Anyone who has not heard of Little Rock, Arkansas, by now will definitely have heard of it next May 27th when a former native, Paula Corbin Jones, begins her action in the federal courthouse against former Governor, now President, William Jefferson Clinton for sexual harassment.
I'd better rephrase that. It was what I had written before Judge Susan Webber Wright decided on Wednesday that Paula would not have her day in court after all. This was good news for Bill Clinton but not such good news to me. I had taken time and trouble to explore Little Rock to set the scene for this trial of the century, if not of the millennium.
But even if Judge Susan has deprived the world of the media circus to end all such frenzies, let us look at Little Rock as if the circus were going to come to town. A bit of virtual reality.
Earlier this week I was the only person standing outside the huge courthouse building on Capitol Street and could only imagine the frenzied scene eight weeks from now.
I was practically the only guest in the Legacy Hotel across the street. It's a favourite hang-out for the Arkansas politicians and it's where the TV networks would have set up their studios and cameras for the duration.
The networks were complaining at the way costs have escalated for the trial and that they were going to be charged astronomical sums for parking their satellite trucks and filming the comings and goings from the hotel windows. They paid up front.
Some natives at the hotel bar recalled nostalgically the infamous Toga Party in 1979 when a fancy dress party went out of control and became a Roman orgy at the swimming pool. The local police arrived and some of the politicians spent the night in jail. Legend has it that then Governor Clinton had left before the togas were discarded.
I did the "Guided tour of Bill Clinton's Little Rock" as promoted by the local tourist office but without the guide. The lovely Victorian villa high over the Arkansas River where Bill, Hillary and Chelsea lived for two years when he was ousted as Governor after a first term; the Governor's Mansion which he regained in 1982 after a surprise defeat in 1980 and where he stayed until elected President in 1992; the YMCA building where he showered after the morning jogs around the streets; the Rose Law legal firm where Hillary worked and where some Whitewater business was handled; the churches they worshipped in.
Not on the tour is the Excelsior Hotel and convention centre where the Governor allegedly caught sight of Paula Corbin at a reception desk on May 8th, 1991 and summoned her to a hotel room. It is beside the Old State House where Bill Clinton announced his bid for the Presidency on October 3rd, 1991 and made his acceptance speeches after both Presidential victories.
The Old State House dating from 1833 marks his triumphs. Will the towering Excelsior mark his disgrace? Well, now it won't.
But Little Rock's most memory-laden building is not a hotel or a state house but a high school. It was back in September 1957 that the name of Little Rock first flashed around the world when nine black teenagers had their way into the all-white Central High School blocked by the Arkansas National Guard called out by Governor Orval Faubus.
The students had been chosen by the Arkansas educational board as the first to be integrated into Central High following the 1954 ruling by the US Supreme Court that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. Faubus defied this first step to integration by claiming that it would lead to riots and "blood on the streets" and called out the National Guard, ostensibly to keep order, but in reality to keep nine scared black teenagers away from the white citadel.
The school actually looks like a citadel, with brick turrets and parapets. When it was built in 1927, it was hailed as the most impressive high school in the US and was the pride of Arkansas.
But following the events of 1957-58, the school was seen as a symbol of racial intolerance around the world thanks to television. President Eisenhower had to order the famous 101st Parachute Division into Little Rock to escort the nine students past the hostile crowds outside the school and to protect them inside the school from assaults from their outraged co-students.
In the museum across the road from the school, you can see videos showing the hate and bigotry in the faces of the white mob shrieking racial insults at the nine students who were making history in a country which prided itself in those days as the leader of the free world and the upholder of democracy.
The nine students, who endured a year of persecution from fellow students after the troops were withdrawn, showed incredible courage, but so did a 42-year-old black woman, Daisy Bates, local civil rights leader and editor of a black newspaper, who acted as their mentor and protector. This meant several years of persecution, including the firebombing of her home.
After reading her gripping account of that time, The Long Shadow of Little Rock, I went to see her in that same house, where she is now an invalid after a stroke. The contrast between the strong, handsome Daisy of the photographs from 1957 and the frail old lady of 83 in the wheelchair was a shock.
She talked for a while about the struggle to integrate Central High. On the walls were photographs of her being honoured by different Presidents - Kennedy, Johnson and Clinton.
What pleased her most was that Orval Faubus and his wife came to her house one day to say they were sorry for what happened.
Governor Faubus made Little Rock a synonym for racial bigotry in the 1950s. Governor Clinton on that day in May 1992 has made Little Rock notorious for something else but thanks to Judge Webber Wright, his former law pupil, he has retrieved some of his battered reputation. And Little Rock is spared the media circus.