2003-03-28 2:06 pm

Preaching To The Converted

Last night I had a conversation with a fellow in the laundrette. It went something like this:

"Are you a student?" he asked.

"No," I said. "I'm a postman."

"Oh," he said. I could see him checking the book I was reading, and I immediately disliked him. As if postmen shouldn't read books. "Tough job," he said. "Lugging stuff around all day."

"It's OK. I'm usually done by one."

He was regarding me now with open curiosity.

"Are you anti-war?" he asked.

"Sorry?"

"Do you approve of the - "

"Oh, yes definitely." My answer overlapped his second question, but was intended to respond the first.

"It's going to drag on, you know."

"Yes. I know. Listen - "

"And the consequences are going to be terrible - the civilian casualties - Blair says he is going to save the Iraqi people and instead he ends up bombing them!"

I nod desperately. He is beginning to TEACH. I want to stop him talking to me like a 9 year old. In my eagerness to say something intelligent I start to stammer and mumble.

"I'm worried ... about the international stuff - the undermining of justice, I mean international justice."

He almost sneers.

"What international justice?" he asks with a big grin. He has decided he is dealing with an idiot and he is going to easily crush my inarticulate pro-war arguments.

"You think Bush and Blair represent international justice?"

"What? No, I think ... "

"They are both hypocrites."

"Well, I don't think ... "

But he smugly cuts me off again, and I submit to the absurd lecture he goes on to deliver. I long to return to my book, to be away from people who make me nervous.

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