Thank you all for coming to the thoroughly choreographed event that has announced to the world my union of four months with the sole heiress of the chocolate industry in Texas.
Originally, when I started my gold digging career at the mature age of 50, I was told to go for the oil industry, but I couldn’t pursue it for long. Not that the oil barons and their splendid heiresses were averse to a romantic liaison with a former arms dealer from Cairo. They were quite excited about the prospect, especially after I told them that excavations in the basement of the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square suggest that the entire area sits on the third biggest oil reserve in the world. And I got along with Caroline, the 43 year old heiress from Houston with the beautiful freckles. Everything went well until another gold digger, named Lance Armstrong or something like that, got in the way.
My wife does not know much about it, nor does the Egyptian public, but I already have a significant stake in the oil exploration taking place right off the Hilton hotel, an operation that has been going on for five or six years now. The Egyptian Museum will soon be moved out to the desert to clear the way for an oil rig that some people claim I own in partnership with distant cousins of Bush and Bin Laden. It is not true, at least not totally, but back to the wedding.
Thanks to the Three Witches of the North for coming beautifully attired in medieval garb and for reenacting the sad story of the Salem witch hunt. The event proved a bit distressful for children, exactly as intended. A trauma or two at childhood, I always say, helps one to grow into an aspiring, emotionally balanced, ashram-visiting graphic designer. Either that or it prepares you for a life of crime which, regardless of what people may say, has its moments.
And no thanks to Al-Wafd Party, which had to upstage my wedding with its own show of pyrotechnics. I have no specific details of the guns-and-Molotov-at-noon showdown at Al-Wafd headquarters in Dokki, being on a Nile cruise with my wife, a few Texans, and the cousin of the driver who died in the car of Princess Diana. What I really cannot believe is that they did that without me . and on the eve of my wedding.
I knew something was amiss when Noaman Gomaa didn’t show up at the wedding. His second in command came late, smelling of gunpowder, and staggered onto the dance floor with a trail of blood behind him. He gasped a congratulatory mabrook before falling facedown onto the five storey cake. Everyone thought it was part of the entertainment, like the headless ghost that came climbing down from the nearby great pyramid and then self-combusted in the middle of the reception line. The Texans loved it, and some asked if they could hire the guy for the next Democratic caucus. But the Al-Wafd thing, that was really out of line.
Everyone in this country knows that the right way of dispensing of your political opponents is to take them out into the desert, strip them naked and leave them there. And I know someone you can call for this service. He’s very reliable; I trained him. But walking into your party’s headquarters with guns blazing at noon and on the day before my wedding is utterly unacceptable. Al-Wafd has a lot to answer for, and I am not taking calls from Noaman anymore. So let this be a lesson to all politicians in this country. You want something or someone out of your way, call me first, or at least consult about the date.
I have kept my name out of the newspapers for a long while promoting other people’s careers. I have repressed a gay pride parade when I knew it would conflict with a peace conference in Sharm El-Sheikh, a conference that came to nothing. I have no regrets and would do it all over again if I had to. I have reprimanded terrorists in Spain for attacking trains on the birthday of a senior visiting Arab diplomat who’s a good man and has an art deco villa in the Bahamas. That’s what I do. I make people happy, but only those who consult and have respect. Again, it’s not just about money. It never was.
You need mayhem? Have it by all means, and I will help if I have the time. But there are rules for everything. There are rules for love and for war. There is the matter of common human decency to consider. In the Middle Ages, knights had their own code of honor, and that was in a very turbulent age. In our times, we who are in the business of killing and dying should know how to mix the two. Wedding today, murder tomorrow, then a week of peace. Massacre today, 10 days of slow skirmishes, then a glamorous birthday. Mix and match, watch and learn. More on that when I come back. As for Al-Wafd, don’t even try to call.
