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Radical Middle | 187<br />
The circus paragraph staved off another near-axing.<br />
What was scheduled to do much more than stave off axes –<br />
to dispel axes – was the arrangement with The Star.<br />
The partnership meant they’d bring no money; bear no<br />
blame; have no corporate link. They’d manage Frontline, arm’s<br />
length, handling production and circulation and ads and taking<br />
a fee from the ensuing profits, while I edited it as per Plan a.<br />
In theory it was perfect, except for having to tell Tony Sutton<br />
“sorry, design is going to Sauer Street”.<br />
In practice, The Star’s machinery didn’t slot this gnat into<br />
its systems. One example: in converting the subscription<br />
list, small-town subscribers were relocated to the city with<br />
the closest initial. Kelly Molete at PO Box 113 Phuthaditjhaba<br />
was screeching where’s my Frontline while the post office was<br />
returning as unknown a Kelly Molete at PO Box 113 Pretoria.<br />
Moreover, I was a terrible partner, much worse than I could<br />
bring myself to admit and much much worse than I intended<br />
to be. for one thing the allegedly sparky, lively, even-handed<br />
etc approach to issues that had made Frontline worth courting<br />
was crushed and bleeding under the boulder of my fixation<br />
on introducing an unwilling world to a better way of running<br />
things. for another, after seven years of playing dice with<br />
deadlines, not to say with the calendar, I thought that getting<br />
away with it was a God-given personal right, my trade-mark.<br />
This view did not chime with the ethic that had made the argus<br />
company the king of the press.<br />
On the rainiest day in years Jolyon and I met for a sort-out<br />
session. “Lunch at the rand club?” Jolyon had said.<br />
This was a good omen. I don’t know that I’d want to join<br />
the rand club but I loved being a guest. The building is the<br />
noblest in Jo’burg; you smell Jock of the Bushveld’s turd on<br />
Sir Percy fitzpatrick’s boot, you hear the reform committee<br />
badmouthing Paul Kruger. It was a tad surprising that Her Most<br />
Gracious Majesty, Defender of The faith and Protector of The<br />
Seas etcetera, looking like elizabeth Taylor at 30-odd, reposed<br />
in ermine robes at the head of the great central staircase,
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