Newt seeks incognito status
NEWS from America, where the race for the Republican Party candidature for the presidential election has everyone agog. It seems front-runner Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, is now beginning to fade in the opinion polls as people remember who he is.
This is according to satirist Andy Borowitz, who says on his website that people are beginning to remember Gingrich as a bit of a plonker. He quotes Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota Opinion Research Institute.
"Newt Gingrich has got to do something fast to keep people from remembering who he is. He might try growing a moustache or wearing an eye patch, but that might be too little, too late."
Borowitz says Gingrich campaign strategists are working overtime to confront the challenge posed by voters remembering who he is..
"According to one campaign source, the Gingrich campaign has begun seeking the support of people with mental disorders and other memory issues that make it hard for them to retain basic information. The problem is, most of those people are currently running for President."
A dreadful dilemma. Perhaps Newt should go for a sex change and a ginger wig. (The ginger wig is important because people might otherwise mistake him for Sarah Palin). American politics becomes absolutely fascinating.
Rattlin' good yarn
MY HOLIDAY reading has been enlivened in recent days by a book written by Wilf Nussey, my editor in days of yore when I used to trundle about Africa filing despatches by carrier pigeon and message in cleft stick. Wilf was editor of the Argus Africa News Service for a long time, notably during the abrupt withdrawal of the Portuguese from their African colonies, leaving in their wake a great deal of chaos.
He was a hands-on sort of editor who enjoyed nothing more than to disappear into the bush for weeks on end, finding out what was really cooking. I think he was totally unsurprised when General Antonio de Spinola staged his coup in Lisbon and began the programme of decolonisation. The Portuguese military were fed up with pointless colonial wars.
Wilf was considered to be absolutely the authority on matters in Africa. The Africa Service had offices in Johannesburg, Salisbury (as it then was), Windhoek, Luanda, Dar-es-Salaam, Nairobi and Accra. It also had a network of top-flight correspondents across the rest of the continent.
Wilf worked very closely with the BBC on an informal basis; also with some of America's leading newspaper titles. Senior foreign correspondents from around the world would seek him out for a briefing before venturing into the maelstrom of southern Africa.
He's written several books including one (yet to be published) on the Africa Service itself. His latest, Darts of Deceit (Rebel ePublishers), is a new departure in two ways. It's unabashedly fiction; and it's an e-book. You order it by finding it on Amazon and similar sites, paying by credit card and then downloading it to your kindle or whatever. It's also available (mainly for review purposes) as a fat paperback, very cleanly produced.
Darts of Deceit is an enthralling read, set mainly in Mozambique during the time of the Frelimo-Renamo civil war; the disintegration of apartheid; and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Anti-Gorbachev malcontents in the Soviet Union seek to derail Perestroika by introducing nuclear weaponry to southern Africa.
After a lifetime of precision with the facts, Nussey has given his imagination free rein. The book is tautly written; the complex plot takes unexpected twists and turns, right into the final pages. For those of us who knew Mozambique, the atmosphere is absolutely authentic. There's also quite a bit of boozing and a lot of sex. (Where Wilf gets that from, I just don't know. The foreign press corps in Africa were like choirboys).
This is a different kind of book and a darned good read.
Tailpiece
HONEYMOON confessions.
He: "Much as I love you, I'm crazy about golf. It has to come first."
She: "I'm a hooker."
He: "No problem. Close your stance, keep your head down and straighten your left arm."
Last word
Strange as it seems, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and higher education positively fortifies it.
No comments:
Post a Comment