Monsieur Pompadour and the Intelligence Agency Chief

Monsieur Pompadour and the Intelligence Agency Chief

As it happens, I have been in the sauna of the health club this morning with…Monsieur de Pompadour and one Head of an Intelligence Agency and it was rather strange.

Monsieur Pompadour is just a name I use for this pompous guy, who seems to share with the famous lover of the king of France a tendency to reach beyond means, making efforts to pretend that he has skills which are actually lacking and making rather absurd propositions, as he comes once in a while and I have had the chance to hear him talk.

Once, he took out at the exterior Jacuzzi a can with coffee, which he left there, to become garbage carried by the wind and when I told him, he reacted with the preciousness that Madame de Pompadour would have had.

Another time, he spoke of some gay individual, who looked strange and that made me a bit irritated and said to him something, to which he replied and that is how I recall it, mostly…

‘You say he was gay, but how do you know?

He was strange

Since you mention it, you seem strange…you gave some opinions on conspiracy theories, candidates for presidency and more that appear more than peculiar to me…

Well…’

So we have had some interactions which made me place this person in the category of those that I don’t really need to interact with more, for we have different political views, he believes in conspiracy theories and other concepts that are almost anathema for me’.

This morning, as almost always, there was only one sauna working, out of the two and so I had to stay inside with Pompadour…there was no choice.

As I came in, the temperature was at about forty, which is rather low and hence I asked…

‘Do you mind if we put water…

Well…if it is three spoons, it is ok

I sort of laughed a little, then threw some water on the walls, and then decided to stay and forget about bringing more water…

The guy was annoyed and became agitated and immediately used the second singular…a form of address that is rather rude, if the difference in age is more than a decade, one does not really have a close connection with the interlocutor…

On the other side, quite often this is likeable, because it makes me feel younger…at times

So the Pompadour man was offended somehow because of the water on the walls…

Why did you do that…I said some spoons

Look, we do it your way…you want no water, that is what we do…what more do you want from me?

At this stage, it was not clear that the water on walls was seriously upsetting him and I didn’t know what his problem is.

Anyway, throughout, he acted with that pretentiousness, superior air, pompous attitude that I knew he has showed before

Finally, he talked about the water on the walls and thus I explained to him that that was in response to his request that we use no water – well, we can’t call three spoons using water – and so I thought of getting some heat from the other surfaces, indirectly, if we are not going to get it from the stove.

He sort of explained that this is the dry sauna, as if I didn’t know, and some other aspects of life at the pool – I guess, for I wasn’t really 1005 there for the preaching and the proselytizing.

Then the chief of an Intelligence Agency came in…retired.

We talked about some issues of the health club, and they have plenty, one is actually offended that Radisson makes such a fuss over the quality of its services and here they just bring it to the lowest level possible…saunas don’t work, rust is staining the walls in the hammam, they have had scaffolding on the side of the hotel for 4 month now and there is nothing happening there, plants in the garden have dried and died out for nobody has been watering them for weeks on end, they have an employee who is asking for bribes for access in the outside Jacuzzi…

Then we talked the Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, and Iran…but that is for tomorrow …the time for our show is up for today.