Saturday, December 01, 2007

further onanism

Inspired by the Jack Vance title in the previous post I offer you this amusing photograph taken at Harare airport in February 2000 as Mario (pictured) and I were about to catch a plane back to Britain.

Amusingly, or perhaps sadly, in this age of instant international communication and mass media such linguistic fnarr-fnarr moments are less and less likely to occur. Wankie National Park has now been renamed, almost certainly to avoid ignorant tourists disturbing the peace with their constant sniggering. And in fact later editions of the Jack Vance book changed Wankh to Wannek throughout, to the hilariously pompous indignation of some fans. Wankhers!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dare I ask if that's the same Mario who spends time "profiting"?

electrichalibut said...

The very same. You mean to say you don't recognise him based on meeting him for a couple of hours, while drunk, at a party, 17 years ago (and, erm, 10 years before this photo was taken)?

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I know, I'm pretty useless, eh? I only remember some story about profiting and am not even sure what that was about either.

Maybe I'm hallucinating when I remember that Mario wore glasses back then?? plus it was winter and he was pale compared to this rather tanned version in the photo..

He looks better than he did 17 years ago!! Now THAT'S a compliment!!