The first and foremost tea drinking socialist: the might Tony Benn

so. you'll never guess who I met yesterday????? at a conference yesterday at church house, minding my own business, I went out for some fresh air during lunch and stood on the steps overlooking deans yard: then someone I know came out and we started having a conversation about work. THEN guess who came out??? YES! Tony Benn. obviously I proceeded to talk at him, told him how big a fan I am. asked to shake his hand and he gave me a kiss!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love him! had a really long conversation. it was mad and surreal and excllent!!!!!!!!!! aaaarrrrrgghhhhh!!!!talked about lots of things - race, class, the 130 year rule. OMG.


part 2
ok ok - i'll tell you more. so he same out into deans yard witha little folfy uppy stool thing and his little rucksack thing and asked "can you smoke out here" me - "er yes...." (jaw on the floor)

then we talked about what a lovely little square it is in deans yard. i made a joke about how many times he must have been there/seen it. then he asked about where i worked, where the person i was with worked and what we did, what conference we were there for etc. then the discussion turned to the 30 year rule - he is of course opposed to it and he was at church house giving evidence to a committee of some sort on it. he made some jokes whilst filling his pipe about how old he'll be if its ever changed etc.....THEN he asked me where my parents were form and I said India, then we talked about how you ask where someones parents are from, not assuming that people who are not white are from outside Britain themselves, then he told me about all his sons wives and girlfriends etc and so many of his grandkids are mixed race, and how he is basically establishing his own little UN peacekeeping force!! right on.

erm then we chatted on a bit more and i said somehting about yes its great how multicultural london is but you cant apply that to the whole of Britain and outside big urban connurbations its very different and even in other cities mixed race relationships are rarer and people do view it as a 'different' or unusual - and worst thing is so many of my generation do think like that - they may not oppose them but its a novelty that they cant quite get their head round like......and i went on one about how disappointing that is etc - and then he said something really complimentary like 'if they all thought like you we'd all be better off!!' tee heee!!!!! ok. i'll stop swooning now. (and funny thing is i didn't even say anything about being in a mixed race relationship myself)