To Malawi, to see the work of one of the charities in The Times's Christmas Appeal - about which I hope you will read soon. Malawi is a welcoming country where many talented Zimbabweans find a temporary perch. I spoke to a number, and compared the Zimbabwe they described with the Southern Rhodesia I remember from my boyhood, and to which I dare not return. And, funny this, although ghastly things have happened to the country and its people, I sense that in spirit Zimbabwe has not changed as much as you would expect. Even physically, it sounds relatively intact.

When my family lived there we always believed that Rhodesia had a better chance of a harmonious, multi-community future than its neighbour, South Africa. And even in a week in which cholera is reported to be on the march, in my bones I still believe that. For all Ian Smith's stupid, self-defeating attempt to block multiracial progress, there was never the cruelty or harshness, never the vicious doctrinal racism, never the bitterness that you encountered when you crossed the Limpopo going south at Beit Bridge. Education spread wider and deeper. Manners were better, people gentler. There was no white underclass.

Robert Mugabe is a mad, dangerous old man, and some of his political henchmen are thugs, but my hunch - and it's only a hunch - is that beneath all that, the old Zimbabwe is still there. And will resurface.

A distant echo

Listening to the English spoken in the former British territories in the sub-Sahara, and in the West Indies (where my family also lived), one becomes aware of the ghosts of history within the language. In Malawi and East Africa, Africans exclaim “I say!” to get attention. One can almost picture the pith helmet and cane. All over southern Africa you hear the interrogative “isn't it?” (as in “You're hungry, isn't it?”) that Afrikaners in South Africa used when speaking English. And Jamaicans still spit out the dismissive “cho!” (as the patois is written): the old Elizabethan and Restoration “pshaw”, long dead in England.

Missionary education, too, has shaped the suddenly formal English of Africa. The Malawi Government is running a big road-safety poster campaign: “OBSERVE THE SPEED LIMITS!”

Breakfast in America

Returning to Britain, I watched a recording of Gordon Brown's interview on the BBC Politics Show on Sunday. His behaviour becomes stranger by the day.

He has taken to grunting “It started in America” at regular intervals, sometimes in defiance of context - rather like Lady Macbeth's trance-like “out, out, damned spot”.

I have the transcript. By only his second sentence, the Prime Minister is lurching into “we've had a banking crisis which started in America; makes me incredibly angry about what happened...”.

Then (quite unprompted by anything his interviewer, Jon Sopel had said): “This is an international crisis that has not been generated in Britain”, after which “this is an international crisis, it's global, it started in America. We've had very little control” - and, a little later, in case we're missing the point, “and what caused it was not something that happened in Britain”.

By now he's out of control: “Well I, I've been angry about the behaviour of banks, starting with the sub-prime market in America...” - and just for the avoidance of doubt, “The inflation and the problems we had, were not generated themselves in Britain. I think everybody understands, even the Americans...”

Finally, summing up, as it were: “I don't think it really helps the debate if you say that this is not a global problem that started globally.”

There, there, Gordon, nobody was saying that.

Breakfast at Downing Street must be quite a trial for Sarah as her husband crashes around the kitchen.

“Oh Gordon, you've burnt the toast.”

“It started in America. We've had very little control.”

“Could you pass the milk, darling?”

“It's global. It started in America.”

“As you wish, Gordon. Wheaties or Coco-Pops?”

“I don't think it really helps the debate if you say that this is not a global problem that started globally.”

Labour in vain

Home from Heathrow just in time to hear a distressing first on the BBC Today programme. Hazel Blears was actually faded out. While still speaking. I nearly dropped the marmalade.

In the old days they would have tried politely to hurry her along, but yesterday, as Ms Blears twittered happy thoughts about new Labour's many achievements, they just turned off her mike. And she had only reached about the eleventh achievement.

Poor Hazel. It was brutal. Forget Monday's mini-Budget. Wednesday was truly the day that new Labour died.

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