Monday 6 May 2013

JOINING THE 21ST. CENTURY (- A BIT OF A RANT)

 
We were leafletted on Saturday morning - by a religious group. I shan't mention their name lest our site receives a load of spam, but it wasn't the content which annoyed me, it was the presentation. The thesis of the leaflet was that the Earth is ruled by demons under the direction of Satan, but that's as maybe; I'll read anything. It may be rubbish, but there's always the chance that there may be some interesting ideas in it.
 
Three cars containing five people drew up outside our little group of houses. They were all soberly dressed in dark clothing, jumped from the cars and put leaflets into each of our letterboxes. Then they drove away.
 
Now where we live is in a thinly populated part of France, many young people go away to find work and relatively few people speak English. So what language was the leaflet in?   English! And what were you supposed to do after you had read the leaflet? Write, yes Write! to one of the 16 contact addresses on the back of the leaflet. All the addresses were in English-speaking countries. No phone numbers, no email addresses, no websites, no hashtags! What kind of World do they live in? How effective is it to send teams of people round the planet distributing literature which hardly anyone can read and running away before anyone can engage you in conversation, leaving only an address in a foreign country to which you have to write in a language not your own? They cannot be serious!
 
I think Ruth may be right. Perhaps they were Americans sent out on punishment duty. But it's not a way to save the World, is it?
__________________
 
P. S. The Pic du Midi ski station opened this week to take advantage of the remaining snow. It's almost tempting.  

No comments: