Court jesting

I don't know about any of you but I am quite looking forward to the upcoming film The Last King of Scotland. No, not because it has the word 'Scotland' in the title - I am not even remotely that shallow - but because it stars Forest Whittaker and James McAvoy, two of (in my mind) the most interesting actors around. Add to that the story's factual basis on one of the most notorious figures in recent history, Idi Amin... like I said, I am looking forward to it.

And why, might you ask, do I bring this up. Well, I am sure most people are aware that the title of the film comes from Amin once claiming the Scottish throne for himself - and if you weren't you are now. This leaves me incredulous... I hate using the phrase "I'm not racist, but..." as most comments that start in this way are the most bigotted you will ever come across. But in what way did an African guy ever come to the notion that he might be the hereditary heir to the throne of a country that is very, very white? That is not to say that someone from a background other than 'North European' could never come to a future Scottish throne, presumably through marriage, but to be considered as an heir to it now? Maybe, just maybe, there was some rough and tumble between a former king and an ancestor of Mr Amin, but I'm sure that the queue for the throne would be filled with plenty of people who have greater claim.

Of course, Idi Amin was a posturer, a man who hyped himself, and believed the hype too. What is it that drives people to make such overtly outrageous claims? Yes, I know - the blog world is full of folk pretending to be other than they are, but that is a creation of a fictional persona rather than an over-inflation of the self. And of course such claims, in the political world, are laden with propoganda... Amin presumably felt that his claim to the Scottish throne would give him more kudos, if not in the international world then at least at home. And when you are lying for the home crowd it seems you can get away with more riduculous claims - remember Comical Ali insisting that the invasion of Iraq was failing even as US tanks crawled up the street behind him? Well, I know success or failure in Iraq seems to depend on your own personal standpoint (and that's a whole other post) but you get my drift!

Perhaps my favourite example of this kind of thing is a memory from my childhood when I found my Grandfather chortling at the newspaper one day. I asked him what was so funny... It turns out that a prominent figure in the Middle-East (possibly Arafat or Gaddafi) had whipped up a bit of a frenzy amongst his own supporters when he claimed that the west had wrongly claimed a famous playwright and poet as it's own, when in fact he had been an Arab living in 17th century England. The name of this disputed hero? Sheik Spear.

I shit you not!

Cheers m'dears!