Monday, August the 9th, 2004

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Lest We Forget

You will recall that our ornithological adviser, Jim Pond, decamped to the Richard Milhous Nixon Memorial Sweatlodge soon after his appointment (see 6 July). Extending his brief beyond the world of birds, Jim has kindly sent us this report:

Today is the thirtieth anniversary of Nixon's resignation as the thirty-seventh Potus. Who can forget the picture of the old rascal waving from the steps of his helicopter just before it took off from the White House lawn? Here at the Memorial Sweatlodge, we celebrate the anniversary in a number of ways. Our drama team perform their adaptation of Nixon's Six Crises, we have readings from the infamous tape transcripts (in which we insert all the “expletives deleted”, for added authenticity), and the highlight is a competition to find a dog in the vicinity that most closely resembles Checkers. We kidnap this dog, and train it to sit on a plinth at sunset. To get some idea of how enthralling this part is, think of the end of The Wicker Man, with a plinth instead of a huge wicker statue, a dog instead of Edward Woodward, and without the fire. We wouldn't incinerate Checkers! But we do sing a hymn of praise to him, before ending the day watching a scratchy old video of the 1960 Nixon-Kennedy election debate, when Dick let himself down with his profuse sweating and that five o clock shadow. Heigh ho! Until next year…

Yours very earnestly, Jim Pond.

PS : I haven't forgotten my responsibilities as your top adviser on ornithological matters. When I have recovered from the exertions of the resignation anniversary, I will put the finishing touches to my essay Auk, Skua : A Palindromic Meditation Upon A Couple Of Seabirds and post it to you.