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12:55pm on Sunday, 29th October, 2006:

True Hero

Weird

On the door of the room next to mine in the hotel in which I'm staying is a colour-printed photoshopped sign reading:

The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society
Team in Training
Behind this door sleeps a true hero:
<name here>
A Champion in Every Way!
October 28, 2006

It had an actual name where I put <name here>, but I thought I'd better not put it in case the person concerned Googled himself.

This is an example of one of the differences between the UK and the USA: embarrassment. In the US, such a sign is taken a genuine statement in recognition of someone's actions; in the UK, it would make pretty well anyone who read it cringe. Yes, <name here> may well be A Champion in Every Way, but having a notice to that effect on the door of their hotel room is just embarrassing. In the UK, if someone gives you an award then you don't parade it around, you take it with modesty so as not to lord it over those who didn't get one; in the US, you do parade it around, in gratitude to the people who gave you it. Except, sometimes everyone receives an award and it still gets paraded around.

As I found out this morning when I went down for breakfast and encountered scores of people in running gear, it's the 31st running of the Marine Corps annual marathon today. There are several organised groups of runners, of which The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society is but one. This would seem to suggest that <name here> is A Champion in Every Way merely for taking part, which I guess means he maybe has Leukemia or Lymphoma himself.

Yet still, it's just so American...


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Copyright © 2006 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).