Fifty Shades of Black Read Online Free PDF Page B

goddess.
    He is, in short, a popular guy with the ladies. And if, every once in a while, some strange woman should mistake me for Jim and wrap herself around me in front of the town post office in a smothering embrace . . . well, where’s the harm?
    I figure if you’re going to have a doppelgänger it’s helpful to keep it in the family—although instances of mistaken identity are always fascinating.
    True story: Once on a train to California, two blushing ladies approached a distinguished-looking silver-haired gentleman in the club car. “Have we the honour of speaking to Professor Einstein?” they gushed. “No, unfortunately not,” said the stranger, “though I quite understand your mistake. He has the same unruly hair, but inside, my head is altogether different. However, he is an old friend of mine—would you like me to give you his autograph?” On the back of a train menu he wrote: “Albert Einstein, by way of his friend, Albert Schweitzer.”
    Oh, those Alberts. They all look alike.

 
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    Part Two
    Getting Along with the Neighbours

 

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    The Not-So-Friendly Skies
    I observe but one cardinal rule as I am being prodded and scanned by sullen strangers in the meat processing and dignity-rendering plants our airports have become.
    No joking.
    No one-liners, Shaggy Dog stories, gags, puns or witty banter with the wand-wielding Gorgons at Security. If I see my old pal Jack in the lineup I may wave, semaphore, whistle, warble or tweet a greeting to him. What I will NOT do is bellow, “Hi, Jack!”
    Generally speaking the Rent-a-Gropers who staff the security check-ins have limited imagination and absolutely zero sense of humour. I know that any behaviour I exhibit that separates me from the milling herd can lead to an exceedingly tiresome visit to, as Paul Simon called it, that Little Room.
    And it’s not getting better. Paul Chambers, a twenty-eight-year-old Englishman, was arrested and convicted for making a joke while on his way to the airport.
    It happened like this. Chambers was en route to an airport in Yorkshire to take off for a winter vacation. A snowfall closed the airport. Chambers tweeted to his friends: “Crap! The airport’s closed. They’ve got one week to get their s—t together; otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!”
    A lame joke for sure—but Mr. Chambers did not send the message to the airport headquarters or to a newspaper reporter or a radio station hotline show—he sent it to his small circle of Twitter friends. His message was somehow intercepted and sent to the Yorkshire police. Chambers was duly arrested, charged and convicted of sending a “message of menacing character.”
    Mr. Chambers hired a lawyer and went to the High Court in London to have the conviction overturned. His defence? It wasn’t a “message of menace”; it was a joke.
    His lawyer opened the argument by quoting a line of poetry: “Come friendly bombs, and fall on Slough . . . ” Surely the author of those words was at least as culpable as Mr. Chambers? Better hope not. The line comes from a poem by Britain’s one-time poet laureate, John Betjeman. And it was meant as a joke.
    Exhibit B: Some scurrilous advice from a chap named Shakespeare who wrote, “Let’s kill all the lawyers.” To which the Lord Chief Justice commented: “That was a good joke in 1600 and it is still a good joke now.”
    Mr. Chambers’s lawyer added, “And it WAS a joke, my Lord.”
    Indeed. I’m happy to report that Mr. Chambers won his case, his conviction was quashed and it is once again okay to make jokes—even on Twitter. Even about airports.
    And there are some splendid airport jokes. Such as the one involving a harried and self-important MP caught in a crowd at the MacDonald–Cartier airport in Ottawa. Once again, a snowstorm had hampered