Life and Death in Africa and Athens

As I mentioned yesterday, now that he is safely dead 'World Leaders' are suddenly remembering what a splendid fellow they 'always' thought Mandela. Some are even going to Soweto for the funeral.

Let us honour if we can
The vertical man,
Though we value none
But the horizontal one.

(W. H. Auden.)

 

 

Meanwhile in Athens a single mother had her electricity cut off because she had no money to pay the bill. She had been relying on electricity for heating, oil being now prohibitively expensive and fireplaces rare in Athens flats. In a deperate attempt to keep her child warm she burned charcoal in a brazier. Her little girl died of carbon monoxide poisoning.