Matthew Parris
Spectator and Times columnist
One evening in 1995 some friends brought a friend to dinner at my flat. His name was Julian, and he seemed rather bright.
As it happened, the Nigerian ecological campaigner and fighter for rights of the Ogoni people, Ken Saro-Wiwa, was in prison having been convicted on trumped-up charges of incitement to murder. His case had become an international cause célèbre. His conviction carried the death penalty; and he was widely believed to face death by hanging. I was in full ‘old African hand’ mode, and announced to the table that I knew the ‘African mindset’ too well to believe Saro-Wiwa would actually be executed, now that the eyes of the world were on Nigeria.
In a matter-of-fact manner, my guest, Julian, replied: ‘Actually he was hanged earlier this afternoon.’ He did so without hesitation or apology. I was deeply impressed by his cool, and decided I wanted someone like Julian to work for me as a researcher and adviser. We became better and better friends. Gradually we realised we had better get a civil partnership.
And that’s how it was. Not exactly a date — but then I’ve never really been on a date. Gradual is often best.
Dan Snow
Historian and television presenter
I was in the American Colony Hotel in East Jerusalem. We were dining in the courtyard of this former residence of a pasha and his numerous wives, under the tall mulberry trees, when she walked in. Let’s just say that among the overweight male clientele she stood out like a gleaming Israeli settlement in a sleepy Palestinian farming valley. With all the chutzpah of an Israeli army strike across the Suez Canal I asked her out for a drink. She replied in the unmistakable accent of the American Deep South. I met her later as arranged and threw my entire being into the tour of Old Jerusalem. I liberally scattered the six words of Arabic I knew, bought food from street vendors, ruffled children’s hair, dredged the darkest canyons of the mind for any historical context for the buildings we passed, and made it up when the memory failed. I distinctly remember thinking that this was life of which the 15-year-old Dan had dreamt. The conversation flew. She studied history and, joy of joys, she was the daughter of the US Marine Corps’ foremost expert on counter-insurgency. But then came the depleted uranium round through the armour plating. She was here on a pilgrimage. My blood ran cold. Like the Arab armies in 1973, early optimism was replaced by the certainty of defeat, even humiliation. I walked her back to her hotel in West Jerusalem. She was sharing a twin. With her grandpa. After decades of studying military history, I know defeat when I see it.
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