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Humpty Dumpty is usually blonde/brunette/ginger, brown/green/blue-eyed, and wears a wooly hat in the winter. By nature he is shy, reserved, serious, industrous, and finds it easy to laugh at himself. He is also a creature of habit and every morning gets up at 05.30 to give himself enough time to read the morning newspaper before going to work. Since work does not usually start until eight o’clock, this can only imply that Humpty Dumpty is also a slow reader.Apart from himself, his chief interests are family, his job, art, handball, and money (in that order). He also loves animals – especially dogs – and spends hours cycling through the town dragging a tiny and ferocious poodle behind him on a leash. Humpty Dumpty is usually non-punctual, honest, reliable, clean, has his own teeth, and is law-abiding. Evidence of the latter is particularly noticeable at pedestrian crossings. No matter what the weather is like, Humpty Dumpty would rather get soaked to the skin than cross an empty street when a red light is showing. Similarly, he always wears a seat belt, never drinks and drives, always has a television licence, usually hands in his tax-return a fortnight before the deadline, invariably has a plastic bag in his pocket when he walks his dog, and never has a bath after ten o’clock. Humpty Dumpty is also very cautious and rarely does anything on impulse (except perhaps sneeze). To him, all decisions are a matter of life and death. Take a simple matter like buying cheese, for example. Humpty Dumpty may try at least ten different sorts of cheeses before finally deciding to buy twenty grammes of Muzzarella. The analogical reasoning can also be applied to his sense of caution that plung him into marriage “straight away”: living with a woman first, has one or two children, then – if all seems well – asks her to marry him (he would never find it easy to saddle the wedding rings at the age of twenty). With reference to marriage, Humpty Dumpty is quite unlike most men. Anything a housewife can do, he can do better – from cooking to sewing on buttons. In fact, everything in the home (apart from breast-feeding) is shared. Humpty Dumpty also likes to think he is well informed and spends hours finding out all he can about such things as nuclear power, the Third World, pollution, private equity, the sexual habits of the centipede, etc. while at the same time paying little attention to unimportant matters – such as the name of his neighbour or whether certain types of beer should be banned or not. Most Humpty Dumpties are fanatics when it comes to keeping fit and regularly spend their weekends running through the nearest path or cycling for hours in the gym on a bicycle fixed to the floor. With his health in mind, he has also given up smoking, sugar, drinking coffee in the evenings, going to bed after ten o’clock, and mixing with strangers. However, the week would be spent driving in the car to the fancy-pancy office where Humpty Dumpty is a human right lawyer/stockholder of Apple/CEO/CFO/COO and Friday night – getting dead drunk.That is usually the time when you can actually feel Humpty Dumpties in their best open light. Intoxicated with vodka they become best friends right away or tell each other their life stories. All in all, they are helpful and willing to listen, calm and tolerant. But perhaps the greatest thing about Humpty Dumpty is his sense of equality – of everyone being the same as everyone else. To help this, Humpty Dumpties have the same surnames earn the same amount of money after tax, have the same taste in furniture, dress alike, think alike, drive a jeep, and go to Majorca or Spain in the summer. Humpty Dumpty also refuses to admit that he is prejudiced in any way. To him, all foreigners are just the same as Humpty Dumpties and, although he does not actually have any Serbian, Greek, Turkish, Polish, Italian, Finnish or Slovakian friends, he is certain there is very little difference between them and Humpty Dumpties – apart from their names, their customs, the way they grow vegetables in the spring, the fact that they carry knives, rob banks, live on social security, pinch their jobs, breed like rabbits, beat their wives, and speak Humpty Dumptian like someone with a gobstopper in his mouth. Finally, Humpty Dumpty loves the sun, hates queuing, detests winter, enjoys sex, cannot stand gypsies, believes what the National Social Board of Health and Welfare tells him, does not believe in God, does not worship George W. Bush, only gets drunk when he drinks, is hygienic up to his hair, visits the off-licence twice a week, visits his parents at Christmas, goes to English classes, and, inevitably, is deeply offended by an article such as this.Thought: Humpty Dumpty, break off your egg-shell and let your yolk spill. Dare. Be irrational. Smile truthfully. Be kind, and not simply polite. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king's horses and all the king's men Couldn't put Humpty together again.
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