And so he blogs daily

Without much conniption

It can be so easy to rest on one’s laurels, then, maybe having a rest to reassess what new laurels to pursue is a good thing too. However, it was gratifying this weekend to read an interaction with a published author and a great social media following that my blogging had inspired him to blog daily.

What a lament that caused me, even as I appreciated that the little I do inspires others. Writing daily can be a goal, and it is not the absence of things to write about that is the problem. When it comes to blogs, there is enough muscle memory to start and go without the encumbrance of writer’s block; the problem is more one of lethargy.

Creativity is sacrosanct

Beyond lethargy, you wonder if it is worthwhile just banging out anything. The advent of Generative AI provides such an opportunity to manufacture offal without attendant rumination or thought, but God forfend I resign my creativity to the cutting floor of prompt engineering. I have other uses of Generative AI; it won’t be for my blogs.

One key detail in my interlocutor’s comment was that he wrote a blog daily, regardless of the length of the blog. I know a few people who if they stop overthinking their copy and simply proofread the blogs in draft, they might rise to publishing at least once a month rather than every five or so months. I’ll be circumspect and not mention names.

It speaks for itself

I do wish I could blog daily, and I have done before. What saddens me is the many who blogged over a decade ago that have abandoned this theatre of sharing ideas for all sorts of reasons. The Internet rarely forgets as you stumble over crumbling tombstones of their once commendable activities.

The way social media works, you are either doing it because you enjoy it for your own leisure, or you are farming engagement to eventually gain some pecuniary benefit. I enjoy this stuff, and what would not happen is an upstart magazine inviting me to write for them and then sending me a style guide to conform to their way of thinking. I try not to take it as an insult.

I do it my way

On my blog, I have my own space, set my own rules, and after sampling a few of my blogs in all that time, it is impossible to gauge how I write, it is unlikely you will like my style, and we shouldn't waste each other’s time. Thank you.

Then one final note of gratitude to my readers and those that have been inspired in a small or large way by what I do.

The sheer humanity of Cecil and Wilhelm

Destiny to an end

I found myself thinking about the men I wrote about in my blog yesterday and how men of destiny can be undone by the uncertainties and the inadequacies of our humanity. Something to reflect on, if only to put things in perspective about how to live life and relate to others.

There were just 6 years between the birth of Cecil John Rhodes and that of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the former, the 5^th son of a country clergyman and the latter, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, the grandson of the first emperor of the German Empire and Queen Victoria, destined for the throne and the power that it portended.

Privilege and fortuitousness

Cecil John Rhodes was a sickly child sent to South Africa in the hope that it might help his health, he became a man of the right time in the right place when gold and diamonds were being discovered in large quantities in South Africa and by deft business acumen, political power and economic heft became one of the richest men in the world.

Kaiser Wilhelm II was a spoilt brat, the eldest of Queen Victoria’s grandchildren, but hardly well-liked for his demeanour, arrogance, megalomania, and self-belief that he was more capable than his ministers and diplomats. In time, his quest to expand his empire with the advent of WWI led to his forced abdication in 1918 and the end of the German Empire.

Our limitations as humans

Cecil John Rhodes could have been anything, he was ambitious if not power-drunk, and Mark Twain wrote of him saying, “he is the only unroyal outsider whose arrival in London can compete for attention with an eclipse.” [Mark Twain: Cecil Rhodes]

Yet, it is his health that failed him, for, at 48, he died with these words recorded from his lips, “So little done, so much to do.” Kaiser Wilhelm II was emperor for just over 30 years when he went into exile at Huis Doorn in The Netherlands where he lived another 23 years probably ruing the decisions that lost him the empire. A man who could only reminisce of the life and glory he once had when he died of a ripe old age of 82.

The dead stay dead

Kaiser Wilhelm II leaves a legacy of being the centre of WWI and presiding over the falling of the major monarchies of mainland Europe, he lies in repose in a mausoleum built by his exiled residence at Huis Doorn.

Cecil John Rhodes, the imperialist and every other epithet he both deserves or not is the benefactor of the Rhodes Scholarship and many memorials to the whitewash and sterilised part of his biography. He lies under a slab of stone at Matopos Hills in Zimbabwe at a place he called World’s View.

Just a thought

You can have so much power and lose it, just as you can have so much money and not live to use it. Who would have thought a sickly child from the English countryside would rise to become one of the most powerful and richest men in the world?

Conversely, maybe Kaiser Wilhelm II might have sustained the German Empire and ruled for 53 years and taking the House of Hohenzollern into its 4^th Century of power, but he squandered what was bequeathed to him.

“The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.” [Bible Gateway: Psalms 103:15-16 (NIVUK)]

Blog - Huis Doorn (1999), Rhodes Cottage (2019)

Thought Picnic: Leaving footprints of lasting impressions

Impressions are footprints in the mind

Looking through your professional life you begin to realise the importance of both making a good impression and leaving a lasting impression. This is something you visit each time you require a reference for a new posting.

A new engagement having decided they want to use your services would as a matter of course and probably due diligence, seek to determine whether other places where you have worked before might if the opportunity presented itself with adequate resources and the requisite demand for your skills, engage you again.

Obviously, this is not to suggest that one wants the same old things, progress and time can change perspectives or prospects, but this is part of what could set you on for your next opportunity. As a matter of courtesy, one should inform and seek the permission of prospective referees to present their names for that purpose.

Good is good is good

Remembering a visit to an office almost 3 years after leaving, just catching up with colleagues and acquaintances, when one of the directors walks by, sees you, greets you warmly and then parts with words to the effect, the solution you created for them stands the test of time.

When references require you mine contacts going back 3 to 5 years, you really want to be sure you not only did a good job, but you also got on well with others and contracting is probably more a test of your adaptability amongst other important abilities. To contact references and receive enthusiastic responses with indications that your work remains commendable even if it was foundational and built upon by others, leaves you with a good feeling.

You need to do good, keep good, live good and never burn your bridges, even if you do not intend to use the bridge again, someone from your past might need that bridge to cross over to you. Be the bridge on which good and favour choose to travel to places that give you access and opportunity. You are your own testimonial long before you need to check it.

For people and things that went before

Online to off-world

The Internet, borne of my curiosity to learn, to know and to be sure has recently been the bearer of sad news. The sad news of people I once knew who have unfortunately departed this world.

In one month, three stories have hit me, of the people cut down in the prime of their lives, their creativity or their foresight. Each reading or sighting of the reality of the information has both shaken and shocked me. All unexpected, yet real.

Losses too difficult

The first came via email, he had died at home just before Christmas, but I did not learn of the passing until a month after. Probably, the most prepared of the three, he had set his house in order and had forewarned me he did not have a year left.

He barely completed two months after our chat, it was the cancer that had returned a few times and now exhausted him at 71. He was in the prime of his foresight, so many thoughts flood my mind about too many things that I cease to function in the things I normally do, as I adjust to the situation.

The second came in the process of an Internet search just to corroborate some facts I was about to include in my blog. One of those situations where you think, where are they now? I did find out, she had died 4 years before, in had to be cancer at the age of 53, in the prime of her creativity and also of her life.

She left a legacy of three young aspiring children and the memories of times so far gone, that one can barely remember, but for the nostalgic feeling that is the most effective time machine, having the ability to take you back and keep you here in time, simultaneously.

He created a community

However, the third was the most intriguing and the one that has bothered me the most because for the first two, with enough curiosity and inquiry, one can ascertain circumstances and situation in which things happened. The mind bombarding you with questions you might eventually get the answers to.

Our secret lives were shared in the community of people who had interests as adults would have to explore and interact. He provided the forum and means for brief and long encounters of the debauched, yet pleasurable kind. Like, I have always said, we all have needs as humans and much more.

There was a time, I was offered a proposal to get involved in the project as domains of operation started to adopt Puritanical legislation that had wider nets for unintended consequences.

A certificate expired

The first sign that something was amiss was when the security certificate to the site expired. Not something he would have allowed to happen, I thought – something was wrong. Biding my time, I made the adjustments to my browser to access the site and left it at that, but there was unfinished business, I did not know and I had to know.

Next, I searched for his profile, it was not even deactivated, it had disappeared, yet, that of his partner remained. Now, that really got me thinking, but I did nothing else for another week.

A few days ago, I decided to fully understand the situation. After a few searches, the plot thickened, then after obtained his full name and other interesting research projects he was involved in, from Google+ I landed on the page of his partner and all was there in plain sight. His certificate to life had expired.

No ordinary people

A chapel, a large portrait, lots of flowers, some prominent wreaths, one more from his partner of over a decade with a very short note of endearment and an urn. He had been returned to ashes and this was a ceremony to return him to dust. He was young, he was intelligent, he was friendly and I had met him a few times with his partner when I visited Berlin and they came up to party. He was only 44.

I liked them a lot and we got on well. Though our last meeting was almost a decade ago, we kept in relatively good contact over the years along with the many missed opportunities that are becoming the story of my life to visit people and my leaving it too late until nothing can be done.

That was why the website had run into problems, he had died in August, but in what circumstances, I could not tell.

The questions are many

Was it due to complications of a plague that scythed in harvest young souls and brought a cloud of unremitting sorrow upon a generation? Was it a sudden event? The last picture he posted on his Facebook page taken a few months before did show some changes like he had bulked up a bit, probably from some medication – I could not tell.

Was due to some pre-existing condition or was it some other accident? One cannot tell and that is one of the problems with the Internet. It provides a wealth of information, but never in the depth or breath that will satisfy ones curiosity and by that, you may gain some information and yet be bereft of knowledge from which to develop some wisdom.

The goodbyes left unsaid

Therein in the recesses of my mind, I bring up the memories of the many goodbyes I never got to say, out of affinity, out of respect, out of reverence, out of friendship and out of love.

The past few days have been a blur, one of considering the readiness for things, the preparedness for things and the legacy one might leave behind. Obviously, I would hate for this wonderful project he started some 13 years ago to die off in a matter of months after his death, I think we in that community owe him that much.

Yet, I must reflect upon a life cut short in its prime and a resting place with a memorial, flowers that bloomed on the day but will die away, a hole in which the ashes were poured, returning him to Mother nature and a beautiful tombstone that sums up the history of many gone before. A name, the date of birth, a hyphen, the day he died, some words and life goes on.

To John, to Tola, to Heiko, to lovers and friends, I loved you in different ways, many I cannot explain, may your gentle, loving, amazing and wonderful souls – Rest in perfect peace. Thank you for the things you brought into my life.

In My Life – Wikipedia

In My Life – John Lennon

Thought Picnic: Would our humanity rise to make a useful difference?

Our calling

What seems to be missing in the story of our humanity is the inability to identify. People who are too preoccupied with themselves, their views, their position or their beliefs to be affected by experiences of others no matter how moving.

There are many events and issues going on in the world around us, some begging for us to acknowledge, recognise, appreciate and understand.

People who for situation, circumstance or experience have no voice either because they have been silenced or because they do not know who to cry out to, and there are many around us.

Our seeing

These are things that we can either be wilfully blind to or actively seeking to understand, sympathise and empathise.

Where we move out of our comfort zones and the padded lifestyles that seem to isolate us from harm and the gruesome reality of others to engage fully in providing support and succour to those around us.

We must not forget how ephemeral life is, how fortunes change and how whatever happens to us in life it is imperative that we do not lose touch with reality and the reality of others.

Our mortality

Everything is for a season, for those who have power or are in proximity to power, kings come and kings go, thrones endure for a while and kingdoms can be overturned in the passage of time to form new hierarchies.

Be aware of your humanity and your responsiveness to others, use power fairly, judiciously, proportionately and responsibly. For in the end, history is judge, a severe one at that, the memories of ills done in commission or indifference in omission are carved into enduring rocks of time as a salutary lesson to all.

Our legacy

However, when real good is done to celebrate our greater humanity, it would be for a memorial from generation to generation and the doers of such would have transcended from being mere men and politicians to great statesmen to identify with.

A legacy beckons, the masonry has already begun on the rocks of eternal scrutiny, for some #BringBackOurGirls might just determine the kind of people we are, those who have a heart of flesh or those who have a heart of stone.

Thought Picnic: Planning Ends

In the space of two minutes I read of two deaths all from my timeline on Twitter. I clicked on the associated links and read the stories of men who had done something their friends and colleagues that have survived them now write of.

Total recall

In the first article, I first saw vulnerability, the man was just a year older than I am and sadly had succumbed to cancer that had become malignant that all the surgeon could do was cut out what he could and leave the rest having closed him up he had general banter with him before telling him of the metastasis.

Did it not jolt my memory? It sure did, I have seen cancer up close before and it took residence under the sole of my left foot and had a way of letting me know it was there because the pain was unbearable even after the four different pain medications I took to just offer me minutes of peace in days of ache. I was sorry.

Suddenly taken

In the second article, it was about a man with wife and children, two already of age and the other two just coming of age. To all it will be a harrowing loss, I am saddened for them.

However, he did not know death was coming, he had just taken his dog for a walk and there – he had a heart attack and there his sojourn in this world ended.

His story now being told of those who knew him showed that he had been involved in interesting technological developments, ideas for business and even a start-up firm.

Planning ends

In both cases, I felt, whilst they had gone, they were not forgotten, then I wondered about what I will be remembered for and if it was not yet clear, I had better start working on something.

The first probably knew of his impending demise, wrote about it and faced its coming, though nothing is said of his having his own nuclear family. The other man probably did prepare too but in a different way as a premonition in investments, insurances and other means to ensure if he were to happen upon some misfortune his survivors will be cared for adequately.

Besides, one must have friends who will even if it is to close that chapter, tell your story before that book is closed to gather dust in the annals of time.

May both these men rest in peace and may all those they left behind find strength and fortitude to bear their losses.

Thought Picnic: Built to last

The usefulness of therapy

Therapy is useful and somewhat different for me, a time I find to talk about the things that bother me. The therapist does not of essence have the answers or solutions but can provide perspective, give context and offer advice.

What I do with all that matters, I need to be able to overcome the seemingly insurmountable, break down the apparently impossible into steps of possible accomplishment and find paths through impassable thickets of thorns and bristles.

That is something therapy appears to do for me, someone who for a moment appears to engage, emote, sympathise or even empathise so you do not feel completely alone and without help at all.

I like my therapist and I think the therapy is working for me, helping my state of mind and hopefully preparing me to handle the issues I face and the circumstances I am in.

Built to last

After therapy, I decided to ride up to my old office to see ex-colleagues I left just about 3 years ago. Things have changed and some things have remained the same, some have gone, some have remained and new faces are there too.

However, it was interesting to see the results of the foundations laid years before, there are refinements but the basic structure is still there and the greatest compliment I got was when I saw the departmental head of the team I was in years ago.

He said, “What you built for us is still here, I’ll say, it is built to last.” If only I could take that to the bank, cash it in and get a job too.

Gabon: Mr. Bongo, your time is up

Breaking News: 17:56 Monday, 8th of June - It has been confirmed that the longest serving ruler in Africa who ruled Gabon for 42 years has died in a foreign hospital in Spain. May the hopes and aspirations of the Gabonese arise.

Is he dead or not?

In what is turning out to be like the Soviet era long drawn out dying throes of leaders like Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko, we are suffering the same uncertainties regarding the leader of Gabon.

Since yesterday, the French press opined in quotes and offered the news that the 73-year old eternal incumbent leader of Gabon, El Hadj Omar BONGO Ondimba [1] had passed on [2] from immortality of absolute power to the mortality of succumbing to cancer. []

With Gabon being a former French colony, one would expect that any serious events about that country would be truthfully and verifiably reported by the French press.

However, the rump of what is left of the government in Gabon suggests that false information is being peddled and that Mr. Bongo is “alive and well”. Maybe, Mr. Bongo is alive, the aspect of well is seriously debatable.

The rape of Gabon

The poor people of Gabon who unfortunately have not had the express freedom and right to choose who leads them for the 42 years of this atrocious regime have now been on tenterhooks as turmoil within the government is trying to resolve who steps into the dynasty shoes of the dying king before they probably announce that the President died tomorrow when probably maggots have borne generations of descendants already.

However, one has not begun to touch the travesty of this longest serving ruler in Africa until one explores the circumstances around his eventual demise.

Gabon [3], is an oil-rich country which with the resources it has and the finances that have come into the country could have been a different place, but a majority of its population remains poor.

If a person has been in power for 42 years and the life expectancy of his country is just 53.11 years, there should be a court of justice somewhere on earth to indict the person with a crime against humanity.

In power but not for the people

The President languishes in pain probably ameliorated with morphine in a Spanish hospital with the hope that the probability of his being “alive and well” is a miracle in the making – the Grand Despot of Africa in Zimbabwe is at least 10 years older and seemingly in rude health.

How, anyone could have been in power for 42 years and not been able to establish a first-class hospital along with necessary infrastructure of power, roads and transport as well as the resources of highly trained staff from first class educational institutions in his country escapes me.

This, in the end represents the failure and travesty of leadership in Africa, people who are in power but only for their own self-aggrandisement.

Rulers at home dying abroad

As these leaders have converted their leaderships into life monarchies the sadness of the story reads in a very unAfrican context. As I wrote in a comment I left on AfricanLoft when it was first announced that President Bongo had taken ill and was in hospital in Spain.

Kings in days of yore died in their own beds surrounded by their families and subjects outside the palace walls praying for the safe recovery of their monarchs.

The context being the best medical help was available to the monarch and at his beck and call in his own comfortable and familiar setting.

The irony for the African variation of kings who rule without the express and free consent of their people is that they do not have the best medical help available to them in their own countries all because they failed to serve the interest of their people due to the fact that they could use the resources of the country to jet out to any good hospital abroad at the slightest hint of discomfort.

In the end, they lay in exclusive wards with expensive beds surrounded by strange people and dying in foreign lands far away from where they have ruled with a rod of iron and had given their people no respite in freedom, justice, liberty or choice.

They may have ruled for an eternity, I was hardly 2 years old when Mr. Bongo assumed office, but all we would know of this leadership is squandered opportunities to make something great of what they had control of for all those decades.

Surely, there are others better

To suggest that there are not a thousand other Gabonese if given the opportunity who would not have made a better country of that place than Mr. Bongo is disingenuous at least and contemptible at worst.

This horrible hubris of eternal incumbency [4] unfortunately inflicts Africa badly like a plague as you have Santos in Angola for 30 years, Biya in Cameroon for 27 years, Nguesso in the Congo for 30 years, Mubarak in Egypt for 28 years, Bongo in Gabon for 42 years, Gaddafi in Libya for 40 years, Mswati III in Swaziland for 22 years, al-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia for 22 years, Museveni in Uganda for 23 years and Mugabe in Zimbabwe for 29 years.

The unasked question is, which of these countries have been made better by any of these leaders? I would hate to read the CIA – The World Factbook [5] assessments of each country, but I provide the links for your perusal and judge for yourselves.

Their demise brings no respite

But as long regimes do, it would have bred a corrupt class of self-serving snouts in the trough, it is unlikely that the Gabonese would at the eventual demise of Mr. Bongo find true representative leadership that serves their interests.

However, this is an opportunity that should be seized upon by the good minds of Africa to sue for a clear free democratic representation of the Gabonese where the policies of those who seek office would clearly begin to reverse the entrenched patronage and corrupt establishment to deploy Gabonese resources to the general welfare and emancipation of the people.

The last thing Gabon needs is the son of this dying despot who happens to be the defence minister assuming power, unchallenged and without his father’s tenure having been scrutinised for its successes and failings.

Meanwhile, if Mr. Omar Bongo is dead, it is time to bury him and everything he represented that kept the people of Gabon from fully pursuing their happiness and freedom, if he is still being propped up, somebody should pull the plug and well, if he is still “alive and well”, he should return to the country and start to make amends for the failures highlighted.

But the most important message in all this stretched out dying throes is Mr. Bongo, your time is up, if not on earth, at least as the President of Gabon.

Sources

[1] BBC NEWS | Africa | Profile: Omar Bongo

[2] BBC NEWS | Africa | Gabon leader Bongo's death denied

[3] CIA - The World Factbook - Gabon

[4] FACTBOX: Africa's longest-serving leaders | Reuters

[5] CIA - The World Factbook – The links on the countries mentioned are to the CIA – The World Factbook and acknowledged as such.

The presidential library lends out colouring book

The damage of laughter

If my computer desk stool were not a strait jacket contraption that keeps me from overreacting to things I read in the news, I would have brought myself into greater harm than any triage team would have been able to deal with, all from fits of uncontrollable laughter and involuntary spasms.

George W. Bush is proposing a presidential library at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas to be built after his term and many would wonder what it would contain.

Generally, a presidential library would contain the bequest of presidential papers, documents, archives, records and other unclassified information pertaining to a president’s term of office from the time of Herbert Hoover.

Much to read or plenty to colour?

In the case of George W. Bush, being a two-term president along with all the world defining events encapsulated in chapters that would be emblazoned from the twin towers collapsing upon themselves in a hail of dust through the chants of USA, onto the Mission Accomplished “Hot Gun” stunt into Mess-O-Potamia and the kindling of World War III in the Middle East, there must be a lot for any researcher to leaf through long after we have all turned to dust.

Some dons in the university have been raising hackles, they do not want the academic purity of their esteemed institution to be tarnished with such a presidential legacy, and it is unlikely that any other university would be leaping into the fray for consideration.

Wherever that library gets built and stocked, be it in the cowboy corral of the Crawford ranch or some other Wild West memorial where you are welcomed with a Texan twang delivered by a Dubbiyew look-a-like in a 10-Gallon hat, it is unlikely that there would be much to read or research.

Many would leave knowing that all the pages were large blocks of blanking, blacking or blotting out all text that the only thing we would make out would be 2 or 3-letter prepositions or words strung together as “on - by - and - to - who” leaving the every researcher the liberty to fill in the blanks with imagination beyond what this administration has ever dared to think up.

Shush! It is a secret

The reason being, in 2001, the president signed an executive order restricting access to presidential records in library archives, the cult of secrecy that pervades this administration would make a freemasonry look like an open beach on a summer holiday and this ghoulish tendency is expected to live beyond this regime.

The amazing thing about the way humanity and history works is that whatever has been done ever and has been witnessed to by more than one person, even if they are all sworn to secrecy on a blood oath, light eventually gets shone on that pact and through the ingenuity of the seeker of knowledge the truth does get revealed.

History will not be rewritten

Concealing the evidence in those archives with an executive order might keep us from seeing some facts about the workings of the Bush administration, but it would not change the lasting legacy of this regime, neither can it change the course of how history would be written and how this regime would be judged and probably quite harshly eventually.

Knowing that the Bush administration already has form, we can deduce that if a visit to the library does not require taking along your wax crayons rather than notepad, we would know that one of the things this regime did was cart $12 Billion cash weighing 360 tonnes into a war zone – how is that for a trailer introducing the George W. Bush Presidential Library?

References

The trailer

The US sent pallets of cash into Iraq

Pass on these charlatans

Touchily in touch

Despite the lull in activity on this blog life has been quite eventful since the end of July. If you had read the previous blogs one can agree that the inability to see the beyond one’s immediate circumstance does contribute largely to the stress and despair that envelopes people’s lives.

Now, I can say my last job is history, though news does filter through that much of my painstaking work is being castigated by people who have no understanding or appreciation of what one left behind.

Basically, if a complete overhaul has to made of what was effective and working as at the time one left the company, it beggars the question, what were the successes so well highlighted when one was there, and how did those suddenly disappear at one’s leaving?

It is probably sabotage or the sheer understanding of how the system works and knowing what to do, considering one was given just two days to transfer knowledge of that system and the wealth of experience to complete greenhorns, the face-saving grace for those involved could only be suggesting a complete overhaul – even one could not begrudge them that, if there is an audience listen.

Proudly humble

In my humble opinion, the system is such that implementation is easy, designing to the specification of an enterprise setting is the difficult part and you do not pick that up on an afternoon of basic mouse-clicking.

The unfortunate situation of complex systems is that wizards are provided to simplify the implementation of unwieldy and unmanageable monsters to the detriment of good understanding of the fundamentals and praise of 2-page reviews in magazines.

Do not get me wrong, no system is impervious to modification, change or improvement, sometimes it should be replaced on the proviso the personnel involve know what they are doing and know what they really want to achieve.

One is willing to submit to constructive and knowledgeable peer analysis and criticism; it is part of the validation process; both healthy and competitively rewarding.

Not yet personally

However, just because you can drive a car does not make you a mechanic, many cannot even change tyres, in this case, one is afraid, and knowing that a cigarette lighter pops out once it is heated up is of course Rocket Science 101.

Why bother about this whole debacle which at first is a result of crass and incompetent management and visionless blundering?

Nobody wants to hear news that one’s well thought our work is being rubbished by charlatans after you have left, it is underhand, uncouth and ungentlemanly conduct, not to say beneath contempt. Do not even accuse me of taking this personally.

Be warned!

Mr Nice-Guy.