Channelling Meryl Streep today - as she was 12 years ago! Mamma Mia, here we go again.

When it rains, my hair frizzes and curls – and I get stopped in the street by people thinking that I’m Meryl Streep! Even Parisians stop me. Even Iraqis stop me. Meryl Streep is 7 years older than me, and I have been mistaken for her for about the last 40 years – since The Deer Hunter in 1978. And especially since Mamma Mia in 2008. So, here I am today, with a Meryl photograph of 2008.

On the weekend, at a Parisian restaurant, the waiter found me a table by the window, saying “for the best actress in the world.”

The funniest episode was when I was in the middle of outback Australia in Alice Springs, where Meryl Streep had finished filming Evil Angels in 1988 (remember the lines, “the dingo’s got my baby”?). I was in a bus travelling to Darwin, and the passengers would not believe that I wasn’t Meryl. When we arrived in Darwin, they bought me dinner so I could regale them with stories.

When I was in Nairobi, Kenya, where Meryl Streep filmed Out of Africa with Robert Redford in 1985, playing Danish author Karen Blixen, I went to the Blixen estate. As I was in the garden, a male guide screamed in fright as he rounded the corner, then as he calmed down he said, “Meryl, you’re back!”

Not only is Meryl back, she never went away!

MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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The acacia thorn trees of Kenya

There are nearly 800 species of acacia trees in the world, and most don’t have thorns. The famous "whistling thorn tree" and the Umbrella Thorn tree of Kenya are species of acacia that do have thorns, or spines. Giraffes and other herbivores normally eat thorny acacia foliage, but leave the whistling thorn alone. Usually spines are no deterrent to giraffes. Their long tongues are adapted to strip the leaves from the branches despite the thorns. The thorny acacia like dry and hot conditions. The thorns typically occur in pairs and are 5-8 centimetres (2-3 inches) long. Spines can be straight or curved depending on the species. MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Suda...

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Independence statue, Phnom Penh

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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