Last autumn, one of my neighbours, Kenneth Payne, fortified by the courage available at one of our local bars, loaded his shotgun, walked across the road to the trailer home of best buddy Curtis Cook and emptied both barrels into Cook’s stomach.
For The Observer/Guardian UK
Governor George W Bush was a fighter pilot during the war in Vietnam – not in the US Air Force, where one could be seriously hurt or injured – but in the Texas air force, known as the Air Guard. Membership excused these weekend warriors from the draft. Young George W tested at 25 out of 100, one point above ‘too dumb to fly’ status, yet leapt ahead of hundreds of applicants to get in.
Baby Bush’s good fortune 30 years ago is connected in a strange and edifying manner to the victory by GTech Corporation and its Camelot partners in beating Richard Branson for the new contract to operate the National Lottery, starting in 2002.
