Twenty-Seven Years and a Day

A Manchester Eclipse

Time is measured in epochs that put our ephemeral existence into insignificance. I have been in the path of a few celestial events, solar eclipses that, without the explanation of modern science, would have left us in total dread and foreboding.

Today in Manchester, we witnessed a partial solar eclipse. Things did not really go dark, but everyone was looking up to behold this once-in-a-lifetime heavenly sight.

I could not get hold of eclipse glasses, so I improvised, making a pinhole camera. I probably needed a bit more depth to the box, but it occupied me enough that I did not dare to look directly at the sun.

An AI-generated infographic on the blog content. (Click to enlarge.)

Finding a Better View

As I live in an urban city centre with many high-rise buildings, getting a good view first entailed standing by the roadside, before I made my way to Mayfield Park, which we as residents sometimes forget is so close and quite vast.

I watched it well beyond the maximum before a lady offered me her glasses, and I then looked directly at the majesty of our universe.

Twenty-Seven Years Earlier

Twenty-seven years and a day ago, we had another solar eclipse. This one was quite prominent; not totality, but you saw and noticed the dimming of the light. As the light dimmed, it took on a sepia hue, almost like being inside a photograph from the 1940s.

It was also a different place. I was visiting a friend in the Netherlands, who lived out in the countryside at Doorn, and what a spectacle we saw in his garden.

Doorn is also the town in which the Kaiser of Germany spent his last days. Wilhelm II abdicated in 1918 and lived at Huis Doorn until his death in 1941; fittingly, he seems to carry that same feeling of the 1940s that the sepia light evoked.

The House at Doorn

My friend's mother took me on a tour of Huis Doorn. As her father had been the groundsman, their house stood on the grounds, and she, with the other children, would run around the house having tea with the Kaiser.

She showed me the chutes they slithered through to get from one part of the house to another: a historical monument, visited with a guide whose own history was formed within its walls.

A Turning Point

I cannot tell why an eclipse could be both momentous and auspicious. I did not see the future, for I had just come out of a seven-year relationship. We remained friends and planned a short holiday to Brussels.

As he returned to England, I headed north to Holland. Nine months later marked the beginning of a new life in the Netherlands, twelve and a half years of it. No, it was not to enter a relationship, though I remained in contact with my friend in Doorn.

Written in the Skies

And God said, "Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. [Genesis 1:14-15 NIVUK]

I do not do things by chance. This might be a harbinger of things to come; the least you can do is to be ready for when change and opportunity come.

Life is like a story written in the skies, sometimes clear, at times cloudy, and even, on occasion, in the dimness and haze of sepia. It comes as experience, to be written into memory and history.

A Gemini Notebook AI Podcast on this blog

The Boy Born Abroad

An Unexpected Journey

When I was asked if I wanted to go to Nigeria about 55 years ago, no one intimated to me that it was a permanent move. I thought we were going on holiday. I suppose I was not that perceptive, even with my known precocity, to notice the excitement in my parents' urgings, nor the significance of that final night in England when all their friends gathered for a send-off.

The place to which my parents belonged, and which they called home, eager to return, having watched the Nigerian Civil War for years until it ended, was foreign, different, and strange. But I had no choice in the matter. They were my guardians; I was their ward. The common idea was that, as a child, I would adapt, adjust, and adhere.

A Different Reality

No sooner had we landed than the first thing I noticed was that there were more of us and fewer of them. Nigeria hits you with a kind of alternative reality. I could only wonder whether having other siblings in England might have altered the idea of taking us back before my parents had settled down. Things would most definitely have been easier than being an only child.

In the approximately two decades that I lived in Nigeria, I had assimilated to an extent, yet I was very much an alien. Even though my accent had been affected, it had not radically changed to the extent that I could not be differentiated as having some foreign influence.

Besides, something daily reminded me of being other than among. From address to observation, a middle-class bubble placed me in a kind of elite and a place of privilege. Those of us born abroad seemed to have a built-in ET beacon calling home: abroad.

Then again, we all seemed to have endured Nigeria for as long as parental or guardian influence could keep us, before we mostly took flight as soon as we completed tertiary education. Something could be written about the exodus of kids born abroad in the 1960s, once they could.

A Turning Point

I even had a kind of fantasy. I was involved in some interesting projects where I, unusually, dictated my own terms, a daring born out of earlier precociousness that had matured into a fearless tendency to assert when, typically, others might deflect and genuflect.

I walked into a visa office with enough documentation that the conversation left the idea of granting the visa for exchanging anecdotes about other applicants who might have given the consular officer a second career full of material to be a successful stand-up comedian.

He was even urging me to apply for a British passport, but the lead time from lodging an application to getting an interview was 18 months. I just did not have the time when I was travelling the next week to get kit for a company in which I owned 30% equity.

However, after a fortnight in England, during which Maggie Thatcher was turfed out of Downing Street, it took me just four weeks to decide I had had enough of Nigeria. This was exacerbated by my partner in the firm. My original idea of visiting England at will had given way to leaving Nigeria for new opportunities, and that was executed with precision.

Roots and Reflections

As I write this blog post, I would have been flying into London Heathrow on a delayed flight from Lagos 35 years ago today. I have never returned, even as I cherished the quality of heritage and stories Nigeria gave me. I was always that boy born abroad in a white man's land.

That anyone still holds the prospect of a jaunt to the fatherland or motherland is interesting to the point of amusement.

I never had the emotional, nostalgic luxury of a dreamy reconnection with my roots, as my roots were never there, even as my ancestry is grounded there. The funny thing is, I still have my last boarding card from my departure from Nigeria. It was a different time.

My boarding pass from 1990

The UK: What You Get At 60

UK Benefits & Concessions at Age 60

There are entitlements that accrue to those who have reached the milestone age of 60 in the UK, though those benefits are not universal, depending on which region of England or nation of the UK you reside in.

On a point of principle, I have decided to avail myself of every single benefit being offered, both for saving money and for being recognised and celebrated for reaching this new age. I got my Senior Railcard on Monday, but I decided to check what else I was eligible for.

Asking AI, with a few caveats, to indicate only the concessions and benefits I automatically receive by default—excluding means-tested benefits or those available at pension age—it would seem we really can go to town if we so desire. Where I can, I have added references, but broadly, enquiries should be made where necessary.

Please indulge in them

🎯 Automatic age entitlement • 🚫 Not means‑tested • 🚫 No pension age required

Correct as of 📅 26 December 2025. Share freely.

🚆🚌 1. Travel & Transport

🇬🇧 UK‑Wide

• 🚆 Senior Railcard (60+) – Around ⅓ off rail fares across Great Britain
  📍 How to claim: Online, Railcard app, or staffed rail stations
• Railcard deals on Money Saving Expert
• Senior Railcard
• 🚌 National Express Senior Coachcard (60+) – Discounted long‑distance coach travel
  📍 How to claim: Buy from National Express (online or phone)
• Senior Coachcard on National Express

🏙️ Greater London

• 🚇 60+ Oyster Card – Free off‑peak travel on buses, trams, Tube, DLR, Overground, Elizabeth line
  📍 How to claim: Apply online via Transport for London (TfL)
• 60+ London Oyster photocard

🏴 Scotland

• 🚌 National Entitlement Card (60+) – Free bus travel across Scotland
  📍 How to claim: Apply via your local council

🏴 Wales

• 🚌 Wales Concessionary Bus Pass (60+) – Free bus travel across Wales
  📍 How to claim: Apply via your local council

🏴 Northern Ireland

• 🚌🚆 Senior SmartPass (60+) – Free bus and rail travel on Translink services
  📍 How to claim: Apply via Translink

🏡 England (Outside London)

• ❌ No statutory age‑60 travel concessions
• UK Petitions: Extend free bus travel for people over 60 in England
• 🚐 Some councils offer discounted community transport
  📍 How to ask: Local council transport services

🏥 2. NHS & Health

🏴 England

• 💊 Free NHS prescriptions (60+)
• 👓 Free NHS eye tests (60+)
• 👂 NHS hearing tests & hearing aids (clinical need)

🏴 Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland

• 👓 Free NHS eye tests (60+)
• 💊 No prescription charges (all ages)

🎭📚 3. Culture, Leisure & Learning

Senior Discounts – Entertainment and Leisure on Careline 365

• 🎬 Senior cinema tickets – Odeon, Cineworld
• 🎭 Theatre & concert concessions
• 🖼️ Museum & gallery discounts
• 📚 Public library membership
• 🎓 Adult education fee reductions
• 🧠 University of the Third Age (U3A)

🛍️ 4. Shopping & Everyday Discounts

• 🛒 Supermarket senior discount days
• 👕 Retail & clothing concessions
• 💇 Hairdressers & personal services
• 💳 Pharmacy loyalty schemes

🏛️🌿 5. Memberships & Heritage

• 🌳 National Trust (senior membership)
• 🏰 English Heritage (Minimum age 65) / Cadw / Historic Environment Scotland
• 🌺 Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) – Individual / Joint Senior Life Membership available.
• 🏊 Local leisure centres

🤝 6. Community & Social

• 👥 Council‑supported senior clubs
• 🏃 Dedicated over‑60 activity sessions
• 🙋 Volunteering schemes (expenses often covered)

🚫 Not Included (By Design)

• ❌ State Pension or Pension Credit
• ❌ Winter Fuel Payment
• ❌ Council Tax Reduction
• ❌ Free TV licence
• ❌ Disability or income‑tested benefits

England: We have a new Archbishop of Canterbury, she's a woman

The lots of conversion

When Archbishop Justin Welby, the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury resigned his archbishopric with an announcement late last year, I confided in my best friend about how I might not be ready for a female to succeed him, but I had a premonition that the direction of travel was towards something unprecedented.

The selection, election, and appointment of the Archbishop of Canterbury as the spiritual head of the Anglican Communion closely resembles the story in Acts of the Apostles, where the disciples cast lots for Apostle Matthias, about whom we hear little after that event. In contrast, Saul of Tarsus’s conversion on the road to Damascus, from Pharisee to Apostle Paul, who authored about half of the New Testament, is a remarkable transformation.

The politics of enthronement

This nomination is both an administrative process conducted by the Crown Nominations Commission and a political one, where the Prime Minister, who could easily be non-Christian, presents the nominated candidate to the monarch, the titular head of the Church of England, for approval.

The enthronement of the Archbishop of Canterbury follows a legal Confirmation of Election, after which the individual legally becomes the Archbishop, followed by the Installation service at Canterbury Cathedral, signalling the start of their tenure.

Yesterday, the Bishop of London, The Right Reverend and Right Honourable Dame Sarah Mullally DBE, was appointed as the archbishop designate, to be installed as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury in March 2026.

A precedent in perspective

It was not until 1994 that women were ordained to the priesthood within the Church of England; this progressive move had already begun in some other Anglican provinces globally.

The first female bishops in the Church of England were elected in 2014, and by early 2026, we will have the first female Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of All England and Metropolitan. [Wikipedia: List of female Anglican bishops]

I do not consider myself particularly conservative within the Anglican Communion. I am encouraged by the progress in ordaining women, improvements in safeguarding, and the church’s embrace of a broader understanding of spirituality across different sexual orientations, including even blessing same-sex relationships where churches are receptive.

Faith, however, is a journey with no final destination; only a continuous pursuit to understand more of God’s love and mercy, and how His Spirit leads and inspires the church to become more Christ-like.

The frayed bonds of unity

From a human perspective, I am uncertain whether, amidst ongoing disagreements about women’s ordination, even within my own diocese portends toward uniting the Anglican Communion.

Typically, two sets of ordinations occur: one for those who accept women bishops, and then a visiting bishop, representing those who do not, comes to ordain those of that persuasion. The debate over same-sex relationships keeps the church divided doctrinally and morally, yet this exists in a fragile détente.

Personally, I remain unsure whether the church has gained enough stature to fully weather these changes. It’s only been eleven years since the first female bishop was appointed. But this makes one reflect on the well-known African proverb: “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.”

The journey of persuasion

The church has come quite far, whether it is now the time to go fast, leaves me in a quandary of my Anglican faith, something that might have to grow on me, because the hierarchy in this selection seems way ahead of my current conviction.

While I have fleeting thoughts about exploring Catholicism, I have yet to find a way or a path to reach the gates of the Vatican and kiss the fisherman’s ring of the Bishop of Rome.

Nevertheless, there is work to be done; much like with other Church of England initiatives, to pause on some of these advances and draw into full fellowship those left unpersuaded of these fast forms of modernisation and progressiveness that we might all travel far together for the amazing aims of the gospel.

Ultimately, we pray that the ministry of the new Archbishop of Canterbury be blessed with purpose, insight, and unity within the church. An essential truth about our humanity is that we all struggle and seek to be persuaded beyond our narrow perspectives.

The sketch from Yes, Prime Minister, offers an intriguing perspective on the Church of England.

Choosing a New Bishop | Yes, Prime Minister | BBC Comedy Greats [YouTube]

References

Wikipedia: Archbishop of Canterbury

Wikipedia: Ordination of women in the Anglican Communion

The Church of England: Appointing a new Archbishop of Canterbury

The Church of England: Members of the Canterbury Crown Nominations Commission

The identity complex of community collateral

At cultural crossroads

Much as I try to convince myself that I fully integrated with the norms and mores of the major cultural influences in my upbringing, I am ever so rudely brought to the realisation that I am very much distant and sometimes barely belong and understand certain situations.

What is becoming quite evident is the Western influences are both dominant and defining, the Nigerian and Yoruba influences whilst giving me the benefit of experience and appreciation, my worldview only inculcates snippets rather than full concepts.

Decades ago, when my father said, “You have always thought like a Westerner.” Whilst not taking offence, I felt my quest to adapt and integrate with the culture and norms of my parents’ roots was being discounted. My years of being toughened in secondary boarding school in southwestern Nigeria were more a reinforcement of my difference than sameness.

Accented differences accentuated

Some afterwards, my brother would say, in jest and yet with more than a scintilla of truth that, “You are not one of us.” I guess even where I have challenged that presumption, I might well be in denial. My mongrel accent of various influences leaves me speaking in Nigeria as if I have an English accent and, in the UK, I have West Midlands and Estuary pretensions and pronunciation with enunciation deliberate but not received. I don’t desire a posh accent.

It is my accent that immediately set me apart in the 19 years I lived in Nigeria, and from the time we landed in Nigeria, there were people who saw me as a foreigner of sorts to the day I left. There may be instances where I try to so hard and relent when I understand that I am indeed different and I should embrace that fact.

An individual at divides

Today, I was given another perspective to contextualise my reaction to a conversation where I thought the discussion had deviated from the issue to the collateral. To a person steeped in Western individuality, the issue revolves around the individual and that is where the focus should be. At least, that is where I would naturally gravitate.

My sister however suggested another perspective, in the communitarian construct of African identity, the individual exists in a community and the issue affecting the individual has impactful collateral that the community is burdened with for which the community sees incumbent to ingratiate, intrude, and intervene to address and ameliorate for themselves, the individual and the instigating issue.

The enlightenment is I probably have been too individualistic in the things that pertain to me, my engagement in the broader community has been on my own terms alone with little consideration of who is in that community or how what happens to me affects that community. To that community, I can be radical, a maverick and a possible outcast. Unfortunately, for the said community, just by my Western outlook I have sworn no allegiance even if it is implicitly demanded of me.

A renewed acceptance

It is unlikely that my perspective will change, but I need to give the periphery some thought. Already, I find myself reviewing some of my viewpoints before publication because of these allegiances, weak as they might seem. In the quest for a better understanding of my sense of identity, rather than battle with the differences and drown in the confluence of the conflicting influences, I will just accept I am an Englishman in the main, with an inept understanding of traditions and culture of my forebears.

I am a study of the Third Culture Kid that will be found in disagreement with an ancestral community and in agreement with that in which I was born, for the good and for life. There are many like me who still face these issues, I am just surprised that at close to 60, the question of identity is still a work in progress.

Better luck next time, England

I feel the pain of defeat

It was the summer of 2010, and I was on holiday from the Netherlands in Spain when the World Cup final taking place in South Africa became the focus of my day. I was in my Oranje (Orange) strip, found a friendly Dutch pub and gathered with fellow supporters to cheer our team.

Alas! The game did not go our way and I was marooned on an island of jollity, many of us Dutch visitors crestfallen and disappointed as the Spanish celebrated through the night. My lonely walk back to my hotel, a lesson in the cloak of defeat.

More expectation than presentation

Whilst I have been quite happy with the progress of England through the belated Euro 2020 tournament, I have tempered excitement with much realism. No game was won until the final whistle was blown, though I only watched the last 10 minutes between England and Germany, and we exorcised the demon on our backs.

In supporting Nigeria and England, the level of anxiety is just too high for me to watch a live match, for the semi-final and the final, I followed the match slightly distracted on the BBC live reporting text webpage, giving it a glance every few minutes and hoping for the best.

Better luck next time

If anything, I have never been caught or enamoured by football nationalism or jingoism, each game had to be played on the field in the heat of the moment by the team eking out a clear win or they are left at the mercy of penalty kicks in which we have had very little luck.

That England got to the final was a commendable surprise, but they were to meet a formidable opponent, the statistics of the game suggests Italy had the most possession for little reward. I dared wish there would be a celebratory outcome, but it would not have mattered apart from my joining in the euphoria of the many.

There would be analyses and commentary regarding England’s performance, but the game is over. There are aspects of managerial leadership that should be up for learning lessons, Gareth Southgate, did a good job of preparing the team for the challenges they faced. I literally sat this tournament out like my 7-month self in 1966 when we won the World Cup. Better luck next time.

Alas! The Patron Saint of Perfidious Albion

The saint of faraway

Friday, the 23^rd of April was Saint George’s Day, St George is the patron saint of Bulgaria, England, Georgia, Portugal, Cáceres, Alcoy, Aragon and Catalonia. Now, St George never visited England, he was born in what is modern-day Turkey and died modern-day Israel. However, his fame and legend spread wide along with the myths and mythologies of slaying dragons. [English Heritage: Saint George]

At church on Sunday, it being the 4^th Sunday of Easter we also celebrated the feast of St George and it was quite a very English-themed service in the Church of England, one I cannot recall ever experiencing before. It did not dawn on me when the first hymn included the line, ‘O help us, Helper of Saint George’ that we were at a feast. [Hymnal 162: Lord God of Hosts, within whose hand]

The setting for circumstance

The sermon did make some references to St George, but I also noticed that we did not have the sole cantor at the front of the congregation, but the choir was in the quire and the organist was playing the main pipe organ rather than the grand piano set to the right of the altar facing us.

However, after the Communion, we were full jingoistic and nationalistic when the choir went full throttle with Jerusalem, not that we were at the Last Night of the Proms, and until I saw the words in the pamphlet, I really had no idea what it was all about, yet this is the unofficial anthem of England. And where Jerusalem is mentioned in what was originally a poem by William Blake before it was put to song is in the third line of the 2 and 4 verse, though as a hymn we are presented with 2 long verses. [Wikipedia: And did those feet in ancient time]

Jerusalem, we await thee

And how I would have loved to sing the lines, ‘And was Jerusalem builded here, among these dark satanic mills?’ Which in the time of William Blake (1757 – 1827) lived and wrote the poem in 1804 would have been a picture of Industrial Revolution England and the flourishing hope of the final lines, ‘till we have built Jerusalem, in England's green and pleasant land.’ Which today still remains a prayer yet unfulfilled even with the promise of the sunlit uplands of Brexit. [Hymnal 488: And did those feet in ancient time]

And so, the Sung Eucharist ended with some British pride as we rose to the National Anthem, again, only sung by the choir and probably one republican who remained seated in probably a demonstration of defiance to the Queen who clocked 95 2 days before. The only thing I probably did not notice at all was the flag of Saint George. I might have forgotten to write this, then it occurred to me, it was an important and symbolic celebration. I sure have been more aware of its significance.

Notes:

"Perfidious Albion" is a pejorative phrase used within the context of international relations diplomacy to refer to acts of diplomatic sleights, duplicity, treachery and hence infidelity (with respect to perceived promises made to or alliances formed with other nation states) by monarchs or governments of the United Kingdom (or England prior to 1707) in their pursuit of self-interest. [Wikipedia] I can assure you, it remains true today if you consider the leaders we have.

This is our England - The good, the bad, and the ugly

Utterly disagreeable people

“This is England.”, I have heard that before, the righteous indignation of a person who believes we do not have a right to live here. The effrontery we must have to dare hold a job or the sheer audacity to share the hallowed space they exist in, how we must offend them because we are not on the paler shade of the Pantone scale of skin pigmentation.

Blog - The case of the abusive co-passenger

I just watched two videos on Twitter, of first, a taxi driver being racially abused by a passenger, then of a black adolescent who we are informed is autistic being physically attacked and commanded by a teenaged couple to fall to the ground and kiss the shoes of the white guy. This all happened in England within the last couple of days, those videos are very unpleasant. [BBC News - Taxi] [The Sun – Shoe-kissing]

We are all affected

I am thankful that the evidence of the crimes was recorded and posted online, they both went viral on social media. The West Midlands Police have arrested the perpetrator of the first offence and apparently the parents of the male demanding a shoe-kissing handed him in themselves, I would not speculate on why, apart from commending them on doing the right thing. The police have since asked that the videos be taken down as they also identify innocent parties. [Twitter: WMPolice]

There are no innocent parties when racism happens, the victim and the perpetrator are deeply involved, the witnesses are scandalised, everyone who gets to view the videos comes into the awareness of a malignant cancer that is probably not the lived experience of the majority. It calls on our common and diverse humanity to take a stand, to acquiesce, to condemn, or to be indifferent.

Our conscience is asked to incontrovertibly denounce or find excuses, whether people matter more than symbols and memorials, or our sense of history has pre-eminence over the present day injustices that we cannot ignore when we are faced with stark reality. It is to our societal and communal shame that these things still happen.

Bubbles do burst

I have to be aware of another thing, the taxi driver was abused at his place of work in the West Midlands, the adolescent was abused in a public park in Yorkshire, in broad daylight. I have not left my apartment since Sunday, and this is Friday, apart from going to check my mailbox. I have the ease and accoutrements of being able to work from home and the comforts of my home along with the state of my mind grant me a hermit situation I mostly enjoy.

It means, whether by privilege or by circumstance, I am excluded by fate or fortune from vile and threatening encounters. I cannot live in this bubble for too long, I do need to interact, socialise, and face the world eventually. What I must not do is allow my particular setting and experience to become the narrative of everyone else with my background, my heritage, or my minority status.

Representing humanity counts more

I say this because many make that mistake and it is laid out in an article that I read yesterday in the Guardian, that I would liberally excerpt and I hope when you read it, you can make up your own mind about things.

The government’s response has been to appoint Kemi Badenoch, the minister for equalities, and a black woman, to “get to the bottom” of the problem. What do we know about Badenoch’s approach to racism in Britain? On “institutional racism” – a phenomenon that affects minorities in Britain – she has been reported as saying that she doesn’t recognise it. On former mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith’s Islamophobic campaign? She helped run it. On the black community? She doesn’t believe that it really exists.

On American racism? “We don’t have all the horrible stuff that’s happened in America here,” Badenoch said in 2017. [Guardian: The racism that killed George Floyd was built in Britain – Afua Hirsch] [BBC News: Coronavirus: Minister Kemi Badenoch rejects 'systemic' racism claims]

Obviously, I would love to have members in Parliament who not only represent me but can advocate for the broadest spectrum of interests that affect my life and wellbeing. I have to say, having lived here and in the Netherlands, sharing the same race is hardly the best determinant or qualification for the job.

There might be a primordial and a primal sense of fellow feeling in seeing an ethnic minority in a position of power, authority, and influence, but other virtues of character, principle, integrity, consideration, and empathy, matter more.

To wheel and deal or not

How we conveniently settle into the abrasion of identity with the view that our positions should not be burdened by causes that question the status quo, provoke the established order, or upset the applecart of long-held traditions is a subjective test of our core values.

Sometimes, to whatever extent, we are in a battle of assimilation and adaptation to gain acceptance and maintain relevance. A minority person doing well in a host society has to navigate with deftness the balance of bargaining with and challenging the system to get ahead, and this is not to castigate anyone, but some of us have played to tokenism.

Blog - Bargainers and Challengers

Survival comes long before self-actualisation on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. However, you don’t make allies by banging on about what is wrong with things, even if things are manifestly wrong.

As we all live in England, we should have all the rights, the privileges, and the freedoms to exist, and to express ourselves in every free, wholesome and life-enhancing way without the fear of even passive dislike that informs reprehensible actions and definitely not overt racism. We should be bold to be our best human selves regardless of who or what we are, treating the other with respect, courtesy, dignity and if we have the capacity, love.

This is England, it is our home and we all want it to be a better place for all.

Football: A time to mope

Quite downcast

It is the strangest feeling and emotion that words cannot really be found to express. That low, dark, uncommitted and seemingly resigned state of being that holds you down like you’re beneath the water for longer than you could hold your breath until some reflex lets you bob your head out for a death-defying gulp of air and whatever it might contain.

It was the same feeling I had exactly 8 years ago today when I watched the World Cup final between Spain and the Netherlands, in Spain of all places. I was on holiday in Gran Canaria at the time. I found a bar of fellow Hollanders and the football match at one time looked like a wrestling or mixed martial arts match, with my people from the Netherlands playing a game I never expected of them. We lost.

As the Spaniards rejoiced in their conquering of the world of football, I took a slow, sullen, sad stroll back to my hotel, unable to muster a smile or respond to the revelry that surrounded me. That night, I went to bed and dreamt away my sorrows and relapsed back into holiday mode for the nine days left of it.

Each player a team

Today, like any other time England plays, I knew I could not watch the match, just as I can hardly watch Nigeria play. The tension is just too high for me. I was feeling exhausted by the thought of it at noon. I probably should have acted as if I had no dog in this game for the Netherlands were not in it and I had for the last two World Cups donned my orange colours instead of those of my birth country or the country of my heritage.

Nigeria visited the World Cup and basically took away the trophy for the best kit, their performance was all hype and no goals. Eleven brilliant players playing as eleven amazing teams. Which brings to mind the assessment of one foreign coach about Nigeria. They are so disorganised that the disorganisation will upset structured and organised teams, by that alone, they are able to exploit and win games.

The death knell of Nigeria’s foray was already sounded by Croatia in their first match, now, it is Croatia again who have put a stop to that English anthem that I had dreaded would not come true.

Three lions should take a nap

When England sent Sweden home, I curbed my enthusiasm, when everyone including the Queen’s Guard, yes them, decided to play the Three Lions anthem in front of Buckingham Palace on Saturday evening as I tried to miss the excitement of it all by boarding a train for a 2-hour journey.

For all intents and purposes, the Three Lions song, released for Euro 1996 is a good rallying song, but it is almost too hubristic for my liking. To my mind, it is the worst anthem to have if you have not already won the competition for which it is being sung. This for the simple reason that if we fall short, others would find the means to ridicule us beyond the utterly risible and that is never a comfortable place to be.

I would rather I was singing Football’s Coming Home after the England Team captain has his or her mitts on the trophy. Then, we can celebrate and those waiting to make fun of us if we faltered would have no other choice than to join in our celebrations.

Just what I feared

I returned home from work and went to bed, having a few waking moments to check the live text review of the match between Croatia and England, we scored early but never improved on that scoreline, whilst Croatia equalised and then scored the winning goal in the second half of extra time, the god of miraculous football turnaround having gone to sleep, time seeped away like sand emptying to the force of gravity in an hourglass.

We have only pride to play for in the third-place match against a Belgium who have already trounced us once in the final match of the group stage.

It’s nope for us

It is quite likely that France would lift the cup, but Croatia are not pushovers, they can quite easily become the surprise dark horse of this tournament that left Germany, Argentina, Spain, Portugal and Brazil as has-beens. My money was on Belgium, or rather, my hunch was on Belgium, my money stayed in my pocket.

If I had any consolation, England has won the World Cup in my lifetime, albeit, I was only 7 months old. I think this young England team came well beyond our expectations, their temperamental was even, level-headed and focused. They might soon bring a trophy home. There is hope and there is scope, we would cope, given a moment to mope.

Thought Picnic: Twenty Five Years from Nigeria

A decision for change

Twenty-five years ago today, I boarded a Nigeria Airways flight with a one-way ticket from Nigeria to England. It is strange that I came to such a decision in the space of not more than seven weeks.

As a partner in a desktop publishing firm, I had only returned from the UK, 4 weeks before, after a two-week business trip that was more than an eye-opener about the opportunities I could have in the UK.

Of the many exciting jobs I was doing in Nigeria, most of the people I sealed contracts with, gave me the comfort of appreciating the skill I brought to bear within their businesses and in that acknowledged that expertise with a commensurate and sometimes generous compensation.

A law onto himself

The one person I had issues with was an egotistical, megalomaniac of a lawyer who through whatever levers he was able to pull was a director of the United Bank for Africa and besides his legal practice had a traditional printing press, my role was to introduce desktop publishing to reduce the turnaround time from orders to finished product.

However, for all that was able to offer in that setting, for which I owned 30% of the company, he just could not get his head around the fact that I was half his age, never obsequious and though respectful, quite irreverent.

This caused unnecessary tensions between us that he callously took out on my staff that for me the situation became untenable. Beyond that, I had to run the gauntlet of rent-seekers who always thought they deserved a cut from contractual fees, for just knowing that I had won a contract and I was getting paid.

A tumultuous existence

In another area, I was being blackmailed for who I was, then elsewhere, people seemingly pulling strings on my behalf to continue my education in Nigeria, got them tangled in unexplained processes, it began to look like I could jettison everything I was doing in Nigeria and seek to start a new life abroad.

I guess, it all came to a head when my so-called partner threw money across the table towards me, I took exception to that disrespectful behaviour that I told him, “You don’t give a 24-year old 30% of a company and then think that is the pinnacle of achievement, I will throw it away and start all over again.” That is what I did.

The action plan

In the four weeks of December leading to my departure, I obtained the Entitlement to the Right of Abode, which took three weeks to obtain considering the waiting list for a full British passport was 18 months long, got my one-way ticket, handed over my contracts to my deputy and bid the people who mattered goodbye.

I had in two weeks towards the end of November during my visit to the UK, learnt that I had knowledge and skills for a market hungry for people who knew what they were doing. I could think of the number of times I demonstrated the utility of a product to sales staff who were supposed to know better.

How I viewed it

On that day, the 30^th of December 1990, I left home with a bag and probably about £20, gathered my closest friends who saw me off at the airport and waited to board my flight which was to take-off at 11:00 AM, it was delayed, we eventually lifted off at 3:00 PM.

In many ways, that trip meant different things to different people, and whilst their concerns were valid in the context of their opinions, mine was simply this, I am returning to the land of my birth, I am more comfortable in the England about what I know and can get a headway with that and that there was a future ahead of me, if I was determined enough to seize it.

Where my mind was

My arrival in England was met with conflicting advice from different quarters, however, I am happy that I joined up with a crowd that not only believed in me but did everything to encourage me in getting on my own two feet and making a successful life in the UK.

It is interesting that I left Nigeria with literally no sense of nostalgia except for certain cravings for the cuisine many years later. Yet, the truth is for all the time I spent in Nigeria, I was always treated like an outsider, in a way, I never followed any of the rules, the norms or the customs, invariably, it also meant I was excused from adherence in certain ways, except where elements of coercion came into play to force me to toe the line.

Of freedom and independence

The greatest freedom that came with my leaving Nigeria was the ability to stop the interference of many who seemed to hold sway over decisions I wanted to make. That sense of independence that came with leaving Nigeria and starting all over again has been a constant refrain in my life, either in moving countries or surviving cancer.

In all those years, I am thankful to all that have held me in their thoughts, in prayer, in action, in advice, in support, in friendship, in mentoring and many other innumerable areas. Things have not been perfect, but I cannot relive the past with a future ahead of me. I cannot live a different life from what I have now, but I can live what I have to the best of the abilities and blessings that come my way.

Chart your course and make it sure, then come back and tell a story.