Toothsome

I know that 'toothsome' doesn't mean 'about or related to teeth', but I've never used the word and always wanted to so I thought I'd follow Humpty Dumpty's cavalier approach to language and ignore what the word actually means and let it pretend to be relevant to a tooth-related post.

The post itself arises from an item in today's Telegraph newspaper by Joe Barnes, the Telegraph's Brussels Correspondent. The item concerns a gold tooth that belonged to Patrice Lumumba. The tooth has been in the safekeeping of the Belgian police since 1961. Momentously, yesterday the tooth was given back to Lumumba's family in what was described as "a small, private ceremony". 

It is that phrase that stood out for me in the article. As soon as read it, I wished Barnes had provided more details. Ideally, I wished he had been allowed to expand our understanding with some photographs of the event. 

These are some of the questions that arose in mind that I suppose I will now never get answers to:

1. Was the tooth presented on a velvet pillow or discreetly in a small cardboard box? 

2. Were the King and Queen of the Belgians involved? 

3. Were drinks served? 

4. Were speeches made?

Until I got to the end of the article, I also wondered how thrilled Lumumba's family members might be to receive this unusual object. But Barnes does end by telling us that Juliana, Lumumba's daughter, said the return of the tooth was long overdue. Congo's Prime Minister went further, explaining that "the restitution of the relic was essential for his country's national memory".

All of which made me turn to my copy of Letters from a Nut and specifically the inquiry from Mr Ted L Nancy, who suffered a similar loss while staying at the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver in 1995: 

"560 North Moorpark Rd. 

#236 Thousand Oaks, CA 91360 

LOST & FOUND DEPT. 

BROWN PALACE HOTEL 

321 17th Street Denver, CO 80202 

Sep 14, 1995 

Dear Lost & Found Dept.: 

When visiting your hotel the afternoon of last Saturday, I bit down onto some crackers. Later on, after I woke up, I realized I had lost a tooth. Did anyone find a tooth in your hotel? I'll describe it. It is a small hard whitish object. The size of a piece of corn. It has a rippled top; speck of silver embedded in the top. If anyone has found this tooth I would like to come and pick it up. I do not want somebody else's tooth. I have had that happen before. PLEASE DO NOT MAIL IT! I do not want to lose it again. I believe my tooth could be somewhere in the sundries shop, probably by the front, or it could be in the lobby on the floor somewhere in the back. I don't know where I lost it but I do know it was not in my head when I left your hotel last Saturday. 

Thanks for getting back to me on this. 

Respectfully, 

Ted L. Nancy 

17 October 1995 

Mr. Ted L. Nancy 

560 North Moorpark Road 

#236 Thousand Oaks, CA 91360 

Dear Sir: 

In response to your letter of 17 September, we proceeded at once to check the areas mentioned. Also, we have checked our Lost and Found records, and have monitored items turned in since then. We have failed to find your missing tooth. 

Such a loss is regrettable. No doubt, it is an inconvenience to you. Although I do not believe it likely that the tooth will be returned to us this long after the loss, let me assure you that we will keep record of your letter, and will let you know if the tooth is returned. If I can help you in any other way, please let me know. 

Director of Loss Prevention 

Since 1892 • 321 Seventeenth Street • 

Denver, Colorado 80202 • 

(303) 297-31 1 1 • Managed by Quorum Hotels & Resorts"

For All His Faults I Love Him Still

Simon Hoggart was for a long time parliamentary sketchwriter at the Guardian. He briefly got himself into a muddle over a woman who David Blunkett simultaneously got himself into a muddle over. Possibly Blunkett could plead his inability to see as an extenuating circumstance but really the two of them were just middle-aged men being made fools of by Eros. Not a lonely predicament, poor dears.

The more important thing about Hoggart is that he was brilliantly funny. I miss his wit, and am slowly going through everything he wrote that is available at the Guardian website. His pieces are pretty much the only things I read there. Here is the one that I have just got to and, although it is over 20 years old, I must have laughed six or seven times while reading it. Hail Hoggart, I say.

Sadly, when I reached the end of the article, I was greeted with a message from today's Guardian management, congratulating me for "being one of our top readers globally" (apparently I have read 95 articles on their website in the last 12 months, so, if I am one of their top readers globally, I doubt they are going to last very much longer, frankly). They go on to thank me "for turning to the Guardian on so many occasions" and they talk about how "fiercely independent" they are committed to remaining. 

What they want of course is money. And I want to explain to them that I would definitely give them money, if they continued to sponsor the quality of writing that Hoggart produced so regularly and, more importantly, if they remained committed to humour. As it is I am not prepared to pay them to read things that were produced and paid for over 20 years ago, however much those things do continue to make me laugh.