RIYADH, 7 October 2005 — A twist of words can really bring about a twist in one’s fate. This is what a Saudi football fan found out to his disadvantage. It all began when the Saudi went to a local match to support his team. His vociferous encouragement and repeated waving of a banner caught the photographer’s eye. And the focus shifted on him. Till then it was okay. Trouble only began when the photo of him holding a placard upside down appeared in a newspaper, the Al-Riyadh newspaper reported. The photo appeared with a caption that he was handicapped. The family of his fiancée on seeing this photo and caption went into a tizzy thinking that the Saudi man had duped them. They called him up to break off the engagement, and despite his assertion that he was not handicapped and it was a figment of the caption writer’s imagination and plain error on the part of the newspaper, the fiancée and her family did not budge. Now the man is threatening to sue the newspaper.
