Cursing the darkness of a drunken jaunt

I sipped and swilled

Blogs are bringing life to wry observations from which you might end up with a story or even a moral tale. Now, I do not have a ready palate for alcohol, I probably lost my thirst for strong drink by accident.

At the age of 10, whilst away from home taking common entrance examinations in Lagos, I found myself at parties where my choice tipple was Tennant's light lager by the can and with all the adult supervision around me, I was granted the liberty to indulge. I never got tipsy, but there was something about my privileged status that gave me a bye when other boys would have been scolded.

I was the son of the high-flying and most successful accountant from our village, I was the proverbial white boy in black skin, with an accent that when foreign guests were visiting, I was the one put forward to chat to and entertain when the children of the host were locked away and out of sight, I probably took liberties without consequence.

More for the drink, less for the taste

Everywhere I went in the 4 months I was down south, I was feted, indulged, tolerated, excused and well, abused too. Yes, that was sexually, but I did not know I was being taken advantage of. I was already used to being taken advantage of by two of our houseboys up north, this fumbling that went further was like pleasure and play.

By the time I was 15, my uncle who had just returned from the UK was both generous with means and things apart from offering good swills of rum that it got back to me that my parents were concerned that I was being introduced to drink, little did they know, in fact, with hindsight, my parents know so much and yet so little about me, it is almost an enigmatic paradox.

After secondary school at 15, I had a job in the laboratory of West African Breweries where I carried out water tests and introduced conveyor belt quality controls that fed back down the line to improvements in bottle washing and other bottling activities. My exposure to understanding fermentation, counting dead yeast cells, the tank farm and tasting the finished product put an end to my palate for a lager, beer, ale, cider and strong spirits.

I have little tolerance for alcohol abuse

I have the occasional wine with meals and sometimes an aperitif, but bitters and the rest are completely off limits. Essentially, I am dangerously sober in all that I do where people would require Dutch courage to attempt those same things.

That I have little tolerance of the inebriated and drunken is borne of the reasoning that I think the consumption of alcohol is an expression of discipline, you know when you’ve had enough and allow yourself the benefit of keeping your wits about you. We all make mistakes, but we can forgive ourselves and promptly begin to make amends.

A half-brain on a long train

So, as I was about to board the train from Edinburgh to Manchester, a man stepped in front of us with bravado and disregard to get on the train first. He did and as the train departed the station, he enquired where the train was going, the slurring of speech and the unsteadiness of his feet suggested he was all not himself, not by reason of ailment or infirmity, but for the abuse in excess of alcohol.

He was going due west to Bathgate some 18 miles away but had hopped on the train going southwest with the next stop at Lockerbie, some 76 miles away. Any other man might have comforted himself of his folly like Esau of old, but not this man. He fidgeted and buffeted, sighed and hollered, swore and cursed, murmured and blustered to the irritation of all around him that they left their reserved seats for other available seats.

For the lost of Lockerbie

He was by terms a bloody nuisance all because of drink and we endured the menace for a good hour until he disembarked at Lockerbie. Lockerbie itself brings some poignancy to me, it was where the Pan Am Flight 103 crashed on the 21^st of December 1988, which happened to be my 23^rd birthday.

That tragic event and my birthday somewhat creates an affinity with Lockerbie that I should one day disembark and visit the memorial to those who perished at that heinous act of terrorism for which I have not yet been convinced that the real culprits have seen justice.

Cursing the darkness sheds no light

However, the man railed and ranted, I thought of the proverb being played out before my eyes, “It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.” It is said to be an old Chinese proverb and at the same time attributed to a sermon titled “The Invincible Strategy” given by W. L. Watkinson and collected in 1907. The former attribution is suspect and the latter is contentious, but we have a saying to work with. [Wikipedia][QuoteInvestigator]

There was nothing the man could do other was sit still until he got to Lockerbie and hopefully he could get a train back tonight to Edinburgh and then to Bathgate, that is if the conductor on the other train was in the least compassionate, he could have contemplated his folly in the solitude of regret and silence, but he was literally cursing the darkness and it made no difference to the fact that he first had to get off the train and maybe get back home tonight.

In effect, he left an odious impression and the inspiration for this blog. Never drink yourself to not being aware of what you are doing and if you do, responsibly accept that consequences of your folly without becoming a public nuisance. Any of us could have compounded his situation by calling the police to attend to an unruly and drunken passenger at Lockerbie, in which case, he would have had free lodgings at Her Majesty’s pleasure for the night until sobriety gave him gumption and reason along with even more regret.

C’est la vie!

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.

Making Skype a nuisance

Anytime some new technology is introduced on the Internet it tends to create utter nuisance.

Be it chat programmes or instant messaging programs, every silly stranger wants to get on your list and converse with you about things that do not concern them.

So, this evening my Skype goes off, thinking it was a friend I ran to pick up the phone but ended up in a chat conversation with someone who was just beginning to irritate me.

The conversation went thus. (Pseudonyms used).

[22:03:23] Mitah.28 says: hello

[22:03:42] Akin_NLD says: Hello

[22:03:47] Akin_NLD says: Who are you?

[22:03:55] Mitah.28 says: i'm Mitah

[22:04:22] Akin_NLD says: I do not know you - why have you contacted me?

[22:04:57] Mitah.28 says: just for cominicaition

[22:05:13] Mitah.28 says: do you have problem

[22:05:33] Akin_NLD says: I see, do you just pick strangers in the street and converse with them?

[22:06:18] Mitah.28 says: why

[22:06:34] Akin_NLD says: I don't have a problem and I do not use technology to barge in on other people just because they are there.

[22:07:49] Mitah.28 says: you dont want to cominic aition with antone

[22:07:58] Mitah.28 says: anyone

[22:08:32] Akin_NLD says: I want communication with people I know or people who share my interests - complete strangers are just hard work

[22:09:13] Mitah.28 says: tell me where are you from

[22:10:20] Akin_NLD says: I think that is none of your business, you have not told me anything about yourself, nor have you taken time to find out if I want to converse with you

[22:11:50] Mitah.28 says: you want to talk you about my self or what

[22:12:28] Akin_NLD says: What a nuisance

[22:13:34] Mitah.28 says: no thing

Really, do people just approach strangers on the street and strike up a conversation without prompting or is it the technology that allows people to become busybodies and a complete nuisance?

The mobile phone and our society

Mobile alarm so alarming

When I return home I need to check if my apartment block has a corporate fire alarm apart from ones people install in their homes. It so happened that one night there was this shrill sound going off at intervals of 5 minutes and both my friend and I wondered where the sound was from.

I thought, it was a fire alarm and my ears perked visited adjacent floors but could not make out where the sound came from, very much like searching for a cricket that strays into a house, the shrill sound they make is just never directional.

Eventually, we found it was my friend’s mobile phone setting off a reminder alarm for him to take his pills, yes, a mobile phone that had screwed up its alarm tone and ended up with a fire alarm tune.

This exemplified that problem and the technology of mobile phones, they are no more the clunky bricks which had traditional phone rings and were the training weights of the yuppies of old.

Wring tones or ring that neck

Ring tones are big business now, phone play back all sorts of sounds, but the social re-engineering of these devices has even adults choosing the most dastardly tones which playback with eardrum piercing volumes when some unassuming acquaintance calls.

Thankfully, mobile phones are not allowed on flights, we the science of keeping them switched off is suspect, but the idea is good. Some trains also have mobile-free zones, but how do you deal with someone who has just bought a phone and is trying out every tone in a quiet train? Some people!

Happy slapping joyriders

Then in 2000, mobile phones were equipped with digital cameras which have now improved with more accessories, greater resolution, Carl Zeiss lenses, using some Multimedia communications mode to transfer the pictures.

They also allowed for motion picture recording which in itself is benign till another social consequence resulted in kids in the UK going out to mug, molest and beat up people in what became called “Happy Slapping”.

Sometimes, I wonder about the words we use for social misconduct in England. Happy Slapping is no happy event for the victim, more for the criminal nor is “Joy-riding” increasing the joy of a victim when the criminal has stolen your car and written it off in an inconsiderate adrenalin-rush chase.

One such happy slapping lead to the death of a victim and the recording became evidence of the crime which lead to convictions, but why does this have to happen at all.

Beyond propaganda and to the truth

These mobile phone cameras came into their own when the officially sanctioned, edited, doctored and propagandist silent recording of Saddam’s execution was trumped by a live vision/sound travesty of shame – yes, the uncensored democracy of photo- and movie- journalism where the participants are the public has arrived – we are the Time Person of the Year 2006 – even professionals cannot retain the scoop on any news event that occurs in the dimensions of time and space.

This is the new concealed weapon set to record anything without your knowledge and ready to be published on YouTube or some other less reputable site, you have to smile all the time, because you might be on camera and if you do misbehave, never become a celebrity, maybe there is a cautionary element to restoring social graces with this development, I would not know as reality television now helps to depict the worst of the Homo sapiens-sapiens species.

Multifunction life tool

As if that was not enough, they added radio and music playback of MP3s, that is fine, then you uploaded your music, put on your headphones and carried your entertainment with you on your mobile phone.

Games, Internet surfing, email and your mobile phone is a comprehensive Personal Digital Assistant, your whole life is stored on the device which you rarely backup and just imagine it gets lost and you are completely bereft of your contact to the world, you become a castaway island in a sea of sharks.

However, the death knell of the filofax has not been completely sounded, there are people who have backed up their data on paper despite the fact that some mobile operators now allow you to backup your data to their servers, a good way to expose your life, I would say.

Mobile phone ghetto blaster

Anyway, it is now commonplace to see that mobile phones are no more personal, the kids playback their music without their headphones as they congregate to loud music coming out of their mobile phones for their entertainment to the chagrin of fellow passengers on the bus, train or tram.

Some sort of ghetto blaster now incorporated in a mobile phone, what next? You ask!

If you dare to shut them up as I have on certain occasions asking them to use headphones, you do risk a happy-slapping, that is what we have acquired with added mobile phone sophistication, people losing their ability to be considerate members of a community as the personal space of their mobile phones garners a more public interference with our peace and wellbeing.

The loss of social consideration

Obviously, mobile phone companies and their innovators would blame all this anti-social behaviour on the people than the phone, but if they did not have tools that allowed them these abilities, they probably would not exhibit such rotten behaviour – this a topic of social scientists – how the mobile phone has changed our common societal values and why something has to give.

Many a time, I have hoped that the nuisance of a mobile phone can be solved by drowning the thing in water, and for now, I would suppose mobile phones do not come with a water resistant guarantee – there is hope.