Essential Snobbery 101: The Etiquette of Getting Caught

The Art of Discretion

If one were to court controversy, one could say that infidelity is congenital or consanguineous, but rarely learnt or taught. The debate around that is for another forum.

However, the tendency to stray must surely come with the essential common sense of, first and foremost, not rubbing your partner's nose in it. This means according those liaisons the respect of keeping them at a distance, and being as discreet as you possibly can in order to avoid getting caught.

History, as I have read it, would suggest that the Victorians and Edwardians who kept mistresses made sure their spouses were not disadvantaged in dignity, position, attention, or latitude. It was usually a case of knowing without feeling threatened.

A Cautionary Commotion

What I cannot abide are those who break the rules in wholly unforgivable ways, such as placing their matrimonial bed at the very centre of the travesty whilst hoping not to get caught. What on earth are you thinking? The follow-up question is unprintable.

I was once privy to a narrative relayed to me of a commotion that brought the police to a home, the cacophony having included the shattering of glass, and whatever else might have been flung, in both words and objects, when a hapless fool was caught in the act.

His wife had gone away and was not expected back until the weekend; she returned the previous night, however, only to find her husband canoodling with another woman. There is no need for a graphic replay, at the risk of sensationalising the matter with the aplomb of a village rag.

A Failure to Plan

There must be a reason why she did not telephone ahead to forestall what might have been her suspicions of something untoward. Some people spare themselves the possibility of such situations by making allowances, in the spirit of "out of sight is out of trouble".

He, however, in his careless and carefree manner, played the oily mouse whilst the cat was away. He should have planned his rendezvous for a motel, or somewhere far from home, yet he did not.

Stepping back to view this from an objective angle, the effrontery and audacity required to bring someone else home should always have come with the forward planning of a number of things. First, an alert system that detects proximity, so as to avoid an encounter. Then, easy sequestration, should your spouse enter the house when there is no chance of escape.

Hiding the Evidence

You cannot put the interloper on the window ledge outside if you are on the tenth floor, especially if that was not intended as a final goodbye. Slipping them under the bed, behind the curtain, or into the wardrobe are far too common as places to hide, and so to be found. Just roll a bottle under the bed; if it does not come out the other end, take a look.

Someone suggested the oven or the fridge, which left me thinking of the double-jointed contortionist who performs at the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront in Cape Town, doing such unimaginable things with his body that the spectacle is too suggestive for a polite audience, and yet impossible to look away from.

Perhaps the clothes basket could help, and what you would need next is a snake charmer to play the pungi as your quarry wriggles to the swaying hypnotism of the sound, lifting the lid of the basket and unleashing the scandal that would ensue. You may not be prepared for the confessions.

If you do not have a number of well-planned escape routes, no amount of explaining would extricate you from a complex situation that would serve as entertainment for your neighbours, and inspiration for this very piece. You got caught, pants down, and the only thing you might ever salvage is your dear life, by the skin of your teeth.

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Decade Blogs - Pearl Ijeoma Ezeokeke - The Employer Atrocities of She

Decade Blogs

Amongst my many friends on Twitter, I was happy when Pearl Ijeoma Ezeokeke agreed to write for my #YourBlogOnMyBlog Series commemorating my Decade of Blogging.

Blog - To Celebrate My Decade of Blogging

I read this story, and I gasped, in shock and in recognition; if the authorities heard of every occurrence of this, Nigerian newspapers would have no spare space for news.

It is the issue of employer – employee relations, where the former literally has omnipotence over the latter on all matters of life, decision and existence to the extent of egregious and unconscionable abuse.

From the late or non-payment of salaries through mental torture and bullying to aggravated grievous bodily harm, all done with impunity and with no consequence or accountability.

Besides the obvious, it highlights the way people tackle spousal infidelity, taking it out on the vulnerable party and the way parents crudely apply themselves to sex education through the use of terror, fear and threats. This is a riveting read.

Pearl Ijeoma Ezeokeke blogs at http://olorungemstone.com and she writes in 140 characters via @PearlEze

She

She had woken up on the wrong side of the bed that Saturday morning. Truth be told, she always woke up on the wrong side, like she was fighting demons and in-laws in her dreams and brought the whole shindig out into the real world. They all knew it was going to be a bad day, they could tell from her demeanour, but did not know what was in store, did not expect it.

They had just had breakfast, and since it was a Saturday, her daughters did not have to go to school so they escaped to the swing and white sand outside. The eldest was seven years old, and they had all witnessed how violent she could get when she was in such a mood. As usual, their father was away. He was not home very much.

One wonders if it had to do with the fact that his wife was only able to give him girl-children, three now. His mother wanted him to leave his wife and find a woman who could give them sons to carry the family name. It did not matter that he had three other brothers it was their tradition.

She knew he was sleeping around. She knew he was unfaithful. She knew he was having sex with the house helps every single one of them. She had no proof whatsoever, but she knew. They say women have a sixth sense about these things.

The girls heard the shouting and screaming coming through the front doors. For a few minutes, they kept on swinging, acting as if nothing was happening. Like they didn’t know that someone was on the verge of being beaten to a pulp inside the house. It had happened before, more than once. They were scared and helpless – from whence doth their help come from?

She started screaming their names from the kitchen. There was no escaping now.

When they got there, they found her on the ground, the pretty house help beneath her. She had her by the hair and was banging her head on the floor. The eldest daughter rushed to her and tried to stop her hands from such wickedness, but she was like one possessed. The girls started crying. Weeping. Then she looked up at them and scolded them to shut up!

Her eyes, there was something about her eyes… Evil lived within.

She got up and moved over to a corner in the kitchen where mortar and pestle sat. The girls had not seen it there what with all the ruckus. She bent down, scooped pounded fresh chilli pepper from it, and then went back to the house help. She held her down and forced her leg between the house help’s legs to push them apart, then looked at her daughters.

“If I catch anyone of you with any boy or any man, I will do the same thing to you.”

Then she proceeded to show them what she would do.

-o-o-

I celebrate you on this decade of blogging. Your consistency and dedication is absolutely admirable and worthy of emulation. My prayer for you is ka o n'aga aga.

Opinion: Exploring a new level of grace in infidelity

Vile chattering

The Nigerian Twitterverse was caught lapping up the salacious detail that graced the pages of a newspaper with regards to the excessive caring of a pastor to the deeper attentions of lasciviousness on many levels of grace yet not understood. [The news story]

In what appears to be a confessional exposing the dynamic of power and authority over vulnerability and victimhood, depending on how you look at it, a lady laid out in exhaustive lettering the trysts that led from catching the eye of the parson to when she was persuaded to join the Pastoral Care Unit.

Good temptations

Out of sight and the purview of the handlers and sycophants back in Nigeria, the pastor let loose his charm offensive, playing on the reverence that was already accorded him by the lady began an incipient ploy that lured the lady from doing ordinary favours with attendant scoldings of not doing much more until somewhere in the penthouse suite of London hotel, mesmerised out her gumption, she was sitting on his laps, then kissing him and by the time we knew it, the bed was defiled with the romping of two people who morally should not be in copulative abandon.

Now, there will be many angles to this story with the likelihood as we have seen before than only one side will gain a full hearing whilst the other regardless of the truth of the matter will go the way of stone-faced denial stringing it out until the lady is labelled every contemptible name from Jezebel to witch.

Tolerating abuse

It does not really matter the whats, hows or whys, but we need to address some fundamental issues within our society where those in authority or leadership have the impunity to abuse or exert influence without question, be they parents, elders, bosses, lecturers, leaders religious or otherwise.

We are inclined to give the aggressor the benefit of the doubt long before the detailed experiences of the victim are given any consideration – we see this in child abuse cases, brutalisation of others, sexual harassment scenarios, institutionalised bullying, academics demanding sexual favours for marks and everywhere else where the respected absent themselves from being accountable for their deeds and being responsible for their actions.

We need to advance beyond the dread of criticising those who have done wrong just because they appear to derive authority from an institution or a potentate. There are things we as a society need to challenge of what we have accepted before that perpetuates egregious abuse from which victims find no fair hearing nor justice.

Influence of authority

Beyond this, the matter of consent is not really cut and dried, power and authority can override the resistance one might normally have in a different setting, the setting usually beyond the scrutiny of others can be hypnotic or cajoling – when a mentor or leader in the midst of manifest wrongdoing says, “I will teach you a level of grace that you don’t understand.” It will take a superhuman presence of mind to snap out of the spellbinding influence of making the abominable look like a worthwhile service to a cause.

We must be able to call out those who should by their status and standing know that they have been called to a cause greater than themselves to set example of moral rectitude beyond reproach and odious accusation that can bring the ministry they oversee into threatening if not debilitating disrepute.

Wayward moral compass

Cover-ups can only do so much but when the stench of corrupt enterprise becomes the incense funnelling the fires of hell rather than redounding to the sweet fragrance of heaven, those who have become too accustomed by acclimatisation to this environment better beware that their discernment has not lost direction and they are caught in an evil delusion thinking they are doing good religion.

In less than two weeks I have found myself questioning the moral standing of institutions that have allowed controversy and opprobrium to dog the leadership – it is time for a greater level of accountability to register in these places with no one being able to act above question, principle, tenet and accepted moral guidance just because of the position they hold.

The trustees have a duty to protect the institution they hold in trust above fallible people and founders, that is what they were elected or selected to do for the sake of the institution and the people who gather as part of the flock of that congregation.

Mud, glorious mud

Even if the mud does not stick, a big mud bath has been stirred and there is a good bit of washing and drying to do before the matter can be cleared up, what even matters more is the hope that if there be others so abused, this is a time for them to stand up and speak up to prevent situations where new victims suffer from what could be been completely avoidable if the timing and courage linked up with a clamour for fairness, justice and truth to do right.

Finally, even if the lady were a woman scorned, the question is what really happened and how far was the authority figure ready to try their luck before it all blew up? For morality and justice, the truth must be made manifest after this salvo.

The laps of God are ready to deliver a coarse spanking to anyone who has thought they have found all the levels of grace like in some video game because, there is a grace too fiery for words and hell will look like a cooler to those who should have known better but chose for the worse.

Thought Picnic: A sportsman cast as a sinning saint

No saints around

It is hard enough that because of golf certain established television programmes on the BBC have been rescheduled.

Apparently, Tiger Woods, the young but very successful golf “legend” is returning to play a major at Augusta and it seems everyone is agog about it.

Surely, in some places Tiger Woods has sinned, in others he had a sex-addiction and the matter of marrying supposed American values with personal lasciviousness and his untypical religious adherence has become a powder keg of the utmost irritation.

The wrong role models

I have retweeted with comments a few things about this issue mostly from a pragmatic perspective rather than from some moralistic mountain-top, the man is a sportsman not a clergyman – I doubt any in the clergy with similar lapses has seen such a media feeding frenzy.

Why we would choose a mere mortal whose ability is less philosophical as is physical as a role model is definitely interesting but rather sad – celebrity is now of more essence than intellectual rigour and character amongst those who are supposedly leaders.

Frogs leap over the tiger

I was amused when Accenture withdrew their sponsorship of Tiger Woods in the wake of the scandals, a firm that was part of the once global Arthur Andersen accounting empire before it became Andersen Consulting and now Accenture – as Wikipedia put it, they luckily avoided the taint that engulfed the original firm in the wake of the Enron debacle.

When I opened my Economist last weekend, I was presented with an Accenture advertisement and with mirth I tweeted about how they had gone from a tiger to frogs – as for the significance, well, I would rather not comment.

A woman NOT a girl

Now, on the eve of seeing Tiger Woods get back to the physical and manual job of playing golf which without doubt pays so well because he plays so well some other woman appears. Another of those infuriating tweets.

Huffingtonpost SHOCK: Tiger Woods reportedly slept with neighbor's 21-year-old daughter! http://huff.to/cDXOXH (via @HuffPostSports)

Now, it is obviously beneath contempt that a married man would for whatever reason sleep with his neighbour’s daughter, I read that with a bit of disgust, then I realised this “daughter” is a 21-year-old woman – the daughter is NOT a girl.

Digging deeper into the tale it appears she told her story because she felt she was one of his conquests – wake up and smell the coffee, “girl” – even you as a neighbour would have known he was married and regardless of his celebrity and influence; taking a moral stance is not the exclusive preserve of the powerful or the rich – it speaks much of Mr. Woods’ lapse in judgement as it does of the lady’s corruptible mien - surely, they were all conquests.

Blinded by celebrity

It would be easy to apportion blame to Mr. Woods who seems to have brought all this disgrace and calumny upon himself but everyone else who succumbed to his whims has not been proven incapable of knowing right from wrong along with the very glaring fact that they all really did know who Tiger Woods was.

I am in no way justifying any of the activities of Tiger Woods but his considerable celebrity is making great careers for all those who have decided to kiss-and-tell – a good long list of those have given or taken pleasure appears below that story – all feeling so much more hurt because in the heat of the pillow-talk and consequent activity they had been promised something that faded after the orgasm.

If anyone would dare spare a thought for the wife, the children, the mother, the relations and maybe the friends beyond sating the hunger for more celebrity exposés.

Hardly an aggrieved party

None of all the people can be exculpated from this morass of undignified conduct which at one time would have been conducted with discretion, maybe some dignity if ever and never aired in public because we all just knew how to behave – or something like that.

It goes without saying that if there was no market for gossip and tittle-tattle all this philandering would not find a column in the village rag – it is the way of the world today and really I am just interested in golf, I have never looked at Tiger Woods as a moral compass or expected much of him apart from choosing the right club, hitting the golf ball and in the process winning the tournament.

As for the issues, before long someone might even appear with a love child and so? What is really so new under the sun from time immemorial?

Pursuing a cause greater than self

A voice lost to human frailty

One really important and possibly powerful voice was missing when the elections in Zimbabwe turned into a seething farce and outrageous charade, the voice of Pius Ncube.

Pius Ncube was until September 11^th 2007 the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo for just under 10 years and one of the fiercest critics of Robert Mugabe and his policies.

As a religious man with the force and authority of the Roman Catholic Church behind him, he was almost untouchable; as a man amongst his people he had a role of leadership to be the voice of the voiceless and the conscience of the people to shame the government into aligning itself with less suppressive activities and policies.

A cause greater than self

Pius Ncube had to resign his commission because an aspect of human frailty or ill-discipline beclouded the greater office he held as he was caught in adulterous liaisons which were recorded and documented by state security personnel.

For that alone, he lost the ability to project authority and hence the cause and mission was lost – succumbing to the wiles of the flesh in the midst of a greater calling, lost him his dignity, his office and a notable voice for the oppressed of Zimbabwe.

Obviously, we all know that we are fallible, but the position of leadership and authority carries great responsibilities especially where integrity and honour count for much that morality forms part of the bedrock that defines that personality.

Are you what you are?

It goes without saying that you cannot be a man of God and be caught in morally questionable situations, then expect to retain the gravitas that comes with your office even if your flock is willing to forgive and forget.

Also, as a politician, you might get away with all sorts of things, but if you stand on a platform of honesty, strong family values and rectitude, the last thing you want to be caught in is a lapse of judgement that brings your great house of cards crashing down upon you.

Another man gives in

Such is the case of Senator John Edwards, the failed running mate of Senator John Kerry in the 2004 US Presidential elections and former Democratic US presidential hopeful.

After many denials, it has transpired that he had an affair in 2006 [1] whilst preparing his bid for nomination and when his wife’s cancer was apparently in remission.

It really does beggar belief that Senator Edwards would have thought this liaison would not get out – there was not only a grave error of judgement in allowing himself to be caught in an unfortunate moment of weakness, it is amazing that the goal for high office did not slap him in the face that his flesh should submit to a greater purpose.

Lacking a view of consequence

One cannot bear thinking of the consequences of that situation where if Senator Edwards had won the Democratic nomination and the breaking news as that dastardly Olympic spectacle pervades our screens was that the Democratic convention would implode over a reprobate and lying nominee in hardly another 3 weeks.

The nation would have gone into mourning for the next four years whilst many would have yearned for another possible Clinton grab at the mantle of the presidency.

Such is the measure of men who do not have the backbone to vie for office with moral rectitude and a commitment to a cause greater than self.

Bury your bodies

One should not, however, kick a man when he is down, but the fact is if you should vie for leadership or office, your skeletons must not be in a cupboard where others might open the closet and be embraced with skeletal kisses, but the bodies should have been buried deep down in the ground where the bones and fossil remains would lead archaeologists and palaeontologists down the wrong path.

Better still, walk alone, walk like a man with a cause and mission that far exceeds the demands of the flesh that if tempted you will not fall – there are very few men who can walk that walk and those are the few men who are worthy of office, leadership, respect, adulation and the great prize.

If you can fall short, do not aspire or be really, really smart – I cannot say that Senator John Edwards despite his brilliance, success, advocacy and message has been smart.

One slip can lose everything

He has become such damaged goods that the mundane act of sweeping up the bread crumbs behind Barack Obama by campaigning, raising funds or having a platform at the Democratic convention cannot be done.

As for his excuses that aim to justify his position, we need to give it time and time can be an eternity – what a loss to many and what a shame indeed, my heart goes out to Senator John Edwards’ family and in some way to the man himself – how are the mighty fallen, they might yet rise again.

We who speak so loudly probably have skeletons roaming the streets and that is why the little smart thing in our heads prevents us from doing something stupid, like vying for office or seeking authority that brings great scrutiny and expectation of being super-human.

[1] BBC NEWS | Americas | Ex-senator Edwards admits affair