The Times - UK (2020-07-21)

the times | Tuesday July 21 2020 2GM 35

Wo r l d

When Dorothy Parker died in 1967 she
left the world poems, fiction, biting
literary criticism and a treasure trove of
wisecracks that would go on to grace
T-shirts and cocktail plates.
All of her money she left to Martin
Luther King Jr, although he could not
recall ever having met her.
When King was assassinated ten
months later the estate passed, as
Parker had instructed, to the National
Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP).
The writer had no children and gave
no instructions about what should
become of her ashes but, after years in

An estimated 200 alligator snapping
turtles that have settled at a German
lake pose such a threat to passers-by
that officials may have to shoot them.
Notoriously combative and armed
with beak-like jaws, the animals,
which are indigenous to
North America, are be-
lieved to have multiplied
since they were released
by pet owners in the
1990s. Their shells can
grow to 45cm and they
can weigh 16kg.
“We are worried
that strollers or child-
ren may want to touch
the animals,” Anja Kühne,
spokeswoman for the district

Dorothy Parker’s ashes need a new home

United States
Will Pavia New York

a lawyer’s filing cabinet, they were

interred in a garden at the NAACP’s

headquarters in Baltimore.

Now another debate has begun about

where to put Dorothy Parker. The civil

rights organisation is moving its

headquarters to Washington DC and is

wondering whether to bring Parker’s

ashes along too. “Her legacy means a

lot,” Aba Blankson, a spokeswoman,

said. “It’s important to us that we do this

right.”

Some argue that Parker is too much

of a New Yorker to be kept anywhere

else for long. She complained of having

to go to Hollywood as a screenwriter;

sometimes she seemed reluctant to go

outside at all.

“If the doorbell rang in her apart-

ment, she would say, ‘What fresh hell

can this be?’” a friend told her biogra-

pher, John Keats. Ellen Meister, a writer

who runs a Parker fan page, said:

“People are kind of disappointed that

she didn’t end up in New York. New

York was her home, and her first and

last love.”

Others are keen that her resting

place remains tied to the civil rights

movement. Parker wrote that her com-

mitment to it was fostered by her aunt,

who displayed total indifference to the

plight of the working class.

When she died, King pronounced

himself “deeply touched and gratified”

at the bequest. He said: “What impress-

es and inspires me is that one of Amer-

ica’s most respected and warmly loved

women of letters felt so committed to

the civil rights movement that what-

ever she had she offered to it.”

Francine Gordon, a Parker afi-

cionado, said she hoped that the

NAACP did not leave her in

Baltimore. “She’s always had

abandonment issues,” Ms

Gordon told The New York

Times. “It’s happening

again!”

The poet herself

had once suggest-

ed that the words

“Excuse my dust”

be her epigraph: it

was duly written on a plaque in Balti-

more.

Ms Gordon felt that if Parker

was not wanted in Washington

her remains ought to be trans-

ferred to the lobby of New York’s

Algonquin Hotel, where she once

presided as the in-house wit at a

round table of writers and crit-

ics. “Knowing her, which

obviously I did not, she

probably would prefer to

be thrown in someone’s

face,” said Stuart Y. Sil-

verstein, a literary de-

tective who found lost

poems by Parker.

“There is no shortage

of candidates.”

Snapping turtles terrorise German lake

authority of Viersen, near the Dutch

border, told Bild after two turtles were

removed this month. “They are fast and

have two tonnes of biting power — a

finger would be gone in no time. Even

dogs could be attacked.”

Swimming is prohibited in Lake Witt-

see and the authority has been warning

for years that it is dangerous to

approach the shoreline. The

species has no natural

predators in Germany

and threatens the eco-

system by devouring

ducklings, fish and

amphibians.

The district author-

ity has been rounding

the animals up and taking them to a

reptile centre, which it says costs more

than €1,000 per turtle. It plans to keep

handing turtles to local centres until

they have reached capacity. After that,

they may be killed. Putting them to

sleep is impractical because it would be

too dangerous for the vets. “Shooting

them would be the most painless

solution,” Ms Kühne said.

Wildlife activists accuse the author-

ity of planning to “execute healthy tur-

tles on an official whim” and threaten

legal action. The case has awakened

memories of a hunt for a snapping tur-

tle dubbed Lotti in 2013 after an eight-

year-old boy had his Achilles tendon

severed. The Oggenrieder Weiher lake

in Bavaria was drained and locals

joined the search. The mayor offered a

€1,000 reward for the turtle’s capture,

but it was never found.

Germany
David Crossland Berlin

Carlos Ghosn, the tycoon on the run

from Japanese justice, has increased

speculation that he is keen to return to

France by giving an interview to a

French newspaper in which he claimed

he had been falsely portrayed as a

“greedy dictator”.

The former head of Nissan and Ren-

ault has been a fugitive since Decem-

ber, when he was smuggled out of Japan

in a musical instrument case and flown

to Lebanon. He is accused of under-

reporting his salary at Nissan and using

corporate funds to cover personal

losses and buy a luxury yacht.

In the interview in Le Parisienne, Mr

Fugitive Ghosn makes his

case for return to France

Ghosn, 66, depicted himself as an out-

sider abandoned by the French elite. He

said he had been the victim of a smear

campaign orchestrated by Nissan exec-

utives opposed to his plan to strengthen

its ties with Renault. “The greedy dicta-

tor, the grasping boss, is the invention

of a small group of people at the head of

Nissan who had taken on three French

communication agencies on company

funds to discredit me,” he said.

Mr Ghosn was summoned for

questioning in Paris this month on

separate allegations but failed to appear.

He told the newspaper that a “technical

obstacle” prevented him; his passport

had been confiscated by Lebanese pros-

ecutors. He omitted to mention that he

also has French and Brazilian passports.

France

Adam Sage Paris

A

s a young

man Wayne

Adams

reckoned

with the

possibility that he might

not become a wealthy

artist with a city home

and a country studio

(Will Pavia writes).

Instead he and his

wife, Catherine King,

began building a floating

island that they moored

in a cove in British

Columbia. Called

Freedom Cove, it has

been home since 1992.

“We could never buy

real estate,” he told

CNN. “So we had to

make our own.”

Mr Adams said he had

not always envisioned a

subsistence lifestyle,

aboard a giant raft filled

with gaudy buildings

and greenhouses. “I was

hoping to make a lot

more money,” he said.

But he had always

enjoyed building tree

houses, so he built “a

tree fort in the ocean”.

They began using

timber felled by a storm

in a cove on the western

shore of Vancouver

Island. “Everything’s

done with a hand saw

and hammer,” Mr

Adams said. “No power

tools. I know every

board and nail by name.”

A waterfall on the

shoreline provides their

water, a floating tank

carries their waste, and

solar panels provide

power. Each morning

Mr Adams gathers

firewood for the heating

system while his wife

waters thousands of

plants in the greenhouses

and vegetable gardens

and goes out in a canoe

to gather seaweed for

compost. The living

room floor is a piece of

plexiglass from an ice

hockey rink, which can

be slid aside for fishing.

“I get in my canoe and

paddle out and in ten

minutes I can catch a

fish,” Mr Adams said.

“But when it’s windy I

lie on the couch, fish

from here.” The nearest

town is 25 miles away by

boat and he doesn’t like

going there. “I get all

jangled up inside. The

noise starts to get to me.”

Island retreat floats

on years of recycling

CATHERINE KING/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

t

Dorothy Parker left no

instructions for her ashes

Alligator snapping turtles

have powerful jaws and

are notoriously aggressive

s to

be-

d

h

ne,

istrict

approac

specie

pred

an

sy

d

a

ity

AAllig

have

are not

Wayne Adams and

Catherine King

have been building

Freedom Cove for

almost 30 years