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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
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Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was visiting a school when a teacher asked him if he would care to lead the class discussion on semantics. Tony, having just escaped a mauling by the BBC's Jeremy 'Rotweiler' Paxman by the skin of his lying teeth, smugly chose the word ‘tragedy' and asked the class to give an example of its use.
One boy stood up and said, “If my girlfriend, Suzie, who lives on a farm, was playing near the cesspit, and fell in, and her dad stuck a fork through her chest and killed her, that would be a tragedy.”
“No,” said Blair, “that would be an accident.”
Then a pretty, dark haired girl called Keli, raised her hand and suggested shyly: “If there was, like, a nucla war dat killed all da blokes but left da girls alive and da last bloke on earth lost his testicles in a shaving accident, that would be like, a REAL tragedy.”
“I’m afraid not.” Said slimey Tone. “That’s what we would call a great loss.”
The room went silent. No other children volunteered. Blair searched the room in vain for an upraised hand. “Isn’t there anyone here who can give me a correct definition of the word 'tragedy?”
Finally, a scruffily dressed blonde right at the very back of the room raised her grubby hand. In an an uncertain voice she said: “If an aircraft carrying you, Mr. Blair, the cabinet and Mr Bush was struck by a ‘friendly’ missile fired by an American helicopter gunship and blown to smithereens, that would be a tragedy.”
“Fantastic!” exclaimed Blair. “That’s right. And can you tell me why that would be a tragedy?”
“Well...” replied the girl, “it has to be a tragedy, because it certainly wouldn’t be a great loss and it probably wouldn’t be an accident either.”
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