One of Those Things

by Mary Jackson (January 2011)

Probe: So what kind of person rapes and pimps young girls?

Tak: Youths. It’s a youth thing.

Probe: But they pass the girls to their uncles.

Tak: It’s a Sheffield thing.  Poverty. Alienation. That kind of thing.

Probe:  So you’re blaming Sheffield?

Tak: Not just Sheffield. It’s a Leeds thing. And a Bradford thing.

Probe: So it’s a Yorkshire thing? Like the Brontës?

Tak: It’s a Manchester thing.
It’s an Oldham thing.
It’s a Rochdale thing.

Probe: Like Gracie Fields? A Lancashire thing?

Tak: It’s a Derby thing.

Probe: A Midlands thing, then, like Middlemarch? Or Shakespeare?

Tak: Oh, and Luton.

Probe: A Bedfordshire thing, like John Bunyan?

Tak: Who?

Probe: Or Alastair Cook?

Tak: As in “Letter From America, the Great Satan”?

Probe: No, as in cricket. The Ashes. Let me do the questions. Cricket, then. As in Imran Khan?
 
Tak: You’re getting warmer.

Probe: Talking of warmer, we beat Australia. They’re easy to beat.

Tak: And easy meat.  Uncovered meat. Ooops.

Omar Khyam

Probe: Eh?

Tak: And Arab

Probe: Like Aladdin

Tak: More like a lass in.

Probe: With djinn?

Tak: And vodka.  And mobile phones. And money. Spending money to make money.

Probe: Ah, so it’s a profit thing?

Tak: Yes, all right, I’ll let you have it. It’s a Prophet thing.

Big Picture: “It’s a human thing and a divine thing, but if it’s not your thing, do your own thing.”

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