AN AFRICAN IN EXILE

This is a poem by my friend, Bart Wolffe. I met him in Zimbabwe many years ago and his poems bring back the memories of my homeland more than other words I have read.

I bought his book, Waking Dreams, from Lulu: here
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/waking-dreams/16109047?productTrackingContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/7

I LEFT WITH THE SHIRT ON MY BACK.
It had lizards crawling across it.
A lilac and blue flannel
Long-sleeve African design.
That was eight years ago.
I still wear it like a skin.
It may not be in fashion,
Now worn a little thin
But I wear Africa a bit
When I put my T-shirt on.
Animals know their own kind,
Birds recognise their kin.
This is my icon, my talisman,
My identity without, within...

A FACTIDOTE.

One of my Sunday joys is reading AA Gill's column in the Sunday Times. This week he was at his beasty-best. I share with you his first few sentences in Table Talk on Sunday 12.6.11, because, if you don't read this paper, you won't have seen it - and why should I be the only one to enjoy his wordly ways?

I am plagued, palsied and agued with unnews, outformation, stuff that we don't need, ought not to know. I don't mean prurient or boring, irrelevant or secret, but factidotes. Mental bellybutton lint. the insidious information version of clothes moths that chew holes in the cashmere of joy. For instance, I've just read in a newspaper that Alan Titchmarsh doesn't need Viagra. That is a factidote. Pointless, anodyne, but somehow horrible, grit in the Vaseline of a smooth existence.  I know that my life is ever so slightly lessened, sullied and smeared by knowing that Alan Titchmarsh doesn't need Viagra. This world is a minutely shabbier and more compromised place. I will never be able to unknow that Gardener Gets Wood. So I'm passing it on to you, because why should I be the only one to suffer?