About ****ing Time!

“About *****ing time!” and “What the **** took you so long?” were reportedly two of the expostulations from the presidential lips over Almaty officials’ foot-dragging in renaming local streets in his honour, according to rumours emerging from the royal palace in Astana. “The idiots are only seven years behind the Turks!”

Officials told Kazaxia on condition of anonymity (they’re not stupid) that the royal palace had repeatedly sent to akimats across Kazakhstan copies of Turkish press reports from 2010 covering the installation of an elegant 5-metre bronze statue of a seated Nazarbayev in Ankara’s Ataturk Boulevard and the renaming of a street in central Adana “Nursultan Nazarbayev Avenue”.

“Eventually the tenge dropped,” a royal palace flunkey told Kazaxia, with visible relief.

“Even the tinpot town of Comrat in Moldova has a statue of me!” the royal palace’s chief resident is said to have expostulated in frustration over the denseness of his compatriots.

Equilibrium is said to have been restored with Almaty officials’ belated rush to catch up with more progressive foreign leaders.

British senior statesman (and former jailbird) Jonathan Aitken is close to completing a lavishly-illustrated book “Immortalising the Dictator: An Encyclopedia of inspirational Nazarbayev Monuments Around the World”, due out in time for the Christmas market.

In an inspired move, Aitken has turned to Kazaxia’s old friend Lord Venal to provide a foreword. “Honoured and touched, I’m sure,” the good Lord said of his latest project, as he headed out on the arm of a charming young lady for an Almaty nightclub (or two)