Dutch Class

After leaving the embedded Starbucks Coffee shop in the Borders Bookstore on Magdalen Street today I was accosted by the author of “I’m Not Drunk, Honest!: A Victim Who Refused to Be a Victim”, Mr Hal Lever, who was sitting there with the intention of selling copies of his book.

The book apparently tells his recovery from a grave accident and the trials he endured along the way. Though  I was not particularly keen to buy his book I was perfectly happy to chat for a few minutes especially as he wanted to tell of his experiences with the Dutch. When I expressed the thought that Mr Lever looked quite well considering the grave experiences he was telling of he apparently inferred that I thought he was making a “mountain out of a mole hill” of his troubles.

While I was taking a few seconds to think of how to reply to that he clearly got impatient and suggested that I might as well go away if I didn’t buy his book and so I did.

Now I expect I will never meet Mr Lever again unless he happens to be selling books somewhere on my path again. I do however expect that Mr Lever is just as persistent and energetic as he would have us know therefore there is a good chance he will find this account on Google and if so he will read what he didn’t give me the time to say which is that I have respect for his achievements under difficult circumstances and I am quite sure that his slurred speech is not caused by inebriation.

He might also want to consider that insulting people who do not appear to agree with him in a matter of seconds is not going to help him sell more books. I never thought he was drunk. I do think he was rude. I know he wasn’t making a good job of selling his book.