Where
is Chintito?
In
case you are wondering why this odd piece of writing has come
up instead of your favourite columnist's writing please let
us explain. Chintito just called and said he was 'tied up' and
just could not make the deadline. Now you may be wondering what
exactly is tying him up. Your guess is as good as ours. For
all you know he might be literally 'tied up' with a piece of
rope or duct tape by kidnappers who are trying to force him
to reveal his true identity. Well he didn't sound as if anyone
was poking a sharp blade into his throat so perhaps such a theory
would be a bit farfetched. So chances are that he is involved
in some sort of 'official work' that he just cannot get out
of and that has forced him to let his fans down of course, unintentionally.
At this
point we must reveal a little about Chintito. He is one of those
individuals that you would think is not quite normal. For one
thing he speaks like a Japanese monorail and hates repeating
himself. For another, he does not believe in sleep, making do
with about two hours per night. He never tires, wakes up in
the wee hours of the morning, attends to official business,
plays a game of x (certain facts have to remain classified),
goes to and arranges meetings of charitable organisations he
is associated with, plans and attends day-long seminars on various
subjects (classified), keeps his family and friends in splits
with his wry humour, writes a few pages of an upcoming book,
writes a 2000 word article for some newspaper -- and then --
sits in front of the computer to write yet another tickling,
teasing Chintito. We have sometimes wondered whether he is even
human. That would explain a lot of things. Almost every week
we sit on tenterhooks, checking and rechecking our email just
to see that beautiful word 'Chintito' and invariably it appears
just when we are giving up hope, just when we are desperately
about to call the guy.
So what
happened this week? Chintito called himself and announced (of
course at the last minute) that he was 'tied up' and mumbled
something about being stuck at some meeting for hours. Perhaps
it was an inter-galactic conference on how to save the world
from bigots and imperialists and so he missed the saucer back
home and had to wait for the next space-rick. Before we could
even say 'But…' the line was cut off. So that's the story. Next
week we are sure Chintito will be back, hopefully released by
his captors without having to reveal his true identity. He's
a crafty fellow that Chintito. We're sure he will find a way
to charm or confuse them enough to get away without giving away
anything. Until then we are keeping our fingers crossed!
From
the SWM Desk