August Blog

Don't believe everything you see on the internet and be skeptical about the e-mail forwards you get! Recently I got an one from a reader with the subject "Who owns this place??? An American billionaire? A Saudi Prince? Louis XIV of France?". What followed were pictures of an opulent palace identified as that of Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe (that you can find on YouTube). Once you have cooled down after the outrage and incredulence (and hopefully before you start forwarding the e-mail to everybody on your list) you take a closer look to verify the authenticity of the pictures. Having been in Africa, I was struck by something very un-African about the palace in the pictures. There is none of the imperfection and there are no glaring blemishes that you get used to seeing at all levels (like the hook for the clothesline in my bathroom at the Hilton Hotel in Nairobi, that I had to take a picture of because it was upside down and hence could never ever have been used for hanging wash with during the thirty years the hotel had been in existence). Back on the internet I found not only several sites containing the pictures of Robert Mugabe's alleged mansion, but also many others with a lot of insight that to me pointed to the pictures being fake. The alleged mansion does not have the blue Chinese pagoda-style roof that shows up on the authentic aerial photographs of the actual mansion. And the aerial photographs have no signs of the opulent outdoor swim-ming pool in the alleged mansion photos. The two buildings are simply not one and the same. Bloggers also note that one of the bedrooms looks a lot like a hotel suite with a kitchenette at the far end of the room. One room has a sign with Arabic text, likely something from the koran, while Mugabe is a Catholic. Another blogger recalls that he has seen the pictures linked to other African leaders in the past. It is all good reading but you cannot be sure about the accuracy of the information. As I was doing research on this month’s Pågen CompanyFile I ran into a site (lukpac.org/~handmade/patio/misc/pogen.html) that argues that Frank Zappa is singing about Pågens Tosca cookies in the song Florentine Pogens that begins with the line: "She was the daughter of a wealthy Florentine Pogen, ‘Read 'em & weep’ was her adjustable slogan". There is more than a page about this Swedish connection that I think must be a joke, but who knows. There is however a true Swedish connection. When Zappa and his Mothers of In-vention played in Stockholm in 1968 he met a girl backstage who told him that her brother was a big fan, but had not been allowed to come to the concert by the parents. "But then we'll go and visit him," said Zappa and out they drove to the family's apartment in the suburb of Hägersten. The boy was woken up by the bearded musician with the words "Hi, I'm Frank Zappa". The legendary musician then stayed up all night talking politics with the parents. (And perhaps they had Pågens cookies?) This pre-internet story is true and has been confirmed by several of the tour’s arrangers. Have a nice September Anders PS. Do not even believe all the emails from nordicway.com as that address has been hi-jacked and used for all kinds of spam.