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A Joke
"Billy!"
"And what is your question, Billy?"
"I have three questions," says the boy.
First - why did the USA invade Iraq without the support of the UN?;
Second - why are you President when Al Gore got more votes?;
And Third whatever happened to Osama bin Laden?"
Just then the bell rings for recess. George W Bush informs the children that they will continue after recess.
When they resume, the President says:
"Okay where were we? Oh that's right, question time. Who has a question?"
A different little boy puts his hand, George points him out and asks his name. "Steve!" "And what is your question, Steve?"
"I have five questions:
First - why did the USA invade Iraq without the support of the UN?;
Second - why are you President when Al Gore got more votes?;
Third - whatever happened to Osama bin Laden?;
Fourth - why did the recess bell go 20 minutes early?;
and Fifth - what happened to Billy?"
Still on the road after all these years
It was a disconcertingly familiar scene. There were three of us leaning against a bar swapping stories about holy rivers, Himalayan passes, Iranian visa extensions and giardiasis: a classic session of travellers’ tales. It was disconcerting because, though it felt like a Friday night at the Mandela bar in the student’s union, we had all left university 15 years ago, and the bar we were propping up was in a private Soho club. Along with smoking and skateboarding, people tend to give up serious travelling when they reach their thirties: aerobics, yoga and family holidays fill their place. The rucksack goes in the attic, the tatty Lonely Planet guides are consigned to a shelf in the spare bedroom and the bespoke batik shirt from Bali goes to the charity shop.
There is, however, a small fraternity of diehard travellers who refuse to hang up their Teva sandals just because they own a suit. You have heard of Yuppies and Yummies, Dinkies and Glams, now meet the Stonky — Still Travelling On, No Kids Yet. A classic Stonky is thirtysomething, without children, probably single, employed, comfortably off and, crucially, still consumed by a passion for real travelling.
A Stonky may be too old for full moon parties but he or she is also too young (in heart, at least) to lie down and die on a Lilo in a Tuscan swimming pool. Stonkies do not do spa holidays. Stonkies think Tyler Brûlé is an egg pudding. Stonkies love being on the road.
A Stonky’s passion for travel was nurtured as a student: on long bus journeys across the Gangetic Plain, on the beaches of Thailand and Costa Rica, on the Gringo trail in Chile. But you won’t find a Stonky in a place as hackneyed as Koh Samui or Kovalam these days. Oh, no. A Stonky’s choice of destination is as discerning today as it was indiscriminate 15 years ago.
“Stonkies are always on to the next place,” Charlie Hopkinson, marketing director of Dragoman, tells me. “If we set up a new overland trip — next year, for example, we are running one from Tashkent to Kathmandu via Tibet — Stonkies are always the first to book.” [Read More!]
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