Excellent, Rifkind! HT to Capt EdMonday We are out the back of the sprawling presidential compound, having a relaxed afternoon braai. With three US dollars’ worth of Zimbabwe currency on the fire, the flames have been burning for four hours. And the British say I have harmed this country? “Why do my people no longer love me?” I demand. “What more can I give to them?” I am attended by a team of recent graduates from the University of Zimbabwe. They were given the choice of working for me or going to jail. They are all extremely loyal.
My graduates all shrug, and continue gorging themselves on the barbecue. It is a surprise to see them eat this way. They seem to have adopted this European look that has become popular. Grace, my fashionable wife, calls it “size zero”.
“Maybe it’s an image thing,” suggests one. “Maybe it’s time to ditch the moustache.” I have a moustache?
Tuesday I cannot see this moustache, although my eyes are not what they were. I would ask my fashionable wife, but she has taken the jumbo jet to Paris to see how many shoes she can get for 20,000 hectares of Matabeleland.
The telephone rings. It is little Thabo Mbeki of South Africa. Although I am careful never to exploit this, I am told he is in awe of me, because I am the original hero of southern African independence. Last month he lent me series five of The West Wing on DVD. He keeps calling to ask for it back. “You can’t have it,” I say.
“I understand,” says Thabo, solemnly. “Might I be permitted to ask why?”
“No,” I say. “Go away.” Little Thabo rings off. Later he rings back to apologise.
Wednesday I am in my compound in Harare, holding a brainstorming session with my graduates. Under pain of death, they have been told to suggest reasons why I might be growing unpopular.
“The moustache?” suggests one, meekly. I glower at him, and he starts to sweat.
“British propaganda!” I shout, after a few minutes of silence. “Tony Blair and the homosexual British Establishment! It is they who have destroyed this country!” The graduates all nod. We agree that the British have consistently presented our abandoned farms, decimated economy, rampaging war veterans and inflation running at 1,800 per cent in a really, really bad light.
Thursday Grace arrives home from Paris. She has bought 6,754 pairs of shoes.
“Actually,” says one of the more ambitious graduates. “Your Excellency has solved the problem of the war veterans. In successfully reducing the life expectancy of Zimbabwe to 37, you have ensured that nobody alive today can have been more than a toddler during our wars of independence.”
“Yet another unacknowledged triumph!” I agree. “Perfidious Albion!” None of the shoes fit. Grace flies back to Paris.
Friday “Seriously,” says little Thabo when he calls in the afternoon, “I don’t mind. I can just buy it again, if I have to. It’s just, I’m right at the end of series four, and I wondered if . . .”
“Silence!” I shout. “A curse on you and your DVDs! Advise me! I am losing my country! What can I do to be popular again?”
Thabo falls silent. “Well,” he says eventually. “You could always lose the moustache. It’s a little odd. Some people say it is a bit too much like Hitler’s.”
“I don’t even have a moustache!” I shout.
“Of course you don’t,” agrees Thabo. “Sorry.” *