In the last few weeks, everything started and ended with Barak Hussein Obama and some guy called Willard Mitt Romney. On 6 November it was thankfully over with Obama winning the right to lord it over all of us for another four years. But not after he had joked that he wished he could use his middle name the way Romney used his.
In the last few weeks, everything started and ended with Barak Hussein Obama and some guy called Willard Mitt Romney. On 6 November it was thankfully over with Obama winning the right to lord it over all of us for another four years. But not after he had joked that he wished he could use his middle name the way Romney used his.
Incidentally, after they were announced as winners, a picture of the Obamas (him and his wife Michelle) tightly embracing was circulated so much that today it has the record on Facebook (3 million 'likes') and Twitter (over 600 000 re-tweets). Advice from Scanner to the Obamas: get a room guys! And from Scanner to SA: Welcome, Mangaung.
Oh, and in case you didn't know, there is a new name in book publishing. On 29 October it was announced that Britain's largest and most famous publisher, Penguin Books (George Orwell's Animal Farm, Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom) would merge with Random House, another giant publisher (National Geographic and James Joyce's Ulysses – owned by the German entertainment group Bertelsmann).
The new company, Penguin Random House, is so big it will own one in every four books sold around the world. But the biggest news about this merger has been what could have happened had the new company been called Random Penguin or Penguin House. Imagine calling their headquarters and a receptionist called Catherine answers the phone: Hello, you, this is Random Penguin. You are speaking to Cat. Can I help you?
Speaking of book publishers, there have been some incredible suggestions regarding Lance Armstrong, cancer survivor, seven-time Tour de France winner and arguably the most famous cyclist in the world.
Not too long ago, he wrote a book called It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life, about his struggle and triumph over testicular cancer, and his incredible journey to the top of the sport. Guess what? Since he was caught drug cheating, there have been suggestions that the online bookseller Amazon will reclassify the biography as a work of fiction. Ha!
Now, is there something untoward in African water? Because our leaders are dropping like flies! Since 2008 there have been 13 deaths of heads of state or government around the world. But get this: 10 of those have been African!
Don't believe me? Well here's the list: Meles Zenawi, (57-year-old Ethiopian prime minister: August 2012); John Atta Mills, (68-year-old president of Ghana: July 2012); Bingu waMutharika, (78-year old president of Malawi: April 2012); Malam B Sanha, (64-year-old president of Guinea-Bissau: January 2012). Then there was the Dear Leader Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, (2011);
Nigerian president Umaru Yar'Adua, (2010); Omar Bongo of Gabon, (2009); Guinea-Bissau's Joao Bernardo Vieira, (2009);
Lansana Conte of Guinea, (2008) and finally Zambian president Levy Mwanawasa who succumbed to a stroke in August 2008.
Over the same period, only three men (Kim Jong II – North Korea; Lech Kaczynski – Poland and David Thomson – Barbados) died while in office around the entire world. Do you know how many countries that is? Besides the water, the theory of this writer is that these leaders sin more, so God punishes them a little more too. Makes you wonder which African leaders will go next. Hint-hint!
One 'person' over whom God had lavished the gift of life was Lonesome George who died in June aged over 100. Only Lonesome George wasn't really human. Just a very old giant tortoise in the Galapagos Islands. Lonesome George was celibate all his life and resisted park rangers' attempts to have him mate for more than 50 years. The guy simply did not want to sin.
Across the globe in Togo, sinning was certainly not on the minds of its women as they protested the rule of Faure Gnassingbe. This young man was born in State House (1966) and lived there all his life until his dad (Gnassingbe Eyadema's) death in 2005, when took over. Having had it up to 'here', Togolese women declared that they would deny all their men sex for a week in August in protest against the dynastic Eyademas.
For me, it's like fasting, one woman told reporters, and unless you fast, you will not get what you want from God. Hmmm.
* Scanner will be an occasional column in Grocott's Mail
