It is a joke I have heard told 20 different ways since I first heard it 23 years ago. Often the location has changed, along with the nationality of the subject or his transgression. However, the ur-joke, told to me by an anthropologist in 1986, went like this.
A tourist is exploring the coast of a minor Greek island when he arrives at a charming fishing village, a model of contented pros-perity. Freshly painted boats bob at their moorings behind a stout breakwater. On the hillside opposite there is a handsome church, almost a cathedral. Enchanted, our traveller asks several passers-by to recommend a good bar for a drink. Each time he is advised that much the best place is the ‘Taverna of Dimitri the Sheep Shagger’.
He visits and in the course of a few drinks befriends the patron Dimitri, who is a charming, educated and accomplished man. A few drinks later, he feels emboldened to raise the topic of his host’s nickname. Dimitri leads him outside to the sun-bathed dockside and places an avuncular hand on the traveller’s shoulder. ‘You see those boats?’ he sighs. ‘I built them all myself with my bare hands. But do they call me Dimitri the boat builder? No. The church and the orphanage on the hillside. That’s my work too. But do they call me Dimitri the church builder? Never! I even built the harbour wall. And do they call me Dimitri the harbour maker? They do not. You shag one damn sheep…’
Like many good jokes, this one makes a good point: in this case about the amazing asymmetry that prevails when everything about us becomes known. On the scales of human reputation a lifetime of good deeds are outweighed by one second of folly.
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