Essential Snobbery 101: The King's Button

The King's Button

Edward VII was reputed to be a man who loved the pleasures of life, and his girth bore witness to this. At the table, he would leave the bottom button of his waistcoat undone, a practical habit that lent itself to ease and spared the garment the wear of exertion or extension on account of eating.

Observers at the table, nobles and servants alike, must have noticed this, and so it became the style. The party prince who became king after Victoria's long reign did it, and so should his subjects; consequently, this was deemed the way to dress. In time, the habit travelled beyond the waistcoat to the jacket and the suit, where it endures to this day.

How Custom Passes

The role of observers, those who watch a habit harden into a custom, is important to understanding how matters of style and taste are passed on. The observation must occur in close proximity and with a semblance of regularity, if one is to distinguish the trendy and the customary from a mere slip. The same applies to conduct, communication, and comportment, along with the courtesies that attend them.

A Quiet Decline

Recently, as I have gone about my own pursuits, it has come to my notice that elements of style and taste are not as commonplace as one would hope. Many gentlemen, and I use the word liberally, from the young to the much older, wear their jackets with every button done up.

There are times when I have had the urge to point this out, but such a thing is only acceptable with people you know, not with strangers. It suggests that the knowledge simply is not there. Style, however, is not optional; it is descriptive on sight, speaking before a single word is uttered.

There Is No Finishing School

I have been fortunate to keep the company of those who know these particular things, and to learn from them: leaving the lowest button undone, undoing all the buttons when sitting down, how to knot a tie, how to match a pocket square, and so on.

There is no class or finishing school for this. You learn it through association, something you have seen your father, uncle, brother, friend, mentor, or teacher do, where on occasion they have extended a hand to make that slight adjustment which separates you from a ragamuffin.

The Quiet Inheritance

There is a name for what I am describing, though I had circled it for years before I learnt it: cultural capital. It is the quiet inheritance of knowing, the accumulated sense of how things are done, passed not through lectures but through living alongside those who already possess it.

Unlike money, it cannot be handed over in a single gesture; it must be absorbed slowly, through observation and the occasional corrective hand on the shoulder.

What troubles me in my own observation is that this transfer appears to be faltering. The fathers, uncles, and mentors who once made that slight adjustment seem fewer now, or perhaps less inclined, and so a generation arrives at adulthood with the wardrobe but not the wisdom, the garment but not the grammar of wearing it.

Style as a Map

It is strange how a mere observation can tell of the road you have travelled, and how, in certain settings, it becomes the key to gaining access or being barred.

I want to be clear that this is not a plea for gatekeeping; I take no pleasure in barriers, and I would sooner extend the hand than withhold it. Yet I would be dishonest to pretend that appearances do not, quietly and often unfairly, dictate access.

A door opens or remains shut, an introduction is offered or withheld, a judgement is formed and acted upon, all before a word has been exchanged.

The cruelty of it is that those most affected are frequently the least aware it is happening, mistaking the closed door for bad luck rather than a code they were never taught to read. To name this is not to endorse it. It is simply to acknowledge that the rules exist, that they operate in silence, and that ignorance of them is rarely the fault of the person left standing outside.

No Personal Fault

This is not to be judgemental, even towards the utterly pretentious; eventually, that discomfort with one's appearance is betrayed by embarrassment. It is upward mobility expressed in acquisitive adornment, yet bereft of the quiet sophistication of the how and the why.

Whether this calls for a school of style, I cannot tell. It is not as though these people considered consulting the largest repository of knowledge, the Internet at their fingertips, to ask questions of style and taste as readily as they might ask for a recipe.

Invariably, as my gaze falls upon these occurrences, I am reminded that not knowing, or not caring, is not so much a personal fault. You were simply not privileged to keep the company of that kind of positive influence.

The Shops, and Where I Stand

Let us not forget the shops. I will not step into a suit shop where a mannequin has been improperly attired, as it suggests the staff have paid no attention to detail.

In one such shop, I asked to be fitted, but I was dismissed to the fitting room as though I were trying on a casual shirt or a T-shirt. I did not waste another minute there.

I do not intend to become a consultant on style. Rather, I will stick to the comfort of the familiar.

An Edwardian Inheritance

It is fitting, then, to return to the man who began all this. The Edwardian period was one of transition in dress as much as in everything else. For both men and women, this period balanced structured luxury with newfound freedom of movement. The rigid formality of the Victorian age was loosening, and comfort was beginning, quietly, to earn its place alongside propriety.

Edward VII's most enduring legacy was the tradition of leaving the bottom button of a waistcoat undone, a habit that has since transferred to jackets and suits alike. We observe it now without a thought for its origin, which is rather the point.

A king's button was only ever a habit that others chose to read, to copy, and to pass on. The grammar of how we dress is nothing more than a long chain of such small observations, handed down from one watchful eye to the next, until the day the chain is broken, and someone arrives, jacket fully buttoned, with no one left to make that slight adjustment. Just look away.

Blog - Essential Snobbery 101: The rules on suit buttons (April 2014)

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

The Author I Have Not Yet Become

From Bricks to Code

Just imagine you had a Lego set, and a spurt of inspiration allowed you to build interesting structures consistently. Taken together, someone might think you had the makings of an architect; providence, or perhaps persuasion, might spur you in that direction.

If you did eventually become an architect, and a successful one at that, you might think your earlier Lego experience was the genesis of your talent, and indicative of it.

My exposure to computer programming and code goes back almost forty years, if I can remember clearly anymore, because dates can become fuzzy. Yet what I got to do and what could be realised were completely different things.

The Elusive Slipstream

I can write code to do utilitarian things, such as administrative activity, converting complex repetitive tasks into structured automation with logging and reporting. However, I have not broken the mould by writing a productivity tool like Microsoft Office, a game, or an app.

The ability to do this is probably there somewhere, but I have not caught the slipstream that eases me into the knowledge that it can be done. I find myself hoping for a Eureka moment that makes the scales fall from my eyes and puts my mental capacity in gear, allowing me to do something that feels extraordinary to me, yet is quite perfunctory to others.

Doubt and the Page

Everyone harbours a modicum of self-doubt in areas where others have seen a scintilla of skill and assumed it is the crack in the doorway to the expression of amazing talent. Indeed, looking at my compendium of almost twenty-three years of blogging, you could conclude that I am a good writer; I am, however, nowhere near where I would consider myself an author.

In considering a return to school, this is one area where I am ready to be taught how to put my thoughts on paper. Not for the blogs, which alone are hard enough, carrying a train of thought through three pages of verbiage with a sense of coherence, but for taking that to a book of 300 pages or more, which looks like comparing a swim to a voyage.

Both are journeys of a kind on water, but the preparation and mode of travel are so totally different that they are not the same. There is writing blogs and there is writing books; I probably have enough material in my blogs to write many books, but I feel overwhelmed at the prospect. I think there is a slipstream of authoring somewhere that I need to catch.

Stories Worth Telling

Over a decade ago, I began writing the elements of a biography, and I would be the first to suggest that we all have stories to tell. I could probably tell the most fascinating story, or the most soporific yarn, of my life, but in either case you would sense the gratitude of privilege, blessing, and hope as the substrate of everything told. None of the first four chapters look like what my blogging prowess would suggest I do so well.

Could I have this story ghostwritten? The idea alone of using another mouthpiece to give my own life story in a second-hand narrative weakens me to total impotence. Where I have not found the impetus to get ahead by myself, I suppose that means I need the education and tutelage to bring that ability and facility to the fore.

If this were to be achieved by pep talk, daring, acknowledgement, or the recognition of what others see as my talents and gifts, I promise you, it would already have been done.

There is the truth and there is reality: even men of great renown have their fears, their misgivings, and their doubts, all part of what makes each of us human and, hopefully, part of the appreciation by others that we are all still a work in progress.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

The Two Gospel Writers Who Were Not Apostles

Questioning What We Assume

The search for knowledge must never cease, but more critically, we must question the assumptions we once held as true without ever examining them, until new information challenges a viewpoint we never thought was in dispute.

Last night, I found myself at the end of an interesting discovery. Although I know a great deal about the Bible, in theory, by osmosis, through tradition, and sometimes through an application that makes the reality of God and the salvation of Jesus Christ the most heartwarming experience of my faith, I remain just as ignorant of some fundamentals.

The Twelve Apostles

¹³ At daybreak he called together all of his disciples and chose twelve of them to be apostles. Here are their names:

¹⁴ Simon (whom he named Peter),
Andrew (Peter’s brother),
James,
John,
Philip,
Bartholomew,

¹⁵ Matthew,
Thomas,
James (son of Alphaeus),
Simon (who was called the zealot),

¹⁶ Judas (son of James),
Judas Iscariot (who later betrayed him).
[Luke 6:13-16, reference Matthew 10:1-4]

There are four gospels of the Lord Jesus Christ, attributed to the named authors in the Bible and traditionally accepted to have been written in the order of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, between AD 66 and 110. Luke also wrote the Acts of the Apostles. [Wikipedia: Life of Jesus]

An Overlooked Detail

What I never bothered to check, and what you, the reader, might already know, is that Mark and Luke are not in the list of apostles. They were not apostles at all. Luke was known as the physician who travelled with Paul the Apostle, and Mark is mentioned too. [Colossians 4:14, Philemon 23-24]

This is not an exposition of the facts, which have been dealt with extensively and with a scholarly and academic expertise I cannot expect to match. The theological debates belong elsewhere.

A Discovery Worth Sharing

This is, however, a note in my journal and an introduction to a YouTube channel I discovered a few months ago, Deep Made Simple. Its short videos, which deal with topical elements in the scriptures, have brought me insight and enlightenment I cannot keep to myself. The video "The Gospel of Luke: Why a Doctor Wrote the Bible’s Longest Book " had me scrambling for information.

The shock, the realisation, the quest for more knowledge: the small hours of the morning crept upon me as I listened to the video again before playing back the dramatised New Living Translation of the gospel. [Google Play: NLT Bible with Audio]

Luke could have been a gentile, and he was indeed a journalist, a correspondent, and a meticulous historian.

One last thing, I was on YouTube that I learnt to recall the Ten Commandments by counting fingers and hand signals, in 5 minutes.

Note: All Biblical references are taken from the Bible Gateway.

Luke's Place in Scripture

The Gospel according to Luke is not the longest book in the Bible; by English word count, that distinction belongs to the book of the prophet Jeremiah.

However, the gospel is the longest book in the New Testament, and taken together with the Acts of the Apostles, Luke would have contributed more to the standard Bible, in English word count, than any writer except Moses.

Patterns of Truth: Why Are Mark and Luke Not Named as Disciples?

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

Long After The Sahara Was Green

Crossing Africa: An Unexpected Route

This passage over Africa was different, as the plane veered east, deviating from the typical western route over France and Spain. We headed towards Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, leaving Genoa to the east to cross the Ligurian Sea, with the islands of Corsica, France and Sardinia (Sardegna), Italy, also to the east, before making landfall over Africa at Skikda, Algeria, a coastal city whose port has been a gateway between Europe and Africa for centuries. Constantine, the dramatic "City of Bridges" perched on a limestone plateau, shows prominently on my map, but it lies much further west of our route.

Pretensions to slumber never came, and one feature of the in-flight maps was missing: the detailed "Flying over..." section that leaves me mesmerised for hours on end. It offers snippets about places up to 250 kilometres away that I may never visit, yet I remain intrigued by their histories, geography, culture, and the people who have made those places their homes.

Above the Sahara

Soon, about four hours into the flight, we were already over the Sahara Desert. I expected to see an ocean of sand without form, stretching into the horizon, but I was in for a surprise.

This place looked as if it were once verdant, the land carved through as rivers sculpt landscapes, as if Eden decided to relocate to the Amazon, took its goods, but left the house bare. I have since learnt that this intuition was remarkably accurate: the Sahara was indeed a green, fertile landscape during the African Humid Period (approximately 11,000 to 5,000 years ago), supporting rivers, lakes, forests, and diverse wildlife before orbital shifts and climate feedback mechanisms transformed it into the desert we see today.

Yet a barren landscape it is not. The circles that resembled cylindrical containers, arranged in patterns clearly indicating human intervention, were in fact irrigation systems in the desert, humanity's ingenious attempt to recreate what nature once provided across the entire region.

I did not spot an oasis from above anywhere from Algeria into Niger. This is a harsh place, where daytime temperatures can soar to totally uninhabitable levels.

Settlements and Landforms

My map showed named settlements within 50 kilometres of our flight path: Djanet, known for its proximity to the UNESCO-listed Tassili n'Ajjer plateau with its ancient rock art; Ghat, a Tuareg town near the Libyan border that has served as a trans-Saharan trade post for centuries; and Tamanrasset, the largest city in southern Algeria, as we flew towards Agadez in Niger, once a crucial caravan centre and sultanate on the trans-Saharan trade routes.

I see alpine landforms, but not of ice. These are gullies eroded by winds rather than water, dunes drawn by the hand of nature, moving as if alive, and they surely are.

A Desert Redefined

A desert is more than its definition. It offers another perspective: the presence of hardy species of flora, fauna, and animal life that thrive in what we might consider impossible conditions.

As we continued south, the landscape gradually shifted. Flying over Nigeria, I caught sight of place names that stirred something deep within me: Jos, the highland city built by tin miners; Bukuru, where I attended primary school; Rayfield, where we lived; and Vom, the veterinary centre where we took a school trip. These are places emblematic of my childhood, each one a marker of memory suspended between earth and sky.

Now, flying past Douala, Cameroon, to catch a sight of the Gulf of Guinea, I realised something striking: from over 30,000 feet, some nine kilometres in the sky, there had been no clouds above the Sahara. Not a single wisp dipping its toes in that vast expanse. I suspect I need a deeper understanding of the ecology of that extraordinary place.

A Google NotebookLM AI Audio Overview Discussion of this blog

Thought Picnic: Escaping bubbles to create experiences

The beauty of having bubbles

I remember a conversation with a friend, a father of mixed-race children being raised in a progressive northern European country. He said he would bring them up in the bubble they have for as long as possible, so when they meet the world outside, they would do so with the assurance and confidence of knowing where they come from, without any fear of what they might face.

There is a rawness in humanity that growing up in a bubble shields us from. It provides protections that allow us to grow and develop the mental strength to handle both ourselves and situations, before we are exposed to what might shock, traumatise, disgust, or simply irritate us. This is a sometimes poorly understood aspect of a good upbringing.

I was raised in a bubble of sorts, in middle-class privilege with some trappings of wealth but never excess. Having what we needed, we exuded confidence without the need to keep up with the Joneses. Though my parents had risen from diminished circumstances and established their position in society through education and achievement, we were and are different from our parents.

A different kind of bubble

I was born in England, cocooned from the forms of racism and challenges faced by many foreigners in the 1960s, which greatly coloured their view of living in England. The primary schools I attended in Nigeria had most foreign pupils. It is amusing to think that most of our white schoolmates were Nigerian-born, with typical mixed Nigerian accents, while most of us black children were born abroad, speaking with foreign and usually English accents.

We lived in bubbles of privilege and access, but as we grew older, we were exposed to a different world, sometimes to the more privileged and sometimes to those less fortunate. Not to look down on others or feel superior, but to appreciate our good fortune along with respecting others, and where opportunity does allow, we lift them up.

Bubbles as anchors aweigh

For a bubble to exist, it needs an atmosphere. It moves within that atmosphere for a while, then bursts to merge with the surroundings. Yet every sight of a bubble in the air excites, especially children. There’s colour, there’s floating, and a longing for it to last before it bursts. Then, new bubbles are formed.

I recognise the bubble of society I come from; it has given me a sense of adventure and curiosity that has served me well in many places. I am comfortable in my own skin, speak and express myself with confidence, and I rarely feel out of place wherever I find myself. In terms of dress, I might not be as inconspicuous as I would like, but I have no issue with that.

My bubble to the world

How it has helped me navigate systems and structures is interesting. How to communicate and set the terms by which I expect to be treated with respect, courtesy, and dignity, without being aloof. I aim to be approachable, just as I am not wary of approach. I respect people without any sense of obsequiousness towards wealth or status; you need two heads to really scare me.

It’s those qualities my childhood bubble gave me: a combination of fieriness and finesse that taught me to seek rather than sequester, to experience rather than shield, to wonder and understand difference instead of settling into indolence and ignorance of others. I venture where others draw back; there is much to learn from escaping the bubble rather than seeking to be hermetically sealed in an echo chamber.

My fear is not of others, but of not being better. Life’s experiences leave me grateful and thankful for everything. There is much to do and many things to see beyond ourselves; only a few seize those opportunities for growth and renewal. You can have your bubble, but you must also exist in the world around it.

Travelling light

A state of insignificance

Here we are, over 10 kilometres high in the air, with 5 hours and 40 minutes remaining until landing. The clouds over North Africa look well below our aircraft, and you can see the shadows cast by each cloud formation, whose names I quite easily forget.

However, as recognisable names appear on my flight map, we have begun the cruise over the Northern Nigeria states, including Katsina, Kano, Jigawa, and the many hamlets that have become states for clannish gubernatorial contests.

Before you scoff, Agadez, a province in Niger, is nine times the size of Niger State, the largest state in Nigeria, which is about one twentieth the size of Algeria's Tamanrasset Province, the largest in Africa.

Many lessons aboard

I expected a bit of turbulence as we passed through these high-altitude clouds, but they soon fell behind us. The mystery of air travel is not one of bafflement but great interest.

I rarely watch films; I am more engaged by the stories, the history, the geography, and the culture of the places we fly over. There is much to learn, even on my tenth trip to South Africa.

If you have been flying since the age of five, you realise that no matter how far you are travelling, this case being 9,800 kilometres from Amsterdam to Cape Town, the world has become a smaller place.

What you need is time; the time to travel around it, at least once, and experience what makes our world a wonderful place.

I've got everything left to achieve

Building for Life

Baron Foster of Thames Bank turned 90 on June 1st. He has left his mark on the architectural landscape of the world, collaborating with fellow architects and many designers. One cannot help but be in awe of how imagination on paper becomes the realisation you can behold.

In one of his iconic buildings, where I used to have lunch in the 1990s, the Willis Building in Ipswich, with black curtain walls contrasting with a yellow and green interior, went on to become the youngest Grade I listed building in the UK.

I remember visiting Berlin and observing how a Foster and Rogers project in that city seemed like you hire Norman Foster to transform a monument into a modern masterpiece, as he did with the Reichstag building, and Richard Rogers to create a monument by building a modern masterpiece, as he did with the Daimler complex.

Everything left to achieve

Architecture has always interested me, but that is not the primary focus of this blog. Interviewed for the Architects’ Journal in May, this last exchange—question and answer—offered an insightful perspective on the man himself.

Gino Spocchia: You’re about to turn 90, an achievement in its own right. As an architect, do you feel there is anything left for you to achieve?

Norman Foster: I've got everything left to achieve. That’s an impossible question. [Architects’ Journal: Norman Foster at 90: ‘I have everything left to achieve’]

My journey to this interview was influenced by listening to Richard Rogers on Desert Island Discs yesterday; he was interviewed in March 1990, and he spoke about his early partnership with Norman Foster, then winning the Pompidou Centre competition with Renzo Piano, and Su Rogers. [BBC Sounds: Desert Island Discs – Richard Rogers]

Propinquity to serendipity

In the 20 years I have visited Paris and sat for brunch on the first floor of Café Beaubourg that overlooks the space in front of the Pompidou Centre, I have only observed people and never entered the centre itself. Richard Rogers passed away at 88 in 2021.

I suppose one first considers the blessing and fortune of good health at such an age, to continue to have zest for life and a purposefulness that suggests you believe you still have much to do and give.

Thinking of continuing potential

For Norman Foster, advanced age is not an end; he embraces a philosophy of ongoing potential, rejecting the cultural narrative that achievement belongs primarily to youth. Meaningful accomplishment remains possible at any stage of life. Retirement is not a part of this man’s vocabulary.

For someone turning 90, this perspective embodies:

• A refusal to be defined solely by past accomplishments
• An understanding that wisdom and experience create unique opportunities
• A rejection of artificial timelines for meaningful contribution
• An embracing of new goals suited to current capabilities
• Finding purpose in mentorship, creative expression, or personal growth

I am deeply inspired by this mindset, as I contemplate returning to university to learn from and engage with youthful insights and young minds. I am convinced of the importance of lifelong learning and continuous engagement with a world of possibilities.

Norman Foster exemplifies this life-affirming stance beautifully; if we have consciousness, will, health, and resources, we retain the capacity for meaningful achievement. It is clear he enjoys what he does and will continue for as long as he can. Belated happy birthday, Norman Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank.

References

20^th Century Architecture: Norman Foster

20^th Century Architecture: Richard Rogers

Thought Picnic: Phantoms, realities, or truths

Hitting turbulence and getting bruised

Presented with a situation, a study of your reaction may determine so many things and the eventual outcomes. What the five senses perceive will suggest our grounded and lifelong taught appreciation of our reality.

Yet, that reality might not be the truth, because everything we need to know and understand about the situation may not have been fully reconciled. We battle, in an instant with current information that sends our thoughts racing haywire, like hitting severe turbulence without being strapped in your seat.

How can we have our seat belts of life fastened at all times so that regardless of the turbulences we encounter in our varied journeys, we are unperturbed and unbothered, but steadfast and sure that a momentary or extended unsettling experience will not be definitive of our report?

Reining in turbulent thoughts

It is quite a saving grace that we are the only witnesses to the things that go on in our heads. The questions, even the equations, along with the evaluations, and absurd calculations could render you impotent. [BibleHub: Matthew 6:31]

We can choose to be stricken with fear and submit to the turmoil that surrounds us in helplessness and torment or be strengthened with faith that what we perceive is temporal because we are grounded by God's own perspective of the situation revealed to us. [BibleHub: 1 John 4:18, 2 Corinthians 4:18]

We are too used to close shaves, daring escapes, and heaving that sigh of relief, as objects of fate and occasional good fortune rather than as believing expositors of calling our world into being. [BibleHub: Ephesians 2:12, Hebrews 11:3]

I sometimes wonder if I have ever truly believed for the things I have desired. My instant reaction, like I had before I wrote this blog and later realised was a phantom because the process of reconciliation of accounts had not been completed would suggest otherwise. [BibleHub: Mark 11:24]

From the turbulent to the triumphant

Learning to recalibrate my frame of reference through the renewing of my mind is sometimes the hardest personal pursuit as it involves unlearning practice, tradition, credo, culture, habit, and things once held true. It is a process of transformation that leads to a place of peace in the spirit, rest in the mind, and health in the body. [BibleHub: Romans 12:2]

I intend to win at this and win triumphantly, it is a matter of life and death, let God be true and every man, no matter the news, verdict, or opinions they bring, be a liar. [BibleHub: 2 Corinthians 2:14, Romans 3:4]

Thought Picnic: The spirit of living

In spirit of spirit

Spirit, beyond the being that we essentially are is that force of life that creates the situations and pathways that become the testimonies of gratitude and thankfulness we get to tell.

Enlivening spirit is the power and vision of hope, I saw it on the day that I received news of a condition that devastated the community to which I belong over 21 years ago, for against the stark contrast of foreboding and the mountain of impossibility that loomed in the foreground, I saw the light of dawn that said the story was not ending with the news I had just heard.

The spirit of revelation

The knowledge I have gained and the way I find myself reviewing that quantum of legacy in the face of new experiences is such that I am grateful that opening my mind to new perspectives brings new learning, insight, and wisdom to engender change.

One big lesson I have learnt is not to sit in the cocoon of a revelation for too long, every revelation belongs to an instant and a time frame, and it may not outlive its usefulness, but between the immutable that governs our faith and the changing that is the witness of our lives, a new light would always need to be shone on a situation.

When light is incidental on a prism, the beauty of the light is only realised in movement, the movement of the prism and the changing of your viewpoint and perspective, the light, the source of knowledge and inspiration remaining the same.

The revelations that gave me calmness in another period of adversity did not give me peace when brought to bear in other circumstances. Meditation has to be continuous as revelation needs to be renewed refuelling us for another journey in life.

The spirit of living

Coming back to spirit, it is no pleasure going through any period of adversity, difficulty, or incapacity, you almost feel that the world is closing in on you. Then sometimes, you must close yourself to the world around you and settle in the darkness and dampness of the soil in which you have been buried as seed.

A seed in the soil, watered by revelation and warmed by hope, sets in motion the cycle of life, new life, the sprouting of growth and the promise of a harvest in due time. I wonder at the spirit of life that sustains the health of our mortal being, the hopes we have, and the revelations that let us dare to dream, and then believe that those dreams can come true.

I marvel at the spirit of joy that lifts us above everything that deigns to hold us back and feigns at domineering us when we are more usually clueless about who we are and why we exist to reign and overcome. I am a spirit, I have the Spirit in me, and my spirit is triumphant as I find my place by the grace given to me to live and hide in God who is spirit and whom I seek to worship in spirit and in truth.

In the cradle of hearing right

The cradle as the source

In a moment of self-reflection, listening to the encouragement, teaching, and exhortation of a message this morning, I found an interesting insight from the cradle case blog that I wrote yesterday that gave me a sense of where I should seek to draw strength and who I should be listening to.

Alright, the ear tip eventually arrived and one thing I had failed to do until now was to put the foam cover over the ear tip before attaching it to the earpiece. It is all properly done now, as the manufacturer intended and instructed.

Blog: Never despise the cradle

In life, we need to know where the source of our strength is, despite the lessons learnt from life and adversity, the examples from mentors and parents, and the support of my partner and my friends, all of which are invaluable along with the apparent stoicism one seems to have, the ultimate source of strength and sustenance for me is from God, by Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit that dwells in me.

Knowing how to do

Yet, it takes knowledge and awareness to know this in the first place, then wisdom and understanding to draw fully from that strength. The Bible is full of comfort and assurance of the help and succour from God, and we still find it difficult to avail ourselves of this unlimited resource that is already available.

We are like earpieces left separate from the cradle case with a built-in battery to keep us charged up. The cradle case of the embrace of God when placed right has the terminals of the earpiece snuggly fit to the connectors in the case to equip us through faith to triumph in all things.

Then again, I appreciate that the earpiece is also a listening device before it is a speaking device it has a microphone, it is hooked to the ear lobe with an ear tip that goes in the ear. So much so, that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

Hearing right for the fight

What and who you choose to hear easily informs what you begin to say to set your world in the order of what you have spoken into existence. The world around us becomes an ongoing conversation of hearing and speaking, creating order when we speak right and chaos when we are out of alignment, distant from the cradle case, and finding comfort in the distractions that offer ephemeral solutions.

It is for the same reason that though certain conversations seem useful, the content of the conversation in what one has heard has been quite less so. Where conversation loses elements of edification and exhortation, that conduit needs trammelling for you cannot afford for the wrong seeds to be sown in the grounds where a different kind of harvest is expected.

The tendency to criticise with the intention to be effectual comes easily to many who can speak into your life out of affiliation with much consequence on how it can affect you, to which some recent blogs have alluded to on not trying hard enough, not acting as expected, or in the questioning of one’s legitimacy. All these trickle-down influences in snatches of conversation have not been helpful at all.

Blog: Thought Picnic: Battling a dimension of legitimacy

Blog: Thought Picnic: Those who resort to bastardry should answer for their claims

Choosing my own cradle and earpiece

It discounts and disparages whatever you might have been doing to ameliorate things. It is unkindly even if the place from whence it came means well without realising how it does not engender the kind of communication anyone needs when apparently in the doldrums.

This all might seem esoteric, but what have learnt with respect to what I have written here is, that I need to reduce the noise, take the calm, assert the truth, and claim the prize that has already been won.

I return to the lessons and exhortations of old that relay the fundamentals and the first principles of how to tackle thorny issues and circumstances. From within are groanings that cannot be uttered yet laying foundations upon which desires, dreams, ideas, and visions begin to take on tangibility and reality. I am able because I am enabled.

Never despise the cradle

The cradle nurse

Each day consists of learning little or rather consequential lessons, the little ones however are some you just note and make amends for without thinking too much about what that entailed.

In one case, recently, I learnt two things about my Bluetooth earpiece, the Plantronics PLV Voyager 5200, I have had it for about 5 years, and it is usually on the cradle case and fully charged. Then there was a week when I left the earpiece separate from the cradle case which has an in-built battery.

I found out that even though the earpiece was switched off, it had discharged, I placed it in the cradle case and put it in my pocket and just over an hour later, the earpiece had a 5-hour charge duration. Even I was surprised that all the while I had the earpiece, I had never observed this situation.

The cradle keep

Then, the other day, I took the headpiece for an outing but did not take the cradle case with me. After my conversation, I took off the earpiece and put it in my pocket without it being in the cradle case. When I got back home, the ear tip had come off, and when I put it back together, it was loose, I found out that the foam washer that held it in place had also come off, damaged by a cut to the washer ring.

I could have sworn I had spare ear tips, but I could not find them where I thought they were, no matter where I looked. I decided I needed to replace them, and they seemed to be quite inexpensive, so I ordered a new set of ear tips, a set of 3. I guess the lesson here is always to keep the earpiece in the cradle case when not in use and switched off and on it when set aside but switched on for usage.

Coronavirus streets in Manchester - LXVII

Unlearning to learn anew

The streets present the spectacle of the interesting and the surprising, even the astonishing is offered as one wonders if the past two years have given us any lessons to either learn or ‘unstudy’. I say ‘unstudy’ because there is much, we have learnt from the past that needs a current unlearning to make allowances for new and different aspects of knowledge, but there must be a willingness to adapt, or nothing changes.

I wondered too when yesterday I was out and about, at one indoor place where I had brunch, it occurred to me that I was not as concerned to put on my mask, the thought was scary, especially after realising that people I know had so recently contracted COVID-19. At one beer garden, you could be forgiven for thinking Octoberfest had an early opening day in Manchester.

Nature against lashes

On another note, passing by three ladies and that is as qualified as you would get it, They were sat on benches chatting away, one of them daintily holding a lit spliff and puffing at it, that was not what piqued my interest, but that the eyelashes on two of them were was sweeping and prominent as to have the means of setting off a hurricane if nature were to acquiesce to the batting of them and syncopate with their demonstration of flair.

Then I was wondering again about fashion that does not seem to have reason, meaning, or sense, then, what do I know? Before I begin to study the physics, biology, chemistry, and adequacy of such ocular embellishments that are grandiose in the extreme as to be comical for clownery. But hey! Each to their own.

Dreamscape: Where learning requires example

As you dream of it

It was eerily like real life, but then what are dreams but multidimensional realities played out in the vast mines of the mind where treasures are found and fortunes are created in ways that the imagination is tested of its limits if there are any?

I found myself attending a function at a girls’ school, probably a Founder’s Day and some girls were lined up in two columns as if to give a sword arch parade to their honoured guest, their worldly famous and most successful alumna.

The field was down below and access to it seemed almost impassable at first sight, just as you have in dreams, the easy becomes immediately impossible and the impossible suddenly possible, like you have waved a magic wand.

I was there unawares

I eventually found myself at a vantage point to view the proceedings as a guest of sorts and too prominent to be overlooked after chatting to some of the girls. I had a feeling of déjà vu like I had been at rehearsals for this event somewhere and nothing happened after I was first called to participate and so nothing was learnt about what to do.

I was apprehensive and the more I asked about what was expected, the less I was informed of protocol or practice, it was like everyone assumed I knew and thought my inquiries were unserious and silly. I did not even know what the guest of honour was going to do, I thought I would observe and maybe learn something.

I did not know

To the strains of music, the guest arrived and passed through the parade to the end singing an apparent folk song that was a traditional game at the school on that day. She had done this many times before and part of it was a call-and-response activity between her as the lead and the guests or girls she selected to ask to attend a function and what food they would prefer.

You were not to take the enquiry literally but provide an excuse for not attending and a back-and-forth of teasing and questioning in order to persuade you ensued until someone made the mistake of mentioning food. Guess what happened, I was the first she called out to and I mentioned food.

Hear the derisive laughter and astonishment that I should have known not to have answered as such and it was when she moved to the next guest and her answer was the typical excuse that I realised my faux pas, but I was never in that situation apart from the other time when no one offered to explain the rules of the game.

The assumptions that ridicule us

It transpired as I made conversation and enquiry that this was a core Yoruba tradition that I could have learnt and enjoyed in childhood. Though, when they learnt I was not born in Yorubaland, they somewhat accepted why I made the error. It left me thinking of the gaps in my learning of Yoruba cultural activities, my knowledge of the language was not enough, there was more to culture than that.

On reflection too, we agreed that phrasing an appropriate enquiry to get the kind of information to prepare me for that situation would have been nigh on impossible. If only the guest of honour had selected someone else first, as matters acculturation are best bequeathed through example. Just because my apparent oddness makes me prominent enough to be selected first does not imply, I would be ready or in the know of what is expected.

Do not assume if you have expectations, at least discreetly try to elicit enough information to be sure the game is not ruined by those called to participate who are totally unaware of the rules.

Thought Picnic: Letting vulnerability lead to love

No path is straight

I have shied away from reading manuals about issues that require a lot more tailoring to situations and circumstances than prescription as a panacea to an issue. Now, for instance, I take my medical prescriptions religiously, the only tailoring involved is the time of day when I take my medicine, it has to suit my life, my lifestyle, and my work, not impeding function, purpose, or energy to perform.

Then I look at things like my career, life-changing decisions, and love, none of which have followed a trajectory or even example, every path has been uniquely individual and maybe different, or where similarities can be seen, there are many other factors that challenge the premise of imitation. In many cases, other people’s lives do not follow a template of lists or processes, individuality is an often frowned upon characteristic in some cultures, deviating from a norm can lead to ostracism and hence it modulates the tendency to conform.

Mistakes as lesson notes

On the matter of love, sadly, I find no immediate example of close or distant relations of the generation before mine who have laid out a promise of anything near perfect, however, a study of their situations has informed the need and desire not to fall into the same mistakes they made.

If it is not the power dynamics of dominance and submission, controlling the means of provision, conformity to traditions, expectations and requirements of culture, transitional states of contrived convenience, imposition by reason of responsibilities especially after procreation, or infidelities condoned even in the face of humiliation and embarrassment of the other, love has had a stranger than believable meaning to the participants. In the longer term, they have separated, regretted, fought, alienated, castigated, abused, or neglected each other.

It is case of uneasy détente as their offspring negotiate the minefields of animosity if they can deftly avoid becoming the grass on which the elephants get to fight to complete exhaustion and rise again to continue where they left off.

Learning what we can do

This is where much learning has to begin, in understanding what love really is and how it is manifest to us. To many, love is a strange esoteric thing, made aspirational in fairy tales that suggest living happily ever after, the fiction of an ideal rarely close to real life. We are imperfect beings seeking a more perfect relationship with those we are attracted to whilst making allowances for the fact that nothing is ever completely done, there is a process of growth and nurturing that needs committing to, for enduring fulfilment.

We probably know how to show and give love, from a place of understanding or out of making amends for bad experiences that appeared to suggest love when it never was that. The past can have damaged people irreparably that they seek succour in anything, accepting everything believing there is some sort of security even as they endure the totally untenable when they should walk, if not flee from their abuser who either knows no better or sees that flawed dynamic as the best expression of themselves.

Love is a process

In another song we are told, ‘Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.’ That is easier said than done, for knowing love, loving oneself and then getting the love you truly deserve could take a lifetime of failures and processes of elimination, the unlearning of things, the relearning of other things, along with a schooling of life with all its vicissitudes of good and bad fortune.

With our built-in survivor’s instinct, we look for ways to thrive in all areas of endeavour, a sense of independence, responsibility, self-awareness, and self-control sometimes denies you some elements of your humanity as vulnerability, weakness, infirmity, weakness, or incapacity, which are all part of the human experience. The superhuman may have many admirers but no friends or confidantes as we put ourselves outside the reach of those who can genuinely appreciate us fully and help us when our strength is not full.

Letting your vulnerability help you love

That is the more difficult part of the expression of love, knowing how to use it, knowing when to let go, appreciating when to give way or let be, and most of all being able to let yourself be loved like you should, purely, wholly, fully, unconditionally, and magnificently. You have to accept your vulnerability to be there and resist the temptation to instruct or construct barriers masquerading as understanding the depth from which love is shown to you and how it is expressed in word and in deed.

Like with nature, we need to become good fertile and watered ground in which the seeds of love can be sown to reap a bountiful harvest of the heart in full glow of a fairy tale that can only exist in the imagination of others. I can only wonder if we have the ability to rewrite our love stories when given the opportunity to work at it.

World AIDS Day 2021 - A reflection

I was unpersuaded

World AIDS Day is what I mostly celebrate in quiet contemplation rather than with fanfare and symbolism. I reflect on the life that I have lived, the good fortune that has smiled on me and the privilege of living at a time when possibilities existed long after all hope was literally lost.

I have been living with HIV as diagnosed since September 2002, I might well have had it for much longer, I cannot tell. At diagnosis, I threw caution to the winds and lived in a careless and carefree world, almost daring the worst to happen, like I was invincible and inviolable.

In mid-2005, I attended a medical check-up where the consultant proposed a regime of strong Vitamin B medication with some prophylaxis to protect my kidneys, it seemed a rather severe action to take when I was not presenting any issues. For that consultation, however, my wallet was lightened by €1,800. The knowledge and experience made me quite averse to learning more about what more I could do, including getting a second opinion.

The signs were screaming

By late 2008, the chef de reception, Javier, at one of my holiday haunts had noticed things about my pallor and wellbeing, he suggested I have my health checked out, I went through the motions but did not do a lot about it. Then in June 2009, some friends came to visit me in Amsterdam, and we went out to Kinderdijk to see the windmills, but on our way back, I was overcome with tiredness and weakness I had never experienced before, on the day they left, I broke out with shingles.

Blog - Javier

Meanwhile, I was nursing what I thought was athlete’s foot on the sole of my left foot, it was not clearing up, it was getting painful and beginning to weep. Another part of my folly kicked in, I seemed to desire more miraculous healing than a medical intervention. All that messing around in me, I still travelled to Berlin for the Christopher Street Day celebrations, then returned home to nurse myself back to a semblance of health.

Laying on of wands

In August, the foot became even more bothersome, and I was still desperately seeking some sudden rather than a gradual easing of my pain. A visit to a friend who was able to persuade me to attend her birthday, having recently had cancer in remission, she introduced me to new pain medication, which helped a bit as I endured in my foolishness.

I travelled to London in early September to attend a church service with Jerry Savelle, a word of faith preacher ministering, who laid hands on me, and I felt nothing, but it was at that point that came to my senses, I think. It was not going to be a magical moment.

I showed my best friend my foot and told him how I was suffering, not giving him the time to even say much than just acknowledge that he might just lose me. I told him; I had allowed my condition to deteriorate to a stage that I might have no other options left.

Only left with Plan B

Returning home to Amsterdam, I sorted out my insurance provisions and visited my doctor on an emergency appointment because I was in excruciating pain. She took one look at my foot and immediately said, this looks serious, I need to refer you. There and then she booked an appointment with the hospital, dressed my foot and prescribed some strong painkillers. My visit to the hospital two days later called for a further referral which was scheduled for the Tuesday after the weekend, once I told them I was HIV positive, they had reached conclusions I was yet to realise.

The HIV until September 2009 had been untreated since the September 2002 diagnosis and what was presenting was evident immunodeficiency, opportunistic infections, and the heretofore untreatable athlete’s foot, was in fact, Kaposi’s Sarcoma (a kind of skin cancer), I had full-blown AIDS.

I am fortunate and privileged

What World AIDS Day means to me is even in that extremely dire situation, I lived in a country with healthcare, service and support to attend to my immediate need, that there was an extremely high level of medical competence and expertise available to me without castigation or judgement, I just presented a challenge they had met many times before.

Fundamentally, they had confidence borne of experience and understanding drawn from the many cases and lives before mine whose contributions to the body of knowledge in the management and treatment of HIV and AIDS whether they survived or not meant that people like me had better chances of survival. I was not a lost cause.

Your miracle is in medicine

Indeed, it was a medical intervention that saved me, I did not abandon my religious beliefs, for that really helped me keep my mind and my head through the toughest times and I have told of that in many stories. I have by adversity been won to the miracle of medicine and medical expertise, why it matters, and it is not a negation or a repudiation of any other belief system, it is as much a gift to humanity as it is the emancipation and progression of civilisation.

You ask, how could someone so westernised, educated, enlightened and knowledgeable have allowed his condition to deteriorate to such a life-threatening situation? Then you begin to understand that the strengths and weaknesses of our humanity are myriad, amid apparent wisdom and knowledge can be stark ignorance, irrationality, stupidity and worse. Sometimes, we just need to forgive our own stupidity so we can learn to use a bit of wisdom.

Let’s just say, we have been steeped in such bad education that the process of unlearning to allow some new learning can be painfully difficult and consequently life-affirming. I am well, healthier than I have been in decades, on antiretroviral medication with an undetectable viral load for over 12 years. All thanks to medicine and the wealth of lives and deaths that have made it possible for all of us living with HIV to be productive members of our small and large communities. This needs to be shared around the world more.

Happy World AIDS Day!

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