‘Still waters run deep’ is a powerful piece of wisdom and ideally sums up the situation in Burundi and Rwanda before the genocide of the 1990s and more recently the situation in Kenya, where there was deep seated tension simmering away under an apparently calm status quo.
In direct marketing we talk about ‘cold mail’ and ‘warm mail’. Is one kept in a fridge and does the other burn the postman’s fingers?! Then there is the look on a child’s face as the exasperated teacher exclaims ‘Pull your socks up!’ - especially so when the child isn’t even wearing socks!
And of course there is the current hot topic of ‘good eggs’ or ‘bad eggs’ following a recent TV programme on battery farming. There is no doubt that Jamie Oliver has lit a fuse on this issue.
I find it interesting that we also use the expressions ‘good egg’ and ‘bad egg’ when we describe people. I have a friend who often refers to someone who might be disruptive or simply unreliable as a ‘bad egg’.
Cookery books recommend that, when baking, each egg is broken into a separate cup just in case one of the eggs is bad. Even if from the outside all of the eggs appear to be good, you can not know for sure until you break it open and see what is on the inside of the protective shell.
At World Emergency Relief we have recently developed a great way to encourage children to develop into ‘good eggs’. The ‘Be a Good Egg’ campaign seeks to engage children in raising money to help buy chickens for families in poorer countries around the world. Not only do the eggs these hens lay ensure that children receive much needed protein in their diet, but also that families can sell any extra eggs and raise money to support their daily needs.
It is a fun way for children in the UK to support their peers in countries such as Kenya, Uganda and Sudan. The campaign’s being launched in the run up to Easter, when so many of us will enjoy an excess of chocolate eggs, so we will be asking them to give the equivalent cost of a decent Easter egg – about £6.00 – with which we’ll be able to supply a chicken that will lay more than 120 real eggs each year.
