Inconvenience

We are all so sorry to hear that supermodel Naomi Campbell was "inconvenienced" by having to attend the war crimes tribunal in the Hague yesterday. After all she must have so many better and more important things to be doing than helping fight for justice for the hundreds of thousands of victims of her generous friend Mr Taylor.   

Another Coalition

Zanzibar had a referendum this weekend to vote on whether there should be a power sharing arrangement between the ruling party and the opposition.

Omari -- a strong oppostion supporter, as most actual Zanzibaris seem to be -- says he's in favour. He wants to "live in piss". I think he means "peace" but the text message does say "piss".

I am sceptical, allowing a few non-ruling-party bigwigs into the kleptocratic inner circle is unlikely to make a great difference.

A Grand Night Out

Saturday. To a packed Albert Hall for the Sondheim 80th Birthday spectacular. It was certainly the Prom to get to this year. We were lavishly hosted by Vaughan and Tony from a great box with supper in the Prince of Wales Room. The evening slid past on a wave of champagne.

But what music. The cast was, of course, starry but in the nicest possible way. Everyone was there to pay homage to the great man so silly performers' egos didn't get in the way. What we got instead were memorable performances of a range of SS's work, delivered with real panache and humour. Dame Judi got the 4995 non-straight members of the audience into all of a flutter. She was, naturally, fabulous, managing to balance the singing-speaking mix of Send on the Clowns perfectly.

Then there was the man himself. You have to admire someone who at age 80 sports a 23 year old boyfriend on his arm. He got a rare Albert Hall standing ovation and looked genuinely overwhelmed. Vaughan, who had to officially welcome him to the Hall, reported that this modesty continued behind the scenes. This was while, mind you, Dame Judi was declaring him to be a genius equal to Mozart. With a luvvy chorus like that maintaining a bashful air of surprise really is something.

Vaughan and Tony had arranged an interesting party including a former lover of Ivor Novello's which somehow made the evening even more poignant. We got back to Brighton around 2. Vaughan decalred it one of the most memorable Proms of his tenure at the Hall.
  

Exam Success

Little Mussa has done well in his exams in Paje. When I first met him a couple of years ago he was chain smoking. Being an old fart I scolded him and said I would tell his father. He replied that he didn't have a father.

From then on he became known by the nickname "Sigara Mtoto" (cigarette boy) and has shown himself to be a hard worker -- in school and out. Like all of life's survivors he knows how to tag onto groups and make himself useful. He helps out in the kitchen when I am in Zanzibar. At the bottom of the pecking order with all the maestro chefs, he's the one that gets sent into the village on errands or up the palm tree for coconuts. Where he really comes into his own is in eating. He appears to eat his bodyweight in rice at each sitting and always manages more meat and vegetables than grown men several times his size. Because he's still quite small for his age I give him extra protein on top, so he'll often polish off his feast with eggs and peanut butter. Now at the age of eighteen he is beginning his growth spurt and going up, as they say locally, "like a coconut palm ".

He tells me that he wants to go to catering college next. Cheffing is a good transferable skill which will give him a better chance of an income than many other things. I still harbour a hope that he does a bit more at school, maybe even giving secondary a try.

In the meantime he loves dancing to Zanzbar's very own Freddy Mercury and watching Little Britain and Eddie Murphy's Nutty Professor on DVDs.

Mandy reveals all...

 

I am enjoying the Mandy Memoirs, perhaps not for the right reasons. It reads rather camply as Uncle Pierre clutches us to his bosom and opens his carefullty airbrushed heart. As you progress the whiff of North Korea becomes stronger. Dear Peter's controlling hand is as omnipresent as any Pyonyang Kim -- from running his Hampstead Garden Suburb primary school to the Labour Party. He hasn't written any operas, performed open heart surgery or designed a hydro-electric dam yet but these are early days. I am only a third through.

World Cup Finale

My friend Massimo sends me a dispatch from Barcelona (where he is one of the city's finest cocktail mixers). The world cup celebrations have been going on all night and still they party. The Spanish -- and Catalans in particular -- do undertand the science of joy. Massimo and colleagues (any excuse) have created and mixed the “Iniesta Surprise” and “Fabregas Fireball” as tribute.

Half a year ago

Six months ago tomorrow -- early in the morning -- I was wheezing my way up the final 1000 metres of Kilimanjaro. It seems like yesterday. Watching dawn rise from the rim of the volcanic crater wth just an hour or two to go to the summit was a fantastic experience. It was cold but the exercise and layers of clothes meant it didn't feel it, unless you kept your hands out too long or tried to touch your frozen water bottle.

The great thing about that last 24 hours of ascent was the focus. All consciousness was honed to a) worrying about own body b) worrying about companions c) thinking about mountain. Nothing else mattered. Even meeting some bundesgloaters coming down from the summit as we were on the final approach washed over me.

Schadenfreud II

I should really shut up about this -- it's certainly not a feeling with much currency in England just now. But my friend Paul came up with a new word, its exact opposite, to describe how the Germans are at the moment. Bundesgloating. I love it. 

African heads

The most estimable Neil MacGregor will be discussing an Ife head in his History of the World in 100 Objects on Radio 4 tomorrow. I have looked at it and it is a very fine piece. Not, though, as starkly beautiful as mine. 

Popobawa's work done?

Well we hope so. We will have to see in club football next season whether the popobawa stayed in South Africa, slunk back to Zanzibar or became so addicted to the rear ends of the hapless England team that he followed them home. He certainly had a good run.

Schadenfreud

Or the Italian?

My pre-match thoughts

World Cup

What's the French for schadenfreud ?

An explanation for England

The boys in Zanzibar -- whose football expertise was celebrated in the Zanzibar Beach Boys film premiered at Lusaka -- have come up with an explanation for England's dimsal World Cup performances so far.

They are convinced that a popobawa has somehow made its way from Zanzibar down to South Africa and has taken up residence in the England team hotel.

A popobawa for the uninitiated is a particularly rapacious Swahili vampire. Assuming the form of a bat it enters houses at night and then transforms into a devilish humanoid form and proceeds to sodomise its victim -nearly always male. The victim is badly affected -- experiencing a trance like state, lethargy and often appearing mentally unbalanced. Popobawas like to perform repeat attacks condemning their victims to a fate of nightly rapes.

In Zanzibar and other Swahili areas the appearance of a popobawa can lead to mass hysteria. The only protection against the night-time attacks is to sleep in groups out of doors hoping that the shy popobawa will stay away. The nights usually pass sleepless in an orgy of speculation about the various traits and behaviours of the popobawa. The peculiar forms of his genitalia are one of the hottest, and most exaggerated, subjects for debate.

If we hear of the England team being ordered out of their five star suites and onto chilly camp beds in the hotel grounds we will know that Fabio has taken action. It may of course be too late. By the standards of last night's performance the squad appears well under the popobawa's spell.       

The Call of the Hills

A lovely day in the Towy Valley. We are off to the Carmarthen Vans for a hike. Last time the intrepid trio attempted these forgotten mountains of Wales we got horrendously lost. As a chill October night fell we were still stumbling around on the hills. Eventually we spotted distant lights and made our way to a village. Our incompetent navigational efforts had deposited us over ten miles from our cars. A taxi was called.

Better luck today.