Death and Disaster

So that nice Colonel Gaddafi is dead and his friend Tony Blair will not be able to pay his last respects neither will Prince Charles who wrote so amicably to him.  But was he really sexually assaulted?  I would have thought that a piece of lead piping would lead to grievous bodily harm with only hatred behind it not lust.  But our commentators have different ideas.  The reason for such an assault was usually to show no sign of damage to the corpse of a dead leader; Edward II and a red hot poker is a noted example of this.  The Italians were the best murderers:

I learnt in Naples how to poison flowers,

  And strangle with a lawn stuffed down the throat

As Marlowe's murderer has it; so obviously qualified for killing kings.  

Of course it was a mistake to kill him; better to let him flee for ever in the Sahara desert as hatred of him when alive was the only thing that united the rebels.  Now they will have to give up shooting into the air and start shooting each other.  Anarchy is the usual end of revolution, only ending when a strong man appears like Napolean or Lenin to restore law and order and oppression.  Wait and see. 

At Last!  A Booker prize winner of real merit.  Well done Julian Barnes - and only a hundred and fifty pages as well.  Highly recommended especially for old men.