“Sir Stephen Rice….having been often heard to say, before he was a judge, that he will drive a coach and six horses through the Act of Settlement.”
John Lentell
December 6th, 1968
Tuesday’s Piece
“YOUNG HEART”
Nobody understands
Nobody understands
What goes on inside me
I don’t understand
What goes on inside me.
.
I think a lot
I feel a lot
But I can’t explain
What goes on inside me.
.
Sometimes my heart aches
My eyes get damp
And I just seem to have in
Me all the problems
And all the answers.
.
I have not been very far
I have not done very much
I do not know many people
And nobody really knows me.
.
I want to know
And I want to tell
What goes on inside me.
.
John Lentell
December 5th, 1968
Monday’s Piece
Despite prolonged difficulties familiar to us all, not the least of which is the cash shortage, I am, these days, unaccountably happy. The Bank Manager insists that you account for your happiness!
John Lentell
December 4th, 1968
Sunday’s Piece
Among us we have men who love Rhodesia and who, in this time of crisis and conflict, commit to her all they possess, but as common-sense or conscience dictates (and free entirely from questionable allegiance) dare to criticise the Government of the day.
We also have among us men who assert a love for their country who say they support the government (and never criticise it) but possess substantial external assets. Tangible evidence of their good faith!
I know which irritates me the most!
John Lentell
December 3rd, 1968
Saturday’s Piece
“Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear,
Or like a fairy trip upon the green,
Or, like a nymph, with long dishevell’d hair,
Dance on the sands, and yet no footing seen:
Love is a spirit all compact of fire,
Not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire.”
(William Shakespeare, 1564 – 1616)
John Lentell
December 2nd, 1968
Friday’s Piece
All evidence points clearly to the fact that we are not by present means coming to grips with Rhodesia’s root problems. This can be contradicted ’til those responsible are blue (or purple?) in the face and I will not believe them. And, lest I be misunderstood, I do not know of a group of men with a proposition sufficiently noble or practical in concept. Rhodesia is at root both a noble and a practical concept and I, for one, owe most of what I am and have to her.
John Lentell
December 1st, 1968
Thursday’s Piece
“Argue as you please, you are nowhere, that grand old man, the Prime Minister, insists on the other thing.”
(Sir Stafford Northcote, 1818 – 1887)
John Lentell
November 30th, 1968
Wednesday’s Piece
“For death and life, in ceaseless strife,
Beat wild on this world’s shore,
And all our calm is in that balm –
Not lost but gone before.”
(Caroline Norton, 1808 – 1877)
John Lentell
November 29th, 1968
Tuesday’s Piece
“Public opinion, a vulgar, impertinent, anonymous tyrant who deliberately makes life unpleasant for anyone who is not content to be the average man.”
(William Ralph Inge, 1860 – 1954)
John Lentell
November 28th, 1968
Monday’s Piece
“The little girl had the making of a poet in her who, being told to be sure of her meaning before she spoke, said: ‘How can I know what I think till I see what I say?'”.
(Graham Wallas, 1858 – 1932)
John Lentell
November 27th, 1968
Sunday’s Piece
Merit!
Meriteerat!
Meritocracy!
Having left school at the age of 14 I am all for it. Prejudiced perhaps?
John Lentell
November 26th, 1968
Saturday’s Piece
(By request!):
‘HUGGER-MUGGER’ – confusion; muddle; secrecy. Disorderly – to hush up.
(Collins New English Dictionary)
John Lentell
November 25th, 1968
Friday’s Piece
I love Rhodesia and I hope I shall never be parted from her.
John Lentell
November 24th, 1968
Thursday’s Piece
It doesn’t make sense and there isn’t much hope unless there is much unsaid. In our silence we assent and thereby license their hugger-mugger doings.
John Lentell
November 23rd, 1968
Wednesday’s Piece
“He could raise scruples dark and nice,
And after solve ’em in a trice;
As if Divinity had catch’d
The itch, of purpose to be scratch’d.”
(Samuel Butler, 1612 – 1680)
John Lentell
November 22nd, 1968
Tuesday’s Piece
Hugger-mugger persists. It has become part and parcel of our way of life and yet is so very un-Rhodesian.
John Lentell
November 21st, 1968
Hugger-mugger:
Noun – Secrecy; the practice, or policy of keeping secrets.
Adjective – Operating in a way so as to ensure concealment, e.g. as cloak-and-dagger.
Adverb – By stealth; under cover.
Monday’s Piece
“The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.”
(Jeremy Bentham, 1748 – 1832)
John Lentell
November 20th, 1968
Sunday’s Piece
I contemplate the fact that my appetite for fiction grows less and less. Books, films, radio, television, religion, people, politics; I have little stomach these days for fiction or fantasy.
Is it my age and station or the state of the Nation?
John Lentell
November 19th, 1968
Saturday’s Piece
There are an awful lot of people in Rhodesia talking confidence. More people talking it than spending it.
John Lentell
November 18th, 1968
Friday’s Piece
“How awful to reflect that what people say of us is true.”
(From Afterthoughts by Logan Persall Smith – 1865 – 1946)
John Lentell
November 17th, 1968
Lentell Soup 