Sunday, October 22, 2006

The Buddha Manager

I´m on holiday in Seville at the moment with my son, my girlfriend Emily, her brother Guy and his daughter. Right now I´m waiting to be moved to a new room. There have been a lot of cock-ups in the hostel we´re staying at. It´s a friendly, lively atmosphere here, but really chaotic. Every night there have been people sleeping in the common room. Last night when we got in I found that I could´nt open my safe. Then around 2 or 3am I got woken by an American girl who my bed had been let to by mistake. It is mostly resolved now but I´m waiting in for them to move us to a new room.

I overheard a conversation on the first day between the manager and some Taiwanese girls. They expressed a little surprised that he was the manager - he´s very casual. And, showing his wide cultural knowledge, he explained that he was a buddha manager. I didn´t hear their reply. I can think of more accurate adjectives to describe his management style. But it´s interesting that the word ´Buddha´ is seemingly seen as interchangeable with ´incompetent stoner´.

We´re having a really nice time here. It´s great how the Spanish have a family- and child-friendly night-life culture unlike the UK where night-life seems only to cater mainly for the young and single. This approach seems healthier and there was this interesting news story which ties in with this


Also I´m getting through quite a lot of the Shobogenzo.