Jomo Kenyatta's 'going is seeing' moment in London

Mzee Jomo Kenyatta (standing) when he spoke at the opening of the Kenya constitution conference at Lancaster house, London in 1962. [File, Standard]

In Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare describes a scene where Mark Antony, the Roman, is enthralled by an Egyptian port city's grand reception of their Queen, Cleopatra.

"The city cast her people out upon her; and Antony, enthroned in the market place did sit alone, whistling to the air, which, but for vacancy, had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too, and made a gap in nature," he writes.

But it's the description of the moment that kills it. Enorbarbus reports that even the winds were lovesick, pretty-dimpled boys fanned her delicate cheeks, gentlewomen tended to her eyes while a "seeming mermaid" steered the barge.