The French have always run their colonies with so much more panache than the bumbling British. So while the Brits continue to make a show of post-colonial regret the French sail on upon their imperial mission unaffected by guilt, remorse or self-doubt.

So why, I hear you ask, did we not go straight to the airline for redress, revenge, compensation, satisfaction, or even explanation when we were dumped unceremoniously, yet again, at the wrong airport, several hundred kilometres short of our programmed and paid-for destination?

It might have been a little over the top for Paul Mukonyi to express his outrage at conditions in economy class by coming within a hair’s breadth of causing a British Airways Boeing 747, loaded with several hundred persons, to crash nose first into East African soil over the Christmas holidays.

With the presidential election campaign now off to an official start in Uganda, the gloves are coming off in this political arena that is not particularly well-known for gentlemanly circumspection.

‘Africa’s best read" (the one you’re holding in your hands right now [sic]) takes a long time to actually penetrate into Africa. I understand it takes a week or so for it to reach the news-hungry dissidents of Harare and Bulawayo.

New York is as cold as all hell, but there are friends and ghosts to touch base with there that always make it a memorable place to be. Quite apart from the fact that New York is exciting anyway, even when you’ve got nothing to do.

Once again, I am filled with admiration for what you can find on American television. The idiot box in the corner of your room is nothing less than an indicator of the state of the American nation.

‘It is always both amusing and unnerving, having made the lengthy airborne crossing towards the United States, to have to fill out the American immigration card that will decide your fate on landing.

Nat King Cole and Natalie Cole; Frank and Nancy Sinatra; Aristotle and Christina Onassis; Bob and Ziggy Marley; Alexandre Dumas <i>pere et fils</i>; George and George W Bush Jnr; Muhammad and Layla Ali …

Patrice Lumumba holds a place in the cosmology of post-colonial African political leaders second only, perhaps, to Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah. The name alone conjures up visions of a pure and unsullied hero, a far-sighted father of the dream of African liberation.