Falling into an obvious pothole, Bob

As Oscar Wilde said, there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about and that’s not being talked about.

So I like it when people write to the newspaper about me.

I like to know someone – besides my mom – has read this column, and had feelings about it, positive or negative.

Last week, one poor chap was roused to irate penmanship because I called South Africa the most beautiful country in the world.

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We’ll call him Bob, because that’s his name.

Bob detailed every Sefrican evil from potholes to crime, before landing his zinger: Jennie must live elsewhere, and clearly hasn’t travelled much.

This hurt, because obviously our Bob had not been reading my column as regularly as he might.

If he had, he’d know that I used to work for The Citizen full-time – I was even the travel editor – and then one day I hit it off with a charming Irish interviewee.

Four years later, I moved to Dublin to be with him.

The rest of my extended family, bar my youngest son, live in South Africa, and my oldest moved back “home” in 2020.

I have a house in South Africa and visit several times a year. I have never tried to hide these facts.

Indeed, they’ve been detailed on this very page.

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However, one does not need to be fully immersed in something or somewhere to have an opinion about it.

Consider Trump, Putin, Syria, Israel, Palestine… I’m not gay, or trans, or a man, or a refugee, or black, or Ukrainian, or a Scientologist, or pregnant, or a meat eater, or a sex worker, or a bagpiper, or Mrs Brad Pitt (yet); nonetheless I hold strong opinions about these and many other matters.

I’ve travelled everywhere from Peru to South Korea, Malawi to Lapland, yet still I wouldn’t thank you for a free holiday to Ethiopia’s Tigray region right now.

I read, I watch the news, I subscribe to three daily newspapers online – one South African, one European, one US – and buy three print newspapers every Saturday and two on Sunday.

I keep informed. Perhaps Bob might re-read my offending column.

And if he’s already drawn horns on my picture and burnt it, then let me point him towards my mom, who has kept every copy these last 23 years.