When we were in Madrid years ago there was this irritating desk clerk at the hotel where our friends were staying in the Chueca district. No matter how many times we’d come in, introduce ourselves, smile, he’d always sneer and say the same thing: “Five minutes for friend.” If we weren’t out in five minutes, he’d kick us out.
Until the day we return to Spain will have to content ourselves with other five minute friends brought to us live via a new project on the web that connects users worldwide using webcam interface. If you’ve got a webcam and a computer, you’re good to go. You don’t even really need a face. You can invent one. Through the five minute friend website you get connected for five minutes to a random person somewhere in the world and you can laugh with someone curious and new. If word of this project travels far and fast there’s the chance we could find our five minute friend from Spain and make him feel welcome in our world so we could stay a little longer in his.