Lenin In Poland

The easiest way to get over insomnia is to read the lead section of Letters To The Editor in the Daily Telegraph. Indeed should Starmer want to do something useful just for once he should publicly dangle a knighthood for the individual who brings the current snoozefest to an end. However, only the other day a reader of the DTel drew attention to some solid graffiti in the gents adjacent to the philosophy department of Newcastle University. "To be is to do" (Socrates); "To do is to be" (Sartre); "Do be do be do" (Sinatra).

Since I have eased myself into the chestnuts department, I mention that Brezhnev was on the phone agreeing with the necessity of his visiting Poland and decided that he would bring a picture of Lenin In Poland. This naturally entailed his dispatching his staff to look all over the Kremlin for a repro opportunity. There was none such. So his staff had to go to the KGB who, said Brezhnev, had pictures of everybody. Failed again.

So Brezhnev asked For Russia's lead artist to be wheeled on. "But, comrade," came the reply "Gogol was too revolutionary and got sent off to the gulag in Siberia years ago." "Well get him out." And so it was that a fortnight later the trans-continental express steamed into Moscow Central. And Gogol was whisked off to the Kremlin to start work.

Two weeks' later, the great reveal was attended by Brezhnev. The curtain drew apart to show Trotsky very intimately engaged with Mrs Lenin. "But, comrade Gogol, where is Lenin?" "Oh," said Gogol, "Lenin's in Poland".