Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.
(Shakespeare)
John Lentell
Rhodesia Herald
6 December 1971
Friday’s Piece
My way of joking is to tell the truth.
It’s the funniest joke in the world.
George Bernard Shaw
John Lentell
Rhodesia Herald
5 December 1971
Thursday’s Piece
I know some poison I could drink.
I’ve often thought I’d taste it.
But Mother bought it for the sink,
And drinking it would waste it.
(Edna St. Vincent Millay – “I know a hundred ways to die”)
John Lentell
Rhodesia Herald
4 December 1971
Wednesday’s Piece
A highbrow is a person educated beyond his intelligence.
(Brander Mathews)
John Lentell
Rhodesia Herald
3 December 1971
Tuesday’s Piece
“… And you mustn’t discount ego.”
John Lentell
Rhodesia Herald
2 December 1971
Monday’s Piece
“Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the superman–a rope over an abyss. … What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal.”
(Friedrich Nietzsche)
John Lentell
Rhodesia Herald
1 December 1971
Sunday’s Piece
“Women are superior to men which is why they have the role of submission in life … submission comes naturally to women because it doesn’t.”
(Hilary Muller, aged 16)
John Lentell
Rhodesia Herald
30 November 1971
Friday’s Piece
“Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.”
Mark Twain
John Lentell
29 November 1971
Monday’s Piece
Will you love me in December as you do in May,
Will you love me in that good old-fashioned way?
When my hair has turned all gray
Will you kiss me then and say
That you love me in December as you do in May?
(James J. Walker, 1881 – 1946)
John Lentell
28 November 1971
Monday’s Piece
“The fate of a nation has often depended on the good or bad digestion of a prime minister.”
(Voltaire)
John Lentell
26 November 1971
(Photo: masked up in Africa)
Wednesday’s Piece
“My hopes no more must change their name,
I long for a repose that ever is the same.”
(William Wordsworth, 1770 – 1850)
John Lentell
25 November 1971
Monday’s Piece
“Alex in Wonderland”
(Title of film appropriately showing in Salisbury at present time.)
John Lentell
24 November 1971
I presume my father was referring to Alex Douglas-Home who might have been at the forefront of discussions regarding the future of Rhodesia.
Sunday’s Piece
“And statesmen at her council met
Who knew the seasons when to take
Occassion by the hand, and make
The bounds of freedom wider yet.”
(Alfred Tennyson, 1809 – 1892)
John Lentell
22 November 1971
Thursday’s Piece
Tender-handed stroke a nettle,
And it stings you for your pains;
Grasp it like a man of mettle,
And it soft as silk remains.
(Aaron Hill, 1685 – 1750)
John Lentell
21 November 1971
Wednesday’s Piece
“Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith.”
(Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1841 – 1935)
John Lentell
20 November 1971
Tuesday’s Piece
Home Rule for Rhodesia?
John Lentell
19 November 1971
Monday’s Piece
“I must warn people that there is a challenge from communism on an unparalleled scale, which will be pursued quite relentlessly.”
(Alec Douglas-Home, 1962)
John Lentell
18 November 1971
Sunday’s Piece
“…and the papers had to explain that it rhymed with fume and not with foam”.
(Anthony Sampson on Alec Douglas-Home)
John Lentell
17 November 1971
Monday’s Piece
“It is a practical law in life that when one door closes to us another opens. The trouble is that we often look often look with so much regret and longing upon the closed door that we do not notice the one which has opened.”
John Lentell
16 November 1971
Sunday’s Piece
A foreign secretary was once asked by a young inquirer whether he found it difficult – as Foreign Secretary – to reconcile his private morality with his public function. “Well, you see,” he said, after a long pause, “I have discovered that to do the right thing is generally the right thing to do.”
John Lentell
15 November 1971
(Photo: Highnos and his father Magaya Kahondo – Harare July 2018)
