukrainian Parliament building, the Rada, I heard a man talking into his cell phone in a thick British accent telling someone on the other end that the crowd wasn’t all that large and he would call them later. He was a short man standing next to a guy next to a video camera on a tripod. This guy’s accent was the British kind where the Ls are pronounced like Ws. Things like “wowd” though there is still some bit of an L there I think.

Anyway, I walked over to this fellow English speaker—pause for Churchill: "Two peoples separated by a common language”—and said to him, “Isn’t this wild?” He responded rather therapeutically, “I don’t know, is it?” Having inserted myself this far, I didn’t retreat. “Well, I’ve been living in it for about 10 days now.”

I happened to be carrying a camera to take some pictures and he glanced over at it and said, “Who are you with?” I said, “A consulting company here.” He said something I think like “oh” and went back to punching buttons on his cell phone.

I thought later that what he said must have been some kind of code. And I think I deciphered it. It meant, “Are you my peer so you can talk to me?” It looked like my answer was unsatisfactory.

These types of people just make me laugh.