Democrazy

How we love democracy in the West. We just can't get enough of it. If you think about the number of times (or number of idiots) you've heard say: "it's my democratic right" or "you can't do that, it's undemocratic". In fact we love it so much we think everyone else should have it (Iraq), but we're not so keen if they use it to vote for someone we don't like (Palestine).

ANNNNYYYYWWWAAAYYYSSS

I've been mentally collecting quotes whilst I've been here, because some of the East meets West, English meets (tick as appropriate) Tamil/ Sinhala/ Russian/ Dutch/ Danish/ American/ Latvian/ Macedonian/ French/ Australian ..... interactions are absolutely hysterical. I regularly find myself pondering how someone can "make" a remote control (read fix); what exactly is meant by "go and come" (I'll be back); "I'll end it" (I'll just finish what I'm doing); "Off it?" (Shall I turn the printer/ computer off?) etc etc etc

But my all-time favourite so far (I am still accepting entrants), was when I had a conversation with my boss about the project I've been working on (rolling out a performance appraisal system throughout the organisation), and said that I'd like to conduct a small staff-survey. He looked blank, so I explained that it would be useful to find out what familiarity/ understanding the employees had of performance appraisals, which would enable me to target the training to the appropriate level.

Looking indignant at the very suggestion, he puffed out his chest and in his broad (through the nose) northern European English responded: "It's not a democracy you know". Priceless.