THE KING AND MS. BRUNI

Well, la te da. Look who the new King of France has brought to his bed. If it isn't our not so dear friend Carla herself. This surely will be her last chance at making a statement; another disastorous one no doubt. Darling, she's been used so many times that there isn't a thing fresh left to her unless one wants to call her surgically stretched cat eyes, injected plump cheeks and all together altered face a tour de force. NOT. Truly, darling, no sooner had the news spread that I were a titled Lady was I summoned by King Sarkozy that he wished my attendance at the Elysee Palace in France.

And people need twitter? Obviously, not ME. And do not get me started on my opinion of the latest new rage of tweeting people to follow you because 'you think' they want to know where you are and what you're NOT doing, or want to share some ass silly thought. To whom, just exactly gives a damn tweet? Truly, it's rawther so... beau geste.

Darling, Carla's done everyone from Mick to Clapton and all in between. What was the King thinking? Everyone knows of her sorrid background and no amount of surgery can scalp a bad reputation.

And, no, I did not suffer one bit of sympathy toward her though, God love her, she tried, but failed, to join the King and I in our discussion of Zimbabwe's ruler, Robert Mugabe, banning Western journalists. He's running the most gawd awful campaign of terror from the capital in Harare. Oh, someone's just got to, got to report on this atrocity. Remember darling, Mr. Mugabe is that terrible man who ruined my beautiful Africa by transforming white-ruled Rhodesia into black-ruled Zimbabwe? Oh, his arrogance makes me shudder, and all the people that he's killed is just simply beyond tragic and my wide-eyed imagination.

Anyhow, Carla couldn't keep up and ran down the palace corridor in tears, most likely to twitter a rock star on her whereabouts and latest dull thought. He's chosen her for Queen? Again, darling, what was he thinking? Well, I'll be the first to predict that it shant last long: her, him or their monarchy if they continue with this rock star and twittering state of affairs. Yes, darling, she can play the guitar as well as sing. My, isn't that the accomplishment? Oh, darling, it's all too much for me to bear. Though I held myself with grace and kept my thoughts tucked neatly under my little pillbox hat, as I find her to be so gawd awful tele no vela.

Anyhow, darling, I'm in such despair on hearing that Mr. Mugabe not only has banned Western journalist, but expelled all foreign journalist as well. His bloody intimidation is nothing more than the DAY OF THE CROCODILE. What does he choose next to destroy? My Botswana, my South Africa, my Mozambique, my Zambia? He thinks himself heroic as he shakes his arms to the heavens above and screams to the PEOPLE -
"The First of Empowerment".

The evidence of his Anglophilia is everywhere: his Savile Row suits, his love of cricket and tea, his penchant for Graham Greene novels, and his continuing reverence for the Queen, even though she stripped him of his knighthood last June, you know. Mr. Mugabe's resentment is evident in his only true statement: "You can never ever convince an Englishman that you are equal to him, never, never." Damn straight, he's got that, and that's all he's got straight, darling. His wife Sally was able to temper the inner tyrant in him, but alas, she's quite dead now, you know. Oh, and how he sobbed over her open casket. Spare me the drama, please.

Then he married Grace Marufu who is 40 years his younger! And she's quite the prodigious retail appetite. Dreadfully, she's seen as the Imelda Marcos of Africa. Grace is known to the PEOPLE as the First Shopper. Ghastly, isn't it, darling? Vulgar, really.

The tragic irony of Zimbabwe is that what is today a hellish country should by all evidence be a paradise. Instead, everywhere in Zimbabwe there are long lines: lines for bread, lines for cooking oil, lines for maize meal, et cet.

Why don't my Zimbabweans rise up? Because darling, they rise up only to leave. Wouldn't you?

Tens of thousands have been tortured with dead bodies collecting at the spillway of a Harare reservoir. The violence has reached epic proportions, such so that it's become rather daunting to keep up my good cheer. But I must, just must, for my Queen and her PEOPLE.

And the Americans are all in a twist over a little water in the face of prisoners? Oh, please!That's the irony of Americans: they never seem able to get their priorties straight. Darling, you need look no further than the evidence of their own tragic fate. They'll now waste millions to bully their own, while elsewhere there are thousands who are dying by torture and surely would love a bottle of Perrier thrown in their face, even on board.

The Americans haven't any money. Do they wish the government of Spain to front millions in court costs that tragically will create nothing but more yellow journalism? What fool thinks Ms. Rice and Mr. Cheney will have their heads lopped off or hung from a tree? Don't ever forget darling, it's the land of the free. Anything goes, which is why their banks are allowed to operate with nothing more in the vaults than talking heads, all the while allowing their country to drown in debt. Throw a little water on that, they should. What folly.

Anyhow dear, Carla, hasn't the courage for the fight we've up ahead. Her foolish head most right shall be all up in a twitter with Grace in a shopping mall for all I care.

Where is Nelson when I need him most? Oh, thinking of needing, well, I need Harry. He'll know what to do. I'll wire him up right quickly to join me at the HOTEL DE CRILLON tomorrow and we'll make great plans to sneak across the border and I'll do my reporting right under Mr. Mugabe's nose. Nothing can stop a Lady who's bearing a cross.

I'm damn mad right now, don't you know, and in need of a few drinks, if not more.

My Sleeping Africa, my love.

-Jacqueline