Joining the Library

Not as simple as you may think

I had to fill in a form. In this form, they asked my origin, as usual I had the odd choices, white British, Black Afro Caribbean, Asian (which means Chinese here, not Indian, (??) and mixed race choices many of which I had never heard. Mixed race is a fascinating concept here, much more fun than SA where everyone is just sommer 'coloured'

THEN, religious, was I buddhist, christian, sikh, no belief....etc....

THEN sexual, am I hetero , gay (female) gay (male) transgender... this was decidedly odd.

Of course you can't refuse to fill it in because in each section it has a 'prefer not to say'

I restrained myself from saying that in SA this would so never happen...but shut up because I really did want to join the library.

I did say 'How odd this form is ' to the very earnest bespectacled young man .

'Well,' he said, very reasonably', we need to know if, for instance ,if we have no lesbian white Scottish readers of Indian extraction, what are we doing? How can we cater for their needs'?

I was speechless.

Walked back home in the rain with the wind behind me , which meant that my bum got soaked.