Kalishnikovs and Zombie Cucumbers

That's the title of the book I couldn't remember yesterday. It's by Nick Middleton and about his travels in Mozambique both before and after the peace accord in 1992.

Sadly, I remember almost nothing about it except that it was amusing (as Little Britain's frustrated customer would say) and Mozambique was a very strange place where colonialism, post colonialism and witch doctors collide. It's my favourite title this week. Apologies for "I like this book" standard of critical discourse but it's been a long week. It has both a bibliography and an index (not normal in travel writing). Curiously Amazon appeared to list it as costing from $104. And Mr Middleton has written more travel books in the last ten years, all with interesting titles.

To return to March, yesterday's SMH had a Heckler which made me smile lamenting the popularity of the Civil War as an example of US cultural imperialism. She suggested that Australian political leaders should worry less about the American Civil War and more about conflicts we were actually involved in. Up to a point she has a point but taken to its logical conclusion we shouldn't study anything except Australian history and I should forget everything I learnt in that pesky Ancient History degree I did. and I certainly shouldn't be readling about zombie cucumbers.