While his claim that he would be "playing left wing for Eureka FC" if he weren't a comedian seems a little dubious, the rest of Mark "I run like a gazelle" Swivel's tale has a very 'couldn't make it up if you tried' kind of vibe to it.
See, Swivel has a story, it's "about a man [Swivel] who falls in love in Bangladesh ... with a bank". Uh..."Honestly, it's great — once you get past the banking stuff. Ok? It's complicated." You're telling me.
Swivel explains that the reason for the journey to Bangladesh, and subsequent love for a building was because, "I wanted to 'make a difference' — and what can you do, rejoin the Labor Party? So I went to study micro-finance with Grameen Bank — they won a Nobel Prize for lifting peeps out of poverty." "I learnt many things: shampoo is black, the Bee Gees are still cool, and you do not mess with Habibunessa The Mango Queen."
Swivel says the rest of the story started with a song. “A bloke came up to me in a village near the Ganges, asked me if I like music. I said, 'Who doesn't?' He asked if I liked the Bee Gees. I mumbled 'When I was a kid' (didn't mention the John Travolta poster on my bedroom wall). Then he sang How Deep Is Your Love?, right there in the street. An absurd moment. That was the spring board. I love rambling yarns, comedy that's not just straight jokes.”
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It's not all fruity royalty and '80s icons though. Underneath the strange yarn, as with most good stories, is a lesson, a "glimpse of another world," says Swivel. "A dead honest tale of how hard it is to make a difference. But you can make an impact if you're bloody determined. How 'third world problems' are actually 'first world problems'. Places like Bangladesh are still in recovery — from colonisation. Globalisation is a con, wealth doesn't actually trickle down! If we start listening to 'the poor', we might get somewhere. One day. I'm an optimistic realist. Or brutal idealist. I dunno, you be the judge!"
