Shameless Excuse to Recycle Old Joke (no. eleventy five)

Saw the Basil D'Oliveira Story on the box last week. I remember watching him as a kid and remember the Dolly Affair, which, it is not too fanciful to argue, marked the beginning of the end of Apartheid. I must have been about eleven at the time and it was probably the first time that politics impinged on something I really cared about. The programme threw up some interesting and hitherto unknown facts and confirmed what everyone suspected all along; that there was collusion between the Pretoria and the establishment over here to keep Dolly out of the South Africa Tour of '68 and keep the cosy, rascist status quo that was International Cricket at the time.

That Dolly was sold down the river by everyone he trusted should suprise no one, but the strangest thing about it all was the incompetent way in which it was done. Either that or there was someone decent fighting his corner. For instance, Dolly was dropped for the last test before the tour, and, although controversial, a purely cricketing case could have been made for the decision. And when the opening batsman pulled out through injury, Dolly was hardly the first choice replacement as an all rounder who batted at number six. But come in to the team he did and played the finest innings of his career. There was no earthly reason not to pick him for the tour, but they didn't, then they did, and the rest is history.

All this, though, is merely a preamble to the first thing that came into my head as I settled down to watch the programme. It was, of course, the Fawlty Towers episode where the Colonel is reminiscing. "Ah yes," he says, "a woman. I knew one once. Took her to see India. At the Oval. Marvellous day. But she kept calling the Indians niggers. 'Oh no, no,' I told her, 'you can't call them niggers. The West Indians are niggers. These are wogs."

I thang you.