by Sam Bright
Mark Twain, a man who knew a thing or two about recognising a great tale of adventure, said in 1878, “Stanley is almost the only man alive today whose name and work will be familiar one hundred years hence”. Ironic, that. Mr Twain evidently underestimated his own import. Even in Little Old England, I would happily bet that more people would be able to link Mark Twain with his most famous creations, than can link Henry Morton Stanley with the navigation of the Congo, or the Emin Pasha relief expedition.
Reality contrives to be crueller still. Before picking up Tim Jeal’s stupendous biography of one the greatest Welshmen, I knew perhaps three things about the explorer: (obviously) that his name was Henry Morton Stanley; he uttered the immortal phrase “Doctor Livingstone, I presume?”; and his adventures inspired Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
Having now put down that biography, I realise: I was wrong on all counts.
Strip clubs are not, in general, a particularly divisive subject. I’d bet a fair sum that if you asked the person next to you whether they were ‘in favour’ of such establishments, they would snort in derision and question your sanity. Communities are often outraged when a seedy-looking bar full of scantily clad women and attracting an overweight, greasy, male clientele opens in their midst. Raise the issue near an outspoken feminist, and you’ll be lucky to escape with nothing more than an earful.
An old woman lives in a cave to escape the Antonovs that regularly drop their deadly payload over her village. She knows that she shares the cave with any number of lethally poisonous snakes. Between a bomb and a serpent: she’s made her choice. Perhaps to escape the fate of one of her neighbours, an 11 year old boy who took shelter behind a tree when he heard the approaching drone of the aircraft. He lost both arms.
