The Turning of Tides

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Tombola /tɒm'bəʊlə/. A word fading from the English language I guess because of the fading into history of the entertainment itself. The word derives from the Italian tombolare; 'turn a somersault', referring to the mechanics of the tombola itself: a [usually hand-cranked] rotating cylinder, as often hexagonal as actually cylindrical, with a closeable door in the side into which tickets, tokens or marked balls can be placed. On turning the cylinder a number of times, a chosen person then blindly selects the [winning] ticket, number or whichever from the thing and announces the winner of the lottery of the day. Once a feature of most village fetes and fairs, the tombola should not be confused with the noun tombolo /ˈtɒmbɒlʊ/, a rather different entity: 'a bar of sand or shingle joining an island to the mainland', again from the Italian; literally 'sand dune'.

I, being me, of course, see parallels. US politics, as currently 'operated' by Trump and his lickspittle gang of no-marks, is of course, a giant tombola into which he tosses his 'policies', turns the drum, and holds aloft the first thing that turns up. A consequence of this automechanical domestic and foreign policy 'modus operandi' is the gradual erosion of the tombolo that connects the mainland of the rest of normal humanity to his increasingly isolated island - a strained metaphor, but there you go, given the ever-present north and south borders of the US - but you get my picture. Chance and sand are not the foundations on which to build a world; at least a safe and sane one, anyway...


Comments

  1. Anonymous7 March 2025 at 10:50

    Thank you Kel: "I'm trying to keep alive the "Tombola"!
    Care to join in protecting an endangered word?
    ATB
    Joe"
    Did you miss the priceless moment when the "Deranged-Orange-One" showed that he'd just leart the meaning of the word "reciprocal"??
    VERY telling in the art of people watching
    ATB
    Joe

    ReplyDelete

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