Devotion, not Domination

Rights and Responsibilities

Everyone, in my view, has the right to practise their religion without fear of persecution. However, this right also comes with the responsibility to be considerate of others.

On public transport, we already suffer the nuisance of people playing music through the loudspeakers of their mobile phones. 

This is usually not because they have forgotten the headphones that would afford them the private enjoyment of the music of their choice; rather than inflicting their tastes on others without permission, they are simply being antisocial. The same goes for loud phone calls, and I have found myself speaking up on occasion, dismayed at the breach of the peace.

A Step Too Far

It is on another level entirely when a fellow passenger decides to play the call to prayer. Even if that person were the imam, their presence in any setting, and especially on a vehicle, does not confer the authority to claim the whole space as a mosque.

This is how devotion slips easily into fanaticism, where common sense deserts faith and public concern follows. The devotee immediately attracts suspicion and dread, not so much for the act of worship itself, but because others begin to wonder about their intentions. When the practice of the religion of peace serves only to heighten unease, the wider perception of the freedom being exercised becomes a lightning rod for prohibition.

Where Freedom Ends

Anyone who dared to challenge that passenger would have found others ready to support them. It takes only one person to report the incident to the police, and before calmer heads could dismiss the matter as a question of civility, the spectre of radicalisation would justly have placed the individual under scrutiny and questioning.

Being a believer does not preclude you from behaving as a good citizen; the extent of a right reaches only to the point before it infringes on the freedoms of another. Whether it be music, a phone call, or a call to prayer, if you do not have your headphones, you should accept that you have deprived yourself of the opportunity to listen to your device when in a public place.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

Manchester Pride 2024 - Between disinterest and stewarding

For a parade and a charade

The August Bank Holiday weekend in Manchester is for the Manchester Pride and one those of us who live on the borders of the Gay Village sometimes dread out of inconvenience and frustration. It is a time of endless cacophony that begins from Thursday night through to Monday evening with possibly a vigil in remembrance of those we lost to the AIDS plague.

For those who come the attend the events and many from out of town and even from abroad, it presents the prospect of wanton debauchery and the prescient profiteering of all the hospitality and services establishments that find the footfall irresistible to exploitation, even as punters and patrons submit themselves too willingly to the abuse of their respect and their wallets.

The Pride Parade on the Saturday afternoon is something to look forward to, though I could be inspired to residents’ rage just for the loudspeakers that get put close to my window or on the main street, not so much for the event, but for the testing of equipment that starts early in the morning when we are trying to lie-in and continues almost every quarter of an hour as if suddenly the equipment had given up. Let’s not think of if I were an American with a gun.

Diversity, not as we think it

This time they plonked down a mobile 120-seat grandstand on our street which I found out to be the judges view to rate the floats that passed by towards the end of the parade. I had a guest who had just moved to Manchester and a friend had asked me to chaperone him. Not much to be done, I would have stepped out of my apartment block with a folding chair and some bottles of water. I provided rainproof clothes and umbrellas too, when it rained.

However, I do wonder if the judges as my guest did see the diversity we observed was not as diverse as our community would suggest apart from accounting for the diversity in faces of the same identity group, like say, race? Not to talk of the fact that one float dressed up a black man in full uniform to drive their Bentley. Then the Gay Gordons in full Scottish attire had one of their contingent playing the bagpipes who was noticeably of African descent.

In the probably 250 that participated in the parade, there could not have been 10 that were representative of ethnic minorities, and this is where Manchester still fails to embrace the broader expanse of identity within this diverse community.

It was not helped by one such group removing themselves from the parade because of concerns about sponsorship in relation to the Israel – Gaza conflict. They were invisible when they should have erred on the pragmatic side of things, because there were Palestinian groups represented on the parade.

Just let me through

I was surprised that I stayed to watch the whole parade that lasted over 3 hours, and it was time to retire and that was for a good long nap. The only other times I ventured through the Gay Village that was gated off for the festivities was for church on Sunday and then the Pride Eucharist in the evening.

At least now, apart from security checks of bags, right-of-way is no longer questioned as it was even refused to people who just wanted to pass through about a decade ago.

Besides, I had on principle decided for years now, that I will not pay the extortionate prices for attending any of the Pride events even as those who find themselves shortchanged denied access to venues quickly at capacity to watch their favourite bands.

My plate did overflow

As a church steward at the Manchester Cathedral, I had offered to be on the rota for duties at the Pride Eucharist which was organised by the leadership of the Village Church that meets on the 2^nd and 4^th Sundays of the month at the LGBT Foundation offices on Sackville Street. [Manchester Cathedral: Pride Eucharist pamphlet (PDF)]

Cover of the Pride Eucharist pamphlet.

The typical activities would have been handing service pamphlets to people who had come to fellowship, doing the collection during the offertory hymn, and ushering the congregation towards the altar for Communion.

Then one of the wardens asked me to take the plate of offerings to the altar for blessing and I had hardly said yes to that when the convenor of Village Church came to ask if I would participate in the intercessory prayer part of the service. She already had my name on the prayer sheet before coming to chat to me. I obliged willingly at the honour.

My part included a 30-second pause for silent prayer, my clock ticked a bit faster than it should in my head, I counted to 10 twice, losing my ways somewhere in the simplicity of the aura of scrutiny as I continued to the end of my contribution.

It’s a wrap until next year

After the service, we remained for tea, coffee, biscuits, and cake, before a young man on army leave who had asked to speak with me earlier requested if he could play the grand piano.

He had such talent but was expecting of rebuke or derision when we so readily praised him. Sadly, some people are subjected to so much criticism that even what they are so good at, they are too unsure of demonstrating.

I guess all that became the highlight of my own Manchester Pride, disinterested, uninvolved, and almost curmudgeonly, except where it mattered more in cheering the parades and serving at the Pride Eucharist, until next year when again, we suffer, or we leave town.

Hotstepping into a magnetic resonance experience

Walking with a cane

For 20 years in December, I have used a walking cane. This was to help with the pain that I felt in my lower back for about a decade and there were times I had my much lighter partner stand on my back just to ease the pain.

The pain was exacerbated by standing still in queues or sauntering, I needed to be moving well or sitting down not to experience the pain. At times I have spoken about the pain either in the chest on my ribcage or in my back to my GP, and they have tried to put me in the scheme of enduring it rather than treating it. The walking cane gave more than the support and comfort to reduce or avoid the pain, altogether.

Obviously, when I got my first walking cane, it was a long black rod with an ivory ball to hold onto, as from the beginning I had decided whilst the walking cane was not a fashion accessory if you were to use a walking cane, get a good and fashionable one. Eventually, after trying many kinds of canes I have settled for Derby canes that have a rounded hook that could be hung over the wrist or the arm, hands-free.

Let’s have a closer look

In a conversation with my consultant a few weeks ago, we talked about my use of the walking cane which in addition became even more pertinent when I had cancer in my right foot some 14 years ago that I could not walk using the leg for almost 6 months. She proposed we have a scan of my spine to determine why I was having the back pain and if anything could be determined from that review.

Today, I attended a radiology session for an MRI scan of my spine without contrast. The without contrast part suggested I would not have ink injected into my veins to provide contrast in observing other organs in my body. I read up on the notes and was sure no adverse effect was expected as I had no metallic enhancements or augmentations had been done to my body. At least nothing I have consented to except if one had been abducted by aliens.

Stillness and noisiness

Having filled out the consent forms, the nurse invited me to the waiting room before the radiographer called my name and ushered me towards the theatre. At first, I was assigned a locker to put in my valuables, watch, love bangle, wallet, and satchel bag. I only had to take off my jacket and leave my cane outside.

I sat on the MRI gurney and as I was about to lift my legs to lay on the bed, I was told it might take 30 minutes when I planned for 10 minutes tops, I had to remain still, and the device was a disturbingly noisy thing that you needed earplugs and headphones. I had heard much about the containment from others with claustrophobic tendencies, and I decided not to be regaled by any more of their sordid tales.

As I lay down and set myself for the experience, I decided to close my eyes as the headphones belted out Ini Kamoze’s Here Comes The Hotstepper, certainly not what you want to be hearing in a magnetic tube, but that was what was on offer rather than the calming strains of classical music that I suggested might be a better offer.

Slipped out of it and sleep

I drifted off as the three shrill sounds suggested my insides were being peered into without intrusion, the wonders of medical science for which a controversial Nobel Prize was awarded in 2003. [The Lancet: The Nobel prize for MRI: a wonderful discovery and a sad controversy]

There were times I opened an eye, but I never gave thought to the idea I was in an enclosed space. Then the gurney slid right out, and we were done with a commendation from the radiographer that I took the session really well.

I got fully dressed up, collected my things and returned home, an interesting experience and in a few weeks, I should get a review of what was seen.

Essential Snobbery 101: For your noise be couth

Like really?

“That is what you say to unruly teenagers, not to 36-year-old professionals.” She said, at the top of her voice. I had just alighted from the tram on my way home when what came to perturb my silent contemplation made me look towards the commotion.

The sight I beheld left me raising an eyebrow, accompanied by a snigger. She was in argumentation with two police officers, much of it quite disagreeable, as she sat on the embankment of the tram station on the side where the trams would come to stop, so she had to be moved on, but she was not budging one bit.

A raucous cacophony ensued as I minded my own business, but could not help but think about what she said and how much like an unruly teenager she was in attitude and definitely not a 36-year old professional in appearance or demeanour.

What a pity

It might well be that at another time in her somewhat vibrant life, she was a professional of sorts, a confrontation with the law then welled up the urge for a sense of self-importance in order not to be treated shabbily, though every indication pointed towards a shamefaced humiliation.

She had, with her demonstration, brought a public audience to her pending predicament, and there is no doubt that every pretension to being a lady had been lost to the vociferous outbursts that were quite unbecoming.

The moral of the tale is, never make noise when your cause is not in the quest for justice but in the folly of notoriety and the unnecessary charge of disturbing the peace. Little doth it take to respect thyself, or none of it shall ye get.

The Terrestrial Church of Cacophony

Out of sight, but an earful

I first learnt of the Celestial Church of Christ, an African initiated church in the 1970s when I spend short school breaks at my cousin’s in Sagamu.

The church was situated at the end of the road with a stream running by the church into a dense forest, they could have been unnoticeably ensconced there without disturbance.

Yet, it was impossible to ignore them, at almost half a mile away, their daily rumpus or dare I say worship was loud, agitated and quite a public nuisance.

Embrace silence

It came to a head one morning when the head of the house sent a cease and desist notice to the church to maintain a sense of considerate neighbourliness in their activities by lowering the volume of their orgies. God, we must appreciate is not hard of hearing.

Now, that was courageous, daring and bold, for anyone to challenge a religious establishment in that manner. It worked, they were quite amenable to the idea, probably under duress and with the knowledge that the aggrieved was a lawyer.

Mind the fine

Later, towards the end of the 1980s, I was a ward of some senior members of the Celestial Church of Christ, they were quite obliging to allow me attend the church of my choice rather than force me to align to their tenets, for that, I am exceedingly grateful.

However, the reason why we have this recollection of events past is because this morning I read in the newspaper that the pastor of a Celestial Church of Christ branch in Grays, Essex had been fined a total of £1,241.50 including costs for conducting unbearably loud services four times a week well into the early hours of the morning; 4:00AM that is. [Metro]

The neighbours had endured this public nuisance for months and one really wonders why any religious activity needs to be broadcast beyond the confines of the walls of the meeting place except for the need to use the sound to keep the members alert throughout the interminably long services.

Just unacceptable

More pertinently, what this suggests is a lack of understanding that what is tolerable and allowed in the hyper-religious Nigerian society borne of Lord Lugard’s suggestion that we have a vague dread of the supernatural, is hardly acceptable in many Western societies.

People are not as religiously imbued and those who have any sort of religious affiliation tend to go about their devotion with consideration and moderation, too high a bar of expectation required of an almost fanatical claque.

If this sanction does not serve as a deterrent, the council has suggested that the church might have to lose its sound equipment. Knowing that I have lived in a part of Essex where there was at least 6 non-establishment churches within 500 yards of our apartment, I was fully persuaded to veto an application to site another church nearby just because the existing ones had already exercised our tolerance to the point of intolerable.

For all the celestial aims of the church, there are terrestrial norms expected of any gathering for any purpose they might be persuaded to pursue. This one like many that have yet to be called to order around the UK has become a congregation of the Terrestrial Church of Cacophony.

London: Bussed to distraction,

Before it all happened

At the end of our journey, as we thanked the bus driver for the trip, I walked up to the driver to commiserate about the somewhat sordid day he was having. In fact, a good few of us had not enjoyed the bus ride and it was no fault of the driver, but of passengers and schedulers.

This was on one of my unannounced trips to London, I boarded the bus from East Street in South London to Euston, route 68 it was and journey expected to take about 34 minutes. I had the time.

I would normally have taken a Priority Seat, seeing that I use a cane and I was laden with shopping from the Agege Bread shop on East Street having taken a leisurely 1.6 mile walk from Vauxhall rather than use public transport that would have taken just about the same time. [My Blog on Agege Bread]

Disconcerting conversation

The Priority Seats were already occupied by those who did not need them, especially one where a man had his arm comfortably draped over the head of the aisle seat with him sat by the window, making it difficult for me to take the seat behind backing onto the side of the bus. Yet, that was the better seat to take, so I snuggled in.

The man, quite volubly Nigerian and as cantankerously annoying as you can get was ensconced in a mobile phone conversation for the entire length of the journey and I can only imagine where he got on. The volume of his speech in another language I could not care to comprehend him enough to want to call him to order, though I doubt the scene that might have developed afterwards would have been nice. We all endured it.

Pissed off from a screen

The driver, however, had to contend with schedulers who because of certain events in London had the buses running outside schedule that he was advised to slow down to help even out the schedule. In the ensuing conversation, we learnt that we were already going at 10 miles an hour on a 20 miles an hour route causing congestion and inconvenience to others.

The scheduler insisted the more unconvinced of the chaos he might be causing on the roads from the comfort of watching screens and tapping keyboards, that the driver let it be known that he had been a driver for 30 years and that he will not have his intelligence insulted. I raised an eyebrow whilst seemingly agreeing with him. He was doing his best.

Tripping up on London place names

A few stops later, a lady got on with a rather large suitcase and an accent that was caught in the Shibboleth of London place names. She was going to Aldwych, but managed to pronounce it with an ‘s’ replacing the ‘d’ and ‘w’ that is sounded like Alsish. It occurred to me from her accent that she also might be Nigeria and somehow, my ear trained to such accents and having an idea of the route, I surmised she was going to Aldwych.

The driver was none the wiser, she however, got on the bus and made to sit beside the chatterbox man who shifted uneasily to give space without breaking from his conversation. However, she needed help with directions and he was about to give her the wrong information based of apparently knowing assumption.

I intervened, first by letting her know the proper pronunciation of Aldwych and that the stop she wanted was the Aldwych / Kingsway stop where she could board the bus on route 9 to Hammersmith. It transpired that she was really going to Victoria and though it was a circuitously contrived journey to go from where she boarded to Aldwych, to Hammersmith and then to Victoria, she was more comfortable to do that than take the London Underground. I was not going to dissuade her, but she had enough information about what she needed to do.

The power of example

Over the next few stops, people boarded and disembarked some needing directions and asking questions until a point where someone had found to use the bell as some musical instrument. You only have to ring the bell once and the Bus Stopping sign lights up on both decks, it also alerts the bus driver to stop at the next bus stop.

This unnecessary peeling of the bell in the midst of the cacophony of our conversationalist who had hardly paused to take a breath since I got on the bus some 30 minutes before had the driver make an announcement that whoever was ringing the bell should behave.

A mother and child descended from the upper deck and rather than get off she decided to have words with the driver about the fact that she son was under control and that he had every right to ring the bell. Her unladylike manner at the highest volume she could muster and then leaving having been quite abusive to the driver was enough for everyone to conclude her ill-discipline was fully developed in the child. Such is the power of example.

We finally cantered, as it were into Euston, the talkative conscious enough to disembark and give way for me to have a quick chat commiserating with the driver, who had one more trip to Camberwell before playing another route. I was in time to make my train too.

Nigeria: So, the US Envoy spoke Pidgin English? Big Deal!

Ambassador 101

Maybe we should sometimes wonder about what is expected of ambassadors. They are accredited representatives of their country to another country where normally they would live and interact with officials and people of that country.

Obviously, they should be expert diplomats in such a way that they should attempt to magnify the amity between countries whilst diminishing tensions between them, promoting understanding and friendships too.

There are many other roles of the ambassador, in explaining the policy of their countries clearly, being the chief executive of the consulate and its services for their fellow citizens abroad and host citizens who need to gain knowledge in many ways about the country the ambassador is from.

Soft skills of diplomacy - language

The ability to communicate is key, this is in the sophisticated use of language as well as in many cases they would be multilingual or dare I say polyglots. To expect them to speak the language of the court is probably not too much, if they speak the lingua franca, that is a matter of appreciated skill.

Enter, Ambassador James F. Entwistle, the United States Ambassador to Nigeria who has in his diplomatic career represented his country in Malaysia, Central African Republic, Thailand, Cambodia, Kenya, Cambodia, Cameroon, Niger, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and now Nigeria.

Pidgin English everywhere

Impressive and interesting, many of these places are former British colonies where English would have been spoken or a corruption of English known as Pidgin English of which there are many and the Nigerian Pidgin English now considered English-based creole language belongs to the broader group of West African Pidgin English languages.

If the producers at WaZoBia FM in Lagos had done very basic research on their guest, the Ambassador, they should have not been too surprised that given his wealth of experience in the subcontinent, he would have been quite able to connect a lot better than they expected.

In answering questions related to Nigerian democracy and US relations with Nigeria, he spoke quite fluently in Nigerian Pidgin English to which what he had to say was deafened by uncontrolled applause as the narrative that followed deviated from everything else he had to say. [PM News]

Noise obscures poise

Besides the commentary on the BBC, the management of WaZoBia FM should deign to conduct an orderly house with disciplined staff who can exercise a modicum of self-control and professionalism when pleasantly surprised. [BBC Audio]

The Ambassador indeed should be commended for effort and ability whilst at the same time we should not at the slightest titillation become a garrulous rabble in a circus act.

Much as we would have loved to listen to the recording of that interview, the sensational has gotten in the way of the substance of the meeting and that is rather unfortunate.

So, the United States Ambassador to Nigeria spoke Pidgin English? Big Deal! What did he say?

I heard no Hosannas

Ancient & Modern

Sometimes, I crave for a particular religious past, one stated, written and regimented with uniformity.

Sundays with tongue-twisting names like Sexagesimal and Quinquagesimal rather than the well known Palm Sunday where the Common Book of Prayer was opened to a particular page as you followed the vicar in the prelude and response of worship.

The sound of the pipe organ in readiness for traditional hymns in English at times or in Yoruba when I was in Nigeria; the solemnity of it all.

The loud sound of the band

The difference is a band, a keyboardist rather than an organist, two box guitars, two acoustic guitars and the percussionist - a drummer doing the drums.

Cue the music with the beating of the drumsticks and the music begins loud and ready for our voices singing to the text displayed on the screen in the front.

Even in my quiet times, I cannot maintain the consistency of a beat over time, the percussionist starts easy and before you know it, a riot of beats descends on us, I thinking surely this can go wrong but it all works out beautiful.

You are left in awe and praise of the drummer who is quite exposed, almost extrovert to a fault and basically commanding the flow of worship even though you have the lead vocalist and at least 2 backing vocals in the band, none of what might be called free-styling ever comes close to the daring-do of the drummer.

A Protestant to Pentecostalism?

As I grow older, loud is betraying the possibility that I might be able to confidently pass off as youth anymore, the jumping to the beat is almost an excess to the High Church Anglican eye.

The service was enlightening and insightful but we had left behind tradition as I knew it, the Palm Sundays of old where we sat in pews and if I had dozed off as I sometimes have done in church lately, the lovely ushers would have caressed the back of my neck with the exhilarating barbs of a palm frond leaf.

Honestly, I do miss the Hosannas; talk less of the overkill of dramatising Jesus on an ass of a colt riding into Jerusalem.

For all said and done, the journey is mine to travel and in every place, blessed still is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

A relocation from the cacophony

Travails of a morning doze off

The day started a bit rough, I was in some serious discomfort through the night, I had to ask for additional medication.

In the meantime the intravenous infusion mechanism has now been attached to my right wrist, so I am tethered again and have needed help getting around on the crutches.

I eventually got some deep sleep after dawn broke just when my friend came alive with cries for sister, brother, doctor, please.

There is no doubt he is in pain, I know but rather than use the call system he calls out loud and incessantly, I lost it – So from within my deep sleep, I mustered my best Dutch and shouted out to use the call system.

Flipping pancakes in beds

He also turned 82 today, which is sad but, he has been congratulated by all, I can honestly say they are bending over backwards for him and really one must commend the selflessness that come with this line of duty.

The bed has been adjusted so many times short of having it flip him like a pancake every few seconds, not much else might happen apart from just completely sedating him, but that has its dangers.

When he was put in the wheelchair and he did not relent, I clearly told the nurses, this just cannot continue, I am no more sure if he is leaving hospital today anymore.

They took him out of the ward somewhere else for about an hour during which time I steadied myself on the crutches and arranged to visit the gym tomorrow.

Serious but quite manageable

Results of the biopsy are not complete but the initial suspicion has been confirmed, they do need to determine the best course of treatment, it probably would be aggressive because it is putrid, fungating and in more serious cases can become gangrenous and lead to the loss of the foot.

In base terms, it is a type of cancer but don’t get so struck by the word, some can be cured others subject to palliative care; I have been told medication should suffice. So far, the doctors have been positive, optimistic and encouraging, it allows one to build faith from a perspective better than the despair of things being terminal.

Moved

Finally, the best bit of news is that since my hearing is considerably more keen I have been moved to another ward where I have been practicing my Dutch with two ladies and a gentleman, Though one of the ladies does not speak English at all.

It is a bit shrewd to put hard of hearing people in the room with someone turning out to be a shrew, one of the medical personnel called him a drama queen, well, this is one luvvie that could become unloved.

Can you believe it? I can hear him from here. Save our ears. Save our sanity or as restraint overcomes whoever decides the cat of throttling him – save that man from himself.