“Natalie was nervous because I had explained that she would be treated differently because she was white, that she would have to work harder than other girls to gain my parents’ trust. And so they devised a plan: We agreed that on the first meeting my wife would not accept tea, she would instead make tea in the home of my parents. With that gesture, she showed that she did not have a superiority complex, that she was willing to make a gesture, however small, to gain acceptance.”
MMUSI MAIMANE Prophet or Puppet? by S’Thembiso Msomi
There is a story that I’ve not been able to verify unequivocally, but which seems to be accepted as a fact:
On a visit to America some time in the 1800’s, Queen Victoria changed etiquette rules forevermore, by picking up a chicken wing with her fingers and eating it thus. Whether she saw this as a more efficient way to handle a chicken wing, or that it was preferable in the name of diplomacy to do as the Americans did, we will never know. Continue reading Eating with your fingers
‘A cold coming we had of it,
Oranges and lemons, Say the bells of St. Clement’s.
Have you ever watched yourself as if in a film scene? You’re there exactly as you picture yourself in your head (not the person you’re often surprised to confront in the mirror). You’re the star of your show. You’re in high definition. The shot is framed beautifully. The lighting is perfect. And in some strange way, the movie-you is more real than the real-you.
Still 30 degrees. 7:30pm on 13th September. We squeezed along row F looking for our wooden seats, careful not to knock over a pint. The air was pungent with the smell of sweat and tensions were rising.
We walked slowly, our eyes fixed on the domed roof. The headphone-thingy talked about symmetry, symbolism, liberté, égalité, fraternity. Léon Foucault’s pendulum swung back and forth beside us where it has almost always been since 1851. Christ looked on from his mosaic-ed position on the eastern wall, down at La Convention Nationale sculpture, as if blessing French nationalism … 
“A campaign for a 
Nyamazela 