Eyes Lined Up

The Art of Making Up One's Mind

I cannot recall where, but I read a quote that gave me a wry smile, probably decades ago, which said, “I put lipstick on my forehead to make up my mind.”

Make-up as applied by people could be to accentuate the positive, conceal the unseemly, or exaggerate the bizarre. I wouldn't know, as I use neither lipstick nor blusher, but I have my mind made up about a few things.

A Modern Avon Lady

After paying for groceries this evening at Aldi, I walked past a cashier at one of the checkouts and my eyes were drawn to hers, as they were marked out with dark eyeliner; you could not miss them. I thought she might be a quintessential Aldi lady, in profession and looks, borrowing the idea of Avon ladies from a time before.

Canal Street’s Spectacle

Then on Canal Street in Manchester, the centre of the Gay Village, there are lots of female impersonators or drag queens in desperately outlandish make-up, and the less said of their apparel and high-heeled footwear that would commit the sensible to the emergency room of an orthopaedic hospital, the better. They regale us with offers of cheap drinks to patronise the clubs they represent.

I am left wondering whether this is for them a profession they get paid for or just a hobby. I had a fascination for that subculture and their performances in the early 1990s, but I am much less enamoured by the spectacle today.

From Subculture to Mainstream

Yet, this genre has gained global reality television popularity in the drag race competitions started by RuPaul. One such drag queen from Manchester was a runner-up in the inaugural UK series.

In my view, no self-respecting woman would go to the extent of a drag queen, except perhaps ladies of a certain persuasion of questionable repute. Yet, in the case of the drag queen I saw on my way home, there was both eyeliner and eyeshadow that would make Nefertiti blush.

The Fine Line Between Art and Excess

The use of make-up can be abused, and it does get abused to garish and grotesque levels. Some end up quite ghoulish, enough to put you to great fright if observed in dim light. However, all we can do is be entertained from a distance. We wouldn’t want to be represented by them so closely that the association becomes difficult and inconvenient.

On Spectacle and Proximity

There's something revealing about our relationship with spectacle. We’re drawn to what's unusual, extreme, even outrageous, yet we instinctively maintain a boundary between observation and involvement. A rather blunt Yoruba saying captures this tension: “A mad man is a sight to watch in the marketplace, but not a joy to have as a relation.”

The proverb isn’t really about madness; it's about how we engage with what lies outside our norms. We watch, we’re entertained, perhaps even fascinated, but we preserve distance. It’s an honest, if uncomfortable, acknowledgement of how most of us actually behave towards those we find bewildering or excessive.

Yet this instinct towards separation deserves examination. We may counter it with the humbling reflection of John Bradford: “There but for the grace of God go I.” We are no better than the other but for grace, mercy, and fortune. What separates the observer from the observed may be nothing more than circumstance, upbringing, or mere chance.

This is not a critique or a celebration, just a neutral observation inviting conversation and opinion.

Blog - I wear lipstick (November 2005)

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

The Three Musketeers running errands blind

The Three Shopping Musketeers

The amusing appearance of the three musketeers, or so it seemed, as these three men were sent on errands by their spouses to shop at an ethnic grocery and foodstuffs store. They wheeled the trolley with the dexterity of a Formula 1 driver, but the filling of it resembled the discombobulation of three blind mice on the run after their tails were cut.

For one, they appeared entirely out of their depth, clearly in alien territory and unsure of what they needed to get. They were constantly on the phone with someone, trying to describe items to ascertain the right thing to put in the basket.

If that task were not hard enough, the banter between them at the butcher's counter, where they attempted to display their knowledge of meats, revealed more about their dilettantism than any genuine expertise.

Lost in the Aisles

I engaged them, asking why their wives were not doing the shopping and whether they were aware of the measures, weights, packaging or containers for whatever they were getting. They were lost in aisle after aisle, perambulating without the focus of a shopper with intent. If the trolley had an odometer, the mileage counter would have had someone asking if they had been to Timbuktu and back.

There they were, in full recognition of their helplessness, yet the most important thing they could have done is what deserts men when they need it most: ask a question, get clarification, seek understanding, all of which does not suggest stupidity but curiosity.

In this, The Three Musketeers had brought to light the loyalty of their friendship, the bravery of doing something outside their abilities, the camaraderie of men lost in a store, and the swashbuckling adventure with a trolley now delirious from whirling around the aisles.

All for One

Maybe I should have offered to help if they had betrayed the slightest vulnerability, but bravado was on display without any sign of winning, and I found much mirth at their expense. It would have been impolite to insert myself because they were perfectly representing the “All for one, and one for all” motto of The Three Musketeers.

As I was leaving the store, I intimated that it would be closing in 30 minutes and they had better hurry up, or they would be pulling down the shutters with nothing to show for their, what's the word now? Excursion!

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

Between the Window and the World

Window Observations

Looking out of my window again this morning, the story remains the same. On the second floor by the window sits the man I wrote about over four years ago. However, for the first time, I saw him eating. It might have been some fruit, as he was using his hands, and what looked like a large potato wedge might have been cut from an apple.

Blog - Coronavirus streets in Manchester - XLII

Surely my eyesight can't be that good, yet I cannot doubt my powers of observation. Brian, on the other hand, seems to have sent another pair of reading glasses to the ocular orthopaedic hospital, one leg lost to the incident of backside indiscipline. No other excuse could be manufactured on the fly.

Blog - Thought Picnic: Sitting pretty and bringing calamity

Anyway, back to my neighbourhood. There is a new arrival who steps out of the apartment, takes a few puffs of her inhaler, then lights a cigarette. How you could clearly have a respiratory condition and then compound it with the gradual destruction of your lungs is a case of utter bafflement that escapes me.

Beyond the Window

As I stepped out to attend church, it was minus four degrees Celsius, but fresh and sunny. By the time I left church, it had snowed, the ground coated white. I was fortunate to have the right kind of shoes on, the soles with ridges that gave a sturdy grip enough to stop me from slipping.

It was already above zero. After a cup of lapsang souchong tea, I was ready to have a nap. The man at the window was back, taking another glimpse of what might be unchanging but for the traffic, yet exciting enough as a variance to routine.

Then again, as he observes his little world from that window, a flurry of snow seeks to obscure my line of sight. Life continues for all, but I'm blessed to experience a bit more by getting out and meeting people.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

Hello in There Over There

Hello in There · Bette Midler - John Prine

Looking out into the day

Life in the city presents a window of observation both literally and figuratively. If I cranked my neck looking out to the right, I would see the main road, full of traffic, the missing Venetian blinds pulled down by those who are not gentle of touch might offer a spectacle in flagrante delicto of things better kept out of view.

On occasions, where I have been asked about the weather, a predilection to Miss Havisham’s shunning of the public might suggest that one is unaware of where the sun or the clouds might have come to an agreement about what day they want to show.

Left to my own devices, I will know nothing of what happens in my city until after the event. A hermit untouched and unknown, yet conversant and connected in isolation from sensual interaction.

A part of apartment life

Then, so much information filters in like sunrays on a brilliantly sunny day. From the fourth floor of the apartment block opposite and across the street, I know they are in because they open the window that reflects a blast of light into my living room. Should I wave to them?

For the past two days, the first-floor apartment across from mine had the blinds drawn. They are on holiday one must presume for nothing in the weather of the past couple of days supports the need to shelter from enjoying the elements. They appear to be a partying lot, not that I might haphazardly identify them on the street. They are a function of the apartment in which they live, as I might have been an operatic revue of the unspeakable that excites chortles and giggles.

Old people maybe not lonesome

To the left on the second floor, at the breaking of the dawn, an old man sits at the window looking at a world that his youth once participated in with verve and vigour. The lady who sometimes sits with him might be the wife of decades of marital bliss, a companion of life and experience, with whom living out the rest of their days might stretch to a time beyond record.

The stories in those faces, the memories that fetch fresh waters from wells of existence we could not begin to fathom. They could be parents, likely grandparents, never doubt them being great grandparents, but no little girl’s face has replaced the visage that has met my gaze.

Maybe they see me when I see them, if they ever noticed; for I have watched that window from my desk for years, I could wave at them to say, “Hello! In there”.

Never despise the cradle

The cradle nurse

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

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

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

The cradle keep

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

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

Autism: Do you see what I see?

Taken at Woolworths in Rosebank, Johannesburg - February 2019.

It was not spelt right

Look at the picture above and have you noticed something? This is a regular conversation I have with Brian when he comments about my ability to see things others do not see. In my own view, I am left quite surprised it is not that obvious.

I cannot tell how it is that I see things in patterns, especially when it comes to words, there is an expected order and when things are seemingly not in that order, I notice. That is not to say I do not commit the same mistakes. What I have written and what I perceive is there could be two different things. It comes with the territory.

However, the number of times I have heard people say, “It’s only you that would see that.”, would suggest there is something, a gift or some irregularity that I possess demonstrated in these observations I cannot seem to keep to myself.

Sensory observations out of pattern

It was only two Sundays ago when in our church Sung Eucharist pamphlet where the credits for the hymns were written, the year of birth and death of one of the credited showed he had lived for 165 years. Who reads that? Well, I do and I noticed before I showed it to the dean after the service.

Yet, it is not just patterns in words, I sometimes hear sounds out of place even if my hearing is not that keen and for someone who has a lazy eye, the keenness of my vision along with the inability to use stereo vision to judge distance and speed is quite interesting. It just seems anything that is out of place jumps out to me.

I sometimes wonder if I should ignore these things, then, these observations can make for interesting documentation or conversation. I love the sight of the unusual, the irregular, the strange, the abnormal, the distinct, or maybe, the invisible to others. Somewhere on that spectrum of autism, the strange is just quite normal. It is the way we see our world.

Did you see it?

If you did not see what was strange about the picture above, Brian swears I saw it within a minute of getting to the restaurant and trying to place an order. My Instagram post about it appears below:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Akin Akintayo (@instaforakin)

My own All Saints' Day

The saints in my canon

It would appear strange that quite deep into the Advent season so close to Christmas, I am celebrating my own version of All Saint’s Day which in the traditional Christian Church calendar starts at the end of October with All Hallows’ Eve, then All Saints’ Day and ends on the 2^nd of November with All Souls’ Day.

As it has come up in conversations that I have had recently, I find that there are men interesting and significant who are no more with us, such who have become canonised in my own life story, and this is not a list to supplant that of the church. In these men, usually not deliberate, but significant, I have found direction, insight, and light, even if for a transient and sometimes for longer, they are lauded.

This list is hardly exhaustive, but it is probably the beginning of recognising the influence, impact, and mentoring of people that have mattered in my life.

Unculu

Unculu, he was my uncle, my father’s younger brother, and as a child, he was a deflection from the personality that my dad exuded as a high-achieving and successful man with a home life that strict, stern, and terrifying in the way he disciplined his youngest sibling, my aunt, along with how he commanded an entire of relations that genuflected and regarded him with fear and adulation.

In Unculu, I found that adults can be approachable, you can engage in conversation with them and there were no limits to the expression of ideas or viewpoints that it was of him that I asked if he could wait at his own age for me to catch up. He smiled, as he explained how that age-gap is constant. It was also in him that I observed that being respectful of everyone does not in any way diminish your standing.

Tajudeen Oladipo Akintayo, became Unculu to me, and it was out of respect for him that the Ola part of my name Akinola was not used when I was addressed and I believe when his son who met an untimely death was addressed the Akin part of his name Akinyemi was not used, in consideration of me. Much as there could have been ways Unculu could have influenced me beyond my childhood, I became more of an observer than a follower when he left our household. He passed on in June 2019.

Blog - Thought Picnic: In the husbandry of futility

Uncle Jimoh

Uncle Jimoh, at first, was the son of a patriarch in the north, his father, Baba Bukuru ran a bicycle shop in Bukuru, a suburb of Jos. However, I began to notice that Uncle Jimoh was quite academically brilliant, the kind of person who would go places given the opportunity and whose potential was unlimited in terms of what he could achieve.

I could see the mutual respect that grew between my parents and their younger distant cousin, if there was a beacon of excellence, they desired any of us their children to aspire to, Uncle Jimoh would be a clear example. His success was shared with such unflinching generosity as I experienced in gifts and conversations, especially when he was completing his Quantity Surveying studies in the UK as I was leaving secondary school.

How he influenced me was at the time subtle because I was quite persuaded to consider the same career and it was through certain exchanges with him that I focused more on attending a polytechnic rather than a university. Eventually, I did start with Chemical Engineering but veered towards Electrical & Electronic Engineering which formed the foundations of my career.

For advice, he was present, sometimes commanding, other times adjuring, but mostly advising. He remained through his life someone to look up to and was a significant contributor at the point when I was ready to depart for the UK. Jimoh Ogunnaike, he left indelible footsteps in the sands of time. He passed on in November 2013.

Blog - A great man, we've lost

Uncle Cash

Our initial encounters were relayed to me for I do not have any recollection of an older man observing a precocious child of 5 that arrested the attention of everyone with his speech and his actions, I got told many times of that, it was impossible not to have it encoded in memory.

Around that same time, my father had promised him £10 if he passed the school examinations he had until then failed, a debt still left unpaid, a family canard or more besides, I was not a witness of that shaking of hands.

We had more engaging encounters after he returned from his studies in the UK and through his wife, my aunt, as my first job was also at the same place of work. Many family backstories followed.

He became my guardian in January 1986 by invitation of my aunt and it was from then that he became a purposeful and consequential influence on my life. Much of what I have become is a result of the example he was.

More significantly, he built up my confidence to be assertive, to think with clarity and work at being less encumbered by the emotional or the irrational, it is difficult to quantify or qualify how impactful that was in character building whilst allowing me the courage of my convictions and beliefs.

That relationship-building and cultivating work never stopped and this piece would never capture the essence of who he was to me. Christopher Ademola Soyinka, CASH! To all who knew him passed on in June 2022.

Blog - Uncle Cash!

D-Shash

When I walked into the calico white building at 203 Ikorodu Road, I was in my best shoes knocking on Information Technology company doors looking for work, I had finished my trek of Ikeja and was on my way to Lagos Island and Ikoyi when I caught a glimpse of IT Systems Ltd literally opposite the famous Baptist Academy. Even with that school, I have some old history.

I walked into IT Systems and asked for work, after a few questions and answers, I was offered a job to start the following Monday. Little did I know of what was happening upstairs apart from whispers about an unassuming larger-than-life lawyer with his team of researchers working on the Nigerian Supreme Court Cases and about to beat the renowned Gani Fawehinmi at the game of annotating, cataloguing, and expositing the cases of the supreme court from 1963.

My first encounter with Deji, D-Shash to everyone was when they asked for some help with their computers, I went upstairs, fixed the issue in minutes and for that, Deji dipped his hand in his pocket and offered me NGN 50; that was a quarter of my monthly salary, but I politely declined it, what I did to resolve the problem was just too trivial to charge for, I had sown a seed of some recognition in his mind.

Meanwhile, a classmate who was staying with me out of the generosity of my Uncle Cash because he had another job with an IT firm in Lagos shared some discs with me containing the desktop publishing application, Xerox Ventura Desktop Publisher which in my spare time, I learnt to use quite proficiently and that opened many doors. Another long story.

I fixed a number of problems happily for Deji upstairs and still refused any payment or gifts until I left IT Systems to go contracting. A month into my stint, word got to me that Deji wanted a meeting with me. He had a sporadic business relationship with an African American desktop publishing consultant¹ where he needed additional commitments, and so he wanted me not as an employee, but as a consultant to support their desktop publishing projects and also train the staff on the basics. (¹I have since learnt Rhonda Dabiri, passed on in April 2020)

The deal he offered was borne of a level of respectful courtesy rare in people of means and power, before I had thought of it, he said, whenever you are ready to leave for England, your ticket is paid for, apart from that, I will give you a monthly stipend, and you can come and go as you wish because I know you have many engagements. How that boosted my professional confidence was beyond belief, I was in a high-profile role with considerable visibility to clients seeking desktop publishing expertise.

It opened many doors including my first return to the UK as a business representative and technical directory of a fledgling desktop publishing company veering away from traditional printing methods. Deji Sasegbon SAN, was a towering influence that helped set the course of majorly contracting career with the seed of negotiating terms that best suited my kind of personality. He passed on in December 2016.

Blog - Adieu D-Shash! (Deji Sasegbon)

John

He had placed a job advertisement in the Pink Paper that I had no qualifications for, but I was seeking to break out of the public sector into the private sector without much success.

I sent my CV to John without expecting a response, but I did get a call, and the first thing he said was he liked my CV, but it was not saying enough about my knowledge and experience. He then offered to spend time with me on my CV to fix it and make it more marketable.

I visited his office and the next 4 hours that evening were spent shaping up my CV, the result of which was a job in the private sector in less than 2 months.

For an older man in the technology field, John had constantly reinvented himself, and engaged lots of young talent, giving them not just opportunities but opening them up to challenges that stood in good stead for the development of their careers. He even offered an engaging internship to one of my friends who need essential tutelage to prepare him for the UK IT market.

Then John was more than an encouraging voice of support, where I had doubts about my abilities or capabilities, John would say, “Akin, I know you can do it.” That was the impetus to believe in me.

Beyond that, John was generous with his time, a mentor with great insight, a supporter with a stern teacher’s background, yet empathetic to the core. His work on my CV is foundational to the way my CV looks today, and that skill has been transferred to me to help others realise value and recognition out of their CVs.

John Alexander Coll passed on 9 years ago today in December 2013.

Blog - John Coll: Friend, Mentor, Gentleman

Thought Picnic: That warmth has caught a chill

A sealed witness to see

My closest friends have identified a character flaw that reflects my disposition to reclusiveness and clamming up when things are not the way they should be.

I cannot recall the number of times I have heard in the last couple of weeks, “It is me, Akin/love, you do not have to shy with me.” I do not know if I can call myself a veteran of adversity, but I have my own share of stories that I hope I would find the words in reflection looking back to talk about life and its experiences, the way my hopes and fears play in the daily toil to get to a better place.

It is probably a conditioning that regardless of how difficult and dire the situation is, you put a good face on it, and make the best appearance of things as you prevent the stress, the turmoil, and the uncertainties from eating you up from the inside out.

I feel the changes

Yet, I could sense in my voice as I was speaking to my best friend that it had lost a timbre of confidence and self-assurance, my usually trusty guard was down and he made inroads into the recesses of my psyche that is rarely available and out of that came respite and support, I sorely needed but never deigned to ask for.

On an intimate level with my partner, I am even more an obscurity, that he deploys his sixth sense to read my visage and my usage of words to elicit information out of me. At other times, he follows his gut feeling and acts with such prescience almost like a seer. I do not give him enough credit for how much he understands me.

Another thing I felt yesterday was when I went into our local office for some documents to be endorsed and notarised, in explaining how I was effectively on a ‘zero-hours contract’ situation to the senior manager who asked, I distinctly realised there was no colour in my face, I had a blank and pall expression that I did not need a mirror to observe, my humour was deserting me.

Blog - Hypothetically, a zero-hours contract, it is

If only I could talk better

You do not become an expert in suffering, rather, you find ways to cope and work through it. For all that you have to accommodate, you cannot afford for circumstances to steal your sleep whilst you seek the words or music of comfort that tells you that though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death at this time, you are on your way to new green pasture and still waters as the Psalmist says in Psalm 23.

One thing I still am not that good at is asking for help when I do need that help.

In the posterity of posteriors

All in the wiggle

When I think of the old lady who swallowed a fly and then embarked on a Matryoshka doll version of an incessant consumption of one inedible predator after another to go after each consumed prey, one rarely thinks of what each one did inside her, considering they were all eaten alive.

At least, that's the impression you get when you read the part that says, that jiggled, and wriggled, and wiggled, inside her, and there are many versions of what the spider did, including tiggled which all might allude to the exclusive choreography of arachnids. [Words for Life: There was an old lady]

Quite much of a wiggle

However, nothing prepared me for the sight I beheld of a lady as she walked in front of me, in tights that seemed to accentuate every facet of her backside probably in the quest for a mate so disposed to that kind of spectacle.

For it did jiggle, and wiggle, and wriggle before me, I almost died from the assault that to avert my gaze that is not affected by the propinquity of the feminine gluteus maximus, I sped up past her and heaved a sigh of relief.

Posterity has a giggle

Finally, as if we have not been so seriously sinned against by those determined to lead any or all into temptation in contravention of the Lord's prayer; at the main supermarket, emblazoned in cheap faux crystals too prominent to unsee, she had Juicy written on her derriere, well, the trousers.

If any were an old lady, I do wonder what would have become of them. In terms of those forgettably forgettable sights, posterity puts a posterior on it.

Essential Snobbery 101: Sir Hans Sloane disturbed

What we truly endured

Bluebird took me down memory lane, for what I remember is it was the model of one of the official cars granted to my father in his accountancy prime of the 1980s in the Nissan range, though now, I realise it was a broader model dating from 1995, the one in our fleet of vehicles being the U11 series. This was the thought on my mind as we sought the entrance to the King’s Road restaurant in Chelsea for brunch.

The pictures of food we saw on Google Maps after we realised the Chelsea Farmer’s Market had been gentrified to the standard of unrecognisable and inaccessible, this became our fallback. The young lady, nails all done in a shade of pink that would appear as just pink to men, looked like she had taken on a part-time role as a waiter, untrained, nervous, and unsure, like she was just earning a crust she did not need to be able to go out to party with her girlfriends.

All the appearances of sophistication and shabby chic were soon dispelled, the service was unsupervised and unprofessional, the food pitiable in presentation, I had to scrape the dollops of hollandaise sauce off the eggs royale and still had enough to paint the walls, if I was so inclined. We sat through it with regret and left in haste, for one should resist posting a review on TripAdvisor, for a couple of stars would be overly generous to the lasting impression. Like a Jehovah’s Witness proselytiser, I did half shake the dust off my feet as I left.

Everything off in this place

Then, for the first time ever, I set foot in Harrods and nothing, absolutely nothing, endeared me to the place, and it is why I had never been there before when Fortnum & Mason had proved its standing.

Stopping over at a Harvey Nichols café for a cream tea, two ladies refused to be seated beside us. I won’t want them for company either, as they looked like Madeline Ashton and Helen Sharp, the two protagonists of Death Becomes Her, so artificially enhanced to occlude any semblance of natural beauty that once blessed their visages. Perchance there was a child in that restaurant, it would have squealed in terror at sighting them.

In a fashion for the history

Another patron was so grandly attired in exorbitant designer label apparel that altogether failed the basics of coordination, and it did nothing to enhance her; she was more a clothes ass than a clothes horse. All that money and no fashion sense. Yet, I am informed that having the same designer label in 3 textures and 4 layers of clothes is termed Ghetto Fabulous; what do I know about fashion?

This area of Chelsea and Knightsbridge with its pomposity of class, old and new money, and antiquated aristocracy long past aspiration or adulation, that radiates from Sloane Square was named for Sir Hans Sloane, an Irish physicist from the 18^th Century, who was buried at the Chelsea Old Church and out of whose bequest formed the foundations of the British Museum, the British Library, and the Natural History Museum in London. The unsavoury aspects of his provenance and activities are not accounted for in this piece.

Please, be at ease with me

Fear not what you see

Do I ever rebuke,
Even as though a duke,
Or my words abrade,
And inflict like in a raid,
Seek I constant apology,
To be beheld like an effigy,
My lips spew criticism,
With all its cynicism,
Has one given no praise,
Just not to follow a craze,
Too difficult to impress,
Leaving some in distress,
Seen as quite impossible,
That I am unapproachable,
Many are my faults,
As deemed the assault,
A god I seek not to be,
Fear not what you see.

The sin against urinals

Nature is a persistent caller

The fundamentals of nature and quite possibly the accumulation of years registered as age imposes on the person the need to answer the call of nature at inopportune moments far from the comfort of a home commode.

You get to a public urinal that is describing itself with odours most foul but have to abide it and as you release yourself with the effortless ease of bladder affirming aplomb and notice the debris of discarded chewing gum in the urinal receptacle.

Dissolution of gum

Now, there might be a lot of applications of urine that I would not care to list here for the sake of polite discourse, but I have not found any study that suggests urine can dissolve and decompose chewing gum.

Which leads me to ask the question why anyone with a remotely functioning cranial capacity would think the urinal is the best place to spit out their chewing gum? We all know that chewing gum is probably one of the most annoyingly difficult substances to dispose of.

Nascent gum archaeology

It is spat out to the ground, on pavements where they can stick on the soles of your shoes, on the under seats of benches or the public armrests where you can only wonder after that mangling with the saliva of strangers, it becomes a vector for the unimaginably unspeakable and disgusting germs.

Yet, it happens so much that I wonder if DNA markers should not be harvested from chewing gum discarded in public places other than bins for analysis towards seeking out the antisocial culprits for prosecution.

Just a thought, and I think it might be a good one too.  

Coronavirus streets in Manchester - XLII

Seeing my neighbour

Sitting in my swivel chair chatting to my lover, I look out of my window to see him who sits by the window on the second floor of the building across the quiet road from me and I wonder what he sees in this world from that perspective.

He might also see me as I look up though I have never waved to him in any sort of acknowledgement, then the main road that I will not have a view of except if I change my position might present a variety of vehicular traffic; cars, lorries, bicycles, and dreaded e-scooter of all colours, driven by genders only descriptive if he can see that well, along with the speed of travel regulated by changing traffic lights at the junction beyond our view.

What are their stories?

Lest I forget, his wife and I think that is her role if my eyesight serves me well, sometimes takes that seat too. I would think the vantage view is sitting by the window on the left from my viewpoint as there can’t be much to see seating on right and looking out to their left.

Maybe, just maybe they need company as they sit in limbo without friends or family, but the lifelong companionship of each other reminiscing of a life that only exists in memories fading away, a youth spent that could be stories to listen to, if we just knew each other. These notes I scribbled down on my notepad as my lover watched wondering what I was up to and this is it. Another situation in Manchester in these pandemic times.

Skipping on lava

Only what I saw

Visited with the inscrutable in language so easily misunderstood, the project takes a chimeral form too nondescript to give shape to coherent thought that you are lost in a labyrinth of dark tunnels with eerie sounds masking the booming roar of a menacing minotaur.

My sobriety defeats me as I approach the caldera of a volcano ready to enter the mouth of the dragon that prances on the fires of the belly of the earth, I am scalded by its breath and starved of oxygen almost ready to swoon into the ethereal nothingness of the end.

In the abandon that ensues, not reckless in the least, we are become Pompeii and in looking back at the conflagration that has begun to surround us, we become the only friend of Lot’s salty wife.

We are poor observers of extreme fashion

In retrospect

I cannot count the number of times that Brian and I have looked back suddenly, our faces dripping with shock at the things we have just seen. Obviously, we risked being labelled sententious discussing this subject, but as I opined to him yesterday, here we are not attracted to ladies and forced to take a second look.

Maybe it is a case of not having a mirror to look at before stepping out of the home, courageous and daring it might be, careless and carefree in other cases, we cannot tell. We cannot and should not judge anyone by their dresses, but we cannot ignore those who have worn clothes too short that every few steps they are struggling to pull them down to cover their modesty, something so completely avoidable if they had done a second take at home.

Skirting the issue

Yesterday, in what was generally a beautiful dress, it did not have enough fabric on the upper body that her assets were spilling out, I guess it had become too much for her to care anymore, she just let it go and flow. We were not ogling but definitely were almost scandalised, it is each to their own.

As we walked through the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront after shopping, we were afflicted and I use that word generously, by the glowing underside of gluteus maximus, the buttocks. She was wearing pants so hot they would not have been suitable for a bikini and here we were nowhere near the seaside and by the shoes she was wearing, she was not coming from there either.

In perspective

It reminded me of the dictum I share about blogging, to have the sense of a seamstress making a good skirt; it should be long enough to cover the detail and short enough to keep the interest, that is the aesthetic after which the rules unwritten and unspoken as they may be have been broken.

Yet, I veer into the dangerous territory of regulating apparel where no one can win, probably what I need is never to be offended regardless of what I see and just because of that one should not lose the freedom to comment without condemning.

Decency is a construct of personal tastes in the purview of public observation, from one perspective there is a likelihood the ladies to have paid much attention to this matter, on another, maybe they did my exertions here are just agitations over causes that have chosen their own representative path. Good for them.