The Scotsman and the New Zealand Dominion
November 21 1988
The mighty Du Pont corporation, purveyors of chemicals to the world, last week formally announced the launch of their newest product. It is a mouse. But not the sort of mouse that sells for a dollar or two in pet shops. This is the world’s first one [...]
The Scotsman and the New Zealand Dominion
November 14 1988
Robert T Morris Jnr – or RTM as he is generally known – struck a special chord here last week when the computer virus which he had developed in his study at Cornell University raced through the Defence Department and out into the rest of the country [...]
The Scotsman and the New Zealand Dominion
November 7 1988
Evelyn Waugh described the character of Rex Mottram in Brideshead Revisited like this: “He isn’t a real person at all. He’s just a few faculties of a man, highly developed.” Mr Mottram had the makings of a President.
In the last ten days, half of the truth appears [...]
The Scotsman and the New Zealand Dominion
October 24 1988
Republican hopeful David Karnes stood up at the state fair in Nebraska to launch his campaign for election to the US Senate and effectively smacked himself in the face. “We need fewer farmers at this point in time,” he told his audience, which happened to be almost [...]
The Scotsman and the New Zealand Dominion
October 17 1988
Outside the monkey house at Washington Zoo one day, I heard these people talking about their neighbours. It seems there was a family in their street whose children kept a pet rabbit. This family went away for a couple of nights and in their absence, the people [...]
The Scotsman and the New Zealand Dominion
October 1988
Mr Mark Goodwin, a spokesman for Vice President George Bush, adopted his most scandalised manner. “Someone who articulates that ought not to be allowed to operate heavy equipment,” he declared.
The idea which had so shocked Mr Goodwin was the suggestion that the release in Beirut last week of [...]
The Scotsman and the New Zealand Dominion
October 10 1988
At the Republican Convention in New Orleans this summer, the co-chairman of the Republican National Committee provoked some anxiety by referring to the League of Women Voters as the League of Women Vultures and then caught the attention of a second group of party faithful by hurling [...]
The Scotsman
Autumn 1988
Mitch Snyder is a nobody from nowhere. He is also a personal pain in President Reagan’s neck, the subject of a Hollywood film about his life, and – according to whose story you hear – either an egomaniac blackmailer or the last Good Samaritan in America.
When the city of Washington DC built fences [...]
The Scotsman
Autumn 1988
I discovered the secret of my conservative friend one Saturday afternoon in the Spring when he held a jumble sale to get rid of his cast-off possessions. There, among his old conservative clothes and his old conservative furniture, was a little book whose title caught my eye. “Look out, Whitey! Black power’s gon’ [...]
The Scotsman
Autumn 1988
Life is just fabulous. The brand new Mercedes 420 with the automatic gears and the air-conditioned interior parades proudly down Woodland Drive, past the make-believe Tudor mansions and the pseudo-Georgian palaces, and glides gently to a halt in front of a neo-classical gateway whose mouth is blocked by a heavy padlocked chain. A [...]
