There may be no birthday presents (they've been holed up from October onwards somewhere in Zimpost's flashy "space-station" building on the Harare airport road: the authorities say there's no fuel to make postal deliveries) but I want my son to have a birthday cake, at the very least.
"I want an army tank cake," he says.
An army tank cake could be a good idea. It's an easy shape: squarish. Easy colour too: sludge (which is about what we'd get from mixing the dregs of various inherited food colourings).
But a tank cake may be a bit iffy in Zimbabwe's political climate, especially now British newspapers are calling for a military invasion of the country and there are ominous images from Gaza on satellite TV. "The dogs of war are barking furious," fulminated Mugabe's press secretary in a column last weekend.
"Why don't you rather choose a cake in the shape of a swimming pool?" I hazard. "Or what about one of Nana's lovely chocolate ones?"
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