Essential Snobbery 101: Letting Mother Help You Choose Good Friends

The Wisdom of Maternal Instinct

Mothers of my generation who happened to be in the UK during the 1960s seemed to acquire a turn of phrase associated with that exposure, which we, their children, sometimes had trouble understanding. However, with hindsight, many of their observations were insightful, intuitive, and prescient.

When your mother said, "This friend of yours is too good for my liking," whilst she was not commanding you to break the friendship there and then, she expected you to find ways of extricating yourself from that relationship.

Usually, this meant bringing new friends into your orbit and having something aspirational within those friendships against which she could compare you, urging you to do better. As our parents cannot essentially make our friends for us, they exercise a kind of judgement on our decision-making in the best interests of our protection, even if we cannot see why.

The Mirror of Association

Another saying of foreboding is, "Show me your friends, and I will show you who you are." Association becomes a marker for discernment, character, and principle. Choose and keep the wrong associations, and watch your own reputation go up in flames, even if you are neither involved nor culpable in the nefarious activities of your chosen friends.

Moral judgement, a good conscience, along with a sense of knowing when something is wrong, are instincts we should all have. Beyond that, we need to be aware of when we begin to think that status and means provide immunity for impunity, creating an aura of invincibility bordering on being untouchable. It is the most dangerous cocoon of existence in which a man can find himself.

It is in this light that I have wondered how wise counsel deserted men of wealth and power concerning Jeffrey Epstein. Firstly, the evil and wickedness he inflicted on young, vulnerable women for his pleasure and that of those he corralled into his circle of influence is unforgivable. Lives were ruined and damaged beyond any form of redemption. The most public of them, Virginia Giuffre, took her own life last year.

The Voiceless Victims

For those still living, I can only hope that they find the love and care to give them not merely the will to live, but a purpose that can help them craft a better story regardless of their past. They remain the voiceless in this atrocity, in which he gave himself the easy exit of suicide rather than be held accountable for his actions.

His accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, is in prison but hardly languishing in a gulag. She probably holds a bargaining chip of influence and blackmail that could ease the severity of the punishment she truly deserves. However, apart from these two principals in this influential harem of inordinate abuse, almost rivalling the court of Caligula, no one else has faced the remote prospect of indictment, let alone prosecution.

A Global Web of Complicity

The names on Jeffrey Epstein's Rolodex and roll of shame reach into a global Who's Who of money, power, royalty, politics, and academia, touching the once respected, revered, or adored. We have begun to question our own sanity, yet one can only be in awe of how he networked to create a veneer of respectability over his disreputable and criminal enterprise. Those involved became inadvertent enablers, and within that bubble, they were mesmerised into the suspension of disbelief.

The taint of association has claimed scalps and led to disgrace in many spheres. It started with a CEO of a global bank losing his job, the marriage of the richest man in the world for over a decade collapsing, a prince losing his titles and honours, an ambassador sacked with the prospect of losing his peerage, and today, the chief of staff to the Prime Minister resigning for just being a friend of a friend.

That list is not exhaustive, but it is indicative of how a mother's observation could have saved the reputations and honour of some who have now become part of Epstein's story.

Heeding the Warning Signs

It is obvious that we need to regularly review the kinds of friendships we keep, no matter how influential, rich, and connected that person might be. I know those people my mother took exception to; there are two who never became good friends. One of them became involved in criminality in the UK, such that his history stood against his ability to practise law there.

Sometimes, I hear my mother's voice in my head. There are times I hear her in my own speaking, too. In both cases, I am glad there is that premonition to avoid some people.

Committing The Treason of Solitude

Misunderstood Perceptions

How I am viewed by others leaves me baffled, if not surprised. If I am not generally considered a curmudgeon, it is assumed I have a temperament easily disposed to petty angst and fits of pique, with a tendency to take offence without cause.

How this figment of imagination takes hold and plays out, as if an alter ego of mine has supplanted my reality and taken my place interacting with others, escapes me. It would be unkind to suggest others are getting ahead of themselves.

My True Nature

In my mind, I would think those with whom I have issues would be in no doubt that I have issues with them, despite every desire for them to think they have done nothing wrong.

Much as I tend to be a loner, keeping to myself and enjoying my own company in the confines of my bedroom, oblivious of the world, I do not pick a grudge for the sake of being contrarian.

The Demands of Others

Indeed, there are times I want to be left well alone. It is a prerogative I seem to have no unilateral licence to exercise without question; there are people who simply need my engagement regardless of my situation.

Tribute, attention, communication and calls must be made or answered, or an inquiry is instituted bordering on an inquisition. My guilt is decided without the option for innocence, all in a day, or even shorter, between dawn and dusk.

No Hiding Place

In this, I have no hiding place. My solitude is a room with too many keys, distributed freely to others who enter at will, demanding tribute in the form of my time, my attention and my immediate response. No excuse is ever good enough for breaking formation; I must meet expectations or face sanction.

If I had the temerity to consider changing the locks, just imagine how the charge of treason would stick, because I belong to something beyond myself. My boundaries and borders are without demarcation, access taken rather than given.

Why does a moment cloud and crowd out the significance of the enduring, from which the narrative and story bear their existence? I suppose I would never understand where, for some, the spectrum of security is transient, whilst for others it is a bond of endurance that cannot be nicked by ephemeral conniptions.

Thought Picnic: Rest, Sobriety, and Social Sacrifice

Treasuring Rest and Sobriety

There are two things I treasure: the opportunity for rest and keeping my sobriety. I get my sleep whenever I can, except when it is interrupted by obligation or responsibility—work or other necessities.

This means that even when I do not get sufficient rest during the week, which is usually the case due to what is essentially nighttime insomnia, I make up for the shortfall at the weekend. I will have a good lie-in on Saturday, not getting out of bed for most of the morning if I can help it, and sometimes I do give my Sunday to rest over religious commitment.

It is strange that some who are aware of these irregular sleeping patterns still seem totally oblivious to this knowledge in some self-serving way. I suppose that is to be expected.

A Teetotaller With Exceptions

On sobriety, I would consider myself generally a teetotaller, though not to the point of total abstinence. I do like wine. My work experience in a brewery laboratory at the age of 15 quite literally put me off beer, lager, cider, and ale.

It is not for religious belief that I rarely consume alcohol; rather, I have seen how drink loosens the tongue, prompting people to speak more candidly. These are thoughts they once had the wherewithal to keep unspoken. Moments of indiscretion or regrettable garrulousness accommodate the emptying of the bottle into the belly.

One core principle I keep more than ever is never to drink alone and mostly to drink only with meals. This makes drinking a social activity and forestalls the advent of hangovers. I probably drink with the utmost moderation; my experiences with light-headedness have come from prescribed medication rather than from losing control, paying homage to Bacchus.

The Darker Side of Drink

Walking up through the Gay Village near where I live, many a doorway is fouled by vomit. At night, you behold the sight of people barely able to stand on their own two feet, so inebriated to the point of incapacity.

The whole thing is quite scary to me: the thought that a portion of your sensibilities is lost to a void of nothingness, your memory failing to recall any recent event.

Then imagine a sober man keeping the fully drunk company, subjected to the inanities that make you question your own sanity. As much as it is part of socialising and being a social animal, you do you; I do me. Some sacrifices are necessary to make the world go round.

The Just Can't Wait Card Test

The Tale of Two Responses

It was eventually going to happen: a moment when I wielded my Just Can't Wait Card and was met with a Just Can't Be Bothered apathetic response. It was yesterday, just before 7:00 PM, when I alighted from the tram at Cornbrook, slightly pressed and hoping to make up the shortfall of my daily 10,000 steps.

As the breezy chill of the cold hit me, my bladder was at bursting point. I needed to go and go now. I turned into the entrance of one of the new developments and showed my card to the concierge, pleading to use a toilet on their premises.

She gave it no consideration, expressing the fear that if her manager found out a non-resident had used the toilet, she would be in trouble. Lady, the reason I came here was that I have a medical condition. I need the respite borne of your human kindness to allow me access. Surely, no manager of human provenance would think helping someone with a medical condition is so bad as to warrant a sanction. Common sense should prevail.

It fell on deaf ears; this conversation was going on as Brian was on the other end of the phone. She then said I should try the Co-op shop around the corner, to the front. The daring I once had of telling anyone who refused my entreaties that I would do whatever was pressing standing in front of them deserted me.

A Worrying Contingency

In the worst-case scenario, I would have wet myself and depended on my incontinence underwear to save my blushes in the 30-minute walk home. However, I did go to the Co-op shop and showed my Just Can't Wait Card. The lady at the till immediately summoned the store manager.

He explained that there were no customer-side toilet facilities, but he would take me into the back of the store and would have to wait outside until I had finished. The difference? Human compassion with a sense of humanity, rather than the readiness to sacrifice suffering on the altar of keeping the rules. More so, it is the presence of initiative, agency, and autonomy.

I had this large, disabled-equipped convenience to myself for as long as I wanted, and I was done in a few minutes. I thanked him profusely and made for home: relieved, succoured, and comforted by understanding human beings.

The Absence of Initiative

My earlier experience made me wonder: beyond manning the concierge desk, if any resident had suffered an emergency, would this concierge have risen to the situation to help? I would be quite doubtful, because she would be thinking her manager would upbraid her for any attempt at being human. It is best not to be distracted by the other descriptions that are present in what could be hitting below the belt.

My condition was manageable. I would not want to extrapolate on a more serious condition with someone else, who needed the presence of mind, the abundance of initiative, and just a modicum of courage, with the beating heart of humanity. How would our conscientious concierge, attending to her duties in the strict diktat of the letter of her contract of employment, have responded?

Names and Places

On getting home, I wrote to the management company of that apartment complex. I may not get a response, but what it takes to escalate this episode by averring to the press that there are certain establishments in this friendly Manchester city of ours, heartless apparatchiks are in customer-facing roles, oblivious to the charitable consideration of the disabled or those with medical conditions.

Heck, I have been in places where I had neither my card nor a Radar key, and I was allowed the use of their toilets and a place for respite before I continued on my way. The talk on this matter is not over yet. Names and places to come in due course.

A Reckoning With Remo Secondary School at 80

A Reluctant Beginning

It is a part of my history I cannot ignore: a ploy by my parents to move me from the privileged environment of international primary schooling to experience integration into their culture, norms, and values, in order to foster independence and resilience during secondary boarding school, within the context of their tribal roots.

In the 30th year of the founding of Remo Secondary School, Sagamu, I gained admission after sitting the common entrance examinations and arrived from the north, ill-prepared, ill-equipped, and scarcely excited by the prospect. At age 10, my only options were between this school and Odogbolu Grammar School.

A Blur of Survival

The five years of being a student are a blur; I do not retain any particular friendships or bonds from that time. The people I considered friends were probably just fellow survivors trying to cope in a hostile environment, as we have scarcely maintained those connections since graduating.

If my memories are to be recalled, they would be in the names of the teachers rather than my classmates. The principal during my admission was Mrs Adebambo, a stoic lady who seemed to have eyes everywhere; you could hardly hide when not in the designated student assembly.

Yet I do remember hiding in a cavity behind the shrubs backing Falode House hostel as she walked by. I broke that myth.

Houses and Early Years

I was in Adedoyin House, and for my first three years, we took the wooden spoon at the Inter-House Sports Day. I was never a sportsman, but we cheered just for participation. Mr Abiona, I remember him as a kind housemaster; one of his sons was my classmate. The other two houses were Igimisoje and Mellor.

Remo Secondary School (RSS) was founded 80 years ago today by a Methodist missionary and community leaders as the first coeducational secondary school. Reverend William Frederick Mellor died in my first year at RSS.

Teachers Remembered

Of all the people who taught me, I remember most fondly Pascal Housenone, my mathematics teacher from the neighbouring Benin Republic. He taught me in my third form. Mr Adekoya taught English; he tarnished my school report that year by remarking that I was a truant. No one wondered why I was bothered, disinterested, and distracted in class; I preferred being in the library.

Of the malevolent lot was Mr Okonji, who earned the nickname Study-Study but was never able to enthuse us with his French lessons. He failed at imparting knowledge, relying on the cane; a sadist whose gratification was inflicting pain. With Mrs Odutuyo, the Yoruba teacher; the only lesson I learnt from her tutelage was adding diacritical marks to Yoruba; they both personified wickedness and abuse without accountability.

Collective Punishment

In my final year, we attended summer classes, and some classmates, intent on meeting girls one night, ran amok and caused damage and injury in the girls' hostel. Instead of investigating who the real culprits were, the school decided on collective punishment, expelling us from the boarding arrangements for the final year.

I remember the vice principal coming to the hostel and saying loudly that she knew these boys were not involved, but the decision had been made. That shaped my view and experience of RSS since the summer of 1980. I graduated in the Class of 1981; I have not returned since.

A Distance Maintained

I have observed activities of the RSS Old Students' Association from afar but have never been persuaded to join, as some of the leadership in the UK are reliquaries of memories I’d rather forget. For the record, I post this note.

Suicide When Academia Forgets Its Humanity

A Life Lost to Bureaucracy

I just read of a young medical student at the University of Birmingham who took his own life after failing a resit examination. By email, he was advised that he would have to exit the course.

What seemed like a simple administrative activity delivered by email by the University of Birmingham was, in fact, the end of the road for this young soul. He saw no other options left.

The Failure of Pastoral Care

It could not have been too difficult to invite this young man into a student affairs office or a dean's office to ascertain why he struggled to pass one resit examination when his other results met the mark.

Having invested life and purpose in a medical degree programme, surely, despite whatever rules were in place, no one, especially in an academic environment, should be oblivious to the considerable mental strain of effort not being rewarded with some recognition.

As per the narrative in the news, on that alone, I would suggest the University of Birmingham has been remiss in a core responsibility for student welfare that is quite unforgivable.

The Whisper of Despair

Then, whilst I cannot ascertain the facts of what the triggers for suicide and death by misadventure could be, I know there are times I have harboured suicidal thoughts.

I lived on the seventh floor in a swanky apartment in Amsterdam. As the long tail of cancer wagged ferociously with the loss of health, status, means and wherewithal, from the full-length windows in my living room, a voice whispered: Jump!

It could have ended things suddenly, without having to live through further adversity and privation that has become part of my story. My hesitation came from the desire to tell a better story.

When Platitudes Become Cruelty

In the comments that followed the sad news, there were many statements in the theme of, "Suicide is not the answer."

Reading all that left me quite incensed, and hence this blog, because that only works when counselling those exhibiting suicide ideation. It is unfeelingly cold and wicked to suggest that after the suicide has been committed.

My prayer is that those who appear to have the answer are not met with such overwhelming circumstances that no other option is presented in their predicament except for suicide.

The Fragility of Humanity

The fragility of our humanity is sometimes not understood without a personal encounter of indeterminable consequence. Even my two encounters with life-threatening cancer do not furnish me with the audacity to question the mental state of another when met with a wall of adversity that presents no hope or respite.

In many cases, people do need a different kind of confidante, before whom no wrong would be imputed against them. They are the warm embrace of succour and comfort, shining light into the darkness to see a path in life even when failure has snatched a prospect from reach.

A Lost Opportunity

I recall a saying that has stood with me from an uncle, way back in 1980, he said, "An opportunity once lost can be regained after a temporary setback."

I'm saddened the young man saw no further opportunities. May Phil Moyo's soul rest in peace, and his family and friends be comforted by the fond memories of his remarkable life.

A Google NotebookLM AI Audio Overview Discussion of this blog

Recuperation is something you should make time for

Learning to Prioritise Recovery

I completed my last chemotherapy session on 8 February 2010. There was another session scheduled for 1 March, but when I saw the ninth session was set for 22 March, I protested, telling my consultant that I saw my life resuming after 1 March and was not mentally prepared for further chemotherapy beyond that date.

My objection resulted in my multidisciplinary team cancelling the eighth session, but that was not my original intention.

Having been given my life back, I was back on the job market, seeking an opportunity, when my consultant said I needed another six months of recovery before returning to work.

Although I had a very generous welfare package, I wanted to return to work. My sense of independence drove me, just as it was clear that bills and the mortgage had not taken a break due to my illness.

The Cost of Returning Too Early

Within seven weeks of my last chemotherapy session, I was back at work. Then my body told me a different story: I neither have the strength nor the capacity for this responsibility. I need to negotiate an adjustment or resign.

The management was very understanding, and I was granted Wednesdays off. This break helped greatly throughout 2010. It was clear I had not allowed myself enough time to recover. However, I did not have the luxury of taking extended time off, as I was self-employed.

More recently, when I was diagnosed with malignant prostate cancer in June 2024, I chose radiotherapy and decided to work through the treatment in September and October of the same year.

On three weekdays during treatment, I had to finish early due to unmanageable fatigue, a known side effect of radiotherapy.

Pushing Through Despite the Warning Signs

Yet, after radiotherapy, I worked for another month as my strength waned, and I realised I needed more specialised care, for which I am grateful Brian provided in Cape Town. I was on sick leave for seven weeks, and although I was paid, I felt the urge to return to work halfway through the leave.

I returned on the first working day of 2025. I was not fully ready, but my spirit was willing; my body struggled beyond its capacity. I pushed through when another two months off would have been ideal.

Throughout 2025, aside from my holidays, hospital appointments and an episode of epididymitis—after attending the hospital, I returned to work; by December, I still had 14 days of annual leave remaining.

For someone coming off a cancer diagnosis and radical radiotherapy, I had overworked myself out of recovery and into a demanding work environment, complicated further by political issues within management. The mentality of just powering through.

A Wake-Up Call

When, on Monday, I experienced the recurrence of unexplained juvenile stomach cramps, there was a suspicion that I could endure the pain, and I did for hours.

A contractual obligation that we delivered to the client every Monday, which I controlled, I promptly completed ahead of schedule, posting the results before I left the office.

While the stomach ache did subside, it took its toll. I was in bed all of Monday, on nil-by-mouth except for essential medication. The same continued through Tuesday and most of Wednesday.

Amidst this, I realised: I do not give myself enough recovery time because I am driven, compelled or obligated by responsibility, circumstance, or situation. None of which is healthy.

A Commitment to Change

It is a realisation I must keep in mind. I am not in a competition of appearances. Good health will always lead to greater productivity; any shortcomings become visible somewhere.