DIARY
SOUSA JAMBA On Saturday afternoon I was taken to see a play at Finborough Theatre Club, Days of Cavafy by Gerald Killingworth. The theatre, which was on top of a pub in Fulham, was packed to capacity. I went to see the play feeling slightly apprehensive; I thought it would be like some avant-garde films I had seen of which I had been unable to make head or tail but which other people kept raving about. As I am afraid of becoming a philistine, I keep going to them in the hope that I might be able to appreciate them. It was a lovely surprise: Killingworth's play — though extremely erudite — was very entertaining. It is an event in the life of the Greek homosexual poet Constantine Cavafy, who lived in Alexandria at the turn of the century. The part I liked most was when E. M. Forster, who appears in the play, says that all young people who had written first novels needed to have them burnt before their eyes for passing off autobiographies as art.
Ionce met the ex-wife of an ex-British Cabinet minister who gave me a lecture on the importance of having a dog. A human being, she said, was the most ungrateful creature on earth. A dog would never let its master down. I have been thinking of her in the present controversy about rott- weilers. I hate all pets. As far as I am concerned, the only animals worth keeping are those that can end up on the dinner table — chickens, pigs and the like. My hatred for dogs especially began when I stayed with an American friend in Africa. He adored his dog and fed him with whole chickens; had a special soap and shampoo for him. Nothing pleased him more than when I took the dog for a walk or washed him. At night, I had to give the dog his chicken. The only problem was that the chicken was cooked with some special dog food added, which made it impossible for me to eat it, otherwise I would not have hesitated to do so. I am all for putting down the violent rottweilers — and many more. I suppose that many people in Africa would share my aversion for pets. True, a number of them keep dogs; but these have to scrape a living for themselves and be of some use to their owners — as guards or hunting dogs. The whole notion of dogs having special restaurants and hotels providing specific music, as I once saw on American television, is completely absurd. It is such things that make people from Africa accuse Westerners of having no hearts. I once saw a man weeping real tears beside a telephone booth in Stock- well; he was telling his mother that he had lost his dog that morning. I was appalled. The obsession with pets has to do with some psychological imbalance. Human beings are demanding and complex; one has to make compromises in dealing with them — even if it is showering them with love and affection. Dogs on the other hand are simple; they are grateful for whatever is given to them. I refuse to believe that a dog has the same rights as I do. Things have to be put in their proper perspective; dogs are dogs and humans are humans.
After seeing the army shoot at un- armed students in Peking, I could not help ringing the Chinese embassy to register my anguish. Later, I thought I had wasted my time as I realised that my plea was more than insignificant as far as the Chinese authorities are concerned. But I did not stay mum, anyway. The events in China have reminded me of what a very wise English man, whose name I withhold for reasons of my own, once told me. He said that there were very few countries in the world which had something approaching true democracy and in which people could express themselves without fearing persecution. He was very right. This will certainly not go down well with some Westerners who believe that theirs is an unfree and repressive society. I have been a refugee for half my life. Most of the refugees I have come across had never contemplated seeking political asylum any- where but the West.
One of the few times I watch television is on Friday nights to watch the James Whale show. James Whale, the presenter, is completely different from the smoothies that present the prime time chat shows and programmes. A middle-aged, balding man with a ring in his left ear, he is rude to his callers and has a very big ego. Last week, he told one of the callers who was very inarticulate to go and have speech therapy and switched him off at once. There are always surprises on his show — female body builders, Christians opposed to Sun- day trading, an anthropologist and so on. People are drawn to the programme be- cause it is bad for the sake of being bad; a programme made by professionals trying to be amateurs. Viewers are invited to make their own videos to be shown on the programme, to write in, and to fax in messages while the programme is on. Critics have dismissed it as tabloid televi- sion; but Whale's viewers keep increasing by the week.
An acquaintance of mine who is a language teacher tells me that the theory that the British are not naturally adept at learning foreign languages is a fallacy. Thirty years ago, she told me, French theatre companies would come to London and put on a performance without the need for translation. More people in those days were fluent in French and other languages.
'Try to get a little sun.'
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