Our friend the Colonel is at it again, going from one curious self-publicity stunt to the next…

Not content to entertain bored foreign dignitaries in his expansive Bedouin tent with his legendary displays of belching and flatulence or inventing long-winded self-congratulatory titles that would have made both Idi Amin and Joseph Mobutu blush – figuratively speaking, of course – the Libyan lothario’s adventures have taken a truly wacky turn with his attempt to corral five-hundred Roman call girls and convert them to Islam.

Gaddafi’s night in with ’500 attractive girls’ – and the Koran

Bizarre.

Interestingly, there are many ways to write the Carthaginian Colonel’s name (in Arabic, معمر القذافي) in Western script. Gaddafi is by far the most common (I would not choose to be pretentious and write something like Qadhdhaafiy) but it is a topic that could itself be the subject of a major study: “How journalists around the world spell my name”, by the self-prociamed Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

Here are but a few. Enjoy the lesson.

Gadafi, Gadafy, Gaddafi, Gadaffi, Ghadaffy, Gadhafi, Ghaddafi, Ghaddafy, Gheddafi, Kadafi, Kaddafi, Kazzafi, Khaddafi, Khaddaffy, Qadafi, Qaddafi, Qadhdhafi, Qadhdhaafiy, Qathafi, Q’udafi, Qudhafi.