A Ferrarri parked slightly askew in Asker, Norway
Time and again I have admired the British for their spot-on understatements. My best-ever experience with such humour was way back in 1986. I had just arrived at my hotel downtown London and was checking in. There was just the receptionist and me in the lobby and I had just handed him my passport as we the heard screaming wheels of two cars breaking and then the sound of the two cars crashing. All the windows in the lobby had curtains. The receptionist, still holding my passport, went to the window nearest to him, pulled the curtain aside and then said in a very casual tone: “What a way to waste a Porsche”.
Hey, Porsche? No. He couldn’t be right. I had to check for myself and went to the window, pulled the curtain aside and saw the two drivers quarreling and the crumbled remains of two cars which would not be running for some time. And surely, one was a nice, brand-new looking Porsche. The scene was weird. And the receptionist said in a friendly and casual tone: “Room three-o-seven, here’s your key, sir”. His cool way of delivering “What a way to waste a Porsche” has been with me since then. It was delivered like a poem:
What a way
to waste a Porsche
I was reminded of this episode yesterday when a good-looking Ferrarri ended up parked in a somewhat strange manner close to my house.
