Afrikaans is one of the joys of living in South Africa. Tientalle digters na McGregor vir poesiefees as the headline in Die Burger said.

Which reminded me of Sir David Tang’s column in the Pink ‘Un on Saturday. Now owned by the Japanese, the subeditors had no problem with “it is also amusing to have funny names that are easily pronounceable. Step forward the classic example written in 1943, by Sir Archibald Clerk Kerr, HM ambassador to Moscow, to Lord Reginald Pembroke: ‘In these dark days man tends to look for little shafts of light that spill from Heaven … So I propose to share with you a tiny flash that has illuminated my sombre life … God has given me a new Turkish colleague whose card tells me that he is called Mustapha Kunt. We all feel like that, Reggie, now and then, especially when Spring is upon us, but few of us would care to put it on our cards. It takes a Turk to do that.’ “