Thursday, November 25, 2004
As a leading player in the great global game of international business, it’s often assumed that I must know nothing of the Cultural. I believe I have once before disproved this right with my presentation upon the soul of flamenco, and not just any old flamenco, but the best, most top quality flamenco that money can buy. As I sit here in the Horst Tappert suite at the Radisson deep in the heart of the Black Forest, I can report to you, my loyal cadres of young, hungry business tigers for the 22nd Century, that after every business deal it is completely necessary to celebrate in style. Let the world know you’ve just hooked a big Blemmy on your business line. Nothing over the top, nothing showy, nothing inappropriate – usually no more than cigars, brandy and hookers down the Lodge will suffice.
But when you seal a deal like I’ve just done, selling the Schwarzwaldvolkskomittee 100,000 New Forest Dutch Elm Saplings and 5 years supply of antibiotics, you can be sure that I am going to mark this clincher with my own special brand of executive entertainment. So I’m staying on here for Oktoberfest, which the concierge assures me is just around the corner. I have been to a little tailors I know down here and had a fitting for lederhosen but it seemed silly and uncomfortable for an Englishman to wear, so I made it worth the little man’s while and he’s redesigning it for me – a navy blue, pinstripe lederhosen . I may yet fund a little venture into manufacturing these for the discerning business traveller.
But I digress.
I am here to say that there is another world out there. It’s not all big gypsy men with earrings and shrieking ‘ai ai ai’ round a campfire in Algeciras, no. There is the enticing, entrancing, endancing world of the genuine Bavarian Oompah band. No other musical unit in this world has the soul, the spirit, and the ruthless musicality of these fine stout men. I remember telling Bob Bischoff, our regional director and a good man, a solid man, never just a yes-man, that it was truly the ‘heart and soul of The Black Forest’ and that was before I’d even seen some. I hadn’t even heard any and yet he absolutely agreed. Turns out we were both right. These guys put your Beatleses and your Brotherhoods of Man firmly into history’s musical dustbin. Office shredder, even. The harump, the papump, the phararumpapum of the tuba, the honking polyphony of the other tuba, the jaunting, haunting rhythm of yet another tuba, and the base brass bass bastardy of one more tuba. There’s nothing quite like it. It is truly ‘the heart and soul of The Black Forest’. To spend a night in one of Bavaria’s best business kellers with three leading industrialists and good men, stout men, all to the soundtrack of the heart-wrenching lyricism of Oompah, the zeit and the zein of the land, if you will. For a minute there, I felt we were not the mortal enemies that we have always been. Together we could forge an empire the like of which the world has only seen twice before. The secret was in the Oompah, the golden brown, reddish black and leafy green white starch kaleidoscope of musical colours which is the very heart, the very soul of this good land. And mein host assured me that it was the very best that money could buy.
It always amazes me that these are the same people that did the Holocaust. I’m starting to wonder if those revisionists haven’t got a point after all. Note to Sophie: get me that David Irving book, no better still, give it to the kids in R & D and get a report on my desk Mittwoch.
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But when you seal a deal like I’ve just done, selling the Schwarzwaldvolkskomittee 100,000 New Forest Dutch Elm Saplings and 5 years supply of antibiotics, you can be sure that I am going to mark this clincher with my own special brand of executive entertainment. So I’m staying on here for Oktoberfest, which the concierge assures me is just around the corner. I have been to a little tailors I know down here and had a fitting for lederhosen but it seemed silly and uncomfortable for an Englishman to wear, so I made it worth the little man’s while and he’s redesigning it for me – a navy blue, pinstripe lederhosen . I may yet fund a little venture into manufacturing these for the discerning business traveller.
But I digress.
I am here to say that there is another world out there. It’s not all big gypsy men with earrings and shrieking ‘ai ai ai’ round a campfire in Algeciras, no. There is the enticing, entrancing, endancing world of the genuine Bavarian Oompah band. No other musical unit in this world has the soul, the spirit, and the ruthless musicality of these fine stout men. I remember telling Bob Bischoff, our regional director and a good man, a solid man, never just a yes-man, that it was truly the ‘heart and soul of The Black Forest’ and that was before I’d even seen some. I hadn’t even heard any and yet he absolutely agreed. Turns out we were both right. These guys put your Beatleses and your Brotherhoods of Man firmly into history’s musical dustbin. Office shredder, even. The harump, the papump, the phararumpapum of the tuba, the honking polyphony of the other tuba, the jaunting, haunting rhythm of yet another tuba, and the base brass bass bastardy of one more tuba. There’s nothing quite like it. It is truly ‘the heart and soul of The Black Forest’. To spend a night in one of Bavaria’s best business kellers with three leading industrialists and good men, stout men, all to the soundtrack of the heart-wrenching lyricism of Oompah, the zeit and the zein of the land, if you will. For a minute there, I felt we were not the mortal enemies that we have always been. Together we could forge an empire the like of which the world has only seen twice before. The secret was in the Oompah, the golden brown, reddish black and leafy green white starch kaleidoscope of musical colours which is the very heart, the very soul of this good land. And mein host assured me that it was the very best that money could buy.
It always amazes me that these are the same people that did the Holocaust. I’m starting to wonder if those revisionists haven’t got a point after all. Note to Sophie: get me that David Irving book, no better still, give it to the kids in R & D and get a report on my desk Mittwoch.
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