Preso dall'angoscia del panino

Sunk into panini despair

I saw her again this afternoon and my heart sank, her colleague was preoccupied with her mobile phone, and she was left to take my order. How hard can it be to make a panini?

A simple toasted Italian sandwich with fillings inside and keeping that together enough to cut it in half and wrap it up. So, for the third time, I was placing a basic order.

Cajun chicken, chorizo, jalapenos, and cheese in a ciabatta, cut through, lengthwise. I had the lowest expectations considering this could have the professional quality in the preparation and presentation she had twice failed to achieve.

Her accent belied my reticence to comment on what she was doing, I just felt it would all be lost in translation, and I did not want to make her feel bad even if I half hated the almost rubbish of their stated menu I was presented with.

A dimmer on panini

Usually, the first part of putting in the fillings survives any apparent mishap, but by the time she gets it into the tray to put in the oven, a slow train crash happens before your eyes. The interregnum between placement in the oven and retrieval at the beeps is a time to draw a deep breath hoping that clumsy would not overcome practice.

Fat chance! At retrieval, this basic heated thing that should have been held together by melted cheese is already falling apart as she lifts it to place on wrapping paper, I am surprised she is not already picking some of the chicken and chorizo off the floor.

A second stage of reparative preparation begins and the whole wrapping ends up like the ciabatta was running away from its fillings but forced to coexist. Utterly unbelievable!

You better believe it when I get my order which is everything it says it is on the board but nothing it appears to be. I am totally exasperated but find a way to get the thing into my mouth without ending up with bits in my hair or on my back.

The trials of panini

That was my thinking at lunchtime, and clumsy did happen as she could not find the tongs to put the tray in the oven and never deigned to ask her colleague where they might be. A dishcloth stood in for the tongs for placement and for retrieval. I thought it was totally wrecked that seagulls would come from the coast just for the chicken in my panini going for free like Saint Francis of Assisi loved to feed the birds of the field.

I had no hopes for a reprieve, I was stuck with what I was given and a bag of crisps for comfort until I opened the wrapping and to my surprise, I had a panini all together like it should have been presented and made by any of her other colleagues. Whether that was a fluke, I cannot tell, but if the panini trials are over, the tribulation of clumsy looms for the next time I venture down there.

The title translates to ‘Caught up in the anguish of the sandwich’ and that’s just Italian for starters.

Beginning Reaction Indication Affinity Notable - II

The chance for change

Strangely, I was not looking for anything, I was just on holiday in the sun during Christmas, a pleasure I last enjoyed on the beautiful environs of Taj Mahal some 7 years before. However, I could not excuse myself from this handsome man who initiated the conversation when I thought I had no prospect of a passing glance.

When we got to the bar and ordered drinks, we began to chat to each other, the topics veering from the serious to the trivial, punctuated with laughter and increasing affinity. I was a bit crestfallen when he said he was returning to Zimbabwe the next day, but it was significant to know that his journey would be late at night.

The lurch for lunch

Maybe, it was an opportunity or an opening, I seized it and invited him for lunch the next day, having exchanged numbers and making to leave. As we were leaving at the same time, his friend offered to give me a lift back to my hotel, which I gladly took. The further engagement on the trip to my hotel consolidated the prospect.

In a few hours, I have developed a liking for him. When he introduced himself, I asked if his name was ‘Brian with an I’, it could have been Bryan. Before I went to bed, I send a long message of appreciation and thanks for meeting him. I did not forget to remind him; we were going out for lunch the next day. Could it be I was falling in love?

Thought Picnic: Aborting peristalsis

A lunch-time malfunction

Suddenly caught within the travails of thought, taste, smell and food which was triggered at lunch this afternoon.

I had ordered beef stroganoff and rice, at the time of the service, it appeared the rice was hot, or maybe the plate was hot because I was getting uncomfortable as I stood at the till to pay as the till broke down.

I settled at the table and spooned the first and second mouthful at which point the mechanics of peristaltic movement seized to function, a massive paper-jam, in my throat.

Tearful choking

I took a few sips of my drink with the hope of eventually easing the blockage without much success; I could breathe but at the same time I was choking.

At which point, I had to run out unto the patio where all I could cough up was the drink, but the choke was still painfully there, I was already in great discomfort and in tears, my colleague that the table completely oblivious of what I had suffered.

Another drink of water did not help, as the time-out for regular peristalsis loomed, the process of ingestion could not be completed, I had to run out again and every that had gone in was seen again as the natural had been aborted for survival – Relief, but that was the end of lunch, I could not believe how much that experience had exhausted me, I was tempted to end the day at work.

Much, much later

Hungry as I was, the next intake I had was some tea about an hour after that, then two pygmy bananas before I returned to my hotel with the hope for supper.

The entrée of taramasalata and warm flat breads went down well but the main course after the second bite suddenly went off to my taste and with the collusion of my memory and my thinking exciting a feeling of nausea, I was in the gents the next minute and that was the end of dinner – I can only wonder what the whole problem was before I begin to worry.

Should I be bothered?

In the first instance, I could surmise that the rice was not really as hot as the plate felt and that could have the tendency of choking you but the event 8 hours after left me more concerned than it was comfortable to be.

One needs to see what tomorrow brings before panic sets in, puréed food or a liquid diet – let’s not go there yet.

Editorial: Pretentious Righteous Indignation

The Nigerian Youth

Facebook once again presents the context of this editorial where I got involved in a conversation that pertained to an invitation that soon to be inaugurated president of Nigeria extended to the youth to join him for lunch.

There are many easy angles to the story but one should attempt to concentrate on the important points.

The election season of April 2011 showed that the youth of Nigeria who make up over half the population of the country are an important constituency to whom politicians vying for office have to give some serious attention.

They represented the bulk of electoral officials as members of the National Youth Service Corps that were recruited to first register voters and then man the polling stations in what generally can be considered freer, fairer and more credible elections than many conducted before.

Recognition and participation

In a patriarchal society where the youth are usually, berated, belittled, patronised and ignored as incapable, inexperienced and neophyte, they showed they could be organised, assertive, sensible, innovative and facilitators for change.

One can say that the President has recognised as much about this pressure group to have decided that they lunch with him.

Amongst the many effusive with praise, genuflecting with nauseating annoyance and plumbing the depths of sycophancy, one spoke with deference but candour with the subtext that the president had a responsibility to clean up politics and that he was being watched.

That should have been the substance of the discourse and how to press the president and his good office into the service of Nigeria for its betterment and prosperity.

He has the reins

Goodluck Jonathan, whether we like it or not, is de facto, de jure and bona fide President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, until disputes abrogate the declared results, he has right and licence to exercise the office of President for a full term of four years.

Criticism and opprobrium might be rained upon him but in a winner-takes-all projection of power, he holds the reins and whilst many might disagree with him, nothing is gained in being disagreeable, denigrating or carping excessively with condemnation, complaint and abuse.

The least every Nigerian should hope for is to have him perform, deliver and excel, there is just no time for the politics of rancour, division and calumny when what Nigeria needs the most is for anyone, anybody, everyone, everybody, someone or somebody who has the power to do something to get on and do it – fortunately for some and unfortunately for others, that person is Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan.

However, it goes without saying that some were annoyed with those who somehow earned the privilege to dine with the President.

The patronage system

At the end of the lunch, it transpired that a decision had been made to generously defray the travelling costs of the invitees, in the process, those who travelled from within the city of the event received a certain sum and others from outside the city received a greater sum of money.

Nigerian politics is one of patronage and it probably was to be expected that a largesse will be doled out, it does not then mean that recipients should suddenly lose nerve and become supine; receiving a generous gift does not a supporter make, those recipients should be accorded the benefit of doubt that they have not sold out or sold their souls to a cause they might in principle want to challenge long after that lunch was over.

The rights and wrongs of this are debatable, the ideal would have been for the attendees to submit an expense claim covering the costs of attending the event but that would have constituted a generally logistical headache for lazy apparatchiks, it was easier to just dole out the money.

We must not forget that the invited guests who might not have been people of means could have declined the invitation and been otherwise engaged in their professional daily activities.

Pretentious Righteous Indignation

An observer of the discourse put all the controversy generated down to righteous indignation to which one could only add the sense of pretentiousness that arrogates to the Nigerian system a set of Utopian standards of uncommon idealism.

The fact is Nigeria is a system that needs to be worked; it is a beast that isn't easily tamed; and a leviathan to be led by cunning.

The clamour for change to certain absurd practices that have become part of the Nigerian sub-culture and tradition of doing things is timely and applauded but it cannot be done by irrational protest, opportunistic challenges to authority or by ignoring the context, environment and setting to make statements meant to ostracise, castigate and deplore.

Working the system

The power distance index that is lower in the West and helped by the use of English in most cases for international communication but does not obviate the need for civility and deference – that index is still quite high in Nigeria and hence it requires wisdom and discretion to convey a rebuke to those whose office confers on them leadership, power and the sometimes the absence of humility for the greater expression of hubris.

It is in light of this that one appreciates the meeting with the youth and the offer of an allowance to those who were available to receive it without any slight to the person of the President – it was also convenient than no one was present to be ungracious to publicly reject the offer in protest.

The contrariness that became the exchange was very uncharitable and malevolent; a predilection for controversy so unbecoming of those of whom much more was desired.

Understanding the system

In all, for the many issues that face Nigeria, this was a storm in a teacup that has unreasonably developed into catastrophic natural disaster, the intention of instigators of the discourse cannot altogether be said to be altruistic, but then, one was left with analogy shared on Twitter.

You do not burn the bridge over a crocodile infested river just because the architect built a wobbly bridge – if that bridge was all you had to cross the river, you carefully negotiate it for both your safety and that of others or risk the welcoming jaws of the crocodiles below.

Even if a new bridge had to be built, that wobbly bridge might well be the inspiration for a better one, the system called Nigeria is changing but it will take some time and sadly, the impatient will fail to see the little changes taking place and eventually they will be left behind when the tide has completely turned.

Acknowledgment

Chude Jideonwo delivered the speech that should have been the focus of the interaction of the President with the youth but its importance was sadly relegated to the background of sensationalist but unhelpful opinion peddling.

It was titled We are watching you, Mr. President and published on the Y! Naija website.