MR. KNOW-ALL SPREADS HIS NET By Baba Galleh Jallow Rhineheart Soberlook had almost gotten all he wanted in terms of information on his enemies, his business rivals and just about all the prominent and not so prominent bigwigs in our little town. In fact, he had gotten so much information that his eyes were getting squinted from the effect of browsing through loads and loads of information on a daily basis. His evergrowing number of informers were fast turning his Operation See All Unit into the world's leading espionage outfit, and nothing rendered our gentle Mr. Know-All more proud and happy tahn feeling that he had the entire world of information at his very finger tips, which were growing fatter by the day, thanks to his exceedingly flamboyant lifestyle. Indeed, so happy did Mr Know-All grow that he created what he called his special Happy Day Sessions. At such sessions, held on the posh balcony of his special super-mansion, he invited all persons of calibre and timber in our little town. Cattle, of which the wealthy Mr Know-All had hundreds, were slaughtered and the guests treated to a barbeque of a lifetime. In the middle of the eating, the chatting, the drumming and dancing, Mr Know-All would proudly climb the podium and gently coo into the Public Address System, 'May I have your attention Please'. And having had his obliging attention, he would delve into some special topic or other, often intentionally revealing information about some of his guests that they would rather keep secret. But who dared defy or contradict the mighty Mr. Know-All! So all his prominent guests could do was just to laugh and coo and loudly purr and pretend nothing was the matter. Whereby our gentle Mr. Know-All, feeling like the lion king himself, would cast knowing glances in the direction of his selected targets and proudly grin and nod, whereby they in turn, would grin and gaily wave and loudly clap, as if to drown the screams of misery tearing their hearts. Rhinehart Soberlook was a very fastidious guy. Hard to please, he was a stickler for perfection. So that when some of our common townsfolk started seeing through the ever-widening cracks of his seemingly indomitable armour, he got really flustered and exceedingly miffed. So miffed that he in fact caught the flu, which sent him angrily coughing and huffing, puffing and spluttering all over our little town. Being the custodian of such monumental knowledge, powewr and wisdom, Rhinehart Soberlook could just not understand how such simple nonentities as some of our common townsfolk could know so much about his mighty self. He just could not go to sleep until he found out ways and means of dealing with those impudent blokes who called themselves clever and thought they were wise. When he came to think of it, he even wept aloud. Why should they call him fool? Why should they make him dance? Would they make fun of him? He would let them see! Within the twinkle of an eye, Mr Know-All had an idea: He would spread his net!! Immediately, he recruited more informers and trained them in the tecniques of what he called 'special spannerworks'. He then sent them not only into the nooks and cranies of our little town, but also into all neighbouring towns and villages and everywhere else he felt were any people trying to call him fool. The really smart ones he sent to Europe and America. Their terms of reference were to throw a spanner in the works of his percieved enemies and critics. Confuse them, distract them, make them feel little and stupid. Tell them they were seeing the world upside down. If they spoke about the moon, tell them no, they were wrong, they were actually speaking about the sun. If they made any unsavoury reference to any Mr. Know-All, tell them hey, could they not see that they were wrong? And, holy cow! Those guys were smart! So smart that they soon became known as the smarties! _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------