Seven

And that day it happened that the deadline came. …

Before that tens of national selection committees around the world had worked hard, screening hundreds of programmes, longs and shorts, fasts and slows, interesting and excellent to be sent to Berlin to be taken to Hilversum to be selected  to be part of next INPUT. And all the selection committees could imagine François sitting on the top of pile of DVDs, guessing how many entries there are.

And then the deep peace descended upon the selection committees. Everything was done what could have been done. It felt like in the Christmas eve, after all the hassle and hurry, and at last it was time to relax, take glass of whatever, sit and think.

And of course it was number seven which invaded one’s thoughts.
Because (of course this relates only countries with the quota of six…) always at the final straight it happens that almost everything is clear with the selection, except that there are always seven programmes.
What is the magic with the number seven then?
Of course we know that it is the fourth prime number. But for some reason it is also the number of the days in the week. We talk about the Seven seas. Almost all the mammals have seven cervical vertebrae and it is the number of spots on a seven spot ladybird. Isaac Newton identified seven different colours in the rainbow.  There are seven hills in Rome. We try to avoid seven deadly sins. There are seven musicians in a septet. Akira Kurosawa counted seven samurais. Seven years itch is something to avoid, which is something that Snow White and seven dwarfs probably didn’t think. ...

Well; at the end you always get rid of that programme number seven, of course. But since that you keep on thinking that what if the rejected one after all should have been chosen. But then, it would be very hard to pick one of the seven Wonders of the Ancient world and say that this is not a wonder after all!