There’s A Metaphor In Here Somewhere
Remember the episode of the 1980s Twilight Zone in which everyone around our hero gradually begins speaking a kind of nonsense English, with apparently standard syntax and intonation, but words transposed with no discernible logic? And everyone else understands one another… Our hero’s first indication of a problem should come when his wife refers to lunch as ‘dinosaur,’ but—of course—he corrects her silly mistake.
I had a similarly disorienting moment reading this:
Abkhazia isn’t a district out of Harry Potter but the breakaway territory that’s not South Ossetia, and Russia is paying good money for recognition of its independence:
Nauru, the world’s smallest republic, has been desperate for income since its most important resource, phosphates formed by centuries of bird droppings, is nearly exhausted. The island has tried housing refugees for Australia and investing millions in a West End musical. (It bombed.)
(A little respect, Times?)
