Thought Picnic: Identity Formed by Timing

Returning After War

Way back in my late teens, I had a friend, or someone I thought was a friend. We were agemates, and something interesting and significant caught my attention. It seemed that those who returned from the UK at the end of the Nigerian Civil War integrated better, taking up the growing opportunities in a recovering country, than those who did so almost a decade later.

Between those who returned well under the age of ten and those in their early teens, there was a generational difference in adaptation, a sense of being caught adrift. Staying in the UK for longer proved less beneficial to their sense of belonging or identity; though they had better English accents, they were unsettled, and sometimes having a less prosperous time of it.

A Shared Beginning

For some context, the people I write about and I were all born in the UK in the 1960s. I returned to Nigeria well under the age of ten, having barely been exposed to inner city mechanics and situations; they returned in their teens, late in the 1970s. What separated us, then, was not origin but timing. We were cut from the same cloth, yet a few years of divergence would shape us differently.

My observations are, of course, anecdotal rather than academic. Even so, I think the age-of-return hypothesis is significant, and I have alluded to it in other blogs. It is the quiet variable running beneath everything I am about to describe.

An AI-generated infographic on the blog content. (Click to enlarge.)

What They Brought

What they brought into the fray was a sense of fun. They were the best chess players and had figured out how to solve the Rubik's cube, though they were not better Scrabble players. The Nigerian educational system was a challenge, amongst the other things that left them yearning to return to the UK, if only they had the opportunity.

They were a restless lot, and of the many, there were two who, on reflection, had been exposed to the race and deprivation politics and the discrimination of the 1970s into the 1980s. They carried the scars of inner-city influences, influences that would not have engendered the most positive sense of self and status, even in Nigeria.

They were suspicious before they were trusting, questioning more than listening, ready to respond with violence on a dare without first putting things in perspective. That people envied their exposure, without understanding how they were the personification of a social construct beyond their control, one that amounted to a material deficit, could make for an interesting study.

An Identity Formed at Home

Here is where the timing mattered most. My blackness was always simply part of me, and that was settled in Nigeria, quietly and without apology, long before it was ever questioned. I grew up where blackness needed no explanation and carried no burden; it was simply the ground I stood on. There was nothing to defend, because nothing had been challenged.

So, when I returned to the UK, and the racist abuse came, as it did, it met an identity that was already whole. The abuse did not shape how I saw myself; it had arrived too late for that. I could regard it as a reflection of the abuser rather than a depiction of myself, precisely because the depiction had been drawn elsewhere, at home, on my own terms.

The teenage returnees, I suspect, had that sequence reversed. Their sense of racial self was worked out amid the hostility, not before it, and so the hostility got inside, where mine never could.

A Sudden Slap

This friend of mine gave me a stinging slap after a dare, a playful situation that suddenly turned strange. It taught me a few things. I would not rise to a dare that I had no intention of acting on in the first place. I do not care if I am called a chicken; they are the hardiest and most abused of animals, and they probably possess the greatest survival instinct and resilience in the animal kingdom.

As a consequence, I have no fear of missing out. I am usually told that I do not know what I am missing, to which I would respond that I cannot miss what I do not know. A slap is a momentary event with no follow-on; the embarrassment quickly fades into irrelevance. My temperament is not conditioned for violence. I am comfortable letting things slide, because what defines me is character, not machismo. Class is always understated, never dramatic.

On Character and Circumstance

I think environments and societal settings can influence character as much as mould it, though to varying extents. I cannot speak to the sociological truth of that. Yet I am left wondering whether my own equanimity was truly character, or simply the good fortune of a gentler formative environment, a self settled before it was ever tested.

Perhaps that is the paradox worth sitting with. The returnees had the richer exposure by one measure, the metropolitan UK, the accents, the chess and the Rubik's cube, yet the more unsettled outcome by another. I had the lesser exposure, yet the steadier sense of who I was. Sometimes, it seems, less can be more.

A Gemini Notebook AI Podcast on this blog

Flags Don't Make Patriots

Two Cities Changing

As I stepped out for a walk traversing the cities of Manchester and Salford, I noticed many changes in places I had not visited in quite a while; I'm talking a couple of years.

However, what was more interesting were the Union Jack flags flying on lampposts in some performative display of what some might think is patriotism.

The Absence of Historical Understanding

Frankly, I am quite unimpressed because patriotism requires a keen understanding and sense of history that would suggest learning and study. I cannot ascertain that some of the agitators in this cause have acquired such knowledge.

For instance, I am an Englishman as I am British. My parents were born in Nigeria when it was part of the British Empire, and hence they were, into early adulthood, subjects of the Crown before Nigeria gained independence in 1960.

By the good fortune of providence, I was born in England, and at that time we automatically acquired citizenship by birth.

When Ignorance Meets Aggression

One man, because I looked different and had an accent, had the temerity to question my status in an aggressively racist rant on a train some years ago. Other fellow citizens called the police on him, and after spending the night in a cell, he was prosecuted, convicted, and paid fines totalling £750.

If he had had a basic appreciation of British history and the context of the brutality of the British Empire happening abroad, whilst the profits built stately homes here, he might have been restrained and saved himself the humiliating consequence of baseless assumptions. But that expectation is like casting pearls before swine.

True Patriotism Requires No Flag

I do not need a flag to be patriotic. I do my civic duty by voting, and if called for jury service, I will attend. I belong in a society of values: fairness, justice, respect, and the consideration of others, knowing no one is above the law.

I believe we should treat each other with dignity and courtesy, seeking to live harmoniously with others regardless of race, creed, class, gender, ability, orientation, or status.

Identity Beyond Symbols

In all those situations of understanding and celebrating our Britishness, it is not flags that matter, but our sense of identity expressed in our humanity towards having a common purpose to make our world a better place.

That is why I think hoisting flags is an empty gesture. It is not representative of any particular value; it is, in essence, patriotism misguided and probably informed by a position of ignorance.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

Withstand the narrative

What They Are Saying

The immigration debate, if there ever was a decent one where polite conversation with a frank exchange of ideas was possible, is becoming so coarse that it is difficult to appreciate whether the utterances have been seriously thought through, or whether this is a race to the bottom in a quest to gain the populist crown.

One Tory MP deemed to be a future party leader suggested at the weekend that legally settled families be deported to make the UK "culturally coherent". Apparently, those with a legal right to stay in the UK might have their status revoked to force them to "go home". [The Guardian: Tory MP criticised after demanding legally settled families be deported]

I am neither shocked nor alarmed; we have heard many variations of the same theme going back to the time of Enoch Powell, whom my father withstood in a Wolverhampton pub soon after his "Rivers of Blood" speech. [Wikipedia: Rivers of Blood speech]

What is evident is that people with influence and a prospective handle on power are putting their thoughts into words, for the record, that we can now read, quote, and choose not to forget. I hope we do not just wring our hands in disgust but work against this narrative as a seed that could become the rallying cry of the unwittingly led to endorse odious views inimical to social cohesion and progress.

What We Must Withstand

The perilous trajectory of these words aims to undermine and erode the foundations of fairness, justice, human rights, and the rule of law in society and the community. We must hold firm to the spirit, the letter, and the defence of the quote often attributed to many great men of the past: "What is morally wrong can never be politically right."

Condemning the viewpoint should just be the beginning, even if the person apologises for their choice of words that convey intent rather than action. The impetus is on us to challenge these narratives with data, facts, the truth, and better-argued points that engage our better nature, rather than appealing to our basest instincts.

We all have the capacity for intelligent conversation; we should resist the inclination of the malevolent to drag it to the gutter of humanity.

Essential Snobbery 101: Judicial ire for communal warmth

No sense of consequence

The motivations behind certain actions just escape me, whether it is for clicks on social media or personal thrills, a communal and societal pact seems to have been broken.

That awareness of action and consequence is lost in a reckless belief that there is no one to hold you accountable and no time for anyone to investigate the situation.

Two incidents have brought the law into the lives of some thrill-seekers with far-reaching implications.

Even with the advent of TikTok, which can produce useful content with a bit of imagination, malevolence for laughs and shockability appear to be more attractive. The lure of going viral is irresistible.

No concern at all

For example, two teenagers are facing the law at Stratford Magistrate Court because they threw a large seat off the top floor of a crowded shopping mall as an internet prank, which did go viral.

When confronted and questioned by the police, the boy who threw the seat said, "It's not that deep, it did not hit no-one.” [BBC News: Boy admits throwing seat off Westfield's top floor]

While there is a real chance that if the seat had hit someone, it could have caused serious injury or death, we might be getting ahead of ourselves. The key question is why the boys believed they could achieve anything by hurling a large seat off the top floor of a shopping centre, whether it was crowded or not.

What kind of pastime could have occupied their minds enough to dissuade them from such an act? We may never get the answer, but there is no reason why they should escape punishment for this egregious act, which showed a complete lack of understanding of the harm it could cause innocent people in a public space.

A chop for gaol

Additionally, as for escaping punishment, two men have just received four years and three months each for cutting down a tree.

Just a tree, but that tree—the Sycamore Gap tree—is a renowned sight, over a century old and near Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland. [The Guardian: Two men behind ‘senseless’ felling of Sycamore Gap tree jailed for more than four years]

Their quest for notoriety, recorded on a mobile phone as one used a chainsaw to fell the tree in minutes, shows they travelled 40 minutes at night, then walked through a storm for another 20 minutes from a car park to conduct this pointless act.

What kind of thrill could they have been seeking in their apparently restless lives that this tree became their target for reckless vandalism? Though in court, before turning against each other, they acknowledged that what they had done was being covered in the news.

The importance of community

Despite any mitigation that might temper justice with mercy, many seem unable to foresee the consequences of impulsive actions, showing a lack of deep thought about our deeds.

Furthermore, there is little consideration of how our actions might impact, offend, upset, or harm others. This reflects a selfish society.

If only there were a sense of community in these individuals’ minds, perhaps they would have realised their actions were wrong and chosen to find another way to contribute positively rather than to harm.

The point is recognising others, like not littering, keeping noise down in residential areas at night, wearing headphones on public transport, or avoiding reckless stunts on the main road—are fundamental signs of respect.

Surely, there is an unwritten code of conduct, learned at home and reinforced at school, based on the simple principle of treating others as you wish to be treated.

Maybe it is asking too much of that African proverb, “A child not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.” What price some pay for that need for warmth, which can often lead to the unnecessary heat of judicial retribution.

Of bigger balls of discomfort

We, the vulnerable

Each visit to the hospital presents an opportunity to observe humanity at its most vulnerable and, at times, a few at their most irascible. It also showcases the society in which we live.

Illness does not selectively affect individuals based on class, race, status, or identity. There may be susceptibilities indicated by certain groups, but these are often ill-defined.

We all visit the hospital because something beyond our control has afflicted us, and we require assistance against whatever the onslaught may be.

Do the shower inspection

In the spirit of Men’s things, while I was in the shower on Saturday, I noticed my left testicle was swollen. Signs of this, the day before, led to the feeling that my underwear was a size too small. However, I ignored that indication throughout Friday until a shower inspection raised cause for concern.

We should all be doing a shower inspection and checking ourselves, examining our intimate parts for anything unusual. Men should check their testicles for swelling, hardness, lumps, redness, or heat, just as women should examine their breasts likewise.

As breast cancer can affect both men and women, we must also be mindful of assessing those parts too.

English as standard

While I acknowledge that during my time in the Netherlands, I never became as Dutch as might have been necessary, English was generally the language of transaction in business and all matters aside from government and politics.

In Dutch hospitals, the professionals, typically multilingual, would switch effortlessly to the preferred language of the patient.

I remember a 91-year-old Englishman in my ward nearly 16 years ago who had lived in the Netherlands for 50 years, and despite his fluency in Dutch, you could still hear that polished English accent from a bygone era.

How do they cope?

However, I was taken aback by the number of ethnic minority couples who visited the Accident and Emergency Department on Tuesday morning, who could barely communicate in Pidgin or broken English. Each relies on their spouses to register and relay their issues to the nurses and, eventually, doctors.

I was left pondering how they navigated society and how isolated some might feel. Whether any would receive a proper or complete diagnosis without the ability to speak for themselves is a concern. Imagine those with a rather stifling conservative background having to speak to strangers about intimate matters affecting their partners. Are the words for those issues the same ones we can comprehend?

Much as many of these couples were parents with children who had been schooled in English, exhibiting local and foreign accents confidently and expressively. No one under the age of 16 could act as a chaperone, due to safeguarding regulations. Invariably, it is probably for the best that children are not answering for their parents regarding their sex lives and similar subjects.

Bide your time

From triage through registration, basic checks, blood tests, and consultations that led to an ultrasound scan and ultimately a diagnosis. Everything pointed to inflammation, for which I was prescribed antibiotics.

At A&E departments in UK hospitals, arriving is the easiest part, even if you were blue lighted into resuscitation. Alright, perhaps that’s an exaggeration. One can expect to be there for a conservative estimate of six hours.

Take a book, a bottle of water, a phone charger, or better still, a power bank; let your patience be tested but do not suffer for the privilege of free healthcare at the point of access, regardless of status.

Essential Snobbery 101: Never consider wagging your tail in court

Wagging for position

When the term WAGs (wives and girlfriends) of high-profile England football team players was coined and moved into popular usage to extend to the female partners of high-profile sportsmen, I do not think it had any encomium quality apart from being dismissive and probably derisive, but it had some currency in the gossip columns, if that was your fare and where you got your news, in the tabloids.

To the snooty, a WAG’s profile depended on the fortunes of her spouse, though many are typically good mothers, generally independent women, good at keeping their men grounded and focused; some even have careers that predate any association with their men of celebrity, they make news and money on their own account, and they should be commended, as exemplary people.

Wagging societal status

However, recently, the high court has witnessed the libel trial that has taken Wagatha Christie into folklore, Coleen Rooney the wife of Wayne Rooney, one-time the captain of the England team and a with a very successful playing career that has moved into less laudable coaching, suspected someone was selling personal information to the papers from her Instagram account, so, she laid a trap of posting false stories exposed to certain individuals to see which one would end up in the tabloids. She revealed that Rebekah Vardy, the wife of Jamie Vardy, a prolific goal-scorer and England team player, was the one.

It takes no guessing that the detective work by Coleen Rooney was given the moniker of one of the most famous murder mystery writers of the 20^th century, Agatha Christie, WAG conveniently attaches to it as tabloid journalism is wont to ululate and grab our attention. For publicly pointing the finger at her, Rebekah Vardy has taken Coleen Rooney to court, and we had a feast of revelations, even as this case should never have gone to court if wiser heads had prevailed.

These ladies, awash with money and influence, though it would be profligate of one to add class, have presented an interesting characterisation of being not only upwardly mobile but that people with a typically working-class upbringing can visit the courts on matters of reputational damage that used to be the preserve of the gentrified signifies how much English society has changed.

Wagging a sausage

Obviously, there are swipes, muggings, drive-by shootings, and collateral damage, like gangland warfare, not literally, but herein is the corrosiveness of gossip; there is someone not involved that gets hurt in more ways than necessary. As we learnt with no substantiation to the veracity of the claim that Rebekah Vardy had alleged to someone that Peter Andre, a one-time chart-topping musician who is the star of musicals and reality television shows, wields a manhood that could be described as a chipolata.

A chipolata is a kind of sausage, and we can leave the rest to the imagination. Peter Andre would appear to be a man hard, wrong choice of word, anyway, the allegation would suggest Rebekah Vardy has met Peter Andre in a state of the Emperor’s New Clothes to have examined the goods and come away unimpressed.

A situation, the hard, wrong choice of word again, the apparently wronged man cannot seem to recall, and since this revelation was made in court and published for public amusement, he is considering going to court to restore his reputation to ensure than endowed is qualified and never alluded to on matters of his appendage. [The Independent: Peter Andre ‘considering legal action’ over Rebekah Vardy’s chipolata jibe about his manhood]

Don’t wag this tail

In my view, this would be totally ill-advised, nothing good comes out of it, it is one thing for someone to describe your private parts to court, it is totally another for the courts to be persuaded to examine your goods for the purposes of the verification according to the description given for length, girth, colour, distinctive characteristics and whatnot, it is not an identity card.

Besides, this apparent chipolata functions majestically; it does not shoot blanks. He has 4 beautiful children who probably would not want this part of their father’s natural endowments exposed to the spectacle of an unseemly legal charade. The associated members of Michael Jackson, Rolf Harris, and Max Clifford came up in their sexual abuse trials, for which the latter two went to jail, and no matter how you imagined it, what came to light was not pretty.

Much as any man, except if in the sex industry with something to talk about, would not want to have his entities on display or as a subject of public commentary, I am unsure that court action would quieten the sniggers, snide comments, or jibes. It is the kind of thing you should allow to die, suffocated by public spectacle, except if Rebekah Vardy decides she has no heart for another court battle and totally recants the allegation, possibly with the added statement that she has never met Peter Andre to be that acquainted with him.

I have no interest in knowing what Peter Andre measures, which might go for a lot of us. Personally, I would have sought a means to view a slight in jest and move on with my life, for if I had means, opportunity, and clout, it would not be expended into proving, curvature, cut, or colour. I am not as invested in my phallic appendage as to put it on show. Peter Andre might be hard done by, but he is not hard-pressed to prove anything – let it go.

How I battled HIV stigma

In our silence of old

I saw the stigma that came with contracting HIV and met many people some of whom were my friends deserted by family and fair-weather friends to die in isolated or lonely hospices, taking that last gasp until they could hold on no more.

For many, they already faced the prejudice and discrimination for their sexuality, just as laws were being enacted for equal opportunities that stated the letter and for which there was no spirit to adhere to them. I had friends who were kicked out of their homes, sacked from jobs, banished from close-knit societies, and excommunicated from religious communities, disinherited, and shunned as if they were dead to the living. It was tough.

Then in the homosexual community, there is another kind of ostracism, the divide between those who were living like there was no tomorrow and those for whom tomorrow gave no assurance that they would still be living. Visceral hatred and abandonment in our already traumatised community, it was rotten.

My tests and my counsel

I took many HIV tests for years but gave instructions that I did not want to know the results. My results probably went into a study and since the test was at the insistence of the health and social workers, it was like I had no skin in the game, my curiosity did not lean towards knowing as if I found a world of bliss out of my ignorance.

When I did eventually go all in to find out about my status, I already suspected I had contracted HIV, but could not tell for how long. I should have curated the people to tell and not many knew, besides my pastor and a few close friends. One unguarded slip to an acquaintance I once had to kick out of my home some years before, brought vituperation, nastiness, and abuse. I ignored him even if I pretended not to be affected by his onslaught.

Battles with ignorance and denial

I had to face the stigma in myself first before I could tackle it from the outside. I am entirely responsible for my condition regardless of the backstory that might have made me susceptible to the misuse and abuse of sex. Are you so loose? That was the question from the matriarch, 19 years after the fact.

Blog - Thought Picnic: We Never Knew What a Healthy Sexual Relationship Was Because ...

It was one thing to know what condition you had, but that is quite different from understanding how it might have a consequential impact on everything that pertains to you; you can conflate denial with false invincibility and by the time you know it, you are knocking in death’s door.

HIV coursed through my body for 7 years from when I got the test results until opportunistic infections came in what looked like a wave of infirmity starting with shingles, but I was quite so immunosuppressed, what looked like athlete’s foot towards the end of spring was Kaposi sarcoma, and AIDS-defining symptom that was also cancer.

Deflecting out of embarrassment

Cancer was easier to use as a cover for everything else. I knew, my doctors knew I had full-blown AIDS, anyone else was informed I had cancer and as the treatment for Kaposi sarcoma included chemotherapy, it was just as cancer and cancer should be, there was no need to talk about HIV or AIDS. I had to grow into becoming comfortable writing, discussing, or sharing about it.

I guess it got to a point where I understood that HIV could be treated as a chronic condition quite manageable with the right therapies. Those of us living with HIV coalesced and began to give our voice to be active and contributing members of our broader community banishing the old pictures of young men dying to memorials that we still revere. Those gone before are all part of the body of knowledge and truth that has given us better outcomes.

We began to address HIV stigma

The concept of ‘Clean’ became a byword for not being HIV+, liaisons would ask if you were clean and by extension suggesting you were dirty if you were HIV+. Yet, people who know they are HIV+ probably test more frequently, are under medical supervision, and when on ARVs would most likely have an undetectable viral load. The frequency of testing also means they detect sexually transmitted infections earlier before the situation becomes chronic and get effective treatments and cures.

Blog - Dealing with sexuality and HIV stigma

Whenever anyone asks whether I am clean, I say, “Clean is when you have had a shower.” It should not refer even remotely to sexual health.

When medical science determined having an undetectable HIV viral load meant there was minimal risk of transmitting the virus, we saw the advent of the U=U (Undetectable Equals Untransmittable)

Blog - Normalising HIV Challenge against stigma

What I could have lost

My journey from talking about cancer alone to talking openly about being HIV+ with an undetectable viral load was one of development and growing self-confidence along with the desire to live my own life boldly without fear, shame, or embarrassment.

The deeper story of how my cancer was as a result of full-blown AIDS belies the fact that I had foolishly not addressed the issue early enough, hoping that some miracle and sudden change of fortunes would take everything away. I was in presumptuous denial of an existential threat to my life.

Blog - When I had the murderous cancer of denial

A miracle cure would not have served me well, and though I would have had a testimony of the power of God, I would have been excused from the human experience of knowing adversity and coming through it with my own story of life and gratitude.

This is who I am

Not that I wish adversity on anyone as a form of teaching lessons in life, but when one is met by misfortune and the acceptance of the reality of things we can control and the other things completely outside our control, we can face what is ahead of us and if good fortune brings us out to the restoration of wellness, verve, and vigour, we might find new meaning to the story of life.

I am HIV Positive, it did lead to full-blown AIDS, I had competent medical intervention that rolled back the grip of death, sent my HIV viral load to undetectable, gave me healthy prospects in life and the opportunity to find a new purpose in the joy of living. I will not be ashamed of those facts and the stigma of a projection of those whose ignorance I can help no further by allowing them to define me.

I saw this on a dating profile, years ago, “In a perfect world, the positive would be open and the negative would be open-minded.”

The Stigma Project

Start a bonfire to change the cake

The ache of a cake

It feels strange, the kind of humour that comes to mind in these times. Greater Manchester of which Mancunium is the centre was moved into Boris Johnson’s Tier 3 level of coronavirus restrictions. It does not change much of what I do, my walks, my apparent self-isolation, my shopping, my churchgoing are all intact.

Thinking of tiers, it might just be a cake of tiers but what will the third tier of cake taste like? I would have no idea, a phantom cake has no context of form or taste, it is a figment of my imagination or a coping mechanism for forces somewhat beyond one’s control.

The national cake is being cut into regional conflicts between the central government and the local leaders, most of the regions not getting enough of cake to keep them fed. But we have Prime Minister whose hands on the till is a wasteful squandering the cake, because he thinks he can both have and eat his cake. A profligate, prodigal, reprobate, he is.

[Quote Brexit: Boris: “Our policy is having our cake and eating it.”]

No change in our pockets

The other night, a man and his dog was accosting anyone who will listen and I was eventually engaged, he had a pocket full of coins that he wanted to exchange for paper money or plastic money as some of our denominations are now. It appears, no one carries money around anymore which is a radical change to our society.

We have inadvertently become a cashless society, I have not taken money out of an automatic teller machine for months, everything is done by contactless payments by mobile phone or bank card. It means you do not have change for anything, especially those in receipt of alms. It got to a point the man walked off into a side alley on the way out of town cursing and raging, having not changed his money and somewhat thinking the world was against him.

A bonfire of useless parliamentarians

We are all up against a lot and it is easy not to see how things have affected others in the midst of things that impact us directly. A number of cultural and traditional events would suffer for this. Halloween coming up at the end of the month will entertain no trick or treat, it would be unsafe to take sweets or treats from strangers.

The 5^th of November is Guy Fawkes Night, though you wonder if with the crop of representatives with have in our current parliament, we would not be best served with a bonfire of their vanities. Imagine voting against free school meals and defending the position as if the Tories are the victims rather than the children, some of whom will go to bed hungry. [BBC News: School meals: Marcus Rashford 'proud' of community response]

Locally, it will be no penny for the Guy, an effigy of Guy Fawkes created by kids for which they can ask for donations. For all that we do to maintain a sense of stability, the subtle changes going on around us cannot be ignored. We keep at what we can and hope for the best.

I am who I am and happily so

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Untold Facts S4 E5 - Hate Crimes, Impunity and Humanizing Queer Nigerians

I have written this blog in the context of the plight of LGBTQ+ persons of Nigeria as depicted in the YouTube video above.

Not ashamed of me

On the matter of my sexuality, it has not been one I have worn as the representation of who I am, it is a part of my personality and humanity that I have come to understand I do not have to be ashamed of.

Indeed, when viewed in context of some cultural and social influences in my life, it is different and can be termed alternative, but that is for others to presume. My realisation of this state of being goes back to just around the age of 7, I did not understand it, it was just there.

Into my teens, I began to realise there were others that appeared to exhibit the same feelings, though for many for which it was a phase that they appeared to grow out of once they gained the courage to approach the opposite sex. I never had that attraction.

The process to acceptance

Over years, through guilt, self-loathing, and revulsion, I wondered about the way I was, yet, I could not in the search for some solution pretend to heterosexuality by involving someone innocent in my somewhat complicated situation. I had decided, I would rather be single without issue as that was a better recourse than any other.

By my mid-twenties, I had come to accept who I was because there was an environment in which I felt comfortable. Though, when I was about to leave Nigeria, I was being blackmailed, however, I dared the blackmailer to go ahead and expose us with the explanation of how he and I got into the realisation that our desires might be aligned.

In any case, once I had accepted who I was, questions posed to me either had a direct answer or something along the lines of warning the enquirer that they should be ready for the answers to the questions they were asking.

My burden, my expression

Meanwhile, pressure was mounting from other parties to conform, to settle down as they know and become responsible. I was settled in acknowledging who I was and responsible for the choices I made. The point at which my desire was to fulfil a path I chose rather than the requirements of others, I began to find my own happiness whether or not others were happy with me.

From that point, I found fulfilment in same-sex relationships, one that lasted almost 7 years. At work, I was not in the closet as much as I did not set out to make my sexuality a prominent part of my identity, it is the same resolution I took regarding my race, to not be offended by abuse but see it as an opportunity to educate.

I guess there are other aspects of my personality and humanity that endeared me to people and managers who became my allies. My sexuality was never a negative issue, but one to which there was interest and engagement to understand this person. I was probably the first homosexual some got to know beyond the stereotypes.

Closets are claustrophobic

In deciding not to live in the closet, I had ample opportunity to thrive at work and at play, some relationships endured, some transformed into friendships, there were many bereavements, all became my own story of life with its blessings and experiences.

I realise and recognise that back in Nigeria, many suffer for their sexuality, I am no activist, nor do I intend to proselytise, but for a man in his 50s, I want people who have a life like mine that it could get better, there is scope for fulfilment and expression of sexuality in the fulness that allows a person be the best they can be.

I found love again, a year ago, it has brought me amazing happiness, we cherish each moment we have together in this long-distance relationship. We look to eventually ask one to another their hand in marriage and live our lives together somewhere where we can happily exist.

For societies to flourish

Like for instance, we meet in South Africa where the laws protect LGBTQ+ people at work and at play. We can even hold hands or kiss on the streets without the threat of violence. It is not what we want to impose on anyone, it is just a case of living and letting live.

Broadly, in Western Europe, our rights are well protected, few are fearful of being outed as the potency of blackmail has diminished over the last few decades. By that alone, we begin to flourish.

I have watched gay rights activism change laws and bring same-sex marriage to societies that would not have countenanced it only a decade ago. AIDS activism not only helped gay men who were strafed by the epidemic in the late 1980s into the 1990s, it has brought benefits to heterosexual cohorts that were more affected in the global South.

No apology in the quest for justice

Rights denied one section of society eventually creeps to deny the rights of the next vulnerable group, the march of rights must proceed progressively to embrace our diverse humanity. Sententiousness would never help a society heal itself, nor will moralisation to the exclusion of minorities.

Yet, whether societies rise to the acceptance of the other and different or not, diversity would always exist and the persecuted will find their corners to thrive until the right course of justice and history gives them the freedom to be who they are without fear of reprisal or discrimination.

I am who I am, the labels matter not much for the better human I seek to be. I make no apology for finding my own happiness and living the good conscience of the choices that give me satisfaction and confidence in my beliefs. I appreciate might be of different persuasions, that is what human diversity is all about, difference, uniqueness and originality creating people who make the world a better place.

Opinion: When William Haines decided against a sham marriage

A lavender marriage sought

A few days ago, I read of someone in a quandary of sorts. A young successful Nigerian man in his 30s under pressure to conform to tradition and in the parlance of his community become responsible, that is, get married.

This man knows in his heart, in his mind and in his body that he is not in any way predisposed to conventional marriage as he has no attraction to the opposite sex. Fully aware of this, he has no plans to escape the strictures of the society in which he exists, so he has a cunning plan.

He is looking for a lady who identifies as lesbian under the same pressure to get married with whom to contract a lavender marriage that would to satisfy the yearnings of community and involve having a child but with the broader freedom for each of them to live life on the down-low in an open relationship where either party is at liberty to fulfil their other desires.

This is not the solution

He is definitely not up for outing himself, he has already thought this matter through as a marriage of mutual convenience in which no one would get hurt.

I beg to differ, for I only wonder for how long this façade of a sham lavender marriage can go on for with its secrecy and scheming, before some unanticipated event breaks this neatly cobbled together alliance apart scandalising everyone involved, the child. the parents, their community and beyond. This man with his plan is building himself up to some crescendo for blackmail for which he would probably do very stupid things than damn the consequences.

Don’t complicate the complicated

If your life is complicated, it cannot be simplified by complicating another life with self-conceit, a complication doubled presages an unravelling that no one would be able to control when the duplicity finds the light of day.

Now, I know that the situation in Nigeria has led many people to contract lavender marriages, it might work, but I realised long ago that I would rather bear the burden of my sexuality alone than for the purposes of conformity and satisfying the desires of anyone else mess up the life of someone else to hide my true self.

A touch on Winfield House

This brings me to an interesting piece of history that shadows life. President Donald J. Trump is in the UK for a state visit and such heads of state would typically stay at the Buckingham Palace with the Queen. We have the convenient situation that the palace is undergoing extensive renovations and so he is staying at Winfield House, the residence of the US Ambassador to the United Kingdom, since 1955.

In the story of Winfield House which is situated in 12 acres of grounds making it the residence with the second largest private garden in London after the Buckingham Palace, it was built by the 7-times married American heiress Barbara Hutton in 1936 to whom Cary Grant was the 3^rd husband. The house was sold to the US Government for $1 just after the war.

William Haines, a man apart

Whilst the house has undergone extensive renovations and alterations it is notable that in 1969, William Haines was engaged for this activity.

What makes William Haines remarkable is that he was one of the most successful film stars into The 1930s contracted to MGM Studios. At the height of his success, the head of the studio gave him the ultimatum to choose between his career that would have involved contracting a lavender marriage to hide his homosexuality, which was popular in those times, or James Shields, his ultimately lifelong partner.

He chose his partner and ended his film career, a decision to which he referred later in life with these words, “It's a rather pleasant feeling of being away from pictures and being part of them because all my friends are. I can see the nice side of them without seeing the ugly side of the studios.”

William Haines and James Shields formed a successful interior design and antiques dealing business and were together for 47 years until the death of the former in 1973. It is reputed that Joan Crawford described them as “the happiest married couple in Hollywood.”

Choosing your life over a required lifestyle

The moral of this story has many strands, from a man who from a young age in times of difficult societal pressures and ostracism decided to live his own truth, pursue his own happiness with passion, find love and refuse to give up that love for the sake of his career or anything else.

In being himself, he was able to leave the success of one career to another successful one with his partner, that friends noticed that they had one of the strongest relationship bonds in Hollywood. These friends supported them, respected them, patronised them and honoured them, not judging them for who they were that in the year of the Stonewall Inn riots, they were invited to renovate the palatial residence of the US Ambassador to the UK in London.

The difficult but true choice

We can make choices, the choices to be our true selves rather than try to serve a different normality that brings grief. Obviously, the biggest hurdle is one of acceptance. Accepting who you are first, then loving yourself enough to live your own life than live a lie. I admire all those who have found that essence of being, life and love.

In William Haines who I never knew of until I did some research on the lavender marriages, many big stars like Rudolph Valentino, Robert Taylor, Barbara Stanwyck, and Rock Hudson sacrificed their true selves for maintaining a façade and their careers.

Here was a man, principled, with integrity who followed his heart and lived a wonderful life. I hope many might find some truth in the story of William Haines.

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Thought Picnic: Conveyors of character

Show yourself

Frequent travel brings you in contact to different people from all walks of life that without probing and conversation, it is impossible if you are not clairvoyant to determine where they are from, what they do and why they are travelling.

Yet, I think there is one place where expression and impression are so profoundly displayed. It is not in sometimes drunken boarding of flights, garrulous or intemperate behaviour or even the basic social graces.

At baggage reclaim

The best observation point is the conveyor belt at baggage reclaim, it is as much as the revelation of character as any. The ones who gather at the entry point of baggage when the conveyor belt is switched on. As if their baggage would run away from them.

The parents with kids that are out of control, who clamber over the belts before they start and attempt to drag off luggage well beyond their physical capabilities. This, despite the sign that the conveyor belt is not a playground. If one were to read more into the situation of unruly kids in a public place, you can only wonder what happens at home.

Just as the conveyor belt starts, watch the ones who literally ignore you, if not shove you aside to get at their luggage without a word about their uncouth behaviour. Or the ones who get their luggage and don’t immediately move out of the way for others.

And your character

The conveyor belt is in motion, the luggage moves around and comes back again except if by happenstance it gets picked up by another passenger, though that rarely happens. Wherever you stand, it would eventually get to where you’re standing. If you have to pull off more than one and are not fast enough to get to it, it would come around again, it would not end up in a black hole, never to be seen again.

At least, one would think in the West, there is more safety for person and luggage, not to have to stress oneself at the conveyor belt. I can never understand the rush to retrieve your luggage if you’re being picked up until you've made it out to the arrivals halls, you really have not yet arrived. You might well be detained at immigration.

Is revealed

What the conveyor belt scenario reveals of character can be deep and interesting, from the disorganised to the untrusting, from the impatient to the harried, from the rude to the uncultured, from the nasty to the atrocious. Amongst these, you can still find gems of humanity, patient, helpful, friendly, courteous, disciplined, informative and just nice.

Being a frequent traveller does bring you in contact with a broad stratum of society, some members, you’ll rather not meet anywhere again.

Opinion: By the measure of homelessness in the UK, we are a poor nation

Our streets of people in need

Daily, I find myself wondering what kind of society I am in, what has broken in our society and communities to see such poverty, destitution and hopelessness amongst us?

There is nothing first world on our streets, despite being one of the largest economies in the world, with all sorts of prospects for the United Kingdom, we cannot judge our progress on the prosperity of the rich getting richer, companies declaring vast profits, the stock exchange hitting new records and anyone else with the opportunity and good fortune laughing all the way to the bank.

As a consultant, I work around the UK, literally living in hotels and walking the streets therein. Living in Manchester, then working or temporarily staying in Edinburgh, Norwich, Great Yarmouth and now Reading, I cannot ignore the obvious.

I see hungry people

I see hungry people, I see homeless people, I see people approaching strangers begging for some spare change for a meal or to get a place to lay their heads for the night. Then some billboards tell me not to give money to street beggars because the said charities are there to help them back to a different life.

I am pained by my own helplessness, I cannot think of what I can really do to help anyone who has been caught in this situation apart from offer a handout. If I stopped to listen to their stories, it is very likely their story will be no different from mine.

Why? I was self-employed and independent, then I fell ill with a sickness and disease that could easily have killed me off, but thankfully I am still here. As I took on my treatment, I had no money coming in, I used up all my savings, I could not pay the mortgage and because of my seemingly independent life, I did not know I was entitled to any welfare.

A precipitous decline

I soon found out about my entitlements six months after I fell ill, my creditors were very understanding, in fact, they probably had more faith in my recovery than I did, they had a good idea of what I earned before and my possible earning potential if I did recover. Yet, there were days I went hungry, my eyes almost popping out in the agonising pain of cancer, but for the succour and friendship of neighbours and friends, I could have despaired and expired.

I still had a roof over my head for another 30 months after my cancer diagnosis, but I could not sustain my situation, things were not looking as rosy as I had hope that I decided to sell up. The day before I moved out of my apartment of 126 months, I did not know where I would spend the next night, and then a free offer to occupy a vacated house come up which I occupied for two months.

After that, a young family put me up in their apartment caring for me for another 6 weeks before I decided to return to the UK after 12 and a half years in the Netherlands, with nothing but the hope that things will turn around, my cousin putting me up in a room as I returned.

As things looked up

Within 6 days of arrival, I had a job to travel around Europe for the next six months, however, some internal issues in the company meant the opportunity only lasted 5 weeks, it was another few months before I got a job in Wales where I was living out of hotels for the next 6 months.

Being in and out of work with no permanent residence could have taken its toll, I had many brushes on the brink of homelessness only to have people give me a place to recoup, reassess, rejig and reapply myself to getting back into useful employment and independence.

None of this would have been possible without a helping hand and there were many for which I am full of gratitude and appreciation that the best of humanity is still out there overflowing with the milk of kindness to help and to redeem.

Where is the help for all?

However, not everyone has that resource, not everyone has an angel, the angels to me were people like you and me. Many are homeless because of so many reasons too many to enumerate, from illness to unemployment, broken homes, divorce, a death in the family and even maybe substance abuse.

It is here that we must ask ourselves, what encourages substance abuse and is that not a symptom of some other underlying issue? I cannot sanctimoniously pontificate on these issues as if in my supposed saintliness I am beyond reproach, neither am I ready to accept as default that all beggars are beggars by choice, any money given them goes on drink and drugs or that they know where to get help and never use it.

I knew where to get help, as articulate and well-dressed as I was, I was both humiliated and turned away with the undertone of how dare I visit the homeless charity seeking help. I submit that if the charities were really doing their charitable duties, there would probably be fewer homeless people on our streets. I am doubtful they are doing anything that would encourage me to donate to the charities when I can open my hand to a person begging in front of me.

They are human beings first

It is a cancer within our midst that we have that many homeless people around us and from my experience, the very likelihood why the homeless would not visit homeless charities is because first, they are not treated as human beings, they are not treated with respect, they are looked down on as the dregs of society that there is nothing in place as the kind of helping hands I had to give me the opportunity and space to come out of the quagmire I was in.

Nobody wants to return to a workhouse environment redolent of the Victorian times and these places that portend to tackle homelessness must be more welcoming than they appear to be.

I see instances when someone begging needs £16 to stay in a hostel, it is unlikely if they make the £16, they would immediately spend it on one night’s shelter when there is food to think about.

The pall of homelessness

It is not without consideration that I think of a man I loved, Chris was ejected from his home by his mother at the age of 15 because he was gay and though he made something of his life to the extent that his parents relied on him to bury them well, Chris died 21 years after that ejection and it cannot be unrelated to the homelessness he suffered as a teenager before someone helped him.

I could see signs of that experience in everything that Chris did because these things are markedly significant, yet, he was amazingly loving and wonderful company to be with. Whilst he rests, I still miss him, 36 was too young an age to die and he’s been gone over 8 years.

I walk to the gym in my shorts on typical winter days seeing people in the dead of the night still hungry, homeless, cold and anything uncomfortable, I do not see anything happening to help them, I have not amazing solutions and sadly, we seem to be at the peak of government indolence and societal heartlessness.

This cannot continue, our society is the poorer for the hungry and homeless that roam around us in the vaunted prosperity of this great land. No, we are not prosperous, we are poor.