Troubled Waters

Threads of Connection

It is interesting how threads are woven through a set of seemingly unconnected events, with our perception of things becoming the glue between them. I confess I am given to a kind of apophenia, forever spotting strange connections, though that word does not quite capture what I mean.

Here, I was drawn to a headline about cannibalism: a daughter had ingested flakes of her mother's ashes. Why she would announce or publish that information escapes me, at least until we put names to the dramatis personae. The daughter was Rachael Stirling, and the mother the late Dame Diana Rigg. [The Guardian: ‘I didn’t expect to be portrayed as a cannibal’]

Perhaps eating a parent's ashes is a way of reconnecting with them in death; but how an urn became a spice shaker is never going to find a convincing explanation beyond the bizarre. I will resist the temptation to ask whether it was a ready peppercorn grinder, though the thought is beneath me and I confess I had it anyway. Each to their own, I suppose.

Remembering Diana Rigg

I should say actresses, or actors now, since the gender classification for that profession seems to have been lost to modern parlance.

We know Diana Rigg, of course, from "The Avengers", where she played an emancipated female spy and partner to John Steed, portrayed by Patrick Macnee. In the first series she was paid £150 a week, and it was for the second series that she held out for the increase, demanding £450. [Meaww: Diana Rigg was a 'lone voice in the wilderness' when she demanded equal pay back in the '60s as Emma Peel]

What strikes me as equally interesting is that the money was there to pay her properly all along; she had discovered she was being paid less than the cameraman. Yet until she made the case for why she was worth that much more, no one thought to pay her adequately. [BBC: Dame Diana Rigg: How the actress battled TV's gender pay gap]

A Sunday with Columbo

My Sundays revolve around a standing date with "Columbo", the detective series endlessly on replay for as long as I can remember. I could watch the episodes over and over without ever feeling exhausted by knowing the plot, or by trying to fill in the gaps from memory.

Now, guess who is the guest actor in the episode playing from 9:00 pm this Sunday night? Patrick Macnee, cast as Captain Gibbon of a luxury cruise ship. The episode is "Troubled Waters", in which Hayden Danziger, played by Robert Vaughn, murders his mistress aboard the ship.

His wife, Sylvia Danziger, played by Jane Greer, is the older and wealthier partner in the marriage, and she holds a quiet, dominant sway over her husband. She shares a wonderfully sharp exchange with Lieutenant Columbo, played by Peter Falk, in which she lets slip just how firmly she keeps the reins, hinting that Hayden would come to rue the day were she ever to catch him straying.

Troubling Convention

It occurs to me that each of these women is quietly, or not so quietly, troubling the waters of convention: one defending her mourning, one her wage, one her marriage.

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It is remarkable how things link up in almost incomprehensible ways: amidst the troubled waters of people revealing what is best kept to themselves, of people claiming what is rightfully theirs by standing up to a system set against them, and an episode on a cruise liner where the murderer believed himself far too clever to be caught.

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Redeeming the Time

Ringing the Bell

On the 9th of October 2024, I rang the bell to mark the end of my radiation therapy for prostate cancer, and that moment heralded the beginning of a new life. For those unfamiliar with it, ringing the bell is a tradition at the close of treatment, a small but resonant act that marks the end of one chapter and the start of another. [Photons on the Prostate - IX]

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The process was tough, and the side effects were almost debilitating. I had problems with my bowel and bladder, my voice had gone, and there was so much else to contend with, quite apart from the fatigue I had to manage over time.

Surviving and Thriving

Two years on, things are a great deal better. There are still issues, of course. My voice remains in a funny state, and sexual function is a problem, but I do not let these things bother me. I simply carry on, glad that I am still here: surviving, thriving, and telling stories.

The stories I tell are about life itself, from adversity to triumph, and the continuing sense of hope for better things. That hope is what keeps me writing.

To Signal, Not to Revel

I had wanted to write this blog, yet I felt rather lethargic, and I was a little unwell too. I like to commemorate these occasions, not necessarily to celebrate them as such. By that I mean I mark them rather than revel in them; I acknowledge the dates without having to throw a party. It is the spirit of gratitude on display.

Sometimes you feel too tired to do the things you want to do, so you come to them later instead. Nothing is lost. You always have the opportunity to redeem the time.

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Thought Picnic: The Dignity of Choosing

The Mystery of Love

One thing I have always held sacrosanct is not interfering in relationships. There is a complex dynamic between people who choose and admire each other for all sorts of reasons that outsiders may never be able to fathom.

The book of Proverbs 30:18-19 in the Bible informs me quite clearly, in the following words:

There are three things that amaze me—
no, four things that I don't understand:
how an eagle glides through the sky,
how a snake slithers on a rock,
how a ship navigates the ocean,
how a man loves a woman.

In the King James Version, it is written as "and the way of a man with a maid."

In these times, relationships are so diverse that the singularity of heterosexuality is no longer the sole expression of love, nor the only way to choose a partner. The way people choose whom they love, and why, will always remain a mystery.

Duty Rather Than Spark

This is different again from arranged settings, where external parties make the decisions that the participants must adhere to. Familial, customary, societal, political, or financial responsibilities usually influence such unions. People then have to make the best of the cards they are dealt.

Arranged unions are borne of duty, and the spark that arises out of attraction and leads to falling in love hardly fits with this topic. I acknowledge that such unions exist, and that affection may well develop within them over time, but that is a different matter from autonomously finding love for oneself. My concern here is with those who choose, not those who are chosen for.

When Love Turns to Harm

Even where I have harboured misgivings about the suitability of a match, I have always been reluctant and reticent to express a view, except where abuse is evident, and a partner is endangered. By abuse, I mean both emotional abuse and domestic violence, for neither is conducive to a loving relationship, and both can lead to harm of different kinds, including fatalities.

People in such settings need to be extricated before irreparable damage is caused. In those cases, there is no reason to sacrifice the person to an age-old institution for the purpose of saving face; the institution is not worth a life, nor the quiet erosion of one.

I am aware of the difficulty in all of this, for it sits uneasily beside my own principle. If an outsider cannot truly fathom why two people choose each other, that same outsider can seldom read what passes behind their closed doors. Abuse is rarely performed for an audience.

Harder still, the one being harmed does not always recognise the harm; what others would name as abuse can feel, from the inside, like an ordinary texture of the relationship. There is also the matter of shame. To admit to being abused is to admit, as many feel it, that one chose poorly, and so the stigma keeps people silent and keeps them where they are. Choosing to leave is therefore rarely as simple as being told to go.

None of this changes my conclusion; it only tempers how I hold it. The exception for danger stands, but it must be exercised with care, patience, and an honesty about how little we can see.

Freedom to Love

Beyond that, you are free to choose whom you want, and I bid you Godspeed that the companionship will be happy, fulfilling, and wonderful. How a person loves another can only be a thing of joy.

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I appreciate that there are people who would encounter great difficulty in understanding those who deviate from the heteronormative, but that difficulty does not invalidate the reality of it. Whether it is accepted or not, when one person meets another for the affairs of the heart and falls in love, it is always between them, to the exclusion of others.

A Hierarchy of Choices

It is a hard conversation that eventually has to be had: if your expectation of familial ties is to be chosen over an intimate companion, you have read the situation incorrectly. Once you understand the mystery that brings people together, you fall into a hierarchy of choices. A partner will be chosen first, over all other relationships, including close familial ties and long friendships. People should fall in line and respect that choice, just as they would expect others to respect their own.

What you will not get away with, then, is disrespecting, disparaging, ignoring, or deigning to reduce a significant other to insignificance. I know many will remain unpersuaded by that construct, and so they will land in the irrelevant scheme of things.

Relationships are acts of great determination on the part of the participants. The least that can be done is to accord them the courtesy of acknowledging that they exist, and to respect the one you know has chosen rightly for themselves.

In the end, this is only a plea for individual choice and the respect it is owed, and for the humility to accept that no one, however well-meaning, is equipped to choose better on another's behalf.

Postscript

Ignore this at your peril. The person who insists on knowing better, who meddles where they were not invited and talks down to the one another has chosen, does not preserve the relationship they disapprove of; they forfeit their place in it. You are not owed a seat at a table you keep trying to overturn. Respect the choice, or be left out of the life that choice builds.

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Thirteen Jabs and Counting

A Saturday Ritual

Yesterday morning, I stood in a queue at the invitation of my GP. There were two queues, one to the left and another to the right. We on the right were the double jabbers, there to receive both the annual flu jab and the biannual Covid vaccine booster. The ones on the left were there for the flu jab alone.

The GP surgery is not usually open on Saturdays, but for this annual ritual, a day is set aside in September, October, or as late as November. I only began taking the flu jab ten years ago, though it had been recommended to me much earlier.

Thirteen Jabs Later

In terms of COVID-19, this was my thirteenth jab, or more correctly, the eleventh booster following the first two doses in February and May 2021. The Coronavirus is not a distant memory, as the statistics still show that people are being admitted to hospital with complications from the disease.

According to the most recent figures available from the UKHSA data dashboard, there were 261 COVID-19 hospital admissions in the seven days up to 31 August 2026, an increase of 15 per cent on the previous week, with 289 confirmed patients in hospital on that date. [UKHSA data dashboard, COVID-19]

Receiving the boosters is now much more convenient. For a while, it seems, delivering the Covid jab was a niche activity that only a few pharmacies found profitable. In times past, beyond the first two years when I could go to a sequestered place in the town hall, the centres providing the service had progressively moved out of the town centre.

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After the first three jabs, things moved further afield still to chemists out of town, so much so that it became rather more difficult to find ones that had the booster in stock to give it. Twice, I had booked appointments only to arrive to disappointment.

Back to the Surgery

On one occasion, I got the booster in a van on a large supermarket car park, and then last year, the Boots Chemist in the shopping precinct on Market Street started offering Covid jabs. Imagine my surprise when I got a message from my GP surgery that they could now deliver the jabs, once they had a sense of how many people needed it.

It should always have been managed through the primary care system at the GP surgery, and I am glad that is now the case. That it is back within the management of the surgery is, for me, the greater relief.

At the surgery you are seen by people who know your medical history and can access the critical information needed to support your treatment; the chemists and the vans cannot do that, for they can only register that you have taken the shot. The staff at the surgery are always attentive, professional, and helpful, and it is an easy place to fall into conversation with others.

Aftermath and Advice

I took the flu jab in my right arm and the Covid jab in my left arm. Both an aching arm and a headache registered their presence throughout the day, so much so that I spent most of it in bed until dusk, when I got up to have a meal. Brian, my partner, advised me to take Paracetamol, which I rarely do; I had hoped to sleep it off. It is only mild discomfort, yet it is energy-sapping, leaving you quite irritable and uncomfortable.

I hope I regain my verve for tomorrow. I know some people have advised against taking the booster shots, but they are not from the medical establishment, so I have paid them no heed. Meanwhile, if you are immunosuppressed and, or invited to take the flu jab, my advice is this: don't think twice about it. Get the protection for the winter ahead.

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Franklin Graham in Manchester

Ministry Over Politics

On two consecutive Saturdays, Manchester has hosted large Christian events that filled their venues to capacity. This time it was Franklin Graham, son of the late Billy Graham, the renowned American evangelist who preached to millions a generation ago.

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To deal with my misgivings from the outset, I am no fan of Franklin Graham's politics; his association with a kind of American Christian nationalism wins him no plaudits from me. Yet I must have as much sense as an old cow: eat the hay and leave the baling wire.

It is the ministry and anointing upon a person that we pay heed to, rather than their politics, for each one carries a revelation that may speak to us in ways no one else can. For all our human flaws, the amazing grace that flows through imperfect vessels underlines why we should place our trust in God rather than in men.

Drawn by the Music

I suppose what drew me most to this event was one of the performers, Michael W. Smith, the American singer-songwriter whose praise and worship songs have served us for decades. In fact, I saw him perform in Arnhem, in the Netherlands, back in 2002.

We gathered on the other side of Manchester, at the new Co-op Live venue, which stands right beside Manchester City's Etihad Stadium; Co-op Live is the UK's largest entertainment arena. The previous Saturday, by contrast, Jerry Eze's event had been held at Manchester United's Old Trafford. Jerry Eze is the Nigerian pastor behind NSPPD, short for New Season Prophetic Prayers and Declarations, whose church, Streams of Joy International, had filled Old Trafford only the week before.

A Tale of Two Events

The logistics required to host both events were onerous, yet quite well ordered. There were, however, stark differences. The earlier gathering had a predominantly black and diaspora attendance, whilst this one was decidedly international. I dare say a religious racial divide does exist, if you choose to observe what is going on around you. Beyond that, this event started on time.

Jerry Eze's event was almost a full day: the stadium opened to receive attendees from around 10:00 am, only for the first act to take the stage ninety minutes after the scheduled noon start. I concede it was quite a task getting everyone in. Three sides of Old Trafford were filled, every side but the one behind the main stage, a crowd I would estimate at some fifty thousand people.

Indeed, so great was the demand that Pastor Eze later apologised, in a video message, to the tens of thousands reportedly turned away, though that figure has not been independently confirmed. [Premier Christian News: Apology after 'tens of thousands' reportedly turned away from prayer event at Old Trafford stadium]

Arriving at Co-op Live

On arrival at Co-op Live, I was offered the accessibility entrance, which meant stair-free access to my seat. We were given tickets at the gates, with unassigned seating, and what a cavernous place the hall was. The floor, the stalls and the upper tiers were filled, every section bar the second tier. I took a seat in the third tier, looking towards the main stage from the left.

I was seated near several large families, and the young ones, adolescents for the most part, were a restless company, with the odd kicked seat and a wandering pair of feet to contend with. Still, I would not dwell on it, for it was heartening to see so many young people present; they are, after all, the very souls such an evening hopes to reach.

Performances and Purpose

Franklin Graham was hosting an evening gathering, with doors opening at 4:30 pm and proceedings beginning at 6:00 pm, the first act being a performance from Faith Child, the British Christian rapper. Thankfully, there were subtitles for some of us to follow his act; I suppose it is a generational thing, for I cannot easily keep pace with the rapid delivery that is so characteristic of rap.

More gospel acts followed, from the traditional to the modern, until Michael W. Smith appeared, first with two unfamiliar songs and then a dip into the legacy material that some of us of a certain age remember from the turn of the century.

Interspersed between the performances were video messages, including one for Samaritan's Purse, the international relief organisation Franklin Graham heads. More acts followed before Franklin Graham himself was introduced.

A Long-Awaited Visit

Apparently, it was his first time in Manchester. I recall seeing advertisements for previous visits; it was not that he had been barred from entering the UK, but rather that the proposed venues, at one time eight in all, cancelled their bookings with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, with him as the frontman. Those cancellations came in 2020, when the venues withdrew after petitions citing concerns that his appearance would stoke division. [Open Table: US evangelist Franklin Graham claims ‘persecution’ as UK venues cancel preaching tour bookings]

His message was the traditional gospel message: the problem of sin, and where we will spend eternity. These words are carried to the ears of listeners, but it is the work of God, through the Holy Spirit, that brings the conviction leading a person to proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. Those of us from an Evangelical background must take care that we do not become inured to this fundamental gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Unchanging Message

My experience of meeting friends the previous week is a case in point. I knew where my friend had given his life to Christ, but I was unaware that I had been instrumental in ministering to him, some forty-one years ago. I still have no recollection of the conversation, yet he has woven it into the story of his Christian witness.

When Franklin Graham gave the altar call, thousands stepped forward to pray the prayer of salvation. We applauded their decisions, and it took almost twenty minutes to get everyone to the front. He led them in prayer and gave each one material and a Bible to aid them in their new Christian walk. The proceedings closed after that.

A Harvest of Souls

This event was more an evangelistic crusade for new souls, as compared with last week's, which was a prayer conference: for those who already know, and a witness for those who never knew. For my own part, I came away blessed; it was a good evening of praise and worship.

I do wonder whether another event is scheduled for the not-too-distant future. Yet, judging by the attendance I witnessed over these two Saturdays, while the established church may be suffering an attendance crisis born of its search for relevance to society today, the Evangelical and Pentecostal wings of the church seem to be enjoying a bountiful harvest of souls.

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A Second Witness

I had already reviewed this place once. When friends unknowingly visited the same restaurant four days later, they endured the very same treatment, bad manners in person, their time wasted, and warm words only for the audience online. So much for "dignity and respect, always".

A Reunion and a Request

Having met up with friends I had not seen in forty years at the Jerry Eze event, we were invited to their Airbnb apartment the following evening. My best friend, being the cousin of the lady, was asked to gather ideas on where to find Nigerian takeaway meals.

Given where they were staying, I looked up nearby locations for deliveries, unaware that they intended to collect the food themselves. My friend, already familiar with my experience at the restaurant the week before, felt that it was my exacting standards, rather than poor customer service, that had informed my unfavourable review of the place.

Against My Better Judgement

Whilst I disagreed, he prevailed upon me, and against my better judgement, I shared details of this place along with an alternative. As it was a Sunday, there was a possibility that the restaurant could fulfil an order placed early and collected later. We did not share anything else about my experience, so as to eliminate any bias towards the outfit.

They received the information after attending church in the early afternoon, and set off to collect the order in the late afternoon. It was a single order for the four of us: the old favourites of okra stew and semolina for my best friend and me, and egusi stew with pounded yam for our friends.

A Familiar Disappointment

They had their own ordeal: a bad attitude from the chef, who closed the door in their faces, whilst the manager who had cut off my call during the earlier episode now played the apologetic service provider, distancing himself from the situation whilst asking for a good review.

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My friends had their time wasted. The food was not ready when they had agreed to collect it, and there were others also waiting, in what looked less like a busy day than a business accustomed to holding customers in hock once an order has been placed and no alternatives remain. Coupled with a lackadaisical manner, it amounted to taking on more than they could handle.

They ended up going to McDonald's for a bite, because they could not even get basic snack food elsewhere, before returning for a long wait to collect. More than an hour of the afternoon was lost on a business that has no concept of the value of time.

An Apology for the Audience

Their public reply, posted to my Google Maps review, read as contrite yet revealed itself as mere sophistry. They assured me that they "treat everyone with dignity and respect always", a claim my friends could comfortably refute, having had a door shut in their faces by the chef.

They were glad I thought the food good, gutted that I felt the call was dropped, and insistent that it was not from their end and that they had rung back before seeing the review.

Yet the warmth arrived only once the review was public. Had that courtesy been extended in the moment, my friends would have had a very different afternoon. An apology prompted by an audience is not service; it is damage control.

The Verdict

With a second, unconnected customer having had the very same experience, one can conclude that the first review was not off the mark. When people show you who they are the first time, that is who they are. Whilst I am still sparing them the ignominy of being named and shamed, they would never be recommended again.

The meal was passable, yet the okra stew never reached my expectations in aroma, taste, quality, or quantity; it was forgettable. Our friends fared no better: they had wanted egusi and were served efo riro instead, with pounded yam, and were offered an extra portion of pounded yam only on condition that they left a good review. It was another case of food advertised on the app proving unavailable once the order was placed.

To think I had suffered the indignity of excusing bad manners for the sake of good food, only to find that the food I really wanted did not make the grade. Best to blot it out of memory: a brief encounter to end all encounters.

Reference: my original review, "Essential Snobbery 101: Good Food Is No Substitute for Good Manners" (akinblog.nl, 23 September 2026).

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Nigeria: Independent of Feeling

Childhood Celebrations

A time of my childhood returns as a fleeting memory of Nigeria's independence celebrations, as today marks the 66th anniversary. Back then, at primary school in Jos, we practised marching like little soldiers, ready to demonstrate some sort of military prowess to the governor, who stood on a dais saluting the troops on this significant day.

If I remember correctly, it would have been October 1974, and that was the last time I took part in any such event. It was probably the only occasion on which we were close enough to a state capital to have a governor in attendance. Rayfield was home, Bukuru was for school, and the stadium in Jos was for marching.

Another notable public holiday would have been Children's Day, on the 27th of May. We donned our school uniforms and wore white socks, and there was a preference for canvas shoes; I had none, however, considering that my feet grew faster than shoes could be acquired to last a year.

An Outsider Looking In

Yet, for all these shared rituals, I am not sure I ever truly belonged. I had returned to Nigeria with my parents from England, and I was betrayed first by my accent, then by my outlook, and finally by the dawning realisation that many thought me different and apart, even when I tried my utmost to integrate.

There were benefits to this; I was excused from many traditional requirements that bound others. Being the outsider, though, could be difficult too, and one learns early that exemption and exclusion are often the same coin.

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Percolating in the recesses of the unforgettable is the national anthem of the time, "Arise, O Compatriots", the one adopted by the military junta in 1978 and sung until 2024. The very word "compatriot" has always sat with me as "comrade" does; it speaks of a bond forged around an idea, a creed, or a cause, rather than the quieter fact of belonging to a land or a people.

That is the slant I could never warm to, worsened by the servitude of unquestioning obeisance, and worse still by the pledge, recited by the people yet ignored by the rulers. I have written before of my want of any reverence for it, and I will not rehearse that dismissal here. [The entity is Nigeria, the identity is Nigerian]

A Fading Affinity

As I sit here today, mindful that Nigeria is marking its independence, the refrain of the readopted anthem rings in me like an earworm, a tune that lingers though its meaning has long drained away.

Then again, even the colonial slant of that original anthem, now sung once more, still seems to exemplify what Nigeria remains. My affinity for what she represents is fast fading. Beyond heritage, she no longer exerts the pull of nostalgia, save for her cuisine, nor offers any real sense of identity as the years pass.

In the first stanza alone, everything militates against its reach and appeal; it has long become a historical artefact, of things told rather than lived. When I left Nigeria, I was also released from the grip it once seemed to have, until I realised that, by jus soli, I was indeed of a wholly different nation to my parents' jus sanguinis.

There is an irony I can no longer ignore. On the day a nation remembers its independence from an empire, proclaimed from a dais to a saluting crowd, I find I have quietly come into an independence of my own, won not at once but by increments. Hers was from a crown; mine is of feeling, the last tie to loosen and the hardest to mourn, settling in only when the heart finally stops answering a call it no longer recognises.

Nigeria, we hail thee,
Our own dear native land,
Though tribes and tongues may differ,
In brotherhood we stand,
Nigerians all, are proud to serve
Our sovereign Motherland.

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