Monday, 29 August 2011

Pronouncement of God. Or just pronunciation?

Back on a train again. The latest public announcement was ‘this is your guard speaking. It is no longer possible to upgrade to first class, first class is completely full’.

‘Do you know,’ one Australian-sounding fellow passenger told her travelling companion, ‘I thought he said “this your God”.’

It’s true that the Newcastle twang of the announcement had taken the pronunciation of the word some way in that direction.

‘Yes,’ replied her friend, equally Antipodean, ‘that’s what I heard too. “This is your God speaking. Any chance of first class existence is gone. Your only hope now is the afterlife”.’

If he's everywhere, why be surprised to meet him on a train?
Readers of this blog will know that I’m a great fan of railway travel for the glimpses it provides into the human soul and related matters. But not even I would invest it with quite that level of significance.

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