The next doodle in The Telephone Doodle Book shows a chameleon.
Of course human beings are also chameleons: social chameleons. Our personalities alter subtlely as we move from one social situation to another. I am not quite the same person in a professionl work setting as I am in the pub. Neither of them are the same me as in conversation with my father.
That line of thinking prompted this.
All Things To All Men
He's the picture of the Everyman;
His talents know no end;
His popularity is limitless;
He's everybody's friend.
Nine to five, five days a week,
He teaches in a school.
His colleagues think him erudite,
His pupils say he's cool.
He often spends his evenings
Down in the pub with mates
Who've known him since their schooldays
And they all think he's great.
He's a font of funny stories -
Tales both coarse and clean.
Call him erudite or cool
And they won't know what you mean.
His parents and his siblings
Think of him as shy,
As reticent at best,
As a bird who'll never fly.
On the terraces on Saturdays
He's with a cruder crowd
But blends right in by being
Both partisan and loud.
When he goes on holiday,
He's a traveller and more,
With tales of all the countries
That he's visited before.
The neighbours in his street
All say, "A quiet chap -
Never causes any fuss,
Never gets into a flap."
A description that is chilling,
For therein lies the clue
To this chameleon's nature,
To the colours that are true.
The way that he is seen,
By the servants of the law,
Is formed by what was buried
Beneath his kitchen floor.
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