For a man paid less than  726 a month, the six-and-a-half hectares of mansion, designer golf course and sprawling gardens speckled with fountains in Malibu was quite a buy. The views of the ocean alone — never mind the 4 500 square metres mansion with eight bathrooms, a pool and tennis courts — probably accounted for a good chunk of the -million asking price.

On the podium is a map of the world, a map of Venezuela and a desk piled with charts, reports, books and pens: essential navigational tools for a tour through the mind of Hugo Chávez. The Venezuelan president is three weeks away from an election and has assembled Cabinet ministers, aides and journalists at the presidential palace, Miraflores, for a rhetorical journey.

Alex Ferguson had been manager of Manchester United for less than two months when a local newsagent and part-time ground steward named Harold Wood seized his chance. Wood had been telling the club for weeks — though no one was listening — about an outstanding schoolboy who was training with Manchester City but was passionate about United.

The South African peacekeeping mission in Burundi struggled for four years with chaotic accounting systems, inadequate logistical support and complex supply lines that left numerous vehicles and other equipment unserviceable, ammunition supplies vulnerable to theft and accident, and made it impossible for the mission to balance its books.