ITHSU?

The Wayne Rooney Saga: A Guide For Dummies

2010-10-27T10:22:00.000-07:00

Wayne Rooney has just proved it. Football is a gentleman's game played by hooligans...and watched by Dummies.

For football to be referred to as a game, there has to be footballers. For footballers to make a living out of football, they must be good. And since thousands, even millions, of footballers worldwide make a living out of playing football, then logic demands we assume there are a lot of good footballers out there.

But even among these good footballers, there are some that are better than the rest. From these very good footballers we can further identify some that are better among the better ones, and from this cream of the crop, even more exceptional elements can still be isolated. These are the players who make football magical, the players who keep football purists believing that despite the horrifying influence of Russian gas, American loan and Arab oil money, there is still hope for football.

Wayne Mark Rooney definitely belongs to this last category. At only 25 years of age, the lad has won more trophies than Liverpool football club has won in the past 25 years, and he is just getting started. Commensurate with his unbelievable talent, he earns more money in a week than the entire annual sports budgets of all three East African countries put together, and despite the fact that he looks the way Shrek would look like when he has just thrown up, Coleen McLoughlin, a stunning beauty who looks like she could stop traffic just for the heck of it, actually agreed to marry him and have a child with him. The natural way.

Surely, Wayne has it made. His looks notwithstanding, he has money, talent and the affection of billions of fans worldwide, not to mention a wife that could stop traffic just for the heck of it. Why then, in a stunt that was sure to go through his reputation like an elephant through a glass cage holding his young, did he procure the services of a thousand-pound-a-night hooker when his I-can-stop-traffic-for the-heck-of-it wife, who agreed to have a child by him the natural way, was sitting at home pregnant with his kid?

Some questions don't have answers. Not answers that make any sense, anyway. This is definitely one of those questions, so we will let it slip and focus on a more important question: How does a world-famous footballer that was stupid enough to procure the services of a thousand-pound-a-night hooker and afterwards stupid enough to get caught, come out of the entire saga with his reputation intact and sellability unharmed?

Easy. Create a diversion.

You see, Wayne knows that millions of y'all like to watch him play, and some media mogul somewhere that knows companies would pay good money if millions of y'all got to see their products. The media mogul will then put two an two together and figure that if he put a picture of a product in the same TV screen that shows Wayne Rooney playing, millions of y'all will tune in to watch Wayne Rooney play, and therefore Millions of y'all will also see the company's product. Wayne knows that this media mogul will sell this idea to companies, and then approach him with offers of more money in a week than the entire annual sports budgets of all three East African countries put together if he could agree to appear in the same TV screen that shows that company's products. Easy as ABC.

But Wayne also knows that y'all don't like it when players cheat on their wives, especially when players that look the way Shrek would look like when he has just thrown up cheat on wives that look like they could stop traffic just for the heck of it. He knows that if y'all don't like what he did, y'all won't tune in to watch him play, so y'all won't get to see the company's products. If that happens, the company whose products appear in the same TV screen as Wayne won't be willing to give the media mogul enough money to pay Wayne more money in a week than the entire annual sports budgets of all three East African countries put together.

And this presents a problem, because you see, Wayne loves his money, every single last dime of it. It would rip his stocky Scouser heart to pieces if many of y'all stopped watching him and forced the companies to reduce his check to, say, the entire annual sports budgets of only two East African countries. But he cheated. On a pregnant wife that looks like she could stop traffic just for the heck of it. With a thousand-pounds-a-night hooker. And y'all don't like that.

So how does Wayne keep the money flowing into his pockets? Easy. Create a diversion.

Wayne might be stupid, but an idiot he most definitely is not. He knows that y'all care about reputation and all that bleeding heart morality, but y'all ain't the ones that cut his check. The companies do. And the companies don't give a rat's ass about reputation except when it interferes with their bottom line. All they care about is that their products get advertised because when their products get advertised, their products get sold. Wayne is smart enough to know all this, so he figures the way to keep the companies interested is to keep y'all watching him.

How does he do that? He creates a diversion. He enlists the help of his best friend and father figure, sir Alex Ferguson, and together, they concoct a feud. Accusations about lying are made, counter-accusations about insubordination are fired back. A rejoinder about a lack of commitment is swiftly issued and quickly countered by the one about latent disloyalty. Then comes the big one; I want to leave, and the even bigger one; The door is to your left, baby. Throughout all this, the media mogul's cameras are furiously keeping y'all updated, and y'all are thinking, Gosh! We haven't seen such action since Ali took on Foreman at the banks of the Congo River! So what's next?

And when he is sure he has you where he wants you, i.e eyes firmly trained on him and interested in only him, there is a sudden cooling of tempers and a truce is called. The companies are happy that y'all want to see him, so they resume giving him money in a week than the entire annual sports budgets of all three East African countries put together. In the meantime, y'all have forgotten that he cheated, with a thousand-pound-a-night hooker, on a traffic-stopper of a wife that chose to have a baby with him the natural way despite the fact that he looks like Shrek after he has just thrown up.

Like Redd Foxx would say, you big dummies!

Of Gonads, Communication and Cell Phones.

2010-10-06T07:45:00.001-07:00

I wanted to start with the bit about my gonads, but that part doesn't become important until exactly four nanoseconds before I wake up. So I'll begin with the anecdote about the wife and the husband.

Once upon a time, two people, a man and a woman, got married. And as it normally happens with one hundred percent of all matrimonial interactions, there came a point during their relationship when these two people had a slight difference of opinion over something or the other.

Normally, such matters are resolved by the more assertive partner, usually the wife, imposing their opinion on the less assertive one, usually the wife. [It's complicated. I'll explain later.] However, this relationship was one of those very rare ones where both partners were evenly matched in willpower; so naturally, the difference of opinion continued and in due course, the two were not on speaking terms. Literally.

But since they lived under the same roof, ate the same food, used the same bathroom and slept on the same bed, some form of communication was necessary. They therefore worked their way around the issue and finally settled on writing as the most effective medium for their circumstances. Whenever the husband required anything of the wife, he would write it down on a slip of paper and vice versa.

This method worked OK until one day; the husband had a very important meeting to attend and had to catch a very early flight the next morning. Unfortunately, he was the kind of person who attached a great deal of value to a good night's sleep, and was rarely known to awaken before 10am in the morning. The meeting was however really important, so to work his schedule around this flaw, he requested his wife, in writing of course, to wake him up very early the next morning...

How this tale ends should be obvious to anyone with pretensions to anything that even remotely approaches a double-figure IQ, so we'll leave it there and move on towards my gonads. But before we get there, let's first talk about phones.

A friend of mine from the Northern hemisphere was once quite shocked when he read a report on the internet which said that at least 70% of all Ugandan adults each have a mobile phone. The poor fellow couldn't understand how a backward country like Uganda could have such an extensive mobile telephony reach, and he e-mailed me to ascertain the veracity of these claims.

"The report is inaccurate." I mailed him back. "The figure is closer to 90%, and at least 60% of them actually have TWO mobile phones."

I happen to belong to this percentage that possesses two mobile phones. One is a sexy Nokia 6300, which has a lot of really awesome features but goes through its battery with the speed of a Mike Tyson bout in the early nineties, while the other one is a plainer Nokia 1100 whose swankiest feature is that it is able support M-Pesa, but with one bar of battery power can sustain an entire call from Pet without disconnecting it midway. [And that is saying something.]

Quite obviously, this isn't exactly an ideal situation. I love the ravishing 6300, but for purposes of functionality, I find that I utilize the plain Jane 1100 more frequently than I do my beloved 6300. And that has me really terrified of the implications on my social standing the revelation of this little fact would occasion, so whenever I have to use the 1100, I try to be as discreet as possible. Silent mode, excusing myself and running to a secluded area whenever I receive a call in public, etc...

I risk digressing, however. Let us now connect the married couple anecdote to the mobile phones and then quickly move on to my gonads.

Like the husband in our anecdote, I am also the kind of person that attaches a great deal of value to a good night's sleep. Once I get into slumber land, I will always need help to get out of it. But unlike the unfortunate husband, I don't depend on my wife to wake me up when I've got issues that really have to be sorted out at a time when only chicken thieves are supposed to be awake. The reason behind this is quite simple; I'm not yet married,

So whenever I need to wake up early, which like a Liverpool win happens only in the rarest of occasions, I can always rely on the infinitely cheaper yet infinitely more reliable alarm system on my two mobile phones. With them, unless somebody calls me earlier, I can always get up at the precise moment I intend to wake up. And since my Nokia 6300 is permanently on silent mode for purposes of being discreet, the early caller isn't always a problem...

Unless I somehow go to bed with my phone still in my trouser pocket, and there is a hole in that trouser pocket.

In my defense, I was dog tired and didn't strip like I usually do when I went to bed last night. I also didn't take my phone off my pocket which, as is common with people as careless as I am, has a hole somewhere in its person. Therefore as I slept, the phone slipped through the hole and came to rest on my inner thigh, just below the nether regions.

And then very early today morning, my dear Pet, who works similar hours with the shadier elements of society, decided to send me a text message...

Do you have any idea how unbelievably powerful a vibrating 1100 can get, and how tremendously horrifying being woken up by a Nokia 1100 vibrating against your gonads can be?

More than just a Bad Hair Day

2010-09-16T03:40:00.000-07:00

Like girls, guys also have bad hair days. I know this for a fact because I used to have bad hair days back when I still had dreadlocks, and, well, I'm a guy.

The difference between a guy bad hair day and a girl bad hair day, however, is that unless you point out to a guy that he is having a bad hair day, most men will never tell when they are having a bad hair day. Just ask Donald Trump, or the people of Sotik constituency and the guy they kept electing to parliament before the NARC wave.

You can also ask me about what transpired one day when I went to Mengo Hospital for a dental procedure, back in the days when I still had dreadlocks.

A dear friend of mine once told me that at the dentist's, everything is twice as painful as it looks and thrice more painful than you think. That is no exeggeration, so for those of you that have never placed their behinds on a dentist's chair for a procedure, allow me this opportunity to issue a profound warning: Start taking much better care of your teeth than you are doing right now. Because trust me, you do NOT want to ever find yourself on that chair.

Anyway, I wasn't lucky enough to have someone give me the kind of warning I am giving you now, so at some point in time, I found myself in unfortunate need of an extremely urgent dental procedure. I'd once procured the services of Mengo Hospital following a late night altercation with a couple of panga-wielding characters intent on relieving me of my phone and other valuables, [but that is a story for another day,] and had liked their services. Thus when the aforementioned need for a dental procedure arose, it was to Mengo that I immediately headed.

Mengo Hospital is quite a large institution. Add to this the fact that I don't quite like hanging around hospitals and therefore do not often hang around hospitals, It was quite obvious that I was going to encounter a bit of trouble locating the dental department where my painfully pressing needs could be addressed. So in short, I soon found myself totally lost in the hospital hallways, clutching my jaw like a driver who has just hit Mike Tyson's car and was stupid enough to get out to apologize.

The most obvious thing one ought to do when faced with such difficulty would be of course to ask somebody familliar with the place for directions, and in a hospital the person most likely to know where places such as dental departments are located would be a nurse. Thus I stopped a nurse doing her rounds, [I know how a nurse looks like because every heterosexual man has fantasies about nurses in uniform,] and asked her to tell me where I could find the dental department.

The nurse, a petite little thing in a starched uniform who looked like anything straight from one of my aforementioned fantasies, looked at me as if she didn't comprehend my question. Then she sized me up, spending about a minute looking at my hair before she pointed to a flight of stairs. "Just head up those stairs and turn left." She said. "Beyond it you will find a red brick building and someone there will attend to you."

It had been a puzzling experience, but my tooth was at that point threatening to dig a hole right through my jaw, so I gave it very little thought as I gratefully made my way towards where I had been directed.

When I got there, the first thing I noticed was two heavily armed guards. Why would a dental department require armed guard? I thought and then stopped thinking as my toothache stopped working on my jaw and sent a jolt of pain through my gum. Quickly, I went to one of the guards. "Where can I find a doctor? I'm in pain." I asked.

The guard looked at me, mumbled something to his colleague about an apparent shortage of barbers in Kampala and both of them laughed. "Go back to the ward." He told me. "The doctor will be there presently."

Ward?

"Excuse me, but since when has the dental department of any hospital ever required wards?" I asked.

That must have been the stupidest question I have ever asked in my entire life, because the guard now looked at me like you would look at someone who has just asked you the stupidest question you have ever heard in your entire life.

"This is not the dental department." He told me. "It is the mental department."

Captain of virtue

2010-08-25T01:50:00.000-07:00

Celebrity sportsmen have through time found it really hard to keep their pants up away from home and their names off the sleazier sections of the press.

Last year, Tiger Woods' dalliance with more than a dozen women did things to his reputation that even an elephant would hesitate to do to a glass cage holding its young. Dude is now divorced and a hundred mil poorer.

Soon after the Woods' saga hit the tabloids, it was quickly followed by the lurid tales of one Jacob Zuma, who even two decades after the death of Apartheid remains unwilling to put down his machine gun. [OK. Maybe Zuma isn't exactly a sports personality. But he has been quite a player in the romantic field, which sort of qualifies him for that sporty title, doesn't it?]

News of Zuma's 20th-born was still settling in when another sports celebrity waddled into the murky sludge of tabloid press. John Terry, Chelsea and former England captain, was soon afterward reported to have showed more than passing interest to the ex-girlfriend of his England and former Chelsea team-mate, Wayne Bridge, and the reports caused such outrage among the English public that England coach Fabio Capello, fearing the destabilizing effect the incident would have on the England team as they prepared for the World Cup, promptly stripped Terry of the England captaincy.

Now, let us for a minute transfer the JT debacle to Kenya and assume that in the place of Terry, it was the Harambee Stars captain who was implicated in an affair with the ex-girlfriend of a team-mate. Would the public have shown the kind of outrage shown by the English and demanded that he be stripped of his armband?

That, of course, would never happen. In fact, as rhetorical questions go, that question would put the rhetoric in rhetorical.

First of all, unless the lady in question is actually married to the team-mate,a Kenyan would see absolutely nothing wrong with the captain's action. If there is no ring around the fourth finger of her left hand, then she is, for all intents and purposes, fair game. In the JT saga, the lady, a French lingerie model called Veronica Perroncel, wasn't the wife, or even the current girlfriend, but the EX girlfriend of Wayne Bridge. In Kenyan books, nothing wrong there.

But even if a queer section of the Kenyan public had found the saga even remotely repulsive and opined that Twahir Muhiddin, Ghost Mulee, that clueless German or whoever it is in charge of the Stars should relieve the captain of his leadership duties, then this high-minded percentage of humanity would first of all have to contend with members of the erstwhile captain's ethnic community, who will scream, shout and even uproot a few railway sleepers to protest against the victimization of their community.

But the main reason no furore whatsoever would be raised is quite simple: Over 80% of Kenyans don't watch Kenyan football, and of the 20% that follow it regularly, Two thirds have absolutely no idea who the hell the Harambee Stars captain is.

A Model Trial

2010-08-16T07:45:00.001-07:00

I love models. Nothing quite appeals to my amorous fantasies than the combination of a figure that makes you think long nights in exotic locations and an IQ figure equal to the number on a goalkeeper's football jersey. And growing up as I did during a time when 90% of vehicles on Kenyan roads had only six digits, I was at some point totally besotted with one Naomi Campbell.

Of course the distance between fantasy and reality is mostly only covered by dreams, so the stunning Ms. Campbell has since then remained exactly that, i.e. the girl of my dreams. However, when I'm not busy with other more important stuff such as debating Referendum results and waiting for the start of the new English Premier League season, I make time to look her up and see what she has been up to, as well at ogle at those looooooooong legs thrusting from whatever leading fashion house number she happens to be donning.

Slightly under a fortnight ago, I got a chance to indulge this passion of mine. Naomi had reportedly been summoned by the war crimes trial against Charles Taylor at the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone, and she was to appear to give testimony that would help indict the former Liberian warlord. With my beautiful Naomi in the picture, I was very, very interested in these proceedings, and accordingly stacked on the popcorn.

We will come back to Naomi and models in a bit, but first, a little background for those of you who for whatever absurd reason may never have heard about Charles Taylor.

Born in 1946, this dude is something of a cross between Idi Amin Dada and Robert Mugabe, with a dash of pre-historic man. He ruled Liberia for six years from 1997 after helping overthrow the government of Samuel Doe, and all indications are those six years aren't exactly ones that Liberians remember with an incredible amount of fondness.

Taylor had a number of very disagreeable habits, and among these was an apparent overwhelming covetousness. He was reportedly so covetous of the riches possessed by neighboring Sierra Leone that he felt compelled to fund a rebel group there, the Revolutionary United Front [RUF], so that he could also get in on a share of its Diamonds resource. This was to prove his undoing, as the activities the RUF rebels involved themselves in have landed him in major legal problems at the Hague.

Naomi Campbell catwalks into this Charles Taylor saga sometime in 1999, when both she and Taylor attended a fund-raising dinner in cape Town hosted by then South African president Nelson Mandela.

Like 99% of all heterosexual men who have ever set eyes on Naomi Campbell, Charles Taylor's senses went AWOL upon meeting her, and by the end of the night, he had displayed his amorous attentions towards her with a pocketful of uncut diamonds.

To cut a long story short, those diamonds are now central to the case against Taylor at the Hague, because during that time, he had apparently gone to South Africa with the intention of selling the diamonds and raise money to help fund the RUF's atrocious activities in sierra Leone.

To be perfectly honest, I have so far paid the Charles Taylor trial the kind of attention I normally reserve for traffic signs when I'm late for work, and I’m sure an overwhelming proportion of the earth’s population are exactly like me. But since the lovely Naomi graced the trial with her magnificent presence, interest in the trial has grown tenfold, and I’m sure the UN is very thankful for that.

Closer home, it is hoped that if Ocampo does his job properly, a number our local politicians will be acquainting themselves with the Hague quite soon. The Kenya trial is meant to act as precedent and deterrence against future acts of civil violence in Africa and the world over such trivial issues as elections results, and the UN is hoping that public interest in the case will be massive.

Kenya is taking the case very seriously, and a couple of months ago, a witness protection bill was passed in parliament to help secure potential witnesses who will give testimony at the Hague. Last week, it was reported that some of these potential witnesses are already being flown out of the country in readiness for the trial.

My question is, are there any Kenyan supermodels among those witnesses being flown out?

Of women and cars

2010-06-15T03:03:00.000-07:00

She may be disagreeable sometimes…well, most of the time. But Allan's wife really is a good woman. Overwhelming evidence may indicate otherwise, but his Datsun actually is a good car.

Mrs. Allan and the Datsun, as narrated by Allan.

"Two years ago when I bought my Datsun, my wife nagged me into giving her a driving lesson. Looking back, that must have been the most dangerous afternoon of my life, for we stared death in the face three times in that one session alone. Naturally, I immediately banned her from all things motor vehicle, but undaunted, she scrimped on the kitchen budget, fed me vegetables for a month and raised enough cash to go to a real driving school. Fortunately, the driving instructors of that school were equally unimpressed by her potential and she was never licensed to drive. This put a damper on her enthusiasm and for two years, there was tranquility in her relationship with cars.

But all good things, as heaven ordained, must come to an end. Recently, a pre-natal misdiagnosis forced my now pregnant wife to re-evaluate her choice of maternity services provider, and by the next day, Pumwani had lost yet another customer and Aga Khan hospital had gained one. I was obviously dismayed by the expected increase in the relevant fees this was going to entail, but that was nothing compared to her passion for the wheel the hospital switch Inadvertently re-awakened in her.

“Every pregnant mother drives in for her appointment except me.” She complained after her second most recent trip to the hospital. “Why do I have to be the only one that walks in like a Kawangware resident who doesn’t own a car?”

“Maybe because you actually are a Kawangware resident who doesn’t own a car?” I suggested, desperately hoping she would deviate from her apparent train of thought.

No such luck. “I promise I’ll oil it, fuel it and get it washed when I come from the hospital.” When she really wants something, my wife has this remarkable ability, absent in possibly all women, of getting straight to the point.

My firm refusal earned me a night on the sofa.

But the next day when I was in a matatu on my way to work, I opened my wallet to pay my fare to and realized the car keys were missing. Their whereabouts were obviously a no-brainer, and I instantly sent a prayer heavenward for God to take extra good care of my wife and unborn child, and especially my car, that day.I was so worried that I left work early.

The car was not on the parking lot when I arrived home, But my wife was, and she had made a sumptuous lunch as if she had anticipated I would leave work early. She served me like a king, laughed at my jokes throughout the meal, asked about my day, curled up close to me when I lay back for a siesta and generally behaved very suspiciously. When she produced two Pilsners from the bedroom, I knew it was time I acted before I got too complacent. “Honey,” I asked. “Where is the car?”

“Relax.” She purred. “It is at the garage. Didn’t I promise to get it oiled, washed and fueled?”

I was extremely grateful, and I thought maybe I had been too rash in dismissing my wife’s driving competence. I resolved give her another shot at driving school and a license as soon as the baby is born, for she was showing herself to be very responsible.

This resolution was reinforced the next day, but for very different reason.

When I passed by the garage and I saw my car, I almost fainted. The paintwork on the left side of the car was gone. Not patchy or scratched, but literally gone. The front fender was twisted like the branch of an acacia tree, and it was impossible to ascertain the condition of the three headlights I had affixed to the fender only the previous week, since they weren’t even there in the first place. Gone too was the left headlamp, and the front windshield looked like a chart of the entire human vascular system, capillaries, veins and all.

And that is why it is absolutely necessary, imperative even, that my wife learns to drive. Her passion for the wheel, albeit intermittent, is absolute, and I don't want to even imagine what will happen the next time it hits. So I'd rather she actually knew how to drive when it does"

Mwiko

2010-06-07T10:26:00.000-07:00

Like any resident in the general vicinity of the Gulf of Mexico, I have BP.

No, I don't mean BP, the company that for the past month seems to have adopted publications with titles like 'Environmental Degradation For Dummies' and '101 Ways How NOT To Plug An Oil Leak' as its operational handbooks.I meant BP, as in Big Problems.

But first, a preamble of sorts. Last week, I used up all the water in the communal tank in my plot to do my weekly washing, and this unfortunately co-incided with a similar intention by my next door neighbor to my left to do her weekly washing. The result was a row of such magnificent proportions that we had to declare a termination of all interaction with each other henceforth to put an end to it. On the other hand, my next door neighbor to my right works at a Casino in town and thus only works nights, so as I write this, he isn't home.

How the status of my next door neighbors fits into this narrative shall be made apparent presently, but in the meantime, back to me and my Big Problems. Problem One: I am hungry. Ravenously hungry. I am so hungry, I was halfway through the glass of milk I found in my kitchenette when I came home today before I realized it was actually lime water I'd earlier poured in the flask to keep it fresh.

Problem Two was when I came home with Problem One, my house was in NETHerlands.

My house being in NETHerlands is a term I use to denote the fact that there is 'Nothing to Eat in The House' [NETH] FYI, NETH is not a straightforward description of reality. It could mean there really is nothing to eat in the house, or that there actually is something edible in the house, but I am not in the mood to cook it.

The latter was the prevalent description when I came in with Problem One, for hailing as I do from the Western Province of the Kenyan Republic, it would be easier for a camel to knit with a needle and all that than for copious amounts of maize flour to NOT be found in my house at any given moment.

But although I wasn't in the mood to cook, I was in even less mood to waste my money at a hotel. And since I was not going to exist on half a glass of lime water alone, I was left with no other alternative but to light my paraffin stove, put on a half-full pan of water, wait for it to boil then pour in the flour. But I'd hardly started to mingle the concoction when there was a sickening crack!

Big Problem.

You see, almost every step of the ugali-making process has a built-in escape mechanism for when things go wrong. For example, too much water? Reduce it or add flour. Too much flour? Reduce it or add water. Too little paraffin/gas or electricity blackout? To hell with the neighbors. Build a wood-fire outside.

But unless your neighbors are in a position to lend you theirs, [and we have already established that for various reasons, mine can't at the moment,] there is absolutely no hope for you when right in the middle of the ugali-making process, the ladle suddenly breaks.

Kids say the darnest things.

2010-06-06T06:18:00.000-07:00

THE FOLLOWING QUOTES ARE FROM A NEWSPAPER CONTEST WHERE ENTRANTS AGE 4 TO 15 WERE ASKED TO IMITATE "DEEP THOUGHTS BY JACK HANDY":

I believe you should live each day as if it is your last,which is why I don't have any clean laundry because,come on, who wants to wash clothes on the last day of their life?
Brandon - Age 15

My young brother asked me what happens after we die.I told him we get buried under a bunch of dirt and worms eat our bodies. I guess I should have told him the truth--that most of us go to Hell and burn eternally--but I didn't want to upset him.
Allen - Age 10

As you make your way through this hectic world of ours, set aside a few minutes each day. At the end of the year,you'll have a couple of days saved up.
Ricky -Age 7

Democracy is a beautiful thing, except for that part about letting just any old yokel vote.
Anthony - Age 10

Home is where the house is.
Jenny - Age 6

Often, when I am reading a good book, I stop and thank my teacher.That is, I used to, until she got an unlisted number.
Susan - Age 15

Once, I wept for I had no shoes. Then I came upon a man who had no feet. So I took his shoes. I mean, it's not like he really needed them, right?
Dennis - Age 15

Mathematically speaking, a very weighty issue indeed.

2010-05-21T08:46:00.000-07:00

According to somebody or the other, [I can't remember who exactly at the moment,] the main purpose of life is the pursuit of fulfillment and happiness. Fulfillment and happiness, according to somebody else I also can't remember at the moment, is best achieved by making the right choices.Therefore the main formula in the mathematics of life is all about making the right choices. Simple as ABC.

But far from straightforward.

Because mathematically, constants base the sequence of a formula, but the result of any problem will always depend on the variables. And in most cases, the variables have absolutely no inclination to behave rationally, thereby impacting on the result in ways that you may or may not anticipate. This impact can either be positive or negative, but bottom line is it WILL affect the result.

In a nutshell, what we have in the equation on life referred to in the first paragraph are constants, and they will always behave in a certain way. But when variables are introduced, the outcome may or may not go as expected.

If you have stuck with me thus long and are still reading this, I swear there is a point to all this. To prove it, I will get directly to the point I am referring to.

Marriage.

There are several reasons why people get married. For an overwhelming majority, though, the main goal is fulfillment in companionship. Those are constants. Achieving this of course depends on the right choice of spouse, That too is a constant.

One consideration in the process of choosing the right spouse is body weight. Body weight is a variable, and this is what I wish to discuss at length.

When men shop for a spouse, a key consideration is how appealingly the kilos are distributed across a potential acquisition's frame.

I am not saying that there is nothing wrong with this perspective. But men are by nature extremely visual, and since visions and perspectives are shaped by stereotypes, you really can't say that is our fault with the prevailing stereotype on beauty frowning so disagreeably upon bulk in a woman, can you?

From the mathematical point of view, body weight is a variable that can affect the eventual result a man is looking for in a lifetime companion. However in this regard, women have taken to shortchanging us of this preferred result in a manner that is decidedly callous.

A guy meets a girl and he sees that all her variables, including her mass, can produce an acceptable result, (i.e fulfillment and happiness,) when processed with the other constants in the main formula of life. For as long as they are dating, she maintains the weight variable at his preferred level until the guy loses enough intelligence to pop the question.

Once the formalities have been completed and she has his surname, however, the weight variable suddenly finds its own direction, and in most cases, that direction is up. You walk a Tyra to the altar, but one year later, you are going home to an Oprah; with kids and without the money.

This change in the weight variable will obviously have an impact on the whole equation, and a very negative one at that. When the guy was picturing a spouse that would fulfill and complete him, he probably had very definite ideas about how much she ought to weigh, and by interfering with this variable, the result will be instead of feeling completed and fulfilled, he will certainly feel disappointed and cheated.

And the funny thing is, women complain when the inevitable infidelity occurs after she has lost her allure with the weight gain, yet the 'Thin is in' stereotype that leads men to buying into a misguided cliche of beauty, is actually created and maintained by women.

Psychologically, men tend to find well-endowed women more attractive, and love handles actually form a very big part of our romantic fantasies.

The attraction to waif-like dolls is for show, because the world expects us to be attracted to its stereotype version of beauty. But the real beauty with substance image in our psychology has a more motherly quality about it, and trust me, weight is NOT an issue there.

Call Waiting

2010-04-20T09:36:00.000-07:00

I know I've been mistaken,

But just give me a break and see the changes that I've made;

I've got some imperfections,

But how can you collect them all and throw them in my face..."

Groggily, I rub my eyes as I look at the irritatingly bright light flashing from my Nokia 6300 next to me on the bedside stool (Yes, I did upgrade again.) 03:22, reads the figure at the top right corner of the screen. Who could be calling at such an ungodly hour? I ask myself.

Actually, I lie. I don’t ask myself that question, because even without looking at the picture that I have as this particular caller's ID, (i.e. Steven Gerrard after one of Liverpool's numerous losses,) I already know who is calling. Even people I owe money know how seriously I value my sleep and wouldn't call me at such an hour, so it could only be one person.

Goodness, I think. Doesn't this girl ever sleep? And even if she can't sleep, why doesn't she channel her insomnia towards something more conventional, e.g. watching four seasons of Gossip Girl, instead of interfering with my own hard-earned sleep?

Again, I lie. I don't think that, because my sleep is hardly ever earned. Also, I know this girl actually does sleep, but only during the day. She uses the hours of night to call people trying to get some sleep and also, I suspect, engage in a little bit of night running.

(OK. She doesn't do that. I'm just being mean.)

"But you always find a way,

To keep me right here waiting;

You always find the words to say,

To keep me right here waiting..."

OK. Ungodly hour or not, fact is my phone is ringing and I have to decide whether I am going to pick it up or not. I think for a few seconds, and then decide I am not going to take the call.

"I hope you're not intending,

To be so condescending, it's as much as I can take;

And you're so independent,

You just refuse to bend, so I keep bending till I break.

But you always find a way, to keep me right here waiting..."

I mean, who the hell does she think she is anyway, calling me at an hour when only chicken thieves are supposed to be awake? Doesn't she know I have better things to do, such as indulge in my long-running dream about a lifetime of marital bliss with Amy Lee of Evanescence? Besides, she is a both a freakin’ Liverpool and a freakin’ Coldplay fan, and I think anyone who actually likes either Liverpool or Coldplay is respectively either disturbed or just plain insane, characters you obviously wouldn't want calling you at 3:22 in the morning.

[Chris Martin is an egg-head.]

“I've made a commitment,

I'm willing to bleed for you;

I need this fulfillment,

I've found what I need in you

Why can't you just forgive me,

I don't want to relive all the mistakes I've made

along the way.

But I always find a way, to keep you right here waiting...”

The next thing I do, of course, is reach over and pick up the phone.

SO, WHAT EXACTLY AM I TRYING TO SAY WITH ALL THIS?

Nothing, really. I just felt like dissing Val. Oh, and to let you all know that my ring-tone is 'Right Here' by Staind.

In defence of Polygamy

2010-04-12T09:58:00.000-07:00

Contrary to popular feminist discourse, polygamy isn't a reactionary custom of conservative, uncivilized societies dominated by chauvinistic men hell-bent on keeping women in shackles. As a matter of fact, I hereby advance that polygamy is the most innovative and effective solution to a perfectly natural and obvious phenomenon: There are simply too many women in this world and not enough men to marry them all!

According to the latest statistics gathered by highly competent international organizations mandated to carry out such and related research, at last count women constituted 59% of the total earth population, while men made up a paltry 39%. [And we still rule the world? C'mon ladies!] The other 2% comprised hermaphrodites and other humans whose sex could not be comprehensively ascertained. Transform this to real life and throw in the biological reality of puberty which hits women earlier than men, and you begin to understand the gravity of the situation our ladies face.

This of course is no one's fault but God's or, for those among us that subscribe to atheism, nature. But as a firm believer in the philosophy that nothing happens by chance and everything happens for a reason; and buoyed by the basic conclusions of this research which have further indicated that polygamy now has grounds for renewed relevance, I further advance that whoever it is that is responsible for this demographic imbalance had a really good reason for it. .

The reason for this is simple: A woman's genetic make-up is inferior to that of Man, and this makes her only capable of successfully executing a limited amount of tasks at any given time compared to Man whose make-up accords him higher levels of versatility and added ability to multi-task. The calculations involved in the computations that arrived at this conclusion are extensive and boring, but the long and short of it is that you need more women per unit function than the number of men you would require to execute an equal and similar function. You get my physics?

This is the reason why for example that girl who can out-argue you on the finer points of Shakespeare looks just a little better than the great author himself, or why that cutie who has you happily visiting the ATM every day for five-figure withdrawals reminds you of Jim Carey in 'Dumb and Dumber' whenever she opens her mouth. It is simply impossible for a woman to play more than one admirable role in one lifetime!

Women are however too stubborn to submit to this plain reality and always vainly attempt to fit into multiple roles way beyond their scope. Admittedly, some [Like my mother, for example] do manage a limited measure of success, but most end up malfunctioning with excruciating results. There is this girl I once dated who was all that and more, but her attempt at 'Complete womanhood' as she called it was a disaster. You see, an ideal woman's bearing should be that of a queen in public and that of someone who works at establishments of dubious moral standing in the privacy of the bedchambers, but this girl somehow always managed to get the two mixed up. I won't delve into details, but like I said, it was a really excruciating period of my life.

Have you ever tried to count the number of women who can handle both absolute financial independence and marriage to a husband of less financial clout? Apart from Queen Elizabeth, you can count the rest on the fingers of a quadruple amputee's left hand. Yet men have been doing this since creation. How many times have you heard women complaining about the pressure of holding a job and raising a family at the same time? I stopped counting when I hit the million mark. Yet for men that is so natural, the sun rising from the East would elicit more surprise!

This highlights the very inherent wisdom behind polygamy.1. Women are uni-functional, men are multi-functional. 2. Like poles may repel, but humans always tend to seek out companions with similarities they can relate with. 3. For most men, similarities mean a combination of characteristics in them which unfortunately, as we have already established, can't fit in one woman only.

So the only solution, as you should have gathered by now unless you never spent the KIE-recommended number of hours in front of a blackboard, is to marry different women for different values. Like in my case, my ideal woman should be beautiful, clever an incredible cook, and a vixen in bed. But since I can't have Sade [The most beautiful woman I have ever seen] Rah Digga [I bet you all didn't know she actually has a degree in electrical engineering!] Keisha [A friend of mine, name changed whose stews give my taste-buds daydreams] and Sharon Stone [If you have ever watched Basic Instinct, you catch my drift] all rolled in one, then honestly, what is wrong with me having all four of them, especially considering there is more where the said four came from, and thus I will actually be doing a service?

Of women and cars: A competition in elegance.

2010-04-02T03:20:00.000-07:00

Recently, I managed to acquire a rusty 1978 Mini Morris Minor.

For those of you that have as much clue about vintage automobiles as I do about the effect of algorithmic disambiguation on octanomial algebraic equations truncated at the third significant figure, a 1978 Mini Morris Minor is the type of car you don't just acquire anyhow unless you've got some serious cash, electric power connections and a time machine.

Obviously, my purchase of the car wasn't inspired by a pertinent need to address my transportation problems. Introducing such a gem into the atrocious Nairobi traffic scene is irrefutable evidence of a glaring lack of common sense, and besides, I have a perfectly serviced Suzuki motorbike for that purpose. The reason I bought the Morris, actually, was in anticipation of the Concours d' Elegance.

The Concours d' Elegance, again for those as uninformed about it as I am on all things mathematics, is Kenya's premier jamboree for glamour, class and, as its name modestly suggests, Elegance. Basically a vintage car and motorbike pageant and auto fair for new and used vehicles, the show has over its chequered history grown from strength to strength since the Alfa Romeo Owners' Club started this event in 1969, and last year's event at the Ngong Racecourse saw a record 70 cars and over 35 motorbikes competing in the various categories on offer. I bought the Morris, which I have affectionately named Maureen, because I plan to refurbish her and display her in this year's Concours d' Elegance event.

Cue trouble.

But first, a prologue to the events leading to my insistence on participating in this year's Concours d' Elegance, and the very dark clouds that now hang over my decision and my chances of winning the Ksh. 1.5million on offer.

Before last year, my take on "that KenCell junkyard show" as I used to term the Concours d' Elegance, was that it was nothing more than a forum for white expats and loaded Asians to show off vehicles their parents used to drive around in during the colonial times. Naturally, I considered such an event about as exciting as the breeding habits of pre-historic crustaceans, and I would gladly have endured a 3-hour VoK documentary on soil erosion at my ex girlfriend's house rather than attend one.

But that was before my friend, Ogolla Jangsta, convinced me that there was more to the Concours than vehicles which belong in a Museum.

The girls who attend the Concours, Jangsta reliably informed me, would make Jesus, Elton John and Ricky Martin re-consider their sexual orientation. According to him, the most money attracts the best females, and since wheels equals owners who can afford wheels and anyone who can afford a vintage car must have deep pockets, even the thickest blonde can tell that such a high concentration of wheels in one place means an equally high concentration of moneyed males. In short, the girls would be there in droves, and they would be there to impress the moneyed guys, which meant that they would look good.

I listened to Jangsta's logic, and it was was impeccable. So on 27th October last year, I attended the Concours, not to see the cars, but to see the ladies who had come to see the loaded expats and rich Asians who had come to see the cars.

And I wasn't disappointed, because those ladies were something and then some. Oozing style and grace, It was as if God chose the moments he was feeling most creative to work on each female that was there, and then the ladies themselves emphatically complemented the almighty work by accentuating their curvaceous anatomies. A dizzying array of elegantly stitched designs, arresting accessories and the most pleasant scents to match their bewitching smiles permeated the grounds, numbed the senses and induced a feeling of perfect bliss. I was in heaven.

And what they couldn't accentuate, these girls exposed. From cleavage-exposing blouses to ass-lifting pencil jeans to outrageously low-cut minis from which a thong would discreetly but suggestively peep from time to time, they were clearly out to get me. If I were ever to be a suicide bomber with dreams of the standard seventy virgins of my choice, I thought at some point, I wouldn't mind choosing my virgins from these [assuming, of course, that seventy bona-fide virgins could be obtained from this crowd. But I digress.]

As the day wore on, however, I got bored with chasing after the pencil jeans, and started to nonchalantly look at the cars. To my surprise, I found the exercise quite captivating and before long, I started to actually enjoy watching the cars. Their big, round, perfectly symmetrical headlights, their sleek, streamlined bodies, their dark wheels with shiny reams, their cosy interiors and upholstery, and the way rows upon rows of them were parked along the ground as the judges and revellers walked around viewing them. suddenly, I realised I was in the presence of glamour, class and...Elegance.

Elegance. Class. Sophistication. The very things I would want from a woman, these cars had and then some.

I looked at a passing female donning a pair of dark stunners to ward of the bright sunlight, and what registered in my mind was a the perfectly symmetrical headlights of a Rolls Royce.

I saw lovely young lady whose cleavage left absolutely nothing to the imagination, and all I remembered was an open bonnet displaying the perfectly maintained engine of a 1934 Napier-Railton.

Another lady walked by in high-heels that accentuated her very shapely calves, and my mind immediately raced to the raised wheels of a 1928 Ford Model A.

And as she walked away, her behind rhythmically undulating, I couldn't help but think of the streamlined rear bumper of a 1978 Morris Mini.

I looked at the glossy shine of all the vehicles on display and marvelled at the dedication of the owners, had obviously put in a lot of time and energy to make them shine like that. As the engines were being analysed, I further marvelled at the financial strain it must have taken to lovingly restore these vehicles to mint condition. Surely, they hadn't put all that in for the sake of it. what I was witnessing here was rows and rows of individual labors of love.

Labor of love. Love.

Suddenly, it struck me. This men loved their cars. Any given day, I realised, any of these cars could be the perfect and much better substitution for women. Even when well maintained, women nag. women whine. Women are stubborn. Women are never on time. Women sulk for no apparent reason. Women don't understand when you just need your space. But most importantly, women are impossible to understand. And none of these endearing qualities could be said of a well-serviced, well-maintained car.

Right there and then, I decided that I was going to get me a vintage car and work on her so that I would enter her in the next edition of Concours d' Elegance. I would give her all the love and affection I could give a woman [except the obvious ones that can only be done with a fellow human, of course] in the hope that I would win the next edition of the Concours d' Elegance.

And after a long search, now I have Maureen. Problem is, the woman currently in my life is jealous of all the attention I give to Maureen. She claims that I am neglecting her, and this has been the cause of many an argument between us. Yet Maureen never complains when I leave her out in the cold, fail to attend to her or call her bad names when I'm in a foul mood. See what I mean?

The tale of the tail.

2010-03-31T04:16:00.000-07:00

So goes an old fable, One day an old dog came across a younger dog running in circles. "Hello, young one." He asked. "What are you doing?"

"Yo! W'zzup old dog" The younger dog replied. "I just discovered some bangin lil' secret that you ol timers probably didn't know. You see, I've just discovered that the secret of my happiness lies inside my tail, and I'm tynna catch it so that I can be happy forever!" and he went on running after his tail for all the world like he was a turbo-charged windmill.

The old dog regarded the younger dog for some time, and then he tapped him. "Excuse me, kiddo, but I got news for you. " He said, sagely. "You see, that happiness lies inside my tail is, to use your words, a 'bangin lil' secret' I discovered way back before your momma was a pup. But with time, I realised that running after it wasn't going to get me anywhere near it because the harder I chased it, the more it kept running away from me. But I also saw that when I stopped running after it and instead walked away and went about my business, it followed me!

I'm sure an overwhelming proportion of our esteemed readers must be conversant with the concept of reciprocity, that basis of social relations whereby everything we do for others is with the expectation that the person will give back, or 'reciprocate' in kind. For example when you go to the supermarket and you give the teller your cash, you expect that teller to clear you the goods you just picked from the supermarket shelves, or when you throw a dog your leftovers, you expect it to wag its tail and bark at shady-looking personalities that may venture near your premises from dusk till dawn.

This reciprocity exists in each and every aspect of human relationship. When your parents take care of you, they expect you to take care of them in their twilight years when the more muscular parts of their anatomy don't respond to instructions from the brain as readily as they used to. When your friend borrows your blouse, you'd hardly expect her to throw a tantrum when you inexplicably try to squeeze your substantial behind into that mini of hers you've always had your eyes on.

With relationships, reciprocity is even more pronounced. How many times have you ever heard the statement "After all I've done for him..." spoken by some damsel in distress after a breakup? Or the guy who believes that his Porsche, six figure paycheck and above average looks should get him the best female-world has to offer? It's all about reciprocity, and it is all natural thanks to the historical process of socialization to its values that humanity has been subjected to since the day Esau made a deal with Jacob over a bowl of bean soup.

However, the essence of reciprocity that most women are only too eager to miss by a solar system that includes Pluto is that this reciprocity ought to be balanced. Balanced reciprocity means, to use an economic perspective, expectation an equitable return for input in a venture. [Note: I said Equitable. NOT Equal.] So when I show the lady in my life some serious TLC, it is because I appreciate something that she has actually done for me, and I do it because I actually want to.

In the good old days of chivalry when moving mountains and crossing seas for love was not the product of soppy RnB howls and gutter Mills& Boon paperbacks but real honest-to-God actual stuff, men were ready to kill for a lady's handkerchief because they believed it was a worthy cause. This was because the ladies reciprocated by acting their station and never trying to usurp the natural order of things. They never demanded, but expected men to be chivalrous because they in turn didn't wait to be reminded to acted like ladies as men expected them to. Balanced reciprocity and everyone's happy.

But now ladies claim that we are all equal, [equal. Not equitable,] demanding for a place on top of the heirearchy, and yet still expect us to behave like we did when they had their rightful place a few notches down! Honestly, what else have they been smoking apart from good old Marijuana?

If you want me to be chivalrous and romantic, make me want to be chivalrous and romantic. And the best way of accomplishing this is by acting all vulnerable and in-need-of-protection. You see, nothing tugs at a guy's heartstrings more than the feeling of being in charge. The women of old knew this, and that's why men were willing to pander to their every whim.

So women, stop being aggressive and running after what you want like the little dog. Stop demanding equality. Likw the big dog, walk away and act nonchalant. The result, I promise you, will be beyond your wildest dreams.

Of women and touts.

2010-03-18T07:58:00.000-07:00

You know she likes them lights at night on the neon Broadway signs.

She don't really mind; it's only love she hoped to find...

That above line should be familiar to all Generation X dudes who grew up with me during the Reagan era and the first Bush error of global politics. It is from one of my favorite hits by Bon Jovi, 'Runaway', and the reason I have used it here is because it aptly captures a malady peculiar to females: The Bad Boy syndrome.

No, I am not talking about an incomprehensible addiction to noise produced, directed, sung or otherwise concocted from a record label owned by Puffy or Piddy or Duddley or whatever it is that idiot calls himself nowadays. Rather, I am referring to that affliction in females whose symptoms include, among other disorders, adeptness at dismissing issues that matter in favor of mediocrity, propensity to frivolity and, most of all, attraction to form rather than substance.

As proof of this, for example, lot of women, it has been established, just can't get enough of reprobates that make a living from stuffing living human beings into contraptions whose sole purpose of existence seems to be cramming as much noise as possible into the smallest space imaginable and then going on to cram even more people into whatever little space the noise has left. Women really think that a guy who earns his daily bread [or in this case, his daily Mbachu, Bale, Ngale and other unhealthy substances] from telling people who know where they are going where they are going is actually cool, and they believe that the degenerate act of swinging precariously from the door of a Matatu is the most macho thing since Schwarzenegger's role in 'Commando.'

Some things you look at and wish you could grab the silly girl who believes this nonsense and thoroughly thrash some sense into her head, especially if this female happens to be your daughter, sister or equally close relation. But feminism seems to be the official ideology in the halls of justice nowadays and such a physical explanation might get you sued faster than one Arunga's psychological meltdown, so you are left to simply shake your head in frustration and watch the madness.

And this syndrome, believe it or not, has a biological explanation.

If my memory serves me right, I remember Mr. Samson Silenje once talking about something to do with Binomial Nomenclature in one of the very few Biology classes I managed to attend back in high school. This, according to him, is the system of naming that gives every living thing a botanical name, for example Feminista degenerata [for feminists] or Idiota cabineta [for Grand coalition governments] and it is based on seven categories.

You will have to forgive me, it's been quite some time since I last opened a Biology textbook, so my memory is a bit rusty and I can't remember all the seven categories. [Plus I really wasn't that good in Biology...actually, I was quite bad...OK. I sucked in biology. Happy?] I however remember the first category in this taxonomy [There! I did remember a biological term!] was Kingdom, and that human beings belong to Kingdom Animalia. For those of you with extra inches of skull, that means we are actually animals.

Now, animals depend mainly on instinct for survival, and man is no exception. Most of our very basic behavioural norms are purely instinctive, as are the most fundamental decisions we make, and we normally refer to it as 'gut feeling' or 'sixth sense.' But What separates man from the rest of the creatures in Kingdom Animalia, however, is support for this instinct by the ability to reason. Our reaction to stimuli is at first instinctive, but the actual action we take more often than not is guided by reason. So we see the pouty, kissable lips or the smooth, loooong legs and are filled with lust,[instinct] but we don't commit our hearts until we are sure about what we are getting ourselves into.[reason.]

My reference to man in the preceding two paragraphs was in the masculine sense of the world, since this quality unfortunately seems to be lacking in most women. For them, it is almost as if they are all instinct and zero reason, which results in an incredibly poor sense of judgement and the natural affinity to bad decisions that comes with it. They always go for the outer trappings rather than the inner substance which really matters. If it is posh and exciting, let's go for it and worry about whether or not it is sustainable in the long run later. Classic signs of the bad boy syndrome.

An attraction to touts is simply the tip of the ice-berg. Fizzle Dogg, Sugar Daddies, fake Rastafarians, shady preachers, wannabe gangsters and anyone with a fake American accent are among a myraid of other suitors who also stand a good chance of scoring with these impressionable, less mentally developed members of our society.

Promises

2010-03-15T01:31:00.000-07:00

When this lady I'm acquainted with declared that men have a problem with keeping promises, my first reaction was "And what the hell is the problem with that?" If I give you a promise, it is yours, as in for you. What business then do I have keeping something I have made for you? But that didn't wash with her, so I set off for the KNLS library at Community to come up with something that would hopefully be more in line with her perspective but still convince her of the fallacy of her assertion.

I was unable to get hold of an Oxford dictionary that I would have preffered for my purposes, and so I had to make do with a very huge publication of a dictionary I found in there to look up the word 'Promise.' [By the way on a somewhat unrelated issue, I noticed that 80% of the readers in the library at that time were men. Still wondering how it was that the first girl in this year's KCSE rankings was at position 11?]

Anyway, the publication defined a promise as "A declaration or assurance, expressed of one's free will, that one will guarantee or refrain from guaranteeing the happening of a specified act." It also went on to add that "This gives the person to whom it is given an implied right to expect or claim the performance or forbearance of that act."

So there we have it. A most comprehensive definition, if there ever was one, to help us mount an effective defense against the charge this lady, and later Eve, have leveled against us about our presumed incapability to keep promises.

First of all, a promise is a declaration or an assurance. But in many cases, the promises ladies accuse us of failing to keep aren't even declarations or assurances in the first place! Women are experts at taking miles whenever you mention a centimeter, so a smile in her direction and she is all a-yakking with 'the girls' about how you promised to call her for a date, or a passing comment about how warm Mombasa is in August and she takes it that you have promised her a holiday at Whitesands. My dear ladies, the defining feature of a declaration is actual expression, not vague implication!

And speaking of expression, the definition asserts that it should be of one's free will. So if I finally agree to get you that atrociously expensive microwave we saw last year at KitchenPoint in order to put a stop to your constant nagging, that is not free will, and therefore it is not a promise. If you know about my almost religious adoration for Wayne Rooney but somehow manage to have me agreeing to spending 'Quality Time' with you on weekend afternoons even when Manchester United is playing, free will doesn't feature anywhere there and it is therefore definitely not a promise!

The definition also allows for the implied right by the recipient to expect or claim the performance or forbearance of that act, which is where the ladies have us by the neckties. But Great expectations, like the great Ethiopian philosopher and writer Hama Tuma once said, make frustrated men. [or, in this case, women.] My dear ladies, once again I stress, this right is implied. Constitutions the world over grasped something you always seem to have a problem understanding: That the space between the making of a promise and it's actual execution is subject to factors that lie outside the control of the promise-maker, and this is the very reason why legal obligation is seldom placed on the execution of promises!

However, the main reason men are reluctant to keep promises is because women have this despicable, horrible habit of using their promises against them. The major example of this is where women use pregnancy to trap men they have their hooks trained on into unwanted marriages or child support for children who may not even be theirs!

And it is not as if the ladies themselves are altogether prudent about the promises they make. As a matter of fact, ladies on average fail to keep promises more than men, and the only reason we never notice is because of how vocal they are about the promises we break, which deflects our attention from their own inadequacies in the department of promise-keeping.

But all in all, promises do not have to precisely fit within the confines of our definition. What matters is the spirit of the promise, i.e what the maker of the promise intended when he made it. But that said, it is very few men that would deliberately break a promise. For a man, pride is everything, and the mark of a man's pride is how consistent he is in keeping his word.

Miss Mboch

2010-03-11T22:55:00.000-08:00

First of all, I'd like to make one thing clear. Cheating is bad, and if you feel you need to have sex with more than one person, then you should either not have a romantic attachment to both of them, or you should be married to both of them.

That said, let me now begin by apologizing for one apology I'm never going to make: I'll never ever apologize for behaving like a man and holding the attitudes, values and perspectives of a man, for the simple reason that I am a man. But then again, I highly doubt I'd change my behavior, attitudes, values and perspectives even if I had the power to do so, and any female that has a problem with that can go take a running jump.

So being the man that I am and conforming to the dynamics of Society and Biology, I have a pretty clear idea about what I'd expect from a marital relationship. Society tuned me to demand respect, deference, commitment and responsibility from my spouse and in return, I was supposed to reciprocate by availing to her corresponding amounts of the same. Biology on its part put in me the desire and expectation for good, fulfilling and regular sex.

Should these two dynamics strike a balance in a marital union, harmony reigns and a stable relationship is virtually guaranteed. We succeed in building a solid, functional entity that gives both of us a sense of fulfillment and a desire to protect and maintain such a precious gem.

But thanks to W omen's Lib, Affirmative Action, Gender Balance and other equally disastrous concepts of the feminist catastrophe`, this balance is in society is facing a kind of threat it has never encountered before. Women are now demanding equality in the distribution of duties instead of stressing equitability where responsibility is appropriated basing on ability. They forget that all the responsibilities they had before, all the activities relations and interplays within the home that they have been involved in since time immemorial, are vital bonds that hold the basic unit if society, ie the family, together.

Instead, they develop this strange notion that a fat payslip at the end of the month would compensate their forbearance of these very necessary responsibilities and even grant them a few extra liberties, such as the re-arrangement of the power structure of society with them at the top. They choose to spend all their time strategizing on how to consolidate their new-found position and delegate more and more of their household duties to house-helps.

And this creates a problem. Two problems, as a matter of fact. One, instead of a marital union being a strong, vibrant arrangement that is mutually beneficial and an object of pride, it instead becomes an unstable, non-functioning entity that is more disgusting than alluring. And two, the needs that the marital union was supposed to fulfill in the first place don't simply disappear. They are still there, and they still need to be fulfilled.

I still need to experience the respect, commitment and deference from the person I love, even if only for my ego's sake, but now that I'm seeing less and less of my spouse, I begin to associate my well-cooked and timely-served food, well-kept house, neat, well-pressed clothes and good-mannered children more and more with my house-help than my wife, and along with it goes the gratitude for these small pleasures of life that really matter.

And I still need sex. Good, fulfilling and regular sex. But I can hardly count on my wife to be in the mood nowadays because her activities are taking a heavy to on her, and worse still, she starts to have sex only to indulge me. Now, let me tell you, no man except a very desperate one, appreciates sympathy sex. Sex should be both mutual and consensual, I will doubtless start feeling short-changed and cast my attentions elsewhere. One guess whom I'd likely go for!

Women make the mistake of viewing house-helps as lesser human beings, working machines who come in, work, get paid and leave. They forget that these are actually flesh-and-bone humans with feelings, desires and ambitions. So instead of CSWs who are dangerous, illegal and could go through my reputation like a tornado through a shack, or female workmates who carry more baggage than a Cucu at Karatina and are, if anything, more strung up than my wife, it's only natural that I'd be drawn to the timid, bashful and reserved house-help like a sailor to a siren.

In conclusion,I reiterate. My personal views towards cheats aren't exactly charitable. But just because something is bad doesn't mean its justifications should be dismissed offhand. And until women learn to take their marriages seriously, then they shouldn't keep asking why men stray.

Parenting

2010-03-08T03:41:00.000-08:00

One morning, Mr. Holloway, a teacher at Brooksfield High, caught two boys, Scott Miller and Owusu Abezuka, smoking pot in the boys' restroom. He sent them to the principal, who immediately called the boys' parents and notified them of their sons' transgressions before sending the boys home.

***************

Scott's father, Herman Miller, was a wealthy Wall Street stockbroker. He was stunned when he received the principal's call, and he promptly called his wife, a counselor at a nearby hospital, to tell her the disappointing news. They agreed to speak to Scott about his behavior as soon as they got home that evening.

During dinner, they gently broached the subject with their son, asking him when, how and why he had started smoking Marijuana. They listened earnestly as Scott revealed he had been smoking for about a month, he had started doing so after he and his friend Owusu had been persuaded to by some cool-looking seniors, and that he actually liked the fix smoking the drug gave him.

Scott's revelations shocked his parents, and after a lengthy lecture on the ills of smoking Marijuana, they made him promise he would try to kick the habit before sending him to bed. Then when they themselves retired to bed, they had a long discussion on the matter before finally agreeing to pay more attention to their son.

***************

Owusu's father, Yunnus Abezuka, was an immigrant from Cameroon. He owned a small hotel which specialized in Cameroonian cuisine, and he was busy pounding yam for the lunch-time rush when the call from the principal informing him of his son's Marijuana use came through.

Immediately, he called his wife, who had just finished making the Egusi soup, and asked her to finish pounding the yams as he had some important business to take care of. Then taking off his apron, he quickly mounted his bike and pedaled furiously home, arriving just as Owusu timidly walked in.

"Young man, why aren't you at school?" He shouted.

"The principal asked me and another boy to go home and bring our parents." Owusu replied in a tiny voice.

"Why? Has the school introduced compulsory classes for parents?"

"No, father. Me and the other boy were smoking..."

One second he was having problems explaining himself to his father, the next second he was having problems clearing the several billion stars that his father's thunderclap of a slap had produced inside his head.

"I send you to school to fill your head with lessons your teachers and your books give you inside the classroom, not with queer substances your friends give you inside the toilet. Do you understand?" Mr. Abezuka thundered.

"Yes sir!" Owusu sobbed.

"Stop crying like a woman!" Mr. Abezuka roared and Owusu instantly stopped sniffling. "Now listen very carefully. You will never, ever from now onwards touch anything that even vaguely resembles Marijuana. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes sir!"

"Good. Now run along and help your mother with the lunch time crowd before I bash your pot-smoking mouth in!"

***************

The next day, Mrs.Miller, Mr.Abezuka, Scott and Owusu met with the principal at his officce. The boys apologized for their behavior and after assurances from the parents that they would be closely monitored, the principal doled out appropriate punishment rotas and everyone was dismissed.

Mr.and Mrs.Miller paid more attention to their son after the incident, and when he succumbed to pot smoking a few months later, they took him to rehab until he kicked the habit. He still smokes from time to time, but not in harmful quantities.

In the Abezuka household, the incident was never mentioned again. Nobody needed to, for Owusu never touched Marijuana again.

Miss Independent.

2010-03-06T06:27:00.000-08:00

Faults with women sometimes tends to jump out at me so readily, it would actually be boring if it weren't so frustrating. All I have to do at times is randomly pick out any woman and observe her, and in five seconds flat I'm guaranteed to have spotted a quirk or two that puts a slip of sandpaper on my nerve endings.

Recently, a nephew of mine was celebrating his Birthday, and I took him out for a treat at a nearby restaurant. There, we ran into a lady friend of mine I haven't seen in ages and naturally, we started to catch upon each other's lives, kids, spouses and all. I happen to share a couple of family features with my nephew and so she assumed that he was my son, an assumption I made no attempt to correct.

But when I asked her about herself and whether she had already started her family, Her response might have come straight from a basic feminist operational handbook. No, she told me, she did not have a hubby or kids because she was an 'Independent' career woman with her own car, fully mortgaged house and loads of cash in the bank. She didn't see the need to curtail her independence with some demanding hubby or a squealing toddler and besides, men according to her share several characteristics with that creature which has devout Moslems contemplating murder.

Instantly, whatever pleasantness that might have come from bumping into her evaporated and I wished I had resisted my nephew's heart warming pleas to take him out that morning. With the alacrity of a late intern, I hastily mumbled something about the lateness of the hour and said goodbye, hoping never to see her again in this lifetime.

Could somebody please tell me what exactly is the naturally occurring hallucinogen in women that makes them associate financial stability with a right to bash men, all in the name of being 'independent'? If you get around enough, you must have come across the type. Those who just because their presence anywhere is announced by the hoot of a Prado, expect society to always hold them in awe and deference; those ones who believe they are the most independent thing since December 12th just because the figures in their bank balances are followed by more zeroes than I ever accumulated in mathematics tests back in high school.

But then again, what else would you expect from minds at such an elementary stage of evolution?

Independence, as far as I know, is the ability and appreciation of the ability to do things for oneself, borne out of freedom from control by another entity. Now, basing on this definition, do we really have anything like a truly 'Independent' woman?

Indeed, there are very many women who wouldn't mind doing things for themselves. But nevertheless, I am extremely confident in my assertion that more often than not, women would much rather we did things for them. Have you ever noticed that despite their bleats about being subjugated, it is always the authoritative, assertive alpha males that women are always falling over for? Shout all you like, but deep inside every woman revels in being dominated by a figure of authority, financial stability notwithstanding.

This independence is borne out of freedom of control by another entity. On this count, how well do our ladies fare? For a man, financial stability is indeed a source of a considerable amount of pride, but a man mostly seeks wealth so that he can be comfortable. Power, respect and authority may be the more manifest goals, but ultimately, a man wants his money to work for him. But for women, wealth is a means to prove that they too can be like men. It is their way of getting back to a male-dominated society that they feel is to pay for their bitterness from life's frustrations.

In this case, the 'independence' they so much brag about is not independence in the truest sense of the word since it is controlled by another entity: a drive to prove themselves. They can get what they want, yes, but mostly what they crave for is acknowledgment of their capabilities, and they would be prepared to give up anything if such acknowledgment were to be obtained. To this end, it means this 'independence' is simply a figment of their imagination; they are still shackled by a need to be acknowledged by, ironically, men.

So a piece of advice, my dear ladies, from a quote by the great Lebanese poet and philosopher, Kahlil Gibran. "Doing what you like is freedom. Liking what you do is happiness. If you want true independence, remove male bashing from the equation and do something because you actually like doing it. That way, your independence is pure, and anything else such as financial stability is simply a bonus.

Lunchtime

2010-03-04T10:52:00.000-08:00

It's a few minutes past One, and I'm seated on a plank of wood suspended between two other wooden stumps embedded to the ground inside a long tin-walled shack. The location is along Lunga Lunga road in Industrial area, and judging by the frantic pace at which the waiters are rushing, these people are hungry

"Teargas!" The waiter who has just taken my order suddenly shouts, and I have to physically restrain myself from racing for the door and clearing the place as fast as I can. This is, after all, one of the seedier parts of town where riots are not altogether uncommon.

But I need not worry for my safety. The purpose of the waiter's blood-curdling yell, it turns out, is not to warn the assembly of eaters in the food kiosk of the presence of riot-busting fumes. Rather, he simply wishes to inform the harried-looking waitress behind the small kitchen window to include some pepper in the Karanga I have just ordered.

Welcome to the world of low-end dining.

Beware: Tenacious Bitches.

2010-03-01T03:14:00.000-08:00

We men have always prided ourselves as the hunters in the dating and relationship wilderness, with the women as our prey. But very quietly, the tables are being turned, and the women are now the hunters. And this is happening so subtly, most men don't even notice it and probably never will.

So you feel like bragging to your pals about how you had that lass at the party eating out of your hand only hours after you two met? Hold up, man! Chances are she actually saw you first, decided she liked you, found a way of getting your attention, [which probably wasn't too hard,] and then sat back and pretended submission to your charms.

Simply put, the man does the courting, but it is the woman that chooses the man who will do the courting. Sorry guys, but that is the new reality in the dating field.

However, now that we have ourselves a fundamental circumstance of life where women are for once actually on the driving seat, something just has to go wrong somewhere. That is as inevitable as another trophy-less season at Ainfield. And the problem in this circumstance is tenacity.

There are women out there, (and their numbers are quite disturbing,) who quite simply won't get the hint that a guy is not that into them. Even when you make it plain as day that instead of dating them you would rather find more interesting things to do with your time such as root canal surgery or supporting Liverpool F.C , they simply refuse to get it.

And the saddest bit is, there isn't anything men can do about it. It is said that men can't live with women and at the same time can't live without them, but on the other hand, women simply can't live without us, period. So since we are a basic female need, the female hunter aggression is something we as men need to learn how to live with because there is no alternative.

But women also need to understand that some prey just can't be had. If a man is not into you, I swear it will be much easier to compute the microphysical dynamics of thermal disambiguation in a cubic decimeter of condensed compounds from Neptune's ionosphere (without a calculator) than to get him interested in you.

To help you know when this is the case, dear sisters, I will now give you three main ways of knowing that pictures of romantic bliss don't pop into a guy's head when he thinks of you.

One, a guy that's not into you will spend as little time with you as possible, despite there being plenty of time and close enough proximity between the two of you. So if you live in plot 917 Umoja 2 and he lives in plot 918 Umoja 2, yet he spends as much time with you as a trophy in the general location of Liverpool, then it is time, like Jesus would say, to cast your nets elsewhere.

A man who is not into you will also not exhibit any signs of jealousy when there is evidence of another man in the picture. Men are naturally very competitive, and more so when striving for a woman's affections. He will get very jealous if he even suspects someone else might be on your speed dial, so if you detect no such apprehension from your prey when he sees you in the company of Biko Adema's cute twin, then sorry sis. Wrong number.

And then there is the fallacy that men always forget important dates, and the truth behind it carries the potential for any woman to know whether or not a man really likes her as much as she hopes he does. Indeed, we do pay scant attention to birthdays and anniversaries, but that is because we don't think they are as important as the things we prioritize.

However, if a girl means that much to me, I will do my best to remember the most minute details about her. The reverse, as you can imagine, is also very true. So if your birthday is on Christmas day but he still forgets despite the fact that your name is Christmastine, then allow me and all of us at ITHSU? this opportunity to offer you and your chances with him our sincerest apologies.

But all these hints and signs are nothing compared to straight up honesty. Thus if you really want to know whether or not a guy is into you, the best thing to do is to go straight up to him and express yourself. Trust me, no guy that is into a girl will even dare to think about not giving you a straight answer, so forget your fear and go for it. After all, In this age of Women's Lib, such things no longer shock us and you will not be considered a brazen lass.

For me, it's personal.

2010-02-26T07:18:00.000-08:00

In the 2008 movie 'Taken', Liam Neeson plays Bryan Mills, a retired CIA operative whose daughter gets kidnapped by a gang of Albanian human traffickers while holidaying in Europe. That of course turns out to be a seriously misguided move by the kidnappers, for a crazed Mills is soon on their trail and by the time he is done with them, they have to learn how to operate a human trafficking ring from the confines of hell.

The 93-minute thriller is as action-packed as they come, and I'd heartily recommend it to any thriller-movie buff. However, this post isn't intended to be a movie review. I simply mentioned 'Taken' because one line from the movie forms the gist of what I'd like to talk about.

When Mills finally has Patrice St.Clair, the leader of the trafficking ring, at gunpoint and in his mercy, St.Clair pleads for his life, asking Mills to reconsider because there was nothing personal in what he did, only business. Mills is however not in a very considerate move, and tells St.Clair "For me, it is entirely personal." before fatally shooting him in the chest. At this point, President Mwai Kibaki drowsily totters into the picture.

No, the Head of State does not have a cameo role in the movie. In fact, I'm certain that together with getting on the wrong side of Mama Lucy's temper, the last thing Emilio would ever consider in this lifetime would be a Hollywood career. It's just that he picture I'm talking about is my subject today, that is the personalization of the war against corruption, and President Kibaki happens to be an integral part of it.

On Monday, the president officially opened the fourth session of independent Kenya's tenth parliament. This came hot in the heels of a week of high political drama, in which Prime Minister Raila Odinga had succeeded in casting the president's commitment to fighting corruption into serious doubt. Evidently irked by this, the president used his parliament opening speech to warn the public in general and Raila in particular against 'politicizing and personalizing' the war against corruption.

We will discuss politicization later. For now, let us dwell on personalization.

One day last year, i made my way to the local supermarket to buy a packet of maize flour for my family's dinner. But to my surprise, the maize flour counter was emptier than a combination of Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester City's trophy cabinets, and this forced me to revert to the neighborhood kiosks where the price of the commodity is significantly higher.

However, the neighbourhood kiosks were also out of maize flour, and it was not until I crossed to the next neighbourhood that I found a shop with flour in stock, retailing a 2kg packet at a whooping Ksh.150. I did not have the extra Ksh. 50 and the kiosk had a big sign which said 'If you want credit, come tomorrow with your great-grandmother' over the counter. Thus that night, my family went to bed hungry.

For almost two months, my family went through hell as the country grappled with acute maize shortage. Later, I learnt that this was because high-placed personalities in the Ministry of Agriculture had colluded to fraudulently export maize from the country's strategic reserves, in what later came to be known as the Maize scandal.

So in a nutshell, I personally paid my taxes, which I'd like to think was used to pay farmers for their maize. But thanks to corruption, this maize was illegally sold abroad, and I was therefore forced to personally walk long distances and pay exorbitant fees for flour, and that was when I was lucky enough to get it. When I was unlucky, which was often, I personally had to go to bed hungry, and even more galling, witness my own family, including very young children, go to bed hungry. And someone then has the audacity to suggest that I don't personalize the war against the graft which forced me to personally go through all that?

Sorry, Mr. President. But for me, to quote Liam Neeson, it is entirely personal.

Esther, F.O.G, Hell On Raila

2010-02-21T01:20:00.000-08:00

Prime Minister Raila Amolo Odinga must be seething with rage. The skin around the scar on his left temple must be stretched almost to breaking point. Because on a week that he in all fairness should have hogged all the headlines, a Jazz saxophonist and a former TV personality somehow connived to rob him of the spotlight.

Kenyans are an extremely sadistic lot. It is almost in our psychological make-up revel in scandal, and when the Prime Minister chose Valentines' day to announce that his romantic relationship with the President was headed for the rocks, he was giving us exactly what we wanted and surely must have counted on nothing less than our complete and undivided attention.

But unfortunately for him, it was round about this time that whispers of a very shady relationship between human-thesaurus-cum-jazz-saxophonist [and-apparently-also-preacher] Joseph Hellon and stunning media personality Esther Arunga left the grapevines for the headlines, and as far as sensational goes, the Premier's marital war chants might as well have been the bleating of a lost mountain goat somewhere in Bondo. We iced him out of our attention so fast, Usain Bolt would have screamed with envy.

Which was quite ironic, considering that while the PM was evidently playing for the headlines, the last thing Hellon and [especially] Esther would have wanted was to be a topic of nationwide discussion. So while the PM's lieutenants kept giving interview after interview to the press in a bid to keep him in the limelight, Esther and Hellon called a press conference and told all and sundry to keep the hell out of their private lives.

And this begs the question; should we stay the hell out of these two good people's private lives?

In my opinion, I think we shouldn't stay the hell out of their private lives. In fact, I believe we should hound them to the very gates of hell if that will keep them on the straight and narrow.

From my perspective, Esther gave up her right to enjoy the privacy of any nondescript citizen the moment she picked up a news script and allowed her lascivious figure to be beamed into our living rooms. The same goes for Hellon, who ceased to be a private citizen and became a public figure from the very first time he sat down in front of a paying public and played his saxophone.

As public figures, a lot is expected of our celebrities. These are the people our children would like to emulate when they grow up, and not scrutinizing what they get up to when the cameras are not on them is tantamount to criminal negligence. We let Tiger Woods have his privacy, and seventeen marital infidelities later, we now know what a horribly bad idea that was.

Esther won a CHAT [Chaguo la Teeniez] award a couple of years ago, which means a large number of young people think she is cool. Hellon's classy demeanor and mastery of the English language during his stint as a teacher of TPF3 left a lot of young people mesmerized and won him a host of fans . Therefore, it isn't beyond the scope of anyone's imagination to assume that these two people's theatrics, be it the distance between their respective beds when they sleep at night or the bizarre aspects of their spirituality, is likely to influence a lot of young people who look up to them and may want to copy them.

The Finger Of God church, which Hellon apparently heads, may or may not be a cult. However, we have the right to ask questions, and not only for the sake of our impressionable younger generation. We also have the right to ask questions because you don't just pluck a TV anchor that half of the male TV-watching population of Kenya would like to sleep with from our TV screens and expect us not to ask questions. And when you convince the said TV anchor to dump her fiancee and distances herself from her family in the process, we will not hesitate to ask even more questions, such as what kind of psychological hold you really have on her.

You gotta love them, our politicians!

2010-02-17T06:14:00.000-08:00

A few months ago, some very enterprising Mheshimiwa sold our entire maize stock to his relatives in Southern Sudan, forgetting that in its milled form, Maize is Kenya's national staple. Due to this, the supply of maize in the country was quickly outstripped by demand, and as is wont to happen in such circumstances, the price of maizemeal was soon scaling heights that even Yelena Isinbanyeva would have needed steroids to clear.

A hungry nation is an angry nation, and having just recently come out of butchering each other simply because we were angry we did not have a Prime Minister, it was clear that playing with our food was the quickest way to a violent revolution since Marie Antoinette said "Let them eat cake." Governments hate revolutions, and ours quickly moved to remedy the situation by importing maize from outside.

For a while, everything was OK, until PriceWaterhouseCoopers did an audit of the excercise and discovered that true Kenyan style, a few billion shillings had somehow managed to affix itself to the real price of the maize that had been imported. Quite a few prominent names were mentioned and suddenly, Kenyans were very interested. Corrupt government officials were about to be exposed!

Our euphoria, however, was to be short-lived because in a master-stroke to end all master-strokes, the implicated Waheshimiwa pulled a fast one of us.

You see, just like Maize is Kenya's de-facto national staple, politics happens to be Kenya's de-facto national pastime. We can never get enough of politics, and being aware of this, the implicated Waheshimiwa knew that the surest way to deflect our attention from matters pertaining to the shady importation of maize was to give us something political to talk about instead. So out of absolutely nowhere, they manufactured a political crisis.

First, the Prime Minister called a press conference and fired ministers he had no authority to fire. Stunned, we were still taking it all in when a statement from the President's office clarified the obvious. We still hadn't understood what the hell all that was about when the Prime Minister screamed blue murder and declared a dispute between him and the President. While we were still getting our heads around the realization that kumbe disputes have to be declared before they are actually disputes when the Prime Minister went two better and called Annan while pulling his troops out of Cabinet, or rather, Cabinet meetings. [The two are mutually exclusive, apparently.]

Then having turned us completely on our heads, the Prime Minister packed his bags and left for the Far East to tell the Japanese what a politically stable and corruption-free investment destination Kenya is.

Behind him, he left a thoroughly punch-drunk and confused nation wondering what the hell had just happened. All the talk was now on the provisions of the National Accord, whether the PM has the right to suspend ministers and what exactly a 50-50 power-sharing deal was all about.

Any talk of maize, of course, was now completely forgotten.

Three little words.

2010-02-13T05:05:00.000-08:00

In 1996, Prince Charles famously gave up his royal reputation, public affection and the most stunning female since Marilyn Monroe- all for the love of a woman.

But that, cataclysmic as it was, doesn't even hold a candle to his great uncle. sixty years earlier, King Edward VIII went on air to tell the British people that if a mere throne stood between him and the woman he loved, then they could take this exalted piece of furniture and shove it up their prudish behinds.

Hard as it may be to believe, these two royal idiots aren't exactly in isolated company. Men have been known throughout history to do some pretty absurd and even desperate things to prove their amorous inclination to the objects of their affection.

But in a paradox of sorts, you will find it much easier to coax some semblance of scruple out of a Kenyan politician than you will trying to get a man to utter those three little words that are the true spirit of Valentine. A man will readily show you that he has feelings for you in about a thousand ways, but if you are waiting for him to say it out loud, then stock on the food and the blankets. You have a long wait ahead of you.

There are two main reasons behind this strange mix of circumstances. The first one is chauvnism, plain and simple. No man deserving of the male title will ever give up his authority and accept to be subordinated in a relationship. In a manner of speaking, we prefer to hold all our cards in a relationship game, and an audible expression of affection to the female is tantamount to ceding part of you to her authority and therefore out of the question.

Basically, what this means is that the heart in a man can completely surrender to a woman, but the man in the heart will never allow him to say it out loud.

The second reason is psychological.Each one of us is unique. We all have an inner being which defines the way we think and the way we behave, which builds our characters and subsequently determines our destiny. Now this part which which defines us, is something we take very seriously. Things which profoundly affect it are the kind we don't go about voicing to every tom Dick and Harry.

And they don't come more profound than love, so we will find it very hard to voice it out loud. A man will find it really easy to say those words when he doesn't mean it,or when he is voicing it in the platonic sense, because then he won't be giving up a part of himself.

But when it comes to the real thing, I'm afraid these two situations make it, forgive the pun, a little easier done than said

Tennis and gender rights.

2010-02-03T07:29:00.000-08:00

I find tennis a really fascinating sport. But I'm also acquainted with the logical import behind that saying about one person's culinary delight causing another person numerous painful trips to the restroom, so for the benefit of that section of the public which finds tennis as interesting as your local councilor’s life history, I won't talk about match sets, double faults, deuces and hawk eye technology.

However, there is something about the Masters that leaves me heartily displeased, and I would like to voice this displeasure. And my point of origin shall be the just concluded Australian Open, which had two obviosities;

[OK. According to MS spell-check, the word 'obviosities' doesn't exist. But since I was never under any obligation whatsoever to use words that actually exist to express myself, you can go ahead and sue me if you so wish. Otherwise, let's proceed.]

As I was saying, the just concluded Australian Open had two obviosities. One, Roger Federer was always going to win the men singles title. Nadal is the only competition King Fed has had in a while, but Nadal is not yet back to 100% fitness after returning from a long injury layoff, and to beat Federer, even 100% is often not enough. And two, the younger of Oracene Williams' daughters was always going to pulverize whatever opposition she would face in the ladies final.

Both Federer and Oracene's last born took home an equal US$1.5 million prize money. And obviously, I am of the opinion that this is the most disgracefully unfair thing since Prince Edward was forced to choose between his throne and his love.

In the Gospels, there is a parable about a wealthy farmer who needed labor for a huge task that needed to be done on his field. So one morning, he made his way to the market square where young jobless men always idled from dawn to dusk. "Kazi kwa vijana." He said in the local dialect, and within a few minutes, he had hired himself some laborers.

But the labor he had hired wasn't sufficient for the task he wanted done, so at noon, he walked back to the market square where more idle young men had replaced the ones he had hired. "Kazi kwa vijana." He bellowed again, and in no time flat, he had himself an extra labor force.

However, even this doubled labor effort wasn't enough to finish the job. So in the late afternoon, the farmer made a third trip to the market square and for the third time that day, unemployment figures in that locality recorded a decrease.

This time the workforce was at par with the labor demand, and by the end of the day, the work in the fields was done, after which all the young men lined up outside the farmer's house to receive their pay.

While paying them, the farmer started with the group he had hired last, and they each received an equivalent of Ksh.250/- in the local currency, which was the set daily rate for the Kazi Kwa Vijana labor initiative. Upon seeing this, the ones who had started work earlier thought they would receive more money because they had worked longer, but to their utter horror, they also got the base Ksh. 250/- equivalent.

Naturally, these men who had been hired in the morning and at noon complained, but the farmer stood his ground. They knew the KKV terms when he hired them, and regardless of how much labor they had put in, he was under no obligation whatsoever to pay them more or the others less.

There is a spiritual lesson to be gathered somewhere in this parable, and I'm sure finding this lesson and applying it in life would earn any of my readers a point or two with St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. But to be honest, spiritual considerations are quite frankly unnecessary in our present discussion, which is about fairness in the remuneration dealings at the Grand Slam tennis championships.

For starters, a vast majority of the revenue that pours into these championships is thanks more to the Nadals and the Federers than the Sharapovas and the Mauresmos. The Williams siblings are an exception, but considering the number of black players of either sex to have ever won a grand slam can be counted against two fingers of one hand, I dare anyone to challenge my assertion that their novelty is not due to their sex, but their race.

From a purely tennis perspective, it is even more grossly unfair. In all tournaments, men play more matches than women, their matches last longer because they play more sets, (Five in the Australian Open to women's three,) and generally, men's matches tend to be less lopsided because the incidence of matched talent in their pairings is always higher than in female pairings.

So with all this, does it really make sense to pay both these evidently unequal levels of effort equally? Of course it seems perfectly all right for the feminists and gender rights campaigners, but since when have such people ever offered any logical explanation to their actions and rhetoric?

Just zip it already!

2010-01-23T02:54:00.000-08:00

The memory part of the female brain is an amazing thing. It stores
birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, what Junior was wearing when he
took his first step, the correct dosage the vet prescribed for the
dog's flea bath and such type of clutter that men would rather clear
their minds of to concentrate on matters of more relevant import.

But while this isn't neccessarily a bad thing, (Memory is after all a
very integral part of any technical set-up,) trust something in the
female make-up to find ways of making it a bad thing.

And in this case, it is the nagging.

This arises from the fact that while women are indeed are good at
keeping memories, they prefer negative memories to positive ones.

Due to this, we have a situation whereby her head has more than its
reasonable share of negative vibes. Negative vibes are unhealthy, and
letting them out is the reason why psychiatry is by far the most
profitable field in the medical industry.

Unfortunately, shrinks don't come cheap, and even then, she is highly
unlikely to think she requires their services. But these negative
vibes are there and have to come out, so you end up taking the
shrink's place on the receiving end of the negative vibes.

When a man is slighted, forgiveness will come with the relative speed
of the Middle East peace process. But you can be sure that unless it
is something collossal, like say an insult on his mother's honor, he
will forget about the slight in no time flat.

Women on the other hand are wired a little differently. So were you
immensely relieved whenshe bought the tale that your lip-lock with her
best friend on her bed the other day was nothing but a case of
mouth-to-mouth resucitation? Well, don't act surprised when she brings
up the incident at your 20th college re-union party.

And that, I'm afraid, is guaranteed to be an incredibly uncomfortable
experience.

A women will remember that you broke your promise to take her to
Amboseli the previous month, but conveniently forget that you renewed
her subscription for the gym on that very day you were suppossed to
take the trip. She will belittle and berate you about the limited size
of your living quarters, but unless you bring up the fact that half
your salary has been meeting her tuition fees at the university for
the past four years, then it will pass unmentioned.

Throw in the fact that science has proved women speak about 75000
words a day to man's 15000 words, and you begin to appreciate the
quagmire that nagging is for us.

It is better to live alone on the roof, King Solomon once said, than
to share a house with a nagging woman.

This was a King whose experience with women was both prolific and
legendary, and considering that he was like only the wisest person
that ever lived, I'm guessing it isn't too much strain on the the
imagination to assume he knew what he was talking about.

And it is an opinion most men whole-heartedly agree with.

Dating your Exe's friend.

2010-01-17T04:36:00.000-08:00

For its smooth running, any organized human activity must have rules and norms which its participants are expected to conform to. And since romantic relationships between two (or more) humans fall under the definition of 'Organized Human Activity,' then they too need to have their own rules and norms.

In romantic interaction, these rules are always unwritten and often are subject to modification depending on the prevailing circumstances. But although of the most part logical consideration inspires the creation and adoption of a majority of these rules, sometimes certain norms occur which make about as much sense as Arsene Wenger's transfer policy.

And a good example of such a norm is the incredibly absurd 'Thou shalt not date thy exes' friend.'

When Stephan met Julia, he was convinced that his debauched bachelor existence had just entered its home stretch. She was stunning, cultured and fun to be around, qualities which although independently common in most of the women he had dated, had never manifested themselves to him together in the same woman.

The situation however wasn't exactly straightforward. For a girl of her caliber, Julia unfortunately had other suitors apart from Stephané, and like any female between the ages of 18 and 28, she was as yet unversed in the intricacies of making up her mind.

Obviously, she needed time to learn this vital art and apply it, so in the meantime, she engaged the help of her childhood friend and roommate Sally to keep Stephan deceived whenever she was checking out another suitor. Sally's brief when such discretions took place was to engage Stephani in conversation and defer his attention until Julia got back from her escapades, or whenever it became apparent that Julia wouldn't be able to make it back, lie her behind off until Stephan was convinced.

But although he couldn't precisely boast headache-inducing IQ, Stephan had nevertheless been somewhere near the front row when brains were being handed out, and thus it didn't take him long to figure out that his chances of walking Julia up the aisle in this lifetime were just a few notches below non-existent. So being a pragmatic man, he decided to cut his losses and cast his eyes further afield in his quest for the bone of his rib.

Only he didn't have to cast them that much farther afield. During the course of his interaction with Sally while Julia was out playing him, Stephan had come to like Sally very, very much, while Sally, who wasn't seeing anyone at the time, had all along disliked the way her friend was dogging this earnest, sincere man whom any girl in her right mind would fall hopelessly head over heels for...like she herself had.

Thus it came to pass that almost two years later; Stephan crossed the finishing line of bachelorhood with Sally in his arms. And as would be expected because of the 'Thou shalt not date thy exes' friend' rule, Julia never attended her erstwhile bosom friend's wedding because she felt Sally had committed the unforgivable sin of snatching her man.

Emotions are instinctive, and everybody knows that instinct cannot be controlled. So although it wouldn't be right for a person like Julia to feel aggrieved when her friend claims what she considers rightfully hers, it is perfectly understandable that she would feel aggrieved when it happens. However, going on to deliberately make that into an unwritten rule that criminalizes what was in fact a natural, logical progression of events under the circumstances would in my opinion be stretching the limits of reason to frankly unacceptable extremes.

Why should real love and genuine foundation for a lifelong relationship be stillborn because a person's soul mate was once in a relationship with the said soul mate's friend? That is of course both unfair and unreasonable, but among women, a former flame is permanently sealed and off limits to any of her friends for life, and breaching that seal is considered the ultimate betrayal.

It must be said, men aren't immune to such ravages of jealousy when such instances arise, but at least we make allowances for exceptional circumstances. With men, exes are basically off limits to friends, but when a friend is truly into your ex, he is expected to ask your permission to date her. You, in turn, must grant him this permission.

An unconventional rule, yes, and even a little unreasonable. But let's face it. It is much better than the blanket ban on opportunity that women have with their 'Thou shalt not date thy friend's ex' rule, and one they would do well to adopt.

Secret Admirer.

2010-01-13T00:30:00.000-08:00

Dear Ms. Gloria

My hope and prayer that you have no reason to be thankful for the existence of health institutions. My prayer too that your spirits reside at hights that Yelena Isinbanyeva would need steroids to clear.

I sincerely apologise for this intrusion and any inconvennience it might cause, but I find myself in an unfortunate situation that only you can remedy. And that, Ms. Gloria, is not an exeggerattion. You happen to be the singular person among the odd eight billion humans that populate the globe who can help me out of my predicament.

Thing is, last night I created a google e-mail [gmail] account because I needed to open a new facebook account. [And please don't ask me what I needed a new facebook account for. Trust me, you DON"T want to know.]

Anyway, did you know, Ms. Gloria, that scientists have reason to believe humans are evolved from pre-historic, pelagic life forms? Well, if there is factual validation for this assertion, then I surely must have descended from the forefathers of the modern day goldfish, because there is very compelling proof I have the memory span of one. This morning when I went to continue with the mischef that had made me create a new facebook account, I realised I had forgotten my e-mail address and therefore could not access it. My password I could remember since I'd written it down and somehow managed not to forget the slip of paper at the cybercafe, but not the e-mail address!

Which is where you fit into the scheme of things.

You see, you just happen to be the only person in the world to have ever received an e-mail from that account. Just before I logged out last night, I used it to e-mail you a very detailed account of my fascination with certain parts of your anatomy.
So in the sincere hope that it won't be a terrible inconvenience, I'm requesting that you please retrieve a message titled 'Why I think you're hot' from your inbox that was sent at between 9.00 and 9.40pm last night by one Anonymous Admirer and foward me the address to this account.

Yours sincerely
Anonymous Admirer.

Coming to America: The Million-shilling Resolution.

2010-01-10T06:33:00.000-08:00

Ten days into the new year and already, I'm halfway through breaking my New year's resolutions.

Among other things, I'd vowed to tackle my slopiness this year, but the dozens of cigarette stubs littering my bedroom floor are clear evidence of just how short-lived that resolution was, as well as of what happened to my other resolution to finally give up smoking. I'm also yet to destroy my Two Girls One Cup DVD, I'm yet to step into a Mosque this year and my ex girlfriend's digits are still on my speed dial. Clearly, I suck at this whole resolutions business.

However, all's not lost. You see, the reason my resolutions have the longevity of a Kenyan legislator's integrity in the face of material inducements is because like most people, I make resolutions not because I have a burning desire to set goals and stick to them, but because everybody I know and their grandmother seems to be making one and I don't want to be left out, but this time there is one resolution I made which I fully intend to see realised.

That resolution is to have ten thousand bucks in my account by the time Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete wins his second term as Bongo's big Kahuna or the first yellow NRM poster of Kagu wearing that ridiculous hat hits the streets of Kampala, whichever comes first.

By buck, I'm obviously not talking wildlife, and neither am I interested in ten thousand actions aimed at upheaval in the general order of things, such as would be inferred in statements like 'bucking the trend.' By 'Buck,' I'm talking about the legal tender accepted as payment for goods and services as well as the settlement of debts in the United States of America.

The natural questions in this case would of course be, what the hell do I need ten thousand bucks for, and how the heavens am I going to make ten thousand bucks?

The answer to the first question is quite straightfoward: I don't need ten thousand bucks. All I said was I've resolved to have ten thousand bucks in my bank account by the end of the year, period. who said anything about needing it? It isn't beyond the scope of reason to want to have any amount of money in your account that you don't need now, is it?

Getting around the second question is a little trickier. My plan when I made this resolution was to wait until December and then persuade my MP to surrender to me his improved monthly pay package in the yuletide spirit. But although I can be quite persuasive when I want to, the brutal economic times coupled with the sheer capacity for meanness in our legislators means the chances of that happenning are only slightly less than the chances of the said legislators voting no when the improved pay package report is finally tabled in the house.

There is a fool proof way of making the money, though. Since the buck is American currency, it follows that the best place to make thousand of them is to go where then thousand of them can easily be made, i.e the United States Of America, so all I have to do is make my way there. In fact, I'm reliably informed that despite all that Economic Downturn nonsense, there is alot of money to be made there, and it won't even take me a year to accomplish my resolution.

Only one problem with this method. If they can ignore the fact that I'm Moslem, the American Immigration Department first of all requires that I have ten thousand bucks in my account before they issue me with a visa to travel to their land and make ten thousand bucks...

Painful lessons

2009-12-21T06:21:00.000-08:00

In Budalang'i, telling the weather isn't Binomial expansion or Logarithms or some equally complicated exercise. All you have to do is listen to the weather forecast on the radio and then stay put for the exact opposite.

So when the weatherman, courtesy of my grandfather's SQNY[It's a world receiver!] promised intermittent showers throughout the day with the possibility of a heavy downpour in the afternoon, I immediately dispatched onr of my nieces to the lake with my dirty laundry since I fully expected them to be dry by evening.

With the rest of the morning to kill, I thought about going to the lake myself for a dip and breakfast at one of the many kiosks that dot the fish-landing site where a jugful of sweet, fermented porridge goes for only ten bob, but looking around the compound, I had an idea.

Of course like virtually all stupid ideas, this one struck me like one straight from the brains of Solomon.

My grandfather keeps a bunch of huge, ungainly creatures in the homestead he insists belong to the cow species, although I doubt they are even herbivores, given their ugliness even by cow standards and the relish with which they went through the packet of Dettol I came with from Kampala. But my skeptisism about their dietary inclination notwithstanding, I nevertheless could tell they were mammals capable of giving milk fit for human consumption, and by looking at their undersides, I could even tell which was a bull and which could fit the purpose of my great idea.

The gist of my idea? Operation No More Strungi.

However, the only person I knew there with anything approaching competence in milk extraction procedures was my grandfather, and quite unfortunately, he had joined his friend John Osodo at Taddei's, joint for a 'Power Breakfast' and discussions on a wide range of sensitive topics, mostly about PNU and ODM and other equally political abbreviations.

But not to worry. After all, milking wasn't exactly Algebra now, was it? I reasoned. All I had to do was remove that silly calf that was milking its mother dry, then get down to milking its mother dry. Simple as ABC without mathematical signs.

So with that, I approached the lactating calf and after a brief struggle, managed to secure it to a nearby tree stump. Then jug in hand, I positioned myself beside the mother's left rump and bent down to do my thing.

I was about to learn that cows too are capable of cold calculation.

Upto that point, the silly animal had shown absolutely no indication it dissapproved of what I was doing. It had looked lazily at me as I dragged its calf off, it had accepted the few tufts of grass I had offered it as incentive to shower my jug with milk. For God's sake, it had even swished its tail in apparent pleasure as I approached its hindquarters and started to bend! Upto that point, no dissent. upto that point...when my crotch was in direct line with it's left hoof.

I have been hurt before. But even on the day I got caught up in a UoN riot in Town and got struck on the head by a GSU man's baton, the pain wasn't nearly as bad as the terrific surge of searing hot sensation that exploded on my balls when the hoof connected hard and squarely with my crotch and burnt through to the pit of my belly. It was so painful, I actually screamed out for my mother.

It's embarrassing enough telling you this, so I won't tell you how the children around howled like hyenas with derision at my plight, or repeat ad verbatim how my grandfather, when he came back, loudly wondered what idiocy could make a full gown man milk a cow without tying up its hind legs first.

Ecstatic

2009-12-19T06:07:00.000-08:00

It is not everyday that Moses turns down gorgeous female company, so when he curtly told some lady he was unavailable and hung up on her the other night at Elvis' place as we swilled beers to celebrate the end of our week-long alcohol-free sentence, we were quite understandably concerned.

"What's the matter? Have you lost your Mojo?" I asked.

"Are you sick? Have you lost your mind?" Allan added.

"Relax, fellaz. My Mojo and my health are perfectly in order, thank you very much." Moses protested. "And my brain is too, which is more than I can say of some people in present company." He added and shot Allan a withering look.

"Then why did you behave so contrary to character just now? Allan asked. "I mean, I haven't encountered such strange behaviour since when I saw a Moslem at a confessional."

"When was that?" Elvis' wife asked, shooting her husband a warning glance as his hand moved towards yet another bottle of Pilsner.

"Er...Never." Allan replied, and the ensuing laughter provided enough distraction for Elvis to grab the bottle and pop its cap in one fluid motion.

"Hey, tone down guys. You'll wake the kids." Elvis' wife cautioned. "But seriously, Moses, I'm also curious. Why did you blow that girl off like that? If someone did that to me he'd better be able to run faster than I can drive."

A most apt comparison. The mere thought of Mrs. Elvis behind the wheel of a vehicle was enough to send a chill down our respective spines.

"Let's just say Sasha must be the reason the concept of 'extreme' even entered the realm of human perception." Moses said, and Allan pointedly told him that this was modern day Kenya, not Shakespearen England. "In modern day Kenya," he finished, "people try as much as possible to get straight to the point."

"Sasha is this Russian girl I dated a couple of months ago. Her dad is some attaché or the other at the Russian Embassy in Nairobi." Moses started to narrate. "I had to leave her because I found her preferred ideas on sex and relationships a tad bit too hedonistic even for me."

"Whips, cuffs and garter belts?" I asked.

"For starters." Moses replied. "This girl is into some really deep stuff. Swinger, sadomasochism, ritualistic, the works. At first I thought it was a good way for me to push my horizons in the carnal dimension, but when it got to the drugs, I decided that maybe some horizons should just remain horizons."

"Drugs?" We all asked incredulously and in unision.

"One evening she invited me to a party thrown in honor of some visiting Kremlin official." Moses went on without missing a beat. "Obviously, we retired to her place after the party, and there we were joined by a friend of hers, a norwegian whose name I didn't catch because it was entirely made up of consonants."

We all laughed and again, the uproar covered the hissing sound of Elvis popping yet another Pilsner.

"Anyway, Sasha made us all drinks. I'd asked for Vodka but she gave me Whisky, and we made light conversation. However, we had already drunk enough at the party and both girls' English was just a little better than atrocious, so we soon moved on to what had really brought us here. And it was spectacular!"

"So where did the drug come into all this?" Elvis asked.

"They came in the drinks. Literally." Moses answered. "You see, the experience was altogether really intense and we were at it for quite some time. When we were done, I heard Sasha tell the Norwegian girl she hadn't believed there was Ecstasy in Kenya, but now she was sure there was.Initially, I thought she meant ecstasy, as in the emotion. But towards morning, the Norwegian girl suddenly started convulsing and passed out. We immediately called an ambulance, and at the hospital, toxicology tests revealed very high levels of Ecstasy, the drug, in her bloodstream."

"You mean she overdosed on the drug?" Someone asked.

"Yes, that's exactly what I mean." Moses said irritably. "And I also mean that she overdosed on a drug that had been meant for me."

"What!" We all asked again incredulously and in unison.

"Remember I asked for Vodka and Sasha gave me Whisky? Well, the Whisky had been for the Norwegian girl, and Sasha, who had all along meant to spike my drink, mixed up the glasses and gave her my Ecstasy-laced Vodka instead."

Of crochets and needles

2009-12-12T08:58:00.000-08:00

I never told you how the Mr. Big saga ended. So, here goes...

Few people like sharp pointed objects, and fewer still appreciate having such objects introduced onto their anatomies. The three of us definitely belong to the larger percentage of the human population that views sharp, pointed objects uncharitably, but since our misadventure at the pub necessitated a small medical procedure called a tetanus shot, we had to set aside our personal prejudices and, with a glaring lack of enthusiasm, allow Mr. Big's doctor brother to jab our behinds with sharp, pointed objects.

Our tribulations however didn't end there. Not content with making us confront our rabid fear of needles, the doctor had one more nightmare for us. No alcohol for the next few days, or the shots would be useless, meaning needles all over again. We all took this pretty hard. I felt like someone had switched off the sunshine in my life and posted a note saying "Back in a few days," while Allan looked like someone whose personal demons had all gathered together and decided to pay him a sudden, unannounced visit. Moses I was almost certain we would have to hire someone to follow him around, unless we were comfortable with the possibility of dealing with his sudden suicide within the next very few hours.

The only person who didn't have a problem with all this, and found it all very hilarious actually, was Elvis. This was only normal, considering he had been at home asleep when battle royale and the subsequent visit to the clinic went down and thus hadn’t suffered our misfortunes. Such circumstances bring out the sadist in Elvis.

"Holla man. How are you doing? I heard you people had a blast last night, with particular emphasis on the word 'blast'." He called the next day to ask, at an hour when only chicken thieves and employees of Nakumatt's 24 hour outlets could conceivably be awake.

"I'm trying to get some sleep, you moron." I curtly told him. "If you are so concerned about my health, let me remind you the risks of sleep deprivation...And how did you find out so fast anyway?" I wondered.

"Moses just returned my car, and I could tell he'd had himself a swell time. So swell in fact, that his head is still swollen." Elvis replied.

I said something nasty.

Elvis ignored it. "So why don't you all come over to my place this evening and fill me in on what happened? Six O'clock. And don't worry' drinks are on me. I'll have the missus make a lot of Ketepa. Bye." He hung up without waiting for a response. In any case, I was too tired to argue, and after making a mental note to call in sick at the office immediately I woke up, I went back to sleep.

It was not until much later when I showed up at his place that I remembered accepting Elvis' invitation meant I would have to face needles again, albeit of a different kind.

Allan was already at Elvis' place when I arrived, and he was trying hard to force down a cup of tea as well as a conversation with Elvis' wife, who was busy knitting what I guessed was a sweater for one of their children."That's a nice sweater you are knitting." I said to her as I hugged her in greeting. "For the boy or the girl?"

"Thanks. It is for my sister's child, actually. You know how expensive ready-made ones are nowadays..." and as she launched into a critique of the impact of the global economic downturn on the price of textile products, I relaxed.

Allan winked at me as if to say "you lucky bastard." And I smirked back. He hadn't been so lucky.

Presently, Moses arrived, and despite the fact that he had carried a kilo of meat for her, she didn't hug him in greeting, and when he complimented her knitting, she curtly told him that she was crocheting, not knitting, and returned to our conversation which had inevitably moved on to the global economic downturn's impact on food prices. Like Allan, Moses was unlucky.

Elvis arrived soon afterwards, and he burst out laughing as soon as he walked through the door. "You people look like hell!" He said between fits. "Hi baby. How's the crocheting?"

"That's what they get from engaging in primitive drunken violence." His wife replied. "And I'm knitting, not crocheting."

Elvis ignored her. "Come on, guys. Fill me in on the details. I've already heard Moses' and Allan's tales, so Edgar, tell me how you fared with that Orang Utan."

Upon hearing this, Elvis' wife suddenly cast me a very pained look, and my heart sank.

You see, Elvis wife, although warm, homely and usually very affable, has a very interesting eccentricity. She is always knitting, and whether or not someone's presence is welcome can be discerned from her response to any comment that person makes about her knitting. If she agrees with your comment, all is well. But if she contradicts you, then too bad.

Thus she had all along been cross with Allan and Moses but not with me because having come out of the previous night's bar brawl with a relatively unscathed head, I was the only one of us three who didn't sport a bandage on my cranium.

And until Elvis' question gave me away, she had assumed that I hadn't been involved in the previous night's 'primitive drunken violence.'

iran vs Uncle Sam

2009-12-08T08:46:00.000-08:00

When not busy beating the living hell out of dissenting citizens, Mahmood Ahmadinejad, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, splits his time equally between scaring the living hell out of Israel and pissing the living hell off Uncle Sam.

Ahmadinejad: (Beating the holy crap out of a dissenter) So you wanted Mousavi, heh? I am your president, mpende msipende. You think Mousavi is your mother? Just wait till I'm done with you...

Uncle Sam: Now now, Mahmood, that isn't the way democratic leaders deal with dissent, especially when there is such ample justification for dissent...

Ahmedinejad: You stay out of this, you infidel! You want Mousavi to win so that you will connive with him to steal our oil, like you did in Iraq and Afghanistan...

Uncle Sam: You are mistaken, Mahmood. I'm only interested in promoting democratic practises and human rights, both of which you are seriously violating right now.

Ahmedinejad: But I won fair and square, only for this son of Iblis and his ilk to come in and cause trouble! ( Continues beating the dissenter) Ati Ahmedinejad must go, heh? Niende wapi! Just wait and see. I am going to kick you so hard between the legs that your nuts will pop out through your eye sockets...

Uncle Sam: Mahmood!

Ahmedinejad:...I'll make your face look like Israel after I've dropped a nuclear bomb there...

Uncle Sam: As a matter of fact, that is why I'm here to see you. Thing is, the rest of the world is very concerned about the high number of nuclear weapons in the world, and I feel it is my duty to ask you to abandon your nuclear programme.

Ahmednijad: (incredulously) Now why would I do such a dumb thing? You have nuclear weapons. Russia has nuclear weapons. Pakistan has nuclear bomb, as does India. For Allah's sake, even that crazy dwarf from North Korea has a couple of warheads. Why are you so hard on me?

Uncle Sam: Because everybody else is open about their nuclear programs except you. We are afraid that you just might decide to fire a missile off in the general direction of Israel.

Ahmadinejad: I wouldn't do such a thing! My nuclear programme is purely for energy purposes. (aside) Enough energy, of course, to wipe every Jew and his fourth cousin twice removed from the face of the universe.

Uncle Sam: That may be true, Mahmood, but the I and the rest of the International Community would feel just a little more comfortable if you abandoned the programme alltogether.

Ahmedinajad: Well, you and the rest of the International Community can apply your favourite lip balm and kiss my Arab behind, because that is not going to happen.

Uncle Sam: Stop being so difficult, Mahmood. You know I can put more sanctions on you and cripple your economy.

Ahmadenijad: (Laughs) Surely, Sammy Boy, that is so old! You have got to be more creative at threatening me than that.

Uncle Sam: (Now at the very end of his tether) Mahmood, this is no laughing matter. Either you report to the negotiating table or I will allow Israel to go ahead and obliterate anything that even looks like a nuclear facility.

Ahmadinejad: OK OK! Don't get yourself all knotted up. I'll be at your disposal as soon as I receive the specifics from Arak, Ardakan, Bushehr, Isfahan, Qom...

Uncle Sam: Now just a minute. You mean you have another facility, another nuclear facility, at Qom?!

Ahmadinejad: Oops...

Whatsthathesaid?

2009-11-05T05:54:00.000-08:00

First of all, Happy Birthday, Val. I meant this post to be entirely about you, but was overtaken by events, namely a coursework I have to finish. The next post is for you. i promise.

Anyway, I happen to be a sociology minor at Makerere University, and recently, Dr. Atyekereza, our Soc 3100 [Classical Sociological theory] lecturer, gave us a coursework assignment.

Dr. Atyekereza

Actually, he gave the assignment a month ago. I just finally got round to starting because the deadline for submission is monday.

Anyway, we are expected to analyse Roy Bhaskar's critical realism ramblings, specifically his assertion that "society is not the unconditioned creation of the human agency, but neither does it exist independently of it."

Lost? welcome to my world, dawg!

Obviously, such a question cannot be answered by the kind of guesswork you would apply for example in tackling Dr.Okiror's "Examine the relevance of consistency in a MIS for a decisionmaker" in PAM 3103 [Management Information systems]

Dr. Okiror

or Dr. Simba's "Analyse the role of NEPAD and AGOA for the economic development of Africa" in IRS 3101 [Global Political Economy]

Dr. Simba

Such a question requires what every average student dreads: Research. As in SERIOUS research. And last time I checked, I was still an average student. So obviously, I was dreading this.

But a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, especially since this is the kind of paper that makes the prospect of coming back for a re-take more definite than probable. Serious research entailed first of all finding out who the hell Roy Bhaskar is, and since navigating your way through the bureaucracy of Makerere University's main library is the stuff of gladiators, I resorted to the net.

Horror of horrors. [Cue a horror-themed soundtrack. If you can't think of one, any song by Jeniffer Lopez or Ja Rule will do.]

Roy Bhaskar is the kind of guy who writes sentences such as "philosophical approach that defends the critical and emancipatory potential of rational (scientific and philosophical) enquiry against both positivist, broadly epistemological and ontological questions."

Consider this, in his dialectical works, the man actually wrote this:

"Indeed dialectical critical realism may be seen under the aspect of Foucaultian strategic reversal - of the unholy trinity of Parmenidean/Platonic/Aristotelean provenance; of the Cartesian-Lockean-Humean-Kantian paradigm, of foundationalisms (in practice, fideistic foundationalisms) and irrationalisms (in practice, capricious exercises of the will-to-power or some other ideologically and/or psycho-somatically buried source) new and old alike; of the primordial failing of western philosophy, ontological monovalence, and its close ally, the epistemic fallacy with its ontic dual; of the analytic problematic laid down by Plato, which Hegel served only to replicate in his actualist monovalent analytic reinstatement in transfigurative reconciling dialectical connection, while in his hubristic claims for absolute idealism he inaugurated the Comtean, Kierkegaardian and Nietzschean eclipses of reason, replicating the fundament of positivism through its transmutation route to the super-idealism of a Baudrillard."

That's what I'm going through right now. Please pray for me. I beg you.

A gay man's lament

2009-10-29T23:57:00.000-07:00

Karma, it seems, isn't done with me yet.

A few hours after posting my last blog article, I happened upon a copy of Nation's Sunday 17th October newspaper with this story.

Then this morning in a matatu on my way to campus, the debate on the radio programme our driver had us tuned into was on this.

So lemme post the article before Karma decides to get physical.

I pay my taxes. I see to it that Kampala City is kept clean by never littering. Like most Ugandans, I think Kony should have stopped at only hiding behind the bushes and never gone ahead to start smoking the leaves from those bushes as well. I have my own stereotypical perspectives on the different ethnic communities that make up my country, and I shed a tear when I got the news of the Budo fire tragedy.

I have my beef with several ministries in the Uganda government, especially the Ministry of Disaster Preparedness. [What the hell does that title even mean, let alone whether or not it actually has any relevance whatsoever?] The level of corruption sickens me and I am generally appalled by the state of public service delivery. But nonetheless, I still hold His Excellency the President in the highest esteem., and the Kisanja absurdity notwithstanding, I would still vote Movement any given Sunday, since I believe His Excellency’s assertion that he is the only one with a vision for Uganda, something those yak-yakking opposition politicians totally lack.

What I am trying to put across in so many words is simply that I am your average Ugandan, maybe not manifestly patriotic, but one who possesses a deep and enduring love for his country and wouldn’t shudder at shedding hemoglobin-rich blood for it.

That said, I believe the relationship between the individual and the State should be reciprocal, which is to say it should be two-way. This reciprocity doesn’t have to be balanced, but it should be clear and present on both sides. John Fitzgerald Kennedy was right to implore us to seek to do more for our country than we expect our country to do for us, but that doesn’t mean that a State shouldn’t seek to do more for its citizens than its citizens do for it.

So I seek as much as possible to benefit my country in whatever way I can and I follow the law to the best of my ability, but I also expect the State and the law to guarantee me a conducive environment as I go about my lifetime purpose of seeking fulfillment . so long as my pursuit of fulfillment does not infringe upon the basic rights of another individual or occasion potential for harm, I should be left alone to do what I damn well please with my life, taking responsibility for any reward or jeopardy my activities might lead me to.

It is upon this premise that I level my charge against the State of Uganda.

You see, I am a little, shall we say…different from conventional preference when it comes to my choice of sexual partnership. People like me are the kind Leviticus 18:22 has a problem with, as does a very huge fraction of Ugandan society.

My life, as you would expect under the circumstances, has never been easy. People conversant with my orientation never tire of treating me like an outcast, a pariah, an abomination. I have been called more names than a Mexican child at baptism, only unlike the Mexican child, none of the names I’m called are flattering or meant to flatter. I have been attacked more times on the street than American interests in Afghanistan, and my existence is a constant struggle.

But that, believe it or not, is the least of my worries. Most of the people that do all they can to make life hell for me are no match for me physically or intellectually, and those I can’t beat the living crap out of I silence with a withering stare. What they think or how they go about expressing what they think has no bearing whatsoever on my life, and I find it absurd that I should even consider according them anything but the overwhelming contempt they deserve.

The State, however, is a different proposition altogether, whether I like it or not the State will have a bearing on how I live my life or how I accomplish my pursuit for fulfillment, and it saddens me to observe that people of my kind, upon no rational bearing whatsoever, have been failed by the State.

Right from the grassroots, our right to be human in the only way we know how has been curtailed. Despite our orientation being natural, it is illegal in the eye of the law to be homosexual, and the government, especially through the Ministry of Ethics and Integrity, [another useless Ministry, I say with no apology,] is actively involved in persecuting us on the slightest whim. A popular radio presenter recently found himself in a lot of trouble for hosting some of our advocates in his show, and interestingly, the flak he got didn’t come from his employers, but from the government. Goes a long way to show just how dire the straits we are in are.

It would really help if the state changed this attitude. In the olden days, and even in some contemporary societies, persecution of lepers, albinos, hermaphrodites and even twins in some was actually institutionalized in the belief that these people’s peculiar traits made them bad omens and therefore outcasts. It was on due to a paradigm shift borne of better understanding of such people that led to such archaic beliefs to be discarded.

This is exactly what the State needs in order to deal with our situation—a paradigm shift on how we view those among us that are different. This is entirely possible, given the government’s track records in effecting paradigm shifts on societal issues such as affirmative action borne, of the understanding that women are not all that different from men and curtailing them was not in anyone’s best interests.

As for society, I understand why the larger section of it is uncomfortable with us, and I respect their right not to be exposed to what they don’t like. But until they come up with better argumentation as to why they are opposed to people like me, then it is only right that I treat their concerns with the negligible amount of respect due to it. True, it is unchristian. But since when have we been so zealotic in promoting Christian values? Do not kill, the Bible says. Then what are all those guns Uganda spends billions of taxpayer money on for? Private collections and target practice? Do Not Commit Adultery. How much sex that goes on in this country is actually between people whose names appear on the same marriage certificate? Do Not Steal. Hands up anyone who believes government corruption is a myth.

True, our sexual orientation could indeed be called un African. But what too is so African about this language I am addressing you in, our ‘National’ language? What is so African about the clothes we wear, the God we worship, or the kind of entertainment we prefer? Basically my point is, if we are going to be hypocrites, then at least we should be consistent in our hypocrisy!

Most of us did not choose to be how we are. Believe me, if I could, I would change my sexual orientation faster than Emma Kato’s new car at the Pearl Rally. But that is just how we are, and living with the knowledge that we are different is hard enough as it is. I really wish society and the State would understand us and accept us for who I we are, but if that is too much to ask for, then all we ask is to be left alone.

2009-10-24T04:19:00.000-07:00

First of all, I’d like to make one thing absolutely clear. I’m straighter than the shortest distance between any two given points, and I’m not talking geometry. So should you ask me if I’m gay after reading this, you’d better either be talking about my emotional disposition, or be sure that you have sufficient hospital insurance.

That said, let’s begin.

Sometimes, you happen upon signs and indications that seem to demand you get off your behind and do something you wouldn’t otherwise consider as warranting expeditious execution. Should you choose to ignore them, these signs then suddenly start getting more and more frequent and insistent until you eventually comply. Earl Whatshisname, that un-funny lead character in Val’s favorite comedy series, ‘My Name Is Earl,’

attributed such peculiarities to Karma. [As does the entire Hindu-speaking population within and without the Indian subcontinent, but I digress.]

Anyway, this Karma recently needed me to do something that under normal circumstances, I would consider not doing, think about it three times and then NOT do it. In a nutshell, Karma wanted me to speak out on homosexuality.

Obviously, I wasn’t favorably predisposed towards the idea. However, I wasn’t really worried because writing is not my main hobby. My main hobby is spending copious amount of time doing absolutely nothing, and this lazybones dispensation, I figured, would make it pretty hard for even Karma to find a way of getting across to me and compel me to do its dirty work.

But trust the resourcefulness of this force of nature to find its way around such little hurdles.

Remember a few weeks ago I blogged about upgrading from a Nokia 3100 to a Samsung E250? Well, that was because I recently became convinced of the immeasurable worth to be found in propagating the myth that I am a really happening dude, especially while dealing with impressionable damsels for whom I must confess an incurable weakness. The possession of sophisticated mobile gadgetry, I was told, is the main indicator for happening dudes worldwide nowadays, and since Nokia 3100 apparently doesn’t ooze sophistication, an upgrade was in order.

thus upgrade I did, and after I had acquired the Samsung,, I decided to pimp up its screen with an off-the-hook wallpaper, because I was also informed on impeccable authority that cool wallpapers on sophisticated phones are also a mainstay with happening dudes in all continents of the world including Africa. I am a big fan of Rock music, [which I am also reliably informed happens to be the music the entire global population of happening dudes listens to,] so naturally, I wanted a Rock-themed wallpaper for my phone.

And Karma, it seems, somehow was aware of my juvenile pursuit of social popularity; which was exactly where it first came for me.

For my wallpaper, I had a choice between my favorite Rock artistes, Serj Tankian of the group System of a Down and Billie Joe Armstrong of the group Green day. But Serj is, for lack of a better description, an aesthetically-challenged guy, not exactly the face you want on your phone if your intention is to hoodwink the public into believing that you were somewhere near the front row when dudes were being taught to happen. Therefore, the more worldly-looking Billie Joe [who by the way has the most hypnotic eyes you will ever see on the human male species,] got the nod.

When I raided the internet for free wallpaper, however, I mistakenly googled up the wrong alley, and instead of going to the freebies page, I landed on Billie Joe’s Wikipedia bio. Obviously, my curiosity was sufficiently aroused for me not to go away without first browsing through it, and as I did exactly that, I happened across a curious bit of information I’d hitherto been unaware of.

Apparently, my second-favorite rocker is bisexual.

As you would expect, that shocked the living daylights out of me. But, I reasoned, I did not start liking Billie Joe because I was under the misconception that he is a poster boy for conservative sexual values. Rather, I like Billie Joe because he makes the kind of music that makes me want to have him as my wallpaper image. Which was why with a shrug and a “well, you learn something new everyday!” I accessed the right page, got his wallpaper and forgot all about it.

But Karma didn’t.

A few days later, I was checking through the music files on a friend’s computer when I came across an all-time favorite song of mine that I haven’t heard in quite a long while, “Everyday I love you.” By the Irish boy band Boyzone. Immediately, I recorded it on my phone’s voice recorder and temporarily replaced Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’ with it as my morning wake-up alarm.

That little incident would have been nothing but a very innocuous event of my day, but three days later, I was woken up by that very alarm, and as I started my daily morning ritual by catching the early morning news on TV, I got stunned by reports that one of Boyzone’s members, Stephen Gately, had mysteriously died the previous night while holidaying in Spain.

Stephen Gately, for the ignorant, forgetful or otherwise uninformed among you, was the Boyzone band member who during the height of their popularity in 1999, famously came out of the closet to publicly admit he was of homosexual orientation.

So this was the second time in two days that I was being confronted by a reminder of homosexuality, and I found that a tad bit intriguing. But once again, I made nothing of it and only wished Allah’s compassion and grace upon the soul of Stephen Gately before relegating all thoughts on the subject to whatever section of the brain it is that things to be forgotten are kept.

But Karma, of course, was having none of that.

The next day at campus, a colleague requested for a couple of documents I had in my possession tucked away with some old files at home. I have certain designs on this colleague, so I promised I’d give it a check when I got home that evening. [And since that is about as much information as I am willing to volunteer on the matter, please spare yourself the trouble of asking what those designs are.]

That evening as I went through my old files to find the requested documents, I noticed two sheets of typed paper I vaguely remembered putting there some time back. On closer inspection, they turned out to be the draft copies of an article I had written after a clandestine interview two years ago with a guy I met under circumstances I am not at liberty to divulge. I remembered I’d later chickened out of submitting the article to my editor because I was afraid of the reactions it would likely have elicited had it been published.

The subject of the article? An anguished, candid lament of a man leveled against a society and a government that shuns him…because he is gay.

Well, if I had earlier been skeptical about Karma being onto something here, finding that article emphatically and totally wiped out every little shred of it. So I’m posting that article here next week, [after al, I still have to show Karma I can be lazy when I want to,] andI stress once again, is not a representation of my orientation. Rather, it is my declaration of sympathy for gay rights and my own opinion on the subject of homosexuality.

In ‘My Name Is Earl,’ Karma expects that un-funny lead character to perform his tasks, and when he deviates, the reminders he gets keep getting progressively more painful until he gets down to it. If that is what Karma wants, then I figure I’ve done my part. So please, Karma, I suppose that means I won’t be getting hit by a car moments after buying a winning lottery ticket, doesn’t it?

Pub Brawl

2009-09-23T04:59:00.000-07:00

As would be expected of a pub brawl, this one started unexpectedly. And like any decent pub brawl, it was nasty, brutish and lasted only a few seconds before security intervened and violently threw us out.

Elvis wasn't with us when the brawl went down. Being a family man, he doesn't have as many free evenings as the rest of us do. And considering that Allan and I aren't particularly violent people, you should by now have guessed the brawl was all Moses' fault.

"So tell me," Allan asked him as he rubbed at a rapidly developing bruise on his forehead, "why the hell am I standing here nursing a head injury that I'm certain I didn't have a few minutes ago, instead of being seated inside there," he pointed at the pub from where we had just been ejected, "nursing a bottle of beer I'm sure I did have a few minutes ago and I'm certain I paid for?"

"You people didn't have to come to my aid. I had everything under control." Moses said and I couldn't help the smirk that crossed my swollen lips. If having things under control meant soaking up massive blows to the head from the massive Mr. Big Allan and I had saved him from, [and led to us being kicked out ourselves,] I shuddered to think of would have happened if he DIDN'T have things under control.

"Where I come from, it is considered good manners to thank people who have just saved your life from an angry Mr. Big, especially when those people were forced to leave behind perfectly good alcohol in the process." Allan snapped at him. "Anyway, are you injured? I think we should all get ourselves checked by a doctor. My head feels like it wants to explode!"

I agreed that the cut on my lower lip and a few loose teeth courtesy of a bouncer's fist did warrant professional medical opinion, and Moses admitted that indeed, several of Mr. Big's harder jabs had landed on his cranium.

"Well, there is a private clinic a few blocks from here." Allan said. "As we walk there to have our injuries checked, why don't you explain to us why the hell we got injured in the first place?"

We set off as Moses started narrating. "There was this girl..." he said, and Allan and I sighed in unison. of course it had to be a girl. Moses seldom picked fights over anything else.

Moses shot both of us cross glares. "As I was saying, there was this girl I found seated next to an empty seat, and when I made to sit on it, she said she had reserved the seat for her husband." He said.

"And being the gentleman you are, you bade her good evening and went to find a seat elsewhere." I said.

Moses ignored my sarcasm. "I told her this is a free country and I could sit where I damn well pleased. She said something rude and I expressed my sympathies for the man stupid enough to have gotten trapped in holy matrimony with her, the man she was apparently saving the seat for. She then shouted at someone and next thing I know, I am being assaulted by the evil Nubian offspring from the unholy copulation of Shrek and Godzilla."

By then, we had reached the clinic and we went in, where we found only two nurses and a security guard. "Please do come in ans sit down. The doctor will be back shortly." The female nurse told us. "His sister-in-law just called him about his brother being attacked and he rushed over...in fact here he is now." She finished as a car roared to a stop outside.

A few moments later, a diminutive lady walked in, speaking animatedly to two people behind her, and on seeing her, Moses, who was in the middle of saying something, froze in mid-sentence.

Allan and I were puzzled, but not for long. The lady was followed by two men, and although we didn't recognize the short, stout, bespectacled man in a lab coat that entered first, it was obvious he was the doctor. His brother we however did recognize.

Huge, menacing and every bit as ugly as before, Mr. Big was a pretty hard person to forget.

For the love of drink...

2009-09-23T04:58:00.000-07:00

"This is unbelievable." Moses was saying. "Inexcusable. I've heard of countries where people get executed for much less than that."

"Such as?" Allan asked. The very question I would have asked myself had I been so inclined.

"Easy." Moses replied. "Just take a map of Asia and North Africa, knock off China and India, and Voila! You can take your pick."

Elvis and I didn't say a word. When Moses is in such a mood, it is criminally impractical to try and sway his perspective on whatever issue it is that had brought it about. Allan was the only one foolhardy enough to argue with him, but then again, Allan is our resident philosopher. And that is what philosophers do; Argue.

The argument today had to do with what transpired that afternoon at Moses' workplace.
Dude had been pulling all the stops for the past month to land a new secretary who had just been hired by his organisation, and the girl, while remaining suitably demure as any self-respecting damsel would, had nevertheless given our poor friend enough reason to believe that she was available.

Thus encouraged, Moses had gone on to buy a weekend getaway package for two at the Coast in the hope that it would impress the living daylights out of her, but when he sprung the surprise on her that afternoon after a lunch date, she had apologetically informed him she was sorry, but she had family commitments that weekend.

No problemo, Moses had replied. The package, although non-refundable, was open-ended and could be deferred to a different date. I'm really sorry, the girl had replied, but you don't understand. The family commitment I mentioned I have to attend to is actually my husband's family.

"I was incredibly humiliated." Moses explained to us when we'd met earlier that evening, and then gone on to elaborate. "It was as if someone had hauled me to the very top of the Tower of Humiliation, erected a mast, hauled me to the top of the mast and then mercilessly shoved me down to the forbidding ground far, far below."

When he is emotional, Moses sometimes tends to get wonderfully descriptive.

And now, he was considering suing the girl. He hadn't quite decided what for yet, but he figured he had a decent shot at compensation if he proved the girl had deceived him and caused him both emotional and financial distress.

When he said this, Elvis and I had each taken a single look at his face, ascertained that he indeed was serious, and then proceeded to fixedly concentrate on our drinks in a determined effort not to burst out laughing. Allan, however, held no such reservations. He spluttered on his drink and shot Moses a look that cast the concept of incredulous to a whole new level.

"Assuming she is even guilty in the first place, which she isn't by anyone's stretch of the imagination except, of course, yours," he wondered, "what makes you think there is a clerk in any Kenyan court that would file such an incredibly stupid lawsuit, let alone a judge or magistrate that would hear it?"

A perfectly obvious consideration for any sane person privy to the details of this whole absurd saga. But you see, Moses and the obvious don't exactly live up the same street.
"Just because there isn't any law against it doesn't mean it is right." He insisted. "No woman should treat a man like that and expect to get away scot free. I will make her pay, you just wait and see."

Even philosophers have their limits, and Allan signified he'd reached his by making a grunting noise of resignation that sounded remarkably like a Somali about to spit out a gob of Khat. A waiter had just reached our table, and our bottles were almost empty.

"More rounds on my bill, please." Moses told him. "Get all of us two bottles of what we are having...except this guy." He pointed at Allan, and that explains why Elvis and I hadn't raised our voices against Moses' incredulities that entire evening.

You see, when you go drinking, it is never a good idea to get on the wrong side of the guy buying the drinks.

And we're off!

2009-09-19T02:04:00.000-07:00

BANG! BANG! BANG!

I didn't link you to that song because I have a deal with the copyright owners of Femi Kuti's music to promote his songs. Neither did I link you to there because I want to blog about the human pre-occupation with the act of copulation, which is what the song is all about.

Actually, the only reason I linked you to that song is so that in future, I can be able to say that my blog literally started with a bang.

Anyway, hello everyone. Thank you for coming. And without any further ado, let's begin.

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you...

Some of you didn't know that those are lyrics from part of the song 'Fix You' by Coldplay. Well, now you know.

And all of you didn't know that those are the words I wake up to every morning because Fix You is actually the designated wake-up alarm tune on my Samsung E250.

Well, now you know!

So, I hear someone ask, what minuscule interest to them or singular relevance to society is information about what I like listening to when I wake up supposed to have?

Well, that's just it. I DON'T like Coldplay. I don't think Coldplay are a very talented singing group. In fact, it is my very honest opinion that Coldplay should be requested, nay, COMPELLED to desist from exploring their talent (or lack thereof) in music any further, and all the howls they have recorded so far confined to a single faulty CD and given to someone I don't particularly like who lives very, very far away from me.

So, I hear that voice ask again, why would I make a song by a group I don't like the first thing I listen to when I wake up every morning?

Well, first of all because unlike me, there are people out there whose taste in music leaves as much to be desired as an Amish grandmother's Sunday outfit. Some of these people, however, unfortunately happen to be people I care deeply about, and I would very much like them to know that despite such undesirable preferences, or even when they posses much more irritating ones in addition such as being fans of Liverpool F.C, I still hold them in the highest esteem.

Secondly, it has a little to do with a lesson my mother once taught me.

One day once upon a time, Mrs. Cornelia Akumu Omwango opened the door to her kitchen and by doing so, broke her beloved carved wood Sugar-dish. This wasn't because her beloved but very mischievous son had balanced it on top of the door hoping it would land on his irritating elder sister's head and instead got his mother.Rather, it was because by opening the door, she surprised the aforementioned elder son who at that very moment had his hand inside the aforementioned carved wood sugar dish.

Sons have this habit of going into uncontrollable panic when surprised by their mothers, and panic never augurs well for fragile objects in the hands of such panic-stricken sons, so in a nutshell, that was the last time Mrs. Omwango's beloved carved wood sugar dish ever held any sugar.

Naturally, the son wasn't going to get away scot-free. Mrs. Omwango's reputation as a tough disciplinarian was because one, she came down on indiscipline hard and two, she came down on indiscipline fast. Thus the echo from the shattering sugar dish had barely cleared from the son's ears before they were dealing with a totally new sound, a zinging sound normally felt by people who have just been slapped. "And you are taking Ndufya* for one full week!" She snarled.

(*If you don't know what Ndufya is, it means you probably didn't grow up in Nairobi. If this is the case, kindly get in touch with someone who did and be educated.)

Taking Ndufya for one week is the stuff foul moods are made of, and from then onwards, any thought of illicit maneuvers towards the new sugar dish would immediately trigger that absolutely excruciating memory, and I would immediately kill it.

Now, let's fit Coldplay into this scheme of things.

You see, what I learnt from my misadventure is that nothing inspires discipline better than a disagreeable sensation or the threat of a disagreeable sensation. And the way I needed the disagreeable sensation that was the memory of taking Ndufya for a week in order to be disciplined around Mom's sugar is the same way I need a disagreeable sensation in order to be disciplined about something else.

Waking Up.

Thing is, when you love to sleep the way I do, you can get into lots of trouble if you are not disciplined about waking up. And that is where alarms come in. But not just any alarm. You can't put alarms of sounds you like listening to, such as Serj Tankian, Green Day or Elephant Man. (All of which, I'll have you know, I have in my Samsung E250) Those are in no way disagreeable sensations, and designating them as my wake up alarm would actually be giving myself a lullaby, instead of a wake-up alarm.

The reason it is called an alarm is because it is meant to ALARM you into waking up, and in my opinion, they don't come more disagreeably alarming than Coldplay.

AND FINALLY, THE ROCK, THE BLUES AND THE KAPUKA.

The Rock.

On Saturday evening, about an hour after Arsenal had made the easy job of putting four past Wigan look like uberadvanced Quantum Physics, Mufti Sheikh Ramadhan Mubajje, who has jurisdiction over the Jummat I currently belong to, announced that the moon had been sighted and the month-long Ramadhan fast was at end.

Saum is by far the most physically and psychologically taxing of the Five Pillars of Islam, and observing it to the end with the dedication it demands is the mark of a true believer. So to all my Moslem brethren, mko juu tu sana. May Allah's blessings find you and uplift you. La ilaha ilallah.

Staying with football, we now know who is the real boss of Manchester!!!!

The Blues.

When I met Sammy during the Bell Lager-sponsored UTAKE nite at Steak-Out two Saturdays ago, he was screaming, "Huyo Dj aishi milele!" with a bottle of Bell Lager in his hand and looking like someone who could easily force a breatherlyser into early retirement.

The reason for my friend's exuberance was because he had benefited from a number of free Bell Lagers that a guest Radio Dj at the party had earlier thrown his way, and it was this Dj that Sammy was now wishing a very long life.

Sadly, this wish was never to be as four days later, Ronald Ssempagi,a.k.a Dj Roni of Capital fm Uganda, succumbed to multiple organ failure at Kadic clinic in Bukoto, Kampala.

May his soul rest in eternal peace.

The Kapuka

As President of the Federal Republic of the United States of America, my clansman has to choose even the words he uses in his dreams because every syllable that comes through his lips automatically becomes a lightning rod for often emotional, always polarized American opinion.

But even he couldn't hold back his stupefication at Kanye West's absolute lack of class during the VMAs last Sunday, and he very un-presidentially called the Grammy award-winning rapper 'a Jackass' following Kanye's obviously inebriate shenanigans at the awards.

I know quite a number of people who agreed with Kanye's view that Beyonce was more deserving of the best Female Award that Taylor Swift got, and one of Kanye's most endearing attributes is his forthrightness which often borders on, and sometimes goes beyond, arrogance.

But even they wouldn't fault my cousin the president's contention that this time, Kanye did indeed behave like a class A jackass.