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.

A Google NotebookLM AI Audio Overview Discussion of this blog

Annoying annoyances

What they see they see

What people’s impressions of me vary to the extent that I mustn't allow those viewpoints to influence or constitute my mode of expression. To be viewed as truculent, easily annoyed, and quick to take offence can only be a failure to invest in knowing me rather than one indicative of who I am.

I know the people I have intentionally given the cold shoulder and I have more fingers to count on one hand after I have accounted for them. I endured years of drunken opinions of seething disdain he became one of whom it was expedient to ensure any future dealings were terminated, after an unequal and trying friendship of just over two decades.

A gardener weeding engagements

I am not a difficult person to get along with, I however actively curate liaisons, acquaintances, friendships, and engagements, knowing what to cultivate and what to leave to lie fallow and allow to be reduced to insignificance. Frequently, it is not a reflection on them but a realisation that nothing worthwhile is to be gained from the continued relationship after inadequacy and frustration.

Maybe as an individual, I am quirky and strange, probably funny in a certain way, the things I allow to bother me are looking to be a better person and I am beginning to understand I need grace more than discipline. I might even consider counselling and therapy for some things, but those are personal journeys that anyone else might well find some profitable development for themselves.

Mirrors of keen expression

What I find insightful is and this might come as a surprise because, in this same blog post, I have suggested one aspect is not a reflection in terms of the choices of engagement, but a clear reflection if reviewed with introspection is the way people think about you might well be something about themselves too, their needs, their interests, perish the thought about their neediness or their insecurities which they then project on you as unfulfilling of a certain expectation.

How you maintain your composure when confronted with such situations becomes part of the development of character. It can be overlooked or ignored though there are times when a frankness of opinion might be bruising but immensely helpful, daily, I seek wisdom in knowing when either is right. One can argue that discernment may not be present in the state of inebriation which I never indulge or when aroused from a state of the soporific that is required in typical circadian rhythms.

Gun control of tempers frayed

Invariably, I am usually not annoyed when people think I am annoyed, I am usually annoyed because people assume I am, out of some work in their relationship that they need to work on, and then project that onto me as some inadequacy, I guess that is a trigger as much as a gun needs one along with good gun keeping by ensuring the safety is always on, just in case the gun falls into the hands of a two-year-old, of whom you cannot easily demand they give you back the gun as you would a harmless thing.

Why am I writing this blog? Just a few thoughts about the fact that making some allowances for everyone might help in understanding better rather than misunderstanding leading to bizarre conclusions. This month marks 4 decades of many things including a very cherished friendship if my memory serves me right. Anyway, like Pontius Pilate did say, I have written that I have written.

Thought Picnic: Is blood really thicker than water?

Does blood matter?

“Blood is thicker than water.” Said a close relation of mine after I informed them of the visit of a couple, I knew from being related to them. I responded, “Communication is thicker than blood which is evidently thicker than water.”

Communication, engagement, and interest matter, it does not have to be through being able to communicate in material things, but the just checking on people, their welfare and wellbeing is of great consequence. It suggests you see more in them than the perfunctory.

Do I matter at all?

I recall one Sunday afternoon about thirty years ago when I met an old secondary school classmate on the train. As I acknowledged him, I did not get a greeting or any engagement, his first comment was, “Where do you church?” I cannot remember if I responded in any way, but I never wanted anything to do with him anymore.

Years after, he was picking up his daughter from school when I saw him outside a train station, I made my excuses about rushing off somewhere else and that kind of indifference has been such that when he was promoting an album in a later blooming of a music career, I observed the development alone and nothing else.

Do they care a hoot?

Further to this are those who make assumptions when they call you out of the blue. That was last week, nothing was asked of things they might have known before about me or my current situation. They just assumed and were expecting a confirmation of their beliefs that were much further from reality than could be imagined.

Obviously, I was remembered and contacted because they were interested in involving me in a family celebration, and if conversation and communication had been cultivated and maintained, I would have found it difficult not to attend, grace the occasion, and honour the celebrant. You cannot reap benefits or rewards from indifference.

Does anyone want to know?

Indeed, I have kept to myself because at times you do not want everyone in your business including those who believe they should be in your business or have some knowledge of what you are experiencing at any point in time. What I choose to volunteer here is probably available to a global audience, but the deeper elements of things would require someone to make the effort to communicate.

I am very grateful to those who have genuinely reached out to me to ask about my welfare, not because it is transactional, even if at one point there was means and opportunity to attend to many needs along with helping them out. In adversity, you know those who are your friends and well, the fair-weather ones too.

Do they see you?

One does not need to keep a journal of these things, the memory rarely suffers the amnesia of an absence of mind, Maya Angelou said it best, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Just think of the situation where they said little, did nothing, and made you feel disconsolate and rueful of your circumstances.

Know who to keep in mind, who to keep in prayers, who to keep in contact with and who to appreciate does not have a part in your life, not because you mean nothing to them, you are just not on either their short-range or long-range radar, your invisibility to them is why you think they are indifferent. It is not a bad thing to move on, if you’re out of sight, set your sight on other things.

Kola, before leaving the Golden Jubilee Boulevard

Stretching the material

It wasn’t that long ago that he drove his chariot unto the Golden Jubilee Boulevard and now he is about to leave to join the Diamond Jubilee Card holders club, the processing takes a year, so, we’ll start with filling in the forms along with documenting essential narratives.

I usually say to people there is exactly three weeks between our birthdays, mine is in December and his in January and we are the same age for that duration, though I have the benefit of asking of his experience that probably prepares me for admission into the year class.

It was sometime early in 1984 that I first met Kola, so, we are talking 40 years, for a while I would notice him, I remember vividly one afternoon that he was walking in front of me as we probably were leaving the campus canteen, he seemed to have a penchant for stretch jeans you could not unsee.

Amen or thereabouts

As I scour the recesses of my memory, it is quite likely after I had Christianly spiritual experience that I came into a group of young devotees of which Kola was a fervent and unassuming adherent. It has become an enduring friendship.

How do you write about a friend that sticks closer than a brother, a confidante with whom barely a secret exists, someone who knows you in demeanour, character, and temperament that what he doesn’t know about you, you probably do not know about yourself as well. Yet, his support of you is unstinting, constant, honest, frank, and unflinching.

It is one of love and affection that only an intimate partner might excel, then of a different kind too, that is borne of the tendency to overlook your failings, faults, frailties, and foul-ups. A friend that bat for you regardless of the brickbats, almost as if you can do no wrong, as we have the mutual respect of each other not to abuse the quality of amity and brotherhood we share.

We’re leaning opposites

However, I want to celebrate Kola, forthright in views and we frequently disagree on issues whilst giving each other the opportunity air our viewpoints. He would consider me quite conservative with liberal trimmings, I guess he is the opposite in interesting ways.

This world-travelled wiseman as he can be technologically naïve is nobody’s fool, anyone who misconstrues his silence for acquiescence or weakness would be in for a shock, he will make a stand and doggedly follow through on his principles, taking the hits if necessary and winning the goals eventually.

God bless you

And so, in the year before he leaves for the Golden Jubilee cohort, I and in fact, we, Brian and I wish him the very best of birthday, much joy, love, happiness, and success. That blessings come like a tsunami and overwhelm him in every way. That his dreams become the reality he could never have imagined, tremendously astounding with the kind of amazement and wonder of the miraculous.

A friend of 40 years is to be cherished, lauded, acknowledged, and esteemed. There are not enough words to express thankfulness and gratitude for sharing time, space, resource, conversation, kindness, hearts, minds, and fellowship.

Kola, you are one of a kind, I love you. Happy Birthday!

Related Blogs

Blog - Happy Birthday, Kola (January 2015)

Blog - A birthday greeting to a friend like no other (January 2011)

Taking friendliness to heart

In patient endurance

In a telephone conversation that I could not wait to end that there was an urging in me to ask what the particular purpose of the call was, I held on still to allow it to come to its natural end.

It was not a conversation, I was on the listening end of everything and the work inside me was one where I rationalised to myself that it was a test of my resolve, I had to recalibrate my ability to engage my friend even when my eyes begin to glaze over and my neck stiffens in obduracy to avoid being swallowed in the mental chasm of his chaotic and yet charmed existence.

Then again, I was somewhat vindicated when he said that chatbots could not understand him, this is not just because of his accent which is quite distinct, much as I hate to use the word torrent, his speech is like a waterfall of words without attempted enunciation, you strain with much difficulty to understand him, you begin to tune out.

A burden of care

Beyond that, I had begun to associate this ‘speech impediment’ and it has to be that if we are speaking the same language and yet we cannot understand each other, with mental exhaustion. It is energy sapping with all the wringing of anything you can wring if caught in the web of this engagement.

Yet, my love for him is undiminished, as a friend and I will support him, where I can calm him down enough to have a conversation, and understand where he needs my support, he can count on me.

With all the tendency I could have to assess, I have come to another appreciation of what I need to do in terms of endurance and patience, there is much work to be done in being more longsuffering, for I have been forgiven much more than I have dared to forgive others.

Autism: Where my order is another's disorder

The order of disorder

When I returned home from a month’s holiday to a fresh home, my friend who was my house-sitter in my time away had cleaned up, new sheets on my, the bathroom quite spick and span, my kitchen and the stove hub sparkling, not a sight of dirt anywhere, but sadly, due to my apparent reaction, none of which was verbalised though inadvertently acted out, I lost our friendship.

I recall when I owned a place in Amsterdam that many loved to visit, I had a cleaner, not because the apartment needed cleaning up, but because he seemed to know where to put things that were out of place, I would return to an ordered place with a good idea of where everything is, it is my home, I am comfortable after that visit.

Just leave it there

There is probably a reason why I do not employ cleaners, I lived in a house in Ipswich over 30 years ago. The landlord had arranged for his cleaner to visit every fortnight to do up the place completely unbeknownst to me.

When I got back to where I thought was my home, I noticed from the moment I walked in, I had to run out to speak to my neighbours, things were not where I had left them and the house was rearranged to the landlord’s pattern without my input, I might as well have been in a strange hotel room.

I like order, yet, my disorder is some sort of order in itself, it is my comfort zone, much as it can be unusual and strange. I guess many may not understand why this useful act of ordering is upsetting for me.

I was in a strange place

When I got home in August, within the apparent order was a subtle displacement, things were not where I left them or things were not replaced when used. With my dangerously keen eye for detail where it does not matter to others, I began to see too many things were not where I put them, in the space of an hour of my arrival, I felt I was not in my own home because I did not know where things were.

A few days later, I had to call my friend over to show me where he had put three laptops away for safekeeping. I rarely ever have guests in my home and definitely no parties, my friend does have friends and strangers over, in certain videos he has recorded at my place, I had to be told it happened in my home.

I guess through a series of meetings in the two weeks after my arrival, my friend decided I was hostile, ungrateful, and maybe even nasty, so he cut all contact with me until he needed to collect an important document two months later. Not once did he discuss with me how he felt, I was hurt and implacable when we met. I still think he is a friend, maybe someday we would resolve things.

Coming to an understanding

However, there is an issue that reveals itself in my mannerisms and attitudes, some of which I will write about eventually. However, I am writing this because my best friend called me last week after having watched a programme on television, the night before. He was not sure of how to broach the subject, he then said, there were many things he saw on the programme that made him think that was familiar and it was ‘our Akin’.

For myself, I know I have been somewhere on the autistic spectrum, not necessarily evident or serious, but significant enough to be noticed by others besides the apparent upset I have when my disorder is reordered. I guess even those quirks were somewhat masked by me from my house-sitter friend who lived with me for 6 months, some 4 years ago. I suppose there is no easy way to help people understand that some strange things related to the lower spectrum of autism attend to a part of my personality.

It is no excuse and not essentially a bad thing, I work on a lot of things of adaptation and integration, even if some of my quirks leave me looking so totally out of place. I have learnt to be comfortable in my own skin whilst aiming to be the best person I can be. This is the first of some of the writings I hope to publish about living with low-spectrum autism.

In the skein of the lifted

Finding your flock of safety

To be blessed with neighbours,
With whom to share the labours,
When fallen by the wayside,
A Samaritan to turn the tide.

Even as you blindly stumble,
Not to be left in a crumble,
It is the joy of our humanity,
To be present to bear infirmity.

Though we might be careless,
That we find ourselves in darkness,
The struggle becomes a blight,
From which we find no flight.

There is a willing helper able,
To address where you’re unable,
We are never left utterly disabled,
To perish as the lost or fabled.

In the skein of the lifted,
We are quite fully assisted,
Living with no fear of the downturn,
As they crowd with you to return.

As you pray for not yourself alone,
And for those with whom you’re known,
That no day of trouble comes,
To which every one succumbs.

When we all band together,
Whatever be the weather,
We know no one with ever fall,
As we lift the weak to stand tall.

Then I asked ChatGPT to work on the poem, “Please, refine the poem in the context of how we support each other in times of trouble. Do not change the tone and minimise the editing the prose. The first line is the title.” Which one is the original and the revision by ChatGPT?

Supporting Each Other

Blessed are we with neighbours,
Sharing life's labours,
When we fall by the wayside,
A helping hand to turn the tide.

In moments of uncertainty,
We find solace in community,
It's the beauty of our humanity,
To be there in times of infirmity.

Though we may stumble in the dark,
We are never left alone to mark,
A willing heart is always near,
To ease our burdens, wipe away our tear.

In the arms of those who care,
We find strength, we find repair,
Living without fear of the storm,
Together we weather every form.

We pray for each other and ourselves,
For a life without troubles and woes,
And with each other's help and love,
We rise above and stand above.

Together we form a strong flock,
No one left to bear the burden alone,
As we lift and support one another,
No burden too great, no challenge too tall.

NB: The collective noun for a group of wildfowl or geese in flight is a skein, when geese are on the ground, they are a gaggle, and in water, they are a wedge.

Gratitude as a salve of calm

Choosing gratitude over all

You find that you must purge yourself of things as situations and circumstances are taken out of your hands and superseded by the actions and activities of others. It is where you need to be given the allowance to process things at your own pace.

Everything points to the urge for annoyance, grievance, upset, or anger, but you catch yourself thinking that your reaction to any situation makes the difference regardless of what happened to you.

It is with that in mind that I will count my blessings, be thankful for the wonderful friendships and relationships that allow me to review, reflect, reassess, or even reject things that do not help me feel the way I hope to be. It is not just a matter of need, but one of purpose, to be grateful and full of gratitude that the times of now are hardly defining of all times, phases create the experience for insight and knowledge for living.

In my clam for calm

If anything, I hate drama in my life, there are reasons why I am protective of myself, my mind, the influences that aim to intrude, the voices that seek access to my hearing, the scenes that present for my viewing and observation, they are all for finding my place of calm that some think is me clamming up.

Then maybe, I do need to clam up, some things are just that way as we use the mechanisms newly learnt or from times past to command state and status to stand firm whatever wind blows one’s way. I cherish the deep friendships that help to think things through, even as that shell is a place of temporary safety for that need of some security for self and welfare.

57 encounters of blessings and thankfulness

I guess you already know there’s always a complementary birthday blog.

Hope alive beyond today

57, that is like three lives of 19, a number or a milestone, but either way, it is a celebration that I am grateful to memorialise and journal, for of many that I know, I have been the most fortunate and blessed to have the stories I get to tell.

Indeed, I would have loved to celebrate today in the company and the arms of my partner Brian in the warmth of the summer of the southern hemisphere, but the best laid-out plans can so easily be disrupted, the present disappointment prepares us for greater adventurous prospects of fun and more beyond what we might ever desire, it is not a train smash, he would say.

Life-affirming faith and love

Besides, it has been an interesting year, tough at times and exciting at other times, but that is the stuff of life. When I think about my circumstances 13 years ago, I could not have imagined and I could not see as far as today as everything was just so absolutely dire, yet the intervening years have brought a storied existence of life reinvented, happiness reconsidered, joy reverberating, and love rejuvenating, I am highly favoured.

Friends and family have been an unerring source of support and providence, I have been lifted and kept aloft with kindness, goodness, generosity, and love. I sometimes pinch myself, all this for me? At 57, I am grateful to God and the providence that took that little child that needed an incubator rather than a manger that Tuesday morning into a journey of the life celebrated today.

Unspeakable gratitude with thanks

I am full of thanks for the encounters brief and longstanding that have given me meaning and reason to strive to be a better person in every way possible. I can imagine maybe things that could have been, but I am encouraged that this is the best existence, it has the best stories and the wildest adventures, along with the goodness and mercy that follows me every day.

Having decided it will be quiet and without drama, I will still make it a day to remember, every birthday is a day to reflect, celebrate, and appreciate the wondrous grace of the divine that showers blessings in abundance over me.

We live not just to survive, but to thrive, we speak not just to be heard, but to be impactful, we love not just for companionship but to be examples of assuring togetherness, we write our stories to contribute our small part to the concept of humanity, and that is my resolve daily for as long as I have breath. To my 57^th birthday and the hope for many more to celebrate. Thank you.

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Thought Picnic: Benefitting from the widow's might

The generosity of the widow’s mite

For the many times that I have heard and read the story of the widow’s mite in the Bible, I have been fascinated at the lessons we are asked to draw out of the observation. People were giving offerings to the temple out of the plenty they already had and that would go a long way for the operations of the temple when referenced from the perspective of the temple.

However, in terms of the individual, the giving could be out of duty, obligation, service, or purpose, this is apart from the mindset of the person giving happily or grudgingly, and then the part about generosity, but I am not here to offer an exegesis or hermeneutic comparison of the story apart from the observation that the widow had little, and she gave all she had.

The efficacity of the widow’s might

Trying something in the order of homophones, I suggest another qualification in the possession of a widow, the widow’s might, the power in the person and the circumstances of the widow to change things for the better in her situation and for others.

I have a friend that is a widow in Ireland, we talk every so often about ourselves, life, and a person dear to our hearts even if that person has no concept or idea in their selfish disposition of how much they are loved and considered. This person is both intelligent and capable but has had their productivity arrested by substance abuse that they believe helps the projection of the multiple personalities they desire to portray.

The widows that make a difference

Where professional help and counsel has attempted an intervention, this person believes that they know better as they work themselves to what we fear is ruinous destruction that presages tragedy. Yet, as we conversed, I advised we never give voice to our fears, but rather religiously commit to prayer and supplication for the deliverance of this person. I believe a widow’s heart is seen by God and blessings with favour along with answered prayers would be her testimony.

There is also the widow’s might in selfless giving another like a mother with whom I have regular conversations who bestows love and care with concern for my welfare that I appreciate more and more. There again, in the widow’s might are those who have made extremely generous provisions to my needs, in a time of adversity and infirmity.

God bless the widow’s mite and might

My gratitude is deep and cannot be fully expressed, as they have been my support and strength, my rock and caring shoulder, and most of all, my love. For they have provided sustenance for the days that the storehouse was barren and hold my hand from day to day with encouragement and hope. 

There are times when the widow’s mite is the widow’s might to keep your chin up and know that the circumstances of the present will pass for the prosperity that looms quite presently.

May the grace and blessings of God abide with the many widows who with mite and might have given to my bosom.

My friend, the genius

Your boundaries are sacrosanct

I would hardly be the one to initiate an intervention because I respect boundaries to the extent that I might not have been as helpful a friend as I could be. Also, I am rarely confrontational, it is not my personality type, though, if I have to confront a situation, I will, usually as a last resort.

However, if I am specifically engaged on an issue, I will apply all my faculties as objectively as possible, but herein is my dilemma. I believe I am watching a friend go off the rails and I do not know how to address the matter. I provide nominal support, but this is hardly sufficient to the situation, and it thoroughly disturbs me.

Call me anytime

My inclination is always to have an open door against the buffeting a person may face from others, but what if I am the only one left as the voice of reason: the last bastion of hope. The thought I might lose my friend terrifies me.

Professional support offered does not seem to meet the underlying need that moralises addiction and its detriments when a person believes they gain benefits from substance abuse and usage, or so they aver.

What he could be

This is someone whose abilities, aptitude, and intellect, if harnessed can operate consistently at a genius level with prolific output, whereas now, we contend with torrents of sometimes incoherent but amazing ideas that might only be realised with some sobriety. I have a friend who is a lot more than he sees in himself and considerably a lot more than I know he is capable of.

Whether rehabilitation can begin to extricate him from this situation towards better outcomes and fulfilment, I cannot tell, but in my view, he is doing himself gradual and progressive harm without realising or acknowledging it, comfortable in the feeling that exacerbates his most creative self. It bothers me and I am somewhat crying for help and inspiration for what is possible and within the scope of arrest. My friend is a genius unrealised.

Thought Picnic: Friendship is a test that never ends

Tested and testing

I pass many tests I do not believe I can pass, many not as a result of study but as a study of resolve. The extent to which I have allowed myself to be tested beyond the limits that are tolerable yet somewhere in my cabinet of virtue I find the tolerance. I tolerate a lot.

If you were to survey my tongue, you will find the accidents of restraint, the number of times I have bitten my tongue and resisted blurting out an expletive. With equanimity, I absorb the shocks and displeasure even when I should explode, I become a fully corked volcano stopped short from spewing out pyroclastic flows hoping the pressure subsides.

Friends escaping sanction

I think to myself, friends are a rare breed for whom such allowances are made where others would not find an inch of escape to act with the levity to abuse the familiarity of relationships that breeds contempt and disrespect that we overlook as those we like, and love take liberties and licence on our generosity and much that we share.

Willingly we become masochists of the violation by the hands and whims of those that are not strangers to us, our patience an enduring virtue that could attract the desire to overlook while it demands the irascible. I guess you find yourself entering the twilight zone of Jesus’ advice to forgive seventy times seven times.

They unbeknownst to them wrong you so gravely and yet they do no wrong. It is the stuff of friendships, and that count might just run out and weaken the bond to when it cannot but break. It does break when being careless, carefree and without care deals a lesson of sobriety in reality that you can take no more. How much more? You can never really tell.

Thought Picnic: Casting pearls of friendship before swine of misery

Reaching out in the plague

During this pandemic considering how alone and lonely some people could be, I reached out to some friends to maintain the bond of friendship and to offer support, not because I was in a perfect situation, but I realised how mutually beneficial it could be to me and them.

Most of my friends engaged and even introduced activities that helped weather the lockdown even if all we did never made up for the absence of companionship for some and the distance between partners in an existing relationship. We ploughed on in the hope that eventually, the plague will lift, and we can begin to see each other again.

The unpredictability of friendships

Generally, I do not make friends that easily, most of the friends, I have known for decades and that does not mean I do not have the time for new friendships, the opportunities abound but it is almost like a frog kissing exercise and if you ever believed the story of the prince that was turned into a frog then kissed to turn into a handsome eligible bachelor prince, you will probably kiss every frog you see.

You really cannot determine what will make friends of people from their first encounter, even if there are mutual interests, there is much more to establishing interests than basic commonalities. I have friends I cannot for the life of me understand how we could ever have been friends and yet we thrive together in respect, affection, concern, and love. It is a mysterious thing and I do not care from the postulations written about friendships, there are qualities of interdependence that would make them work.

A friendship may never grow

There are cases where I have decided not to continue friendships that they could be links to memories in the past that I would rather forget. There are friendships I have just terminated because the emotional abuse usually borne of issues in that person’s life has been projected on me, that I have run out of the patience to endure it any longer.

I am sure there are people who were once friends who now think nothing of me, that is their prerogative, I guess eventually I get the hint if I have not been directly informed that the friendship is being discontinued. Though, in one instance I do remember one friendship that had prospect but never took hold, much as I liked the person there was a lot I learnt of them that suggested they had rarely been acquainted with kindness in friendship, they had a form of misery they needed to share that I was not predisposed to.

Treasure your pearls of friendship

Strenuously, I tried to help bring this person to appreciate a side of humanity I felt could free one to enjoy life, I was met with an unpersuadable spirit first and then my own openhearted entreaties were being drained into the blackhole of their not know which side their bread was buttered on, I was casting my pearls of friendship to be trampled on by swine of misery. I hoped and I persevered, but I was getting nowhere.

They were not interested and I guess eventually as I read somewhere, “reality is the most tenacious influencer I know.”* The reality I lived and experienced meant even I had to understand we were not friends however much I hoped we could be and whilst I doubt we would become enemies, it was time for me to invest in what was working and whatever else might have a prospect. The end.

* Andrew Sullivan in Substack. [Rejecting the jab: why has the US vaccine roll-out ‘hit a wall’?]

Funmi, in your year of the Jubilee

Extraordinary mensch

Funmi Iyanda, I first met in circumstances celebrating the loss of a friend, there was no indication at the time that we would be friends, but through meetings and conversations, an unusual and close friendship developed.

There are many things to write about Funmi Iyanda, the talk show host, broadcaster, Film and TV producer, media executive, philanthropist, journalist, and blogger, according to her Wikipedia profile, but to view her through her celebrity alone would be to miss the beauty and the essence of the person, her humanity, her generosity, her qualities in principle, in motherhood, in friendship, her stoicism in the face of adversity, betrayal, and other challenges, her indomitable spirit, her tenacity, her storytelling prowess and the all-round extraordinary mensch that she is.

Humanity champion

Funmi has always championed unpopular and difficult causes, bringing light and life to people, issues, and events, extricating the detail and the underlying human story to which many can relate, from the time that she fronted New Dawn with Funmi to her recent venture of Public Eye.

In doing so, she shone the klieg lights on many, giving them insight and blazing the trail for others who have followed and gone on to become leading lights to their various areas of endeavour. She was the pioneer, the frontrunner, the blockbuster draw in an environment where the conservative, the patriarchy, the powerful, and the influential felt threatened by one who was neither fawning nor obsequious, her voice was strong, loud, and effective.

Life changer

In founding Change-A-Life Foundation in 2002, she with the team around her were intervening in the lives of vibrant, talented, gifted, determined, purposeful yet disadvantaged individuals, according to their Twitter profile. Even those who would not consider themselves disadvantaged were given platforms to showcase their abilities and from there found the global audience that brought patronage and opportunity to their worlds.

Having the courage of her convictions borne of a deep sense of duty and willingness to nurture, uplift, and promote, she has boldly showcased issues too many have been afraid to touch, associated with people who the generally supercilious won’t deign to entertain, but the haughty are the poorer for it, even if in their conceit they are oblivious of their lack of humanity, doing the motions without the heart.

Quiet dignity

I am sometimes astounded at some who were lent more than a helping hand who having now made it have surreptitiously pushed the ladder away, presuming to pay forward with no recognition of how they got where they are or who gave voice, mentored, advised, counselled, negotiated, and facilitated their rise.

It is an endearing virtue to witness the dignity and bearing of this woman whose quiet disposition and silence is too frequently taken advantage of by those who knowing the quality of person she is, feel safe from being exposed for their villainy, calumny, malevolence, apathy, indifference, wickedness, ingratitude, disrespect and much else. They are a lesson and story of the fallen human that would not change the grace, the style, the comportment, the humanity, and loveliness of this lady.

Trailblazing still

Those points being made, I have come to celebrate Funmi Iyanda as a friend, a confidante, a sister, an ally, a person of exemplary conduct that I so highly respect for who she is, her achievements, the successes, and failures are woven into a tapestry of life telling even better stories, the laurels of the past fading into the distance in the presence of new ideas, amazing opportunities, and projects leading to places that could never have been prospected or imagined; genius is just what genius does and it is awesome to behold.

There is a coming of age and the coming into the centre of who you were born to be, a world-changer, lauded and recognised by the powerful, the influential, the establishment and institutions around the world. Sometimes, a prophet is but without honour in their own land, it does not make the prophet any less an impactful messenger to the global communities and humanity where the gift blossoms.

Unbeatable excellence

Sometimes, I say, you have nothing left to prove other than to continually excel effortlessly in what you have perfected over decades. Indeed, many will be envious and jealous, probably militate against you, where they can and are able to contribute and team up, they hold back fearful of being eclipsed, myopic in vision and purpose, but we choose to be proud of you, celebrate your many talents, find encouragement in your many efforts and have great expectations of mind-blowing exploits by your individuality, initiative, industriousness, and ingenuity.

Your friendship, your playfulness, your wit, and your use of expression are things your friends exude in and treasure. Along with Morenike, you are both an incomparable, uncompromising, unbeatable, and unchallengeable winning team.

Happy Birthday

Dear Funmi, on your 50^th birthday, may your smiles turn into joyous laughter and exuberant ululation, may your light shine as bright as the sun in the day and in the night, may love encompass, shield and bless you, may you find favour in every place, even in the impossible and unfavourable places, ways open that would leave many in awe of the opportunities that come your way that you are spoilt for choice.

May you rise to be seen, to be heard, to be honoured, to be celebrated, and to be feted in the stratosphere way beyond those who heretofore glowered at you with satisfaction, they will be dwarfed by the little things you do. It is your day to breakout and breakthrough with the impact and forceful demonstration of a nuclear detonation. Brian and I wish you a very happy birthday, you have been our greatest cheerleader and supporter, a friend like no other.

Most of all, remember the words of the brighter future that we have progressively lived in and continue to find new experiences to cherish. A ma fi pàtàn ni. Have a most wonderful day and many more glorious days and years are coming in your year of the Golden Jubilee.

Dreamscape: Of friendships, in conflicts and strong voices

The outlay

I cannot remember how long ago the dramatis personae were in the latest dramatic episode of parasomnia where the script is an ad hoc exhibition of wild and vividly imagination occluding and folding time into a present continuous of endless juxtapositions and unlimited human abilities that science fiction will not dare to touch.

My father had gone away when his best friend who passed on last November had come round to ask for the use of his car. I promptly deactivated the security my mother having consented, and the deed was done. In dreams, there are backstories that come to view as memory during the playback of events you cannot place, and this one, I do not remember giving access to the car, yet I was bought into the premise.

The setup

When he returned, he had no knowledge that the car was used until it came up in conversation with his friend. As he is wont to do, he was completely sceptical that the car had been moved at all because there was no record in the odometer or tracking system that the security had been tampered with. That was where fingers were pointed at me by his friend that not only had I bypassed security, but I had also overridden all protective systems, it became a thing of jest that so seriously annoyed my father.

Rather than have a discussion with me about the issue, he took his frustration out on me resorting an instrument of corporal punishment that he handily wielded from our childhood to exert authority and respect. As it was in a public place, I was apparently conversant with customs not to resist or attack, I let him have his way, humiliating me as others watched without intervening even as what I did was at their insistence.

The fightback

Later, he came at me again in private and we got into a struggle, I was having none of it and then I went to bed. Quite overcome with the injustice of it all, I got up and was in a crowded courtyard where my mother was serving food to quite a few people. I attracted her attention asking to talk but gave way to a few desperately hungry and possibly homeless people hoping once their urgent requirement was served, I would be allowed a hearing, but I was altogether ignored.

I adjusted my voice and bellowed, “Can I have an audience?”, at which point, I could no more be ignored and the whole crowd fell silent to listen to what I had to say. I am not much of a public speaker, but I gave it my best shot occasionally losing my voice but recovering soon enough to make coherent sentences.

My statement

Uncle Jimi, though I have never called him that before, I said, was a father-figure such that if my father were absent, he would not have to be asked to take on that role. There was no way I would have refused him access to use my father’s car and with my mother’s consent, he did have the car when he required it. I was rather disappointed that they allowed my father to abuse me without even attempting to restrain him.

Whilst I was busy speaking, my implacable father came wielding a big stick again, but this time we had a full-on confrontation as I tackled him the apparently big stick shrunk into a length of flimsy string, his hand hanging down with the incredulity of how his instrument of power and enforcement became nothing of any threat. Yet, it was in the words I spoke than in any physical tussling that this happened.

Leaving the courtyard to return to my bedroom with my brother, along the way, he wanted to go to see my father as I worried that he might not have access to the house if we did not go together. Then across the stream just before a bridge that could be easily crossed, I saw a wolf with a colourful iridescent coat approaching as if towards prey. I growled at it, it cowered in fear and slunk away. My phone rang and that is how I was awoken from my apparent nightmare; it was Brain on the other end.

I prevail

All day, I have been reviewing the events in my mind as I narrated the dream to friends, the seemingly incessant conflicts between my father and I, caught in a time warp of when we were literally of equal strength and I always gaining the upper hand. The situation where the presumed reasonableness he possesses is quickly dispensed for the physical, but more pertinently, the bond of friendship with his best friend that we all celebrated.

Then, one thing I have realised and learnt through life is I have to speak for myself, for fairness, for justice and to arrest that abuse of power and authority by those who think they are unassailable and inviolable. The voice against oppression must be heard and it is there to disarm completely. Another dreamscape.

James Anderson (1956 - 1994), The Opera Queen

A brief and enduring encounter

James Anderson was a friend of mine, we met one evening some 30 years ago at the old Brief Encounter pub on St. Martin’s Lane in London’s West End. I cannot say why he took a liking to me, but we got chatting, he got me a drink and then invited me back to his place.

Quite an intriguing guy, he lived in Bermondsey and his little apartment was crowded out with vinyl albums, 5,000, he told me, mostly to do with opera and operetta, he was a walking encyclopaedia of that genre of music and entertainment, long before I had any liking for it.

I left his place in the pouring rain to return to an apartment I shared with others only to find that I could not get in because I did not have the keys and I could not rouse anyone to open the door that late in the night. I went to find a phone box as this was before mobile phones became commonplace and called James about my predicament, still wet from the rain.

He kindly invited me back, gave me warm clothes, made me tea and we went to bed. That is how we began a friendship and I learnt that he was HIV+ with his health just about holding up. Over the next few years, I met up with James on all sorts of occasions. A humorous wit, a cheeky smile and almost always up to mischief.

Praying for the time

He also had a sense of urgency, he wanted to finish the second edition of his published book, The Complete Dictionary of Opera & Operetta and he did not know how much time he had left to get it done. He did get it all done and published.

In July 1993, we had a big 37^th birthday party at his place in his honour, quite a few common friends were there, some I had also met before at the Brief Encounter. I did not realise that it was almost like a farewell party. James had been ill and developed AIDS, he seemed his jovial self but was probably putting up appearances. It was a rather jolly time.

A life cut short

Sadly, in early 1994 there was a two-page spread, a recognisable picture of a handsome and youthful man in a newspaper, I think the London Evening Standard, and there was a long tribute to the man we fondly knew as the Opera queen, James Anderson had died the night before due to complications of AIDS at the young age of 37.

I did not find out any details pertaining to his funeral, I just mourned privately, sad that such an amazing man had been taken from amongst us, like many others who I met and befriended after James. I cannot find anywhere James has been memorialised, not even on the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt.

Remembering the times

Of recent, I have been viewing memorials that have garnered some interest after the airing of the television series, It’s A Sin which documents a decade of lives of some young gay men affected by the AIDS crisis in London in the decade from 1981 to 1991. I have from time to time also searched online for James’ book, just to see if it was still in print.

However, this morning, reading a review of the book posted by a buyer in 2013, they complained the book was dated and some information was incorrect. This was a book researched long before the days of the Internet and I was almost ready to respond, that the only reason why the book had not been republished, updated and had current events and personalities were because, the author, died some 27 years ago.

All I have now of James Anderson is pictured in my mind, flashes of moments that defined our friendship, the danger that in my naivety I was unaware of and then accepted. He was the first person I knew who had the disease, it did not make him any less a wonderful person, he just passed on at a time when there was little to help his situation, as did many in the 1990s into the early 2000s.

A very befitting farewell

Learning new things

My thoughts have been contained in the events of the past few days surrounding the sending off and interment of a remarkably great man and my father’s best friend from childhood, Otunba Gabriel Ogunjimi Taiwo, who passed on in early November 2020.

Blog - The Vulture died of a ripe old age

The benefit of modern technology has allowed many of us who would have wanted to participate in honouring him with our presence to share in the moments with live broadcasts on Facebook. There are times we could have been swept into the situation and overcome with emotions it entails.

The traditions and the ceremony also revealed to me how somehow foreign everything seemed to me, it is like there has been a fundamental shift in these ceremonies from the solemnity I once knew that greets the preparations, the Service of Songs, the wake keeping, and the funerary rites to the outward flamboyance with performing pallbearers and much else.

Exhausted by spectacle

I could not begin to think of the energy and resolve of my friends in organising this feat whilst shouldering the broadest spectrum of feelings from sorrow through gratitude and joy of a life more than worthy of celebration, I, watching from afar, was exhausted that I feared whether I might ever have such strength.

My father gave a speech at the wake yesterday, he must feel the great loss of a friendship with the likelihood that in a quiet place, he could have let go of his emotions, it is a situation we cannot begin to fully understand apart from giving him support, consideration, and love.

For now and later

Then much as I want to be miffed about the untrammelled insatiable appetite of the clergy who steward our village church for donations, gifts, commitments, and other largesse after all that these men from their youth have contributed to the Ijesha-Ijebu community, using every opportunity to inveigle, plead, and entreat ever so unashamedly and blatantly, I will leave that to another time. Calmness and diplomacy demand that out of respect for our patriarch, we bring to a close the essential as it is needful.

Folusho, Niyi, and siblings, you have done well and done proud the legacy of your dad. May his soul rest in peace and the fond memories of his extraordinary life fill you with hope, strength, and grace into the future. Ẹkú Àṣẹ̀hìndè bàbá, ọjọ́ á jìnà síra. Gbérè!