Opinion: Lagos to London: Britain’s New Super-Rich

And so

I really had no intention of writing anything about the mockumentary that was shown on Channel 4 last night titled, Lagos to London: Britain’s New Super-Rich, but I was asked about it at work this morning.

There are a lot of Nigerians in the UK, my association with the UK was borne of the fact that my parents were here as students in the 1960s and I came along, born in the UK, but of Nigerian heritage and I am proud of that mix and makeup of my life.

Now, the Nigerians that appeared on that programme are rich, wealthy, educated in some of the best English schools, but somehow seemed to have missed a quality of educational finesse that combines the understated with sophistication.

They had cash, they were brash, they had lots to flash and very little class. It goes without saying that that essential component of comportment seems to have evaded their sensibilities by a country mile.

Of sensible Nigerians

There are Nigerians who graft it here daily to make ends meet, there are other Nigerians who are professionals of high repute with exemplary accolades and dare I say, probably the majority of the unseen Nigerians have more sense than money and I think that is a good thing.

The best education I got from my parents is one of contentment, this gives me the perspective and grounding to live my life successfully and happily without the encumbrance of trying to keep up with the Joneses.

Looking at some of the commentary on Twitter last night, some people were carried away with the acquisitive hedonism, the ostentatious show of wealth that has people groomed for appearance with little or no substance. Life has a lot more to it than that.

Indeed, we would all love to have the means to do anything we liked, yet we have a self-awareness, a sense of responsibility, considerable consideration, discipline and perspective to what we do that is a function of our stability and salvation from depression borne of envy, jealousy or covetousness.

The butler comes

Now, of the people who were showcased on this meat rack of vulgarity, one can commend Alexander Amosu for rising from a council estate to hobnob with the outrageously rich and he has apparently cornered a market to feed the constant one-upmanship that consumes people of that ilk.

Yet, with all that association, the minutiae of essence that comes with knowing was evident, limousine, chauffeur, sharp suits, gleaming cuff links and the ultimate faux pas; a matching tie and pocket square. Class is probably passed down and there is only so much finishing school can do.

Kids on the skids

On the matter of the daughters of the billionaire oil tycoon and the twins with a law degree from some midrange university, whoever sent them to public school should be asking for a refund with interest, none of the English norms seemed to have rubbed off on them, they spoke like silver spoon braggarts.

Many of us would rather keep our inflective Nigerian-English accents than to decline to a South or East London accent, especially after that kind of education. Come think of it, I seem to have gotten more out of my Nigerian-based multi-cultural education than they did from public schools in England. Their spoken English was quite below par as to be somewhat appalling.

The Daily Mail had a spread on the girls and one look at the comments shows they would always be celebutantes of the Kardashian or The Only Way Is Essex genre of trashy reality television until they find a vocation that is of service rather than self-serving.

The twins who spewed philosophy like it was going out of fashion, were planning on making their mark as lawyers, I won’t scoff, but whilst they looked good for a posse, looks do not a respected advocate make. Much privilege and given to spoilage, one might aver.

Beyond the zoo

Like I said before, there are a lot of people of Nigerian heritage in the UK, very few of us would like to be paraded as vacuous showpieces of opulence bringing on disgust. It was a mockery of the uncultured without a filter for self-restraint.

They do not represent the, as it were, sensible Nigerian, not in any way. That show was a zoo and one visit to see the animals was enough.

Prince said it about style, there was much on show and nothing that resembled style.

Style is not something that comes in a bottle
Style is more like Jackie O. when she was doin' Aristotle
Style is not a logo that sticks 2 the roof of one's ass
Style is like a second cousin 2 class.

Style – Emancipation (1996) – Lyrics

Thought Picnic: Of Justin Bieber in London with that look

Unconcerned

Now, apparently, a Mr Justin Bieber has been on a UK tour, having been in Manchester the week before when I was up there and then in London as the weekend rolled in.

I do not particularly care for his kind of music but I have seen the female folk swoon and squeal with glee at his appearance and performance that I can quite patently say I do not want whatever they are on to make them see whatever they are seeing or hear whatever they are hearing.

Then again, for the kind of music the young man purveys, he has become rather financially successful and some credit for his upbringing should go to his tenacious mum, Pattie Mallette whose intrusion into the public sphere has now included her sententiously religious opinions about abortion.

Unabashed

He turned 19 on the 1^st of March and he allegedly was staying at The Langham London which along with its luxurious opulence will not be lacking in the class and grace of a decent gourmet restaurant, however, the dear boy thought he might have a kebab instead, we cannot for now vouch for what kind of meat might be on the skewer with the food industry horsing around on pigs and cows that we might just be racing camels at the Grand National if all the horses enter the food chain.

One should not begrudge the man the need for something less exquisite, the presence of means does suddenly accrue to good bearing and exemplary mien, these things cannot be brought and only so much can be taught.

Unimpressed

It turns out that he left the hotel topless and what a body he appears to have but the low-hanging trousers exposing the full complement of his underwear must be the lowest expression of oafish conduct I have seen since I last told some boys on an Amsterdam shopping street to pull up their trousers and stop assaulting and outraging public decency with cack-ridden slips.

Every picture captured of the boy, because it does not become a man to be in such a state of undignified exposure, rankles with revulsion that makes one give up the hope of rescuing a fashion victim that has no doubt become a fashion suicide.

The worst bit of this display of gaol fashion that was attributed to men in prison who allowed themselves this demonstration to suggest they were available to be used as sex objects is the many others who will model their slouching gait and backside exposure tendencies after this Justin Bieber enterprise which should attract much excoriation and opprobrium.

Unacceptable

If my life had taken another course, a 19-year old kid would probably have been a 3^rd or 4^th child and I cannot see how regardless of situation, circumstance or peer pressure where any of my children would have been allowed to walk the streets inappropriately dressed to fit in with a nominally uncouth culture and appearance.

Being proper and properly attired is a matter of breeding, class and comportment without having to be dependent on means.

At this point, if there were occasion to warrant a cacophonous imposition on my aural faculties of this man’s crooning croaks my estimation of this very successful man who William Shakespeare would have effusively praised by saying, “You show yourself highly fed and lowly taught,” would not move one to find the slightest respect for his standing.

You only have to see the pictures to understand where I am coming from.

Selling their discretion, dignity and honour

The death of discretion

It is now institutionalised; our armed forces do not have to live by the old English tenets of honour, courage, discretion, dignity and valour.

In fact, this might as well be the whole sum of 10 years of Tony Blair in government, the fact that everything that was traditionally British in terms of conduct and decorum has been jettisoned for the cult of personality.

After the naval personnel were released and had flown back to motherland, they lamented the fact that they were blindfolded, kept in isolation and interrogated.

The fact of captivity

One is left quite gob-smacked about what else was to be expected; surely, if anyone captures a group of military personnel in seemingly criminal activity like in this case allegedly plying the waters of Iran.

Any self-respecting intelligence outfit would isolate the members, disorientate the individuals and introduce elements of mental anguish and disinformation to discover in reality what that team was up to.

This is serious business, and what was to say that the British personnel under the guise of UN inspections were not trying to gather other intelligence about Iran?

The Iranians having captured the seeming enemy had to ensure beyond reasonable doubt that not one of all those captured had a specific assignment to do something different from what the team as a whole believed was their purpose and assignment when they presumably strayed into Iranian waters if that really was the case.

Preventing group-think

Beyond that, isolation was necessary to prevent a case of group-think where the captives would parrot out an agreed view rather than allow the intelligence people to piece together each story to see if they indeed match up.

It is something used everyday in crime-fighting, evidence gathering and basic interviews or interrogation, there is no reason for the Iranians to have been foolish about this.

That aspect of group-think came out in one of the interviews when some of the personnel said they all agreed that they would confess that they had crossed into Iranian waters - this is the kind of thing isolation and disorientation through blindfolding is supposed to prevent.

Smart and dumb

The supposed outrage at this treatment is a bit over-stated, we are at war in that region, and some really hard things are happening there just as we learnt of the death of four of our soldiers in Iraq on the day the naval personnel flew in to be reunited with their loved ones.

The only really smart thing the naval personnel did was not to adopt the folly of bravado in resisting the overwhelming power of the force that took them captive in the Iranian/Iraqi waters a few weeks ago.

Sell, sell, sell

Now, this is where I have abandoned hope about the discretion of the English, however, one must say, this more the exclusive preserve of the well-bred and properly schooled; that sort of breeding seems to have been exhausted at the Ministry of Defence when they gave permission to the naval personnel to sell their stories to yellow journalism newspapers, village rags and tabloids.

I really feared this development in an earlier blog but against hope really thought that reason and discretion would prevail on those in authority that was not to be the case. Publicists are now working overtime in an auction to determine who would pay the most for stories that were neither heroic nor commendable.

This is going to end up worse than some Big Brother tripe, the first to get their story in might get the most views and who better than the propaganda bait Leading Sea(wo)man Faye Turney to break all records and precedents of serving military personnel set lose to tell tales?

Nothing good will come of this

Each consequent story from other personnel would have to trump the previous till the whole thing becomes too incredible to believe because it is unlikely that each story would be interesting without suggestive prompting and reckless analysis as they egged on by editors without conscience or restraint.

The worse case scenario as I have already predicted is if and when anyone else gets captured anywhere in the world by our enemies, beautiful smiling faces would we not see, that is if they end up living to tell the tale - it could really become that serious, because no enemy would want to be portrayed a fool after their captives are released.

The clear and present danger to those left on the battle field cannot be exaggerated, not to talk of the possible recklessness of others who might see being guest of the Islamic republic as a ticket to earning a cool big packet of cash - at last reckoning Mrs. Turney was being offered GBP 100,000.

Even if the fees were to go to charity, the damage would have been done and it would have done irreparable damage.

No Great in Britain anymore

I am sick to the stomach not of the opportunity and the benefit, but of the fact that the whole infrastructure behind our military personnel could not provide emotional, mental and financial succour to the victims of a seeming injustice and captivity that they think being able to sell their stories would provide the best treatment for their trauma.

The ones who then have nothing interesting to sell would probably be left more damaged for not looking good enough to be fed to the British public as the next "Jade Goody" of ignoramuses who are in cahoots with Tony Blair in taking the Great out of Great Britain.

References

Dismay as crew told they can sell stories | Breaking News | News | Telegraph

Woman sailor sells her story in lucrative deal | Uk News | News | Telegraph

BBC NEWS | UK | Captives' media fees spark fury

Taking the "Great" out of Britain

Six hours on the German ICE trains

Returning Home

One is a proponent of the short away break; travel seems to have that therapeutic recovery effect after a week or weeks of slugging it out at work, the energy, politics, results and downright disgusting ethic assuming airs of professionalism.

One's wish this year is not to have to deal with that level of activity that tests one's patience, resolve and temperament. Hoping that the people concerned have made a New Year's resolution to be aligned more closely to what they are paid to do.

Maybe they would have found the gene-switch that exudes respect, consideration, politeness, goodwill, integrity and candour. Wishes or wishes, one is resolved to see the year through productively whatever the case. Positive thinking and sanity would be my bedmates.

Travelling 1^st Class

Returning from Berlin, which is 6 hours in total with one stopover at Duisburg, was supposed to be a breeze. At least one expects that the purpose for travelling first class is the idea that one is in considerate and civil society.

By inference, others who travel first class recognise their rights and responsibilities in the context of others around them. No noise, no anti-social behaviour, low volume chatter, no swilling wine straight from the bottle and no tattoos exposed if on the lower arm.

Unfortunately, the ability to afford a luxury or privilege does not bestow on the person the cachet of belonging to that acquisition. Gone are the times when class, upbringing and money defined the person.

Highly fed but lowly taught

In fact, there is nothing wrong with class or money, the problem is really in the upbringing or breeding. A recognition of the rights of others is reciprocated in their recognition of your rights and hence a civil society.

Imagine the chaos of an uncivil society, everyone dropping litter wherever they want, making noise without due regard to other passengers, annoying phones and polyphonic phone tunes ringing incessantly in supposedly silent carriages, and conveniences left it unusable states.

The civility of the majority is what makes society workable; the anarchy of people who do not conform to civility creates general resentment against which not many would deign to complain, no matter how inconvenient the situation is.

Unprepared for scouts

One had the pleasure of 3 hours of knocking and fidgeting created by 12 youngsters in their early teens with their minders. Some benefactor had provided for their travel in the first class carriage in which one was.

Where usually people are able to recline and nod off into snooze-land, these hyperactive kids make the journey close to a living hell until one had to remonstrate to the handlers to handle the situation with a bit more consideration.

As kids, all it required was one look from mother and we all behaved, no entreaty could placate the tearaways. In the end, they disembarked and peace reigned for 30 minutes to one's stopover.

The ICE pleasure

The German express trains called ICE (InterCity Express) attract a supplement when boarded as part of an itinerary, with the comfortable reclining seats, headphone points to listen to music of which the classical variety is a soothing accompaniment for relaxation.

Most seats have a printed leaflet of the journey, arrival and departure times, distances between the stations and possible connections from those stations within the hour of arrival. One can also be served in-situ amongst other pleasures of premium value travel.

Speeds of up to 300 kilometres an hour are possible, though the highest displayed speed was 250 km/h somewhere between Hannover and Hamm.

Comparisons of sorts

The United Kingdom's train services are like a coach and crippled horses compared to the German, French or Dutch railway infrastructure.

Using the DB BahnCard acquired at a cost - which is a discount card, one can get 25%, 50% or even free travel though at even greater cost on the ICE trains, all worth it if one does more than four long journeys into Germany.

The Netherlands has a similar card with offers 40% off off-peak fares to all destinations in the Netherlands.

Those “lovely” kids

At Duisburg, after a bit of confusion, platform 13 was the boarding platform for the Frankfurt am Main to Amsterdam train. Locating one's reserved seat, one met with a melee of toddlers about 8 in number.

Then one came screaming like a banshee down the aisle, it made one's truculence in regard to one's first journey seem a tad over-reactive.

Quick take; seek a seat in another carriage before insanity gives way to uncontrollable violent abuse. After 6 hours and 23 minutes, home at last.

Check answer phone messages, make a few phone calls and prepare for the pleasures of work on the morrow.