Mr. Toad moves into the White House.



If you browse through the bookshelves of most English people of a certain class, you'll find a book titled 'The Wind in the Willows'. The novel was written by Kenneth Grahame in 1908 and only found a publisher after vigorous campaigning by President Theodore Roosevelt. The book told the tale of four anthropomorphic animals: Badger, Mole, and Ratty - and, of course, Toad - or Mister Toad, as he preferred to be called. Toad lived in a grand mansion called Toad Hall. He got into scrapes, stealing cars and crashing them. He was, in short, a thoroughly disreputable fellow.

Toad is also celebrated in the USA: 'Mr. Toad's Wild Ride' is the name of a ride at Disneyland. The ride - bless you, Walt - has an alternate Latin title, drawn from the inscription on Toad Hall: 'Toadi Acceleratio Semper Absurda' ('Toad's Ever-Absurd Acceleration') 

Friends, does that remind you of events of the past week?

 Mr. Toad sprang to mind when I watched our new President reveling in his desk on Air Force One while a clutch of photographers jostled for angles. As he squirmed happily in his chair, I thought -  if you''ll forgive the crudeness of the image - 'The guy is having a protracted orgasm. This is his life for maybe the next four years. All the power and glory he ever wanted is now in his hands.'

But what else about Mr Trump reminds me of Mr. Toad? Here's a personality sketch from Wikipedia: 'Toad inherited his wealth from his late father; he is rich, jovial, friendly...but aimless and conceited; he regularly becomes obsessed with current fads, only to abandon them abruptly.'

Toad is a bombastic fellow. I should know: I played him in a school production when I was twelve years old (early type casting?) and my grandson, Max Johnson, followed me in the same role many years later. Nathan Lane played Toad in a Tony-nominated Broadway production in 1986 and, if you know Mr. Lane's work, you'll know how perfect he must have been in the part.

Toad is always getting into trouble. Invariably, he's rescued from himself by his three close friends: Badger, Mole and Ratty. They all love Toad but they know he is his own worst enemy.

Trouble is, who are the Badger, Mole and Ratty in the White House today? We haven't seen them yet.  All we see is acolytes toadying (of course) around their master. So Toad continues to go his merry way, with his 'Ever Absurd Acceleration.' Someone finds him a map of the world and, after another aide points out where the 'bigly bad,' countries are, he climbs into his automobile and off he goes to wreak mayhem on 'the horrible mess' of the world.

So if you're from any one of those seven identified countries that are 'compromised by terrorism'? Well, pal, best stay away before you, too, become roadkill.


© Brian Clewly Johnson
Cape Town, South Africa

January 2017

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