On Freedom

Dear All

A recent brush with the law has forced me to reflect on the flimsy nature of freedom in this country. I was taken into custody after allowing a guinea fowl to drive me down to the shops for a magazine and a flavoured milk. Apparently I had transgressed some obscure regulation forbidding the operation of heavy machinery by poultry. Fortunately, my attorney managed a plea bargain and my sentence was reduced to the death penalty.

It goes to show, however, that freedom cannot be taken for granted. A salutary example from history - Corporal Lance Heinrichtoffen. He is the only man to have escaped from Stalag XI a total of 476 times. Revisionist historians have belittled his feats by pointing out that he was a guard at the prison and after going home each evening, he returned to his post early the next morning. Such mean-spirited point scoring is the kind of thing we have come to expect from the time-wasters and lickspittles who typically occupy university History faculties in this day and age.

So what is freedom? How do we define such a tenuous concept? Is it just another word for nothing left to lose? And should we even be leaving the discussion of such pivotal concepts to Kris Kristofferson? Or anybody with double initials for that matter? And why so many question marks in this paragraph? What's wrong with the odd exclamation mark!?

Freedom does come at a price though. After all, when Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990, he found his coffee shop loyalty cards had expired and a crippling overdue bill for a video he had hired (That Touch of Mink, as it happens) - a debt that South Africa still finds itself trying to address, letters to Cary Grant's agent notwithstanding.

Well, as much as I would love to discuss these matters further, I have a pressing engagement with an Australorp, an iced coffee and a copy of Recidivist Weekly. Now where did I leave those car keys?

Thank you for your time.