WATCHING the irresistible 'amdram' Police Report on television last weekend, I came close to what I thought was going to be a sex education session. The presenter is a big barrel-chested lad who would be a considerable consolation in a riot, called something along the lines of Chief Inspector Hardtackle.
He introduced a more wiry, plain-clothes officer with a professional enthusiasm which will serve him well in insurance sales when his contracts run out. Superintendent Caution-Statement might have been his name and he, in turn, introduced me to something they called 'the Nigerian letter.' 'Damn!' I thought. 'This is something that never cropped up in the dirty talk over the illicit smokes behind the school bike sheds. Well, there is one thing for sure. It is not going to be a letter from Nigeria'. But that is exactly what it is and according to Caution-Statement, there are more and more of them about.
Already, there seem to be plenty of good reasons for, as British minister Lynda Chalker suggests, not asking Nigeria to the next Commonwealth Conference.
There is a military regime with sweat on its top lip that will not let the elected government in and there are dozens of overstaying Ibos with bulging candy-striped bags limbering in and out of hostels in the scuff end of Nathan Road, doubtless up to no good.
Now, you can add to that the Nigerian letter. Basically, the letters purport to come from rich Nigerians who, to avoid Nigerian regulations, if such things can be imagined, want to put interstellar amounts of money into Hong Kong businessmen's accounts for them to look after in exchange for a percentage.
This seems an improbable synergy but, apparently, as a scam, it works. The fairytale imaginations of the large black gentlemen come up with sums so deliriously large they cut through the scepticism to the glittering greed of the more compact Asian gentlemen.