The Citizen, 1991-01-23, Page 5Arthur Black
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 23, 1991. PAGE 5.
Meet a king
of a crook
Ladies and gentlemen it is my very great
privilege to have the honour of introducing
you to His Royal Highness Prince Bandra
Faisal of Saudi Arabia.
That's His Higness over there, on the
steps of the Knightsbridge Court, sand
wiched somewhat indelicately between two
unsmiling members of the British Consta
bulary.
What’s that? Ah, no, those are not
matching silver bracelets Prince Faisal is
wearing. They are handcuffs. In addition to
being a country squire, an international
entrepreneur and a blue-blooded member
of the Arab aristocracy. Prince Faisal is one
other thing.
A crook.
But an uncommonly audacious one.
Actually he isn’t Prince Faisal at all. He’s
really Kirpal Singh Johl, a 58-year-old
Kenyan rent clerk who emigrated to Britain
19 years ago. Mister Johl scuffled around
in marginal jobs for a few years until he
decided he’d had enough of life as an
underdog. In 1986, he quit his job
collecting rents and disappeared. Some
weeks later, he surfaced as Prince Faisal,
Laugh - it’s good
for you
BY RAYMOND CANON
One of the problems of our western
civilization is that we tend to take things
too seriously much of the time. This is not
to be taken to mean that we should not get
concerned about world peace, poverty, the
ecology and the like, simply that we
frequently engage in a practice of overkill
where only superlatives seem to be called
for.
Frankly, I am tired of hearing about
crisis, impending doom, tragedy, disaster,
outrage and the like. We use these terms
so much that, when a real situation does
come along, we cannot distinguish it from
the run of the mill. For this reason I am
going to avoid such terms in this article and
inject a bit of levity into the scene with the
added purpose of getting us through
another cold winter.
First prize for the best name of the year
goes to the Canadians in the Middle East
who took a look at where they were to
locate their F-18 jets and promptly named
it “Canada Dry”. You cannot imagine
what a desert looks like until you see it and
travel across it. I recall landing in Kuwait
one time and getting a taxi into the city.
The road from the airport to the city led
right across the desert and the taxi driver,
whose English was as bad as my Arabic,
took off as if bent on breaking the sound
barrier. All I could see, as I cowered in the
back seat, was an endless expanse of sand
on either side and the road stretching to
the horizon. Why people would fight over
such land is beyond me but, when there are
megabucks worth of oil underneath it, it
does seem to make a difference.
Another first prize for the “There’s a
sucker born every minute” award goes to
the French company that produces spe
cialty brews such as Cherry Beer. It has
come up with a concoction called “La Biere
Amoureuse” which, the producer claims,
contains extracts of 16 herbs with reputed
aphrodisiac properties. The brewer calls
the beer, “ultimate intimate”. To revive
an old phrase, “What will they think of
next?”
tycoon, dandy and man about town.
His own mother wouldn’t have recog
nized him. Prince Faisal wore Saville Row
suits, gold rings and enough diamonds to
bring out the green in Liz Taylor’s eyes.
He bought himself a million dollar
country mansion, complete with swimming
pool -- on credit of course - who’d refuse a
Prince? When the rent was a few months
overdue “Prince Faisal” simply applied to
the Kreditforeningen Bank of Denmark for
a $1.8 million dollar mortgage. He got it,
paid his back rent, made one payment to
the Danes and spent the rest of the cash on
champagne, clothes, chauffer-driven limos
and of course renos on his mansion, which
he dubbed Faisal House.
Actually, the prince’s whole existence
was a spectacular house of cards - by
definition, a rickety one. Eventually it
came tumbling down, but not before Prince
Faisal had himself one jolly merry-go-
round.
Most crooks don’t fare nearly as well. In
fact, if there’s one characteristic that
distinguishes most crooks it’s not bravery
or ingenuity or luck or skill - it’s stupidity.
Most crooks are breathtakingly dumb.
For every “Prince Faisal” there are a
hundred foolish felons like ... well, like
Joseph Hill of Longwood, Florida, who was
recently convicted of counterfeiting more
than 3,000,000 Polish zlotys.
Sounds impressive until you find out that
3,000,000 zlotys are worth a little over
$300. As one of the arresting officers said
“The guy could have printed a boxcar full
In the “Remember you read it here
first” category comes the news that the
latest fad in retailing south of the border is
fish skin, or in its more chic sounding
French title “peau de mer.” Leather made
from tanning fish skins has started
showing up in New York city’s elite stores
as watch straps, belts, wallets and ear
rings. Out west cowboy boots are being
made from it (sea bass being the most
popular while Bill Blass, a well known
couturier, has put on the market $100
fish-leather swim suits. Salmon and halibut
leather can be more than twice as strong as
cowhide. Even though I am involved with
the fishing industry, the urge to be the first
on my street to have fish skin sho6s or a
wallet has not yet descended upon me.
1 have noted the trend in stores to use
music to attract customers into the
establishment. Now the exact opposite has
taken place. A shopping mall in Denver
became concerned about the number of
vagrants who were using the mail’s
parking lot to catch up on their sleep. A few
remedies were considered and the one
chosen was to play a heavy and loud dose
of Mozart’s music in the parking lot area.
The ploy has apparently been successful
It’s good to hear from home
THE EDITOR,
Today when 1 heard the rattle of my
letter box, 1 expected to see my usual mail
or my daily newspaper. But what a lovely
surprise! With my mail came a copy of the
Citizen - December 18 issue.
Last month for Christmas I received a
parcel containing 8 back issues of the
Citizen from October 5 - December 5. Prior
to Christmas I had received from friends,
clippings from the Citizen news of events
and people in Brussels that are meaningful
to me. 1 thank my friends for their kindness
but I also commend you and your staff in
your effort to present a comprehensive
coverage of happenings in Brussels and
area.
I knew that I would miss my home in
Brussels, my friends and all the events
there when 1 learned that 1 would be away
of them and still not had enough to buy a
good suit.”
Or there’s the case of Earl Latham, a
petty con who broke out of the Baltimore
House of Correction and holed up at his
mother’s house. When the cops knocked on
the door, Earl answered. The conversation
went something like this:
COP: “Are you Earl?”
EARL: “Yo.”
COP: “Earl Latham?”
EARL: “Uhhhh, no. My name’s Earl
Smith.”
COP: “Oh yeah? Can you spell Smith for
me?”
He couldn’t.
We have our own made-in-Canada
thugs, of course. Last spring, Danny
Simpson knocked over an Ottawa bank
toting an old Colt .45. He got $6,000.
Unbeknownst to dim Dan, his gun was a
rare antique worth almost 20 times that.
“It’s one of life’s ironies” said Simp
son’s lawyer “that, at auction, that gun
could fetch $100,000.”
An academic irony at best. Danny
Simpson is currently residing in a one-
room coldwater flat with no conveniences,
surly neighbours and an extremely lousy
view.
Swell security system though.
Prince Faisal isn’t faring any better.
He’s doing four and a half years in similar
British accommodations as an involuntary
guest of Her Majesty.
Which I guess improves on the old
adage. Crime not only doesn’t pay - it
costs.
which will mark the second time that
Wolfgang Amadeus has turned over in his
grave. The first time, you may recall, was
when more astute egg producers discover
ed that playing Mozart in the hen house
resulted in an increased production of
eggs.
I’ll close by asking how many of you read
your horoscope to see what is going to
happen to you. I’m not sure how seriously
you take all this but, regardless of your
intensity, you will be interested to note that
there is a French firm that uses astrology
as a means of advising businesses as to the
best times for takeovers, etc. The firm,
whose name is Divinitel (Mon Dieu!)
charges about $100 a session and claims to
have as clients a number of large French
firms. It is even planning a stock issue next
March. Perhaps a few years down the line,
we will discover that this firm, too, advised
Nancy and Ronald Reagan on what to do
next. I’m not sure whether all this is on a
par with one of our prime ministers,
Mackenzie King who used to talk with his
departed dog and his equally departed
mother by means of a spiritualist. You
could look that up; it makes interesting
reading.
for a year. That has not changed at all. The
yearning for home is not lost in spite of the
many interesting things to see and do here
in Britain. Indeed, home is where the heart
is and it certainly isn’t here in England!
Thank you Citizen’s staff for nursing my
homesickness.
Miss Lourdes H. Genosa
72 Cottesmore Rd., Lenton
Nottingham, England.
Truth must be told
THE EDITOR,
I feel sympathy for, and confused by the
lady from Londesboro who felt so disgusted
with crime reporting that she was cancell
ing her subscription to the paper.
If she truly believes that the media is “to
Continued on page 6
Letter
from the
editor
The media
are failing you
BY KEITH ROULSTON
The beginning of the war between
United Nations forces and Iraq last week
was not the finest hour of journalism.
Sometimes people get tied up in their
own sense of importance and that was the
case of television news teams when the
word came through Wednesday night that
the attack on Iraq had begun. While it was
fascinating to listen to reporters from the
Cable News Network (CNN) describe the
attack going on around them from the
windows of a Baghdad hotel as it
happened, there really wasn’t a lot to
report. Aside from the speeches of U.S.
President George Bush, a news conference
by the U.S. secretary of defence and the
chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff
and the speeches of Canadian leaders in
Parliament, there was about enough
information to fill a three-minute news
bulletin. Because of their sense of self-im
portance kept the television news networks
on the air round the clock that first night.
The problem is that when you have so
little real news and you have so much time
to fill, you start dealing in speculation,
rumour and opinion based on sketchy facts,
exactly the kinds of thing professional
journalists are supposed to avoid. While
the instant coverage from half-way around
the world showed that we are indeed a
global village, North American media
turned out to be that village gossip who
knows something about everything. To
paraphrase Thumper Rabbit from Walt
Disney’s movie Bambi: “If yu can’t say
something right, don’t say nuthin' at all.”
But nothing at all was mostly what was
said. Based on a few sketchy details rented
“experts” in military affairs started mak
ing conclusions. The lack of losses by the
allies, they said, indicated the Iraqi air
force was destroyed on the ground. Since
there were no missiles raining down on
Israel, the allies must have destroyed them
before they could be fired. Speculation of
one moment became accepted fact of the
next as one speaker elaborated on what the
last one said as if it were proven fact. The
“experts” had the war virtually over in
minutes and went on to look at the future
peace in the area. With these guys the 100
Year War could have been reduced to a
90-minute special.
To give them credit, military and
government people didn’t jump to any
hasty conclusions the war was won. Dick
Cheney, the U.S. Secretary of Defence
warned reporters Thursday morning not to
get carried away, that there was a long way
to go yet. But journalists, having already
declared the war was over, later blamed
the military officials for misleading them
when Iraq began to strike back and the war
stretched past the weekend without a final
victory imminent.
Granted, there are real problems in truly
informing people about what’s going on.
Though those CNN reporters had a
ring-side seat at the beginning of the war,
they might as well have been describing a
community fireworks display for all the
reality it had. Huddled in their hotel room
they could only see a sound and light show
and didn’t see the effects the bombing was
having, the people suffering and dying.
The problem for journalists despite all
their high-tech satellite communications is
that they can still only send us pictures of
what they can see. Iraq has decided it
doesn’t want journalists around so all but
CNN reporters have been expelled. Even
CNN reporters can only see what they’re
allowed to by Iraqi officials and everything
is censored by the government.
Censorhip isn’t confined to one side. All
the allied armies have their own set of rules
for what journalists can and can’t report
and every news story and video tape has to
clear censors. Some of this is natural to
keep the other side from getting too much
information and perhaps endangering
lives, but it also means that people at home
don’t get their democractic right to know
Continued on page 6