From: Simon H. Laub NewsGroups: soc.culture.british,alt.folklore.urban Subject: Ula-Bu-Lah Date: 7. juni 2000 00:43 Ula-Bu-La. ---------------- Place : Hyde Park, London. Speakers Corner near Marble Arch. Time : Sunday. June 4 th, 2000. 5 PM. Big crowd drawn to two speakers. One african guy and one very english guy. The African guy wears a white gown and speaks with a non-understandable african accent. I assume that he could have made a good living as a witchdoctor, but instead he has taken up public speaking in Hyde Park. His topic is "Nigeria is the second Jerusalem, the Bible says so". I think I saw him and his dog, both looking very miserable, next to a cash dispenser the other night in Covent Garden. Kind of at odds with people pulling money out of the machine and going out for a good time. But then again - perhaps it only looked like him. Now he looks very menacing, swinging his bible wildly around. His 20 or so followers, us, trying to understand the wisdom he brings us. "Where in the Bible does it say that Nigeria is the new Jerusalem", an old guy wants to know. "Isaiah 5", he shouts back, almost ramming the old guy with the Bible. "I don't believe it", a distrusting member of the audience shouts back. "Nigeria is the second Jerusalem", the speaker shouts back. Thinking about Biafra, and the 1 million or more Ibo dead, it is difficult to believe. On top of setting aside massive corruption and starvation, so the distrusting member of the public tries again : "I don't believe it !". He is literally hit in the head with the Bible. "Ula-Bu-La", the speaker says. "What does that mean ?", the stunned audience wants to know. "It is Nigerian, meaning : it is so", one well informed member of the audience, informs the rest of us. "Ula-Bu-La", the speaker says. "I don't believe it !", yet another sceptical member of the audience insists. "The Bible warns us against people like you, you are false prophet" a wise black member of the audience proclaims. "Ula-Bu-La", the speaker says. "A false prophet", the distrusting member of the public cries out. The speaker looks very, very menacing. And casts a spell or something over the disobedient member of the audience. Two of us - not entirely comfortable with Nigerian witchcraft - walks over to the other speaker. Cries of "Ula-Bu-La" and "A false prophet I tell you" is heard as we leave. --- Here the honourable speaker (50 years, white, looking kind of like your english teacher in highschool) speaks on the subject "Love does not exist. It is an illusion". A crowd of around 50-60 people wants to know more. One member of the audience is wearing a T-shirt saying: "Discos don't make much sense" another is wearing a t-shirt saying: "The Betty Ford Clinic" - potential followers ? The speaker claims that "couples married for one year are all cuddly, after 5 years they are more interested in cable TV, and after 15 they don't speak to each other or they are divorced". "Love is a song, starts out good, after a while you are bored with it and throws it away. Love is an illusion". An elderly german couple claims that you can listen to good music again and again - and that love is the same. Speaker thinks this is Continental bullshit. The elderly couple walks away (planning another war?). A 25 year old lorry driver informs us that "love is a feeling". Speaker wants to know more, but the lorry driver doesn't want to tell more, as "you are a bloke, aren't you ?". A 23 year old dutch girl agrees: Love is a feeling and it does exist. "So you have a boyfriend", the speaker wants to know. She informs us that she have had two boyfriends, but not one right now. "Why not", he persists. Got bored in the relationship, she tells us. "So you can jump in and out of love", the speaker rather cleverly concludes: "Then by your own definition it couldn't have been Love". "I'm in Love", the lorry driver informs us. "Where is your love ?", the speaker asks. "In Austria". "Really, why don't you move there ?". "Can't speak the language, and then you can't get a job". Speaker claims these are vague excuses for not being with your love : "How difficult can it be to learn german anyway - you only need to learn to words. Jaa and sausage". The poor lorry driver tells us that it is difficult to learn a foreign language. Not everybody can be David Beckham, can they ? The speaker says that you can do everything that you wants to. He himself masters Swahili. But he will commend the lorry driver for helping out on the overpopulation problem. Two americans walk by, one is heard talking about "That little pissy british voice". The other says something like "Europeans, fuck them". We try to ignore them. The speaker will "Set us free from the enslavement of love". Invented by the upper class to make working class men and women forget about their rotten lives. "Dishonesty it is", he shouts. "Just like at a pub, when you ask a girl if you can buy her a drink. Once I told a girl what I really meant, and she called me a dirty old man". Everyone laughs at that one. Maybe there is something to the guy after all ? The dutch girl gets a little worried "My love is true", she tells us. "Ignorance is bliss", he tells us. "You want a bigger car and more money that is what you want !". "I am not a prostitute", she tells us. "Prostitution is a respectable business", he tells us. "You are bitter" the dutch girl shouts back. "What do you live for, if not love", the lorry driver asks. "Ula-Bu-La"s are heard from the other crowd, as I walk home. Unsure about love and the location of the second Jerusalem. -Simon Simon Laub 7 Juni 2000 http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/lol/1165