In this weeks New Yorker (well last weeks actually, it takes a while to get here) John Lee Anderson has a fascinating retrospective on Qaddifi.

Some wonderful titbits of information emerge.

An American travelling into Tripoli one day in the eighties found the roads lined with dead camels.
It appeared that Qaddafi got a notion that the use of camels were making the city look like a backward place so he sent the army out and had all camels shot in sight .
In 2008 the London School od Economics awarded his son, Seif , a doctorate , shortly afterwards he gave them a “gift” of 2.2 million dollars (they are now saying that the doctorate was probably ghost written.)

Best one (and surely should be a headline this week) in 2004 Berlusconi , on behalf of the Italian government gave this oil rich millionaire five billion dollars (you write the noughts) for “the harm his country had inflicted upon Libya ” and followed that, at a meeting of the Arab League in Surt , he (Berlusconi ) kissed Qaddafi’s hands in homage.

Now there would have been handy money to have held onto to pull you through last weeks shenanagins S. Berlusconi.

It seems that , unlike other dictators with their hoards of shoes or pornography Qaddafi’s stash , on which he spent his money, was gold plated Kalashnikovs.

To each his own.