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.

Thought Picnic: Of Justin Bieber in London with that look

Unconcerned

Now, apparently, a Mr Justin Bieber has been on a UK tour, having been in Manchester the week before when I was up there and then in London as the weekend rolled in.

I do not particularly care for his kind of music but I have seen the female folk swoon and squeal with glee at his appearance and performance that I can quite patently say I do not want whatever they are on to make them see whatever they are seeing or hear whatever they are hearing.

Then again, for the kind of music the young man purveys, he has become rather financially successful and some credit for his upbringing should go to his tenacious mum, Pattie Mallette whose intrusion into the public sphere has now included her sententiously religious opinions about abortion.

Unabashed

He turned 19 on the 1^st of March and he allegedly was staying at The Langham London which along with its luxurious opulence will not be lacking in the class and grace of a decent gourmet restaurant, however, the dear boy thought he might have a kebab instead, we cannot for now vouch for what kind of meat might be on the skewer with the food industry horsing around on pigs and cows that we might just be racing camels at the Grand National if all the horses enter the food chain.

One should not begrudge the man the need for something less exquisite, the presence of means does suddenly accrue to good bearing and exemplary mien, these things cannot be brought and only so much can be taught.

Unimpressed

It turns out that he left the hotel topless and what a body he appears to have but the low-hanging trousers exposing the full complement of his underwear must be the lowest expression of oafish conduct I have seen since I last told some boys on an Amsterdam shopping street to pull up their trousers and stop assaulting and outraging public decency with cack-ridden slips.

Every picture captured of the boy, because it does not become a man to be in such a state of undignified exposure, rankles with revulsion that makes one give up the hope of rescuing a fashion victim that has no doubt become a fashion suicide.

The worst bit of this display of gaol fashion that was attributed to men in prison who allowed themselves this demonstration to suggest they were available to be used as sex objects is the many others who will model their slouching gait and backside exposure tendencies after this Justin Bieber enterprise which should attract much excoriation and opprobrium.

Unacceptable

If my life had taken another course, a 19-year old kid would probably have been a 3^rd or 4^th child and I cannot see how regardless of situation, circumstance or peer pressure where any of my children would have been allowed to walk the streets inappropriately dressed to fit in with a nominally uncouth culture and appearance.

Being proper and properly attired is a matter of breeding, class and comportment without having to be dependent on means.

At this point, if there were occasion to warrant a cacophonous imposition on my aural faculties of this man’s crooning croaks my estimation of this very successful man who William Shakespeare would have effusively praised by saying, “You show yourself highly fed and lowly taught,” would not move one to find the slightest respect for his standing.

You only have to see the pictures to understand where I am coming from.

Editorial: Mrs Adewole, Christianity is more than a pair of trousers

The bad example of Christians

Sometimes you wonder about how much Christians act to bring Christianity into disrepute and public ridicule.

Their conduct in trying to exercise rights of expression based on some obscure passage of scripture rarely does much for the message of the gospel and there can be no correlation with the meekness, selflessness and example that Christians are to demonstrate.

The real message of Christianity flows out of the gospels of the apostles which are in essence the narration of the life of Jesus Christ, a ministry that brought radical change to the way the religious and political systems were run at that time.

Looking out from the gospel

The need to display a Christian outlook that emanates first from the example of the gospels is pertinent because every other session of the bible is an image and reflection of the living example that Jesus Christ showed.

Whilst the Mosaic Laws prepared a people for the service of God, they are hardly the bedrock of Christian faith and a good deal of the prescriptive rules, creeds, laws, traditions and customs have been done away with as the new testament and covenant replaced the old.

Most important of all for any adherents of the Christian faith is to live peaceably with all mankind being an example of love, compassion, care, understanding, modesty, courage and goodness.

The clothes are still different

A midwife offers a great service of care and love to humanity in helping the delivery of babies, hospitals however do have codes of conduct and there are reasons why certain types of apparel make the working in a hospital more comfortable and manageable.

Culturally, there in some places there might be a strict separation between what menswear is and what womenswear is, there are other settings where apparel is more or less unisex, the matter of trousers in many societies is down to the cut and the fit; men’s trousers are rarely ever for women just as women’s trousers are rarely for men.

An ancient practice superseded

In the UK especially, you have to be so absorbed in the Levitical priesthood pulling off heads of pigeons and turtledoves, sacrificing scapegoats outside the camp and shedding blood over all sorts of religious paraphernalia as vividly depicted in Mosaic books to suddenly happen upon the literal instruction of Deuteronomy 22:5 which in the New International Version from the news story states that “A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does.”

In those times and in that community, that was as prescriptive as it got including the admonition not to wear clothes of mixed material and other exacting minutiae needed to separate the Israelites from the other races and tribes that will eventually surround them when they arrived in the promised land.

A poor reflection of the mission

If Christianity has now been reduced to the externalisation of apparel to the point of wanting to look different and be a disruptive influence within the workplace, one would be left with the unfortunate needless death of Jesus Christ and the resurrection would have been a stunt without any particular spiritual significance; we might well follow the regime of a diet and be happy.

That I am afraid is where the recalcitrance and unreasonableness of one Mrs Hannah Adewole has brought us; a midwife whose sense of community service in the employ of Queen’s Hospital in Romford, Essex has been lost to a radically fundamentalist and irrational adherence to a single decontextualised verse of scripture on wearing trousers at work which she terms men’s clothes and she is taking her employers to court for religious discrimination and harassment.

There might well be a case for the idea that those of other religious persuasions are somewhat more favourably treated and it could well be that they have taken time to negotiate their concerns better than to take offence and go confrontational.

Laugh her out of court

Now, it is her prerogative to sue but I pray it must not be done in the name of Christianity and it is not that I failed to notice in her picture that appears to the whole wide world that through fundamentalist eyes, she has forgotten an essentially chaste and modest looking dowdy head scarf.

This a la carte selection of scriptures of convenience must stop and I would hope to all that is good, seemly, honest, true, just and fair, she is laughed out of court and really, if she hates her job, she should just quit and find some backwater hospital with Mosaic Law guidelines in which to ply her trade.

Acknowledgement

The Daily Telegraph under the Health News section runs the story - Christian midwife sues over order to wear trousers.

A selected comment

Going from the line of thinking she has adopted, the best rated comment posted by philantony goes thus and it puts this whole ruse into context.

• I do hope those outfits she wears are not of mixing wool and linen (Leviticus 19:19)?
• And that she avoid coming in to work during her period or indeed allows any women into the hospital who are menstruating as this would clearly be a health risk (""When a woman has a discharge of blood, which is her regular discharge from her body, she shall be in her impurity for seven days, and whoever touches her shall be unclean until evening." -- Leviticus 15:19-20
• And I hope she doesn't swear or joke... "Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place...." -- Ephesians 5:4
• And the same for gossiping. "Do not go around as a gossiper among your people..." -- Leviticus 19:16
• And of course hospitals should shut down on the Sabbath at risk of violating Exodus 20:8.
• Or does she believe in excluding children of unmarried parents from church? And for 10 generations thereafter!! "A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the lord; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the lord." Deuteronomy 23:2
• And I do hope she doesn't eat oysters or prawns or shrimps or the like. (Leviticus 11:9-12 and Deuteronomy 14:9-10)

Fashion, function and fit

Not fit for the kitchen

There was a reference in the Newsweek magazine about their online magazine pertaining to lingerie makers now being close to finding the right balance of fashion, function and fit for brassieres.

That alliteration (fashion, function and fit) tweaked something in me about things I saw so recently. Last weekend I ventured with my friend from work back to the African Kitchen where we have all agreed that the lack of competition in the Nigerian cuisine restaurant market leaves us completely robbed blind for bad food and rotten service.

However, we find ourselves returning because some of what we like takes a whole lot of time to prepare; that is not to say we, the punters, are not good cooks in our own right, but the logistics are not a walk in the park.

The codename of the restaurant has been Barawo (thief in Hausa) for the best part of 4 months – the things we suffer.

Not impressed

As we arrived, there were no tables available so we sat at the bar where this “sexy” lady took our orders. She turned around and bent down to get some drinks out of the fridge and all that should be concealed was revealed.

I am probably not as hot-blooded with a rampaging libido as many of the men that frequent that restaurant who might be excited by such views, I was utterly disgusted.

For me, I find no pleasure in voyeurism and I do not enjoy anything that leaves nothing to the imagination, nor do I fantasise about bedding such lack of sophistication – it was indecent, unflattering, dirty and debauched – I am supposed to be in a restaurant not a lap-dancing club.

In any case, she might be in fashion, but the function of the trousers she was wearing was lost as it exposed her nudity, the fit was bad and not fit for purpose – the image that lingers assaults my peace and has me in a tentative state of grabbing for a sickbag.

Seat cleaners required

Then, on the tram the other day, this boy got on and sat two spaces next to me, as I gave a side glance, my disgust with low-hanging trousers was completed with utter revulsion.

I thought, the exposure of the underwear was compensated for by longer tops, but this was not the case, he was sat with his exposed underwear directly on the seat.

That really worried me, cack-laden, stinking, gooey threadbare undergarments rubbed onto public seating that others would use unawares picking up such foreign fecal matter and what not.

I know that most public conveniences now have toilet seat cleaning facilities, would I now have to acquire seat cleaning aids for using public transport.

No doubt again, the boy was following fashion, but the function of the trousers in concealing the underwear was lost and really, the simple thing is the trousers do not fit; else they would not be hanging down.

The foolishness of this fashion is completed with the fact that the legs of the trousers seem to be long enough, but instead of folding them up, they all sweep the ground and any ground anywhere like a bridal train till the trouser hem – if that is the right phrase – looks like rags.

A short distraction

So, I shook my head yesterday afternoon as I took the long bus trip from the more salubrious 805 Restaurant on Old Kent Road – one can get a black cab there but never one back into town.

The lady got off the bus and her skirt was so short that all adjustments she made still meant it was not long enough to cover the detail and quite so short that the curiosity that might have made it interesting left one less complimentary of what any right-thinking person would call a tramp.

How people leave their homes without a double-take in front of a full-length mirror on the exit door of their houses escapes me. If you have to continually adjust the fitting of your apparel after you have left home, you are not properly dressed and you should return home and sort it out.

The things idiots do in the name of fashion.

Surrendering her serpent seed

A fashion for churchianity

A lot of blog traffic has been generated on the women’s wear debate going on in Nigeria. Funmi Iyanda talked of her experiences, Chippla’s World covered the matter and various other blogs have put in their tuppence worth.

I really have striven to keep my peace on this matter because I thought all that could be opined on this matter had been said till I read a comment on a blog by “My Pen and My Paper”, something about “unless a woman has to repent and surrender her serpent seed” by one michellamarie (address unknown) – Errr! Serpent seed? This is well beyond me.

Now, that blog does have all sorts of opinions and women's wear in church, prejudiced and myopic as they seem because of some preconceived mindset as to what a wife should wear or what a mother should wear, beyond that, people are beginning to externalise spirituality as if clothes decide whether the Holy Spirit would to use one person over another.

The ascendancy of Churchianity over Christianity is becoming a worrisome development.

Dress the world from church

The whole argument that women entice men to lasciviousness and immorality is beyond the pale, the men are either weak-willed or not disciplined in their spiritual upbringing, it is the work of church to teach people how to deal with temptation when they encounter such.

Attendance at church hardly takes 24 hours of a 128 hour week, how do you protect these men from the sights and sounds they encounter on the streets?

The temple should and must also have an open door policy to all those who desire to visit to worship, it is, I believe the work of the Holy Ghost to convict of sin, especially, if He is allowed to do His work without being constrained by the teaching of traditions of men for doctrines of God.

Secular and smart

Amazingly, I find that secular establishments are better equipped for dress code imposition; I have been to restaurants or formal settings where a dinner jacket or a black tie is required. Rather than being turned back, the maître d' would discretely take the person aside and offer suitable dressing to accommodate the guest.

Nobody, I think should be turned away from church; rather, the zealous ushers and Keepers of the Modicum of Church Dress should after their subjective assessment of the poor spirituality of their quarry offer tagged laboratory coats in the garish colours to those who have sincerely come to worship and forgotten how to appear “decent”, then coral then to a section of the church where they can in purity of heart serve their God whilst being subjects of human ridicule, if that helps elevate the worship of the more properly dressed.

Losing our religion and keeping fashion

There is no doubt that there is need for church discipline, but who paid the greater price, the annoyed leader of the church who hates to see various states of undress or the lord of the leader who died on the cross for the naked and the overly dressed?

Trousers in themselves are just symbolic, well tailored and fitting trousers should be acceptable anywhere, the issue of them being men’s clothes rather than for ladies, borders on the hypocritical.

As Chippla rightly noted, these 3,000 year old laws of Judaism being applied to modern times is as selective as any would get because the selfsame chapter that rules against cross-gender wear also says people should not wear clothes of mixed materials. Leviticus 19:19 & Deuteronomy 22.

You only have to check the source material of the underwear, the shirt, the trousers, the socks and how all of them are mixed in different grades to provide different qualities.

In cultures where both men and women wear the same clothes like using wrappers and the difference is the way the wrapper is tied or held, this whole matter begins to border on pedantry.

Then, after some evangelistic success, would churches forcibly clothe the natives in strange apparel to promote seeming decency?

Leather and fur from the God Collection

It just does not add up, in the end, if we must be so fundamental about dress, maybe we should go back to Genesis where after Adam and Eve fell, God made coats of skins for them and clothed them. Genesis 3:21

Nothing said that this was some fashion statement or that there was any difference between what Eve wore and what Adam had – the only danger might be the church would be picketed by PETA when in fact the church has only opted for the prime example of the Creator, clothes of leather and fur, some circles might even find that quite kinky.

Basically, we should be smarter about this matter and more resourceful about tackling it, if it is so much a big issue for some, so far, it has been overrun with absurdity and unseemly publicity; the pastors might weather this storm but have done no good in proclaiming the gospel.

As for serpent seeds – I am not qualified to take on such a deep theological analysis or preposterous falacy.

References

Deuteronomy 22

Leviticus 19

Genesis 3

Shame on you! Sagamu

Literary day

When I was in secondary school (Remo Secondary School) just about 30 years ago, we used to have a day of social events called the Literary Day.

Really, I must say, I never saw anything literary about that day apart from people trying to get dressed up to the nines and each prepubescent male trying to get dance with that girl he has had his eye on since he knew he could blink.

I would say, I was never trendy, not by apparel, ostentation nor shoes, but I still tried to look my best and hoped that all that time of practice with my two friends who seemed to be better dancers than one would shine on the day.

There usually was all sorts of entertainment and though we were in Sagamu, Ogun State, the traditional Eyo parade was imported from Eko (Lagos Island), it allowed boys to dress up in white hoods, hats and white masquerade wraps holding a long branch of a shorn palm frond as a beating stick, they made whooping sounds hopping about on one foot, any female who strayed into their path got whacked on the shin.

Menace and violence

The bad side of the Literary Days was evident in Lagos where groups of students would assemble as thugs and hooligans accost other students and guests to these events and by menace strip the hapless kids of their shoes, valuables and designer wear.

In my last year at school, we were off-campus and I remember that the class after ours had planned to menace and harass with violence anyone who appeared in a particular style of fashion which was called Pinto - basically it was like the Pied Piper's costume in a variety of garish colours - an unhealthy development, one must say.

Let's dance

The highlight of the day was from the early evening when we gathered in the main hall and danced to the reggae music which was the rage of the late 70s till Boney M took on and then other American fare.

Within the campus, the girls were quite astute in accessorising themselves, never did one look like the girl in class, however, only a few wore trousers, there had always been this thing about women in trousers, the chauvinistic outlook of men feeling emasculated meant females in trousers could be harassed or even worse.

The trouser thing

When we were invited to the Literary Days of sister schools, most of the other schools in Sagamu were across town. The girls who wore trousers had to wear a full wrapper over the trousers just in case they came across nasty old men whose only mission was to curse girls who strayed from the "norm".

In fact, we did learn that there was a rule in Sagamu, large as it was and it probably having the largest community of Hausas from the North in the South, women were forbidden to wear trousers.

So, imagine my surprise 30 years on, learning that the local authorities have outlawed the wearing of trousers by women in Sagamu. It makes me feel that the cocoon of my secondary school which was on the outskirts of town then, just on the edge of a forest was oasis of freedom of expression and the emancipation of the rights of women.

Sagamu is a town of quite learned people, one does have doubts about its sophistication in the light of this development and obviously the misconception that education can bring enlightenment to people steeped in the tradition of dominating not only their wives but extending that mantle of domination to cover everyone of the female gender, it saddens and it is shameful.

This is a human-rights issue, but I would not be surprised if a bible-thumping person comes up with one verse about women in men's clothes but none about men in 40% cotton and 60% polyester shirts. Shame on you! Sagamu.

Trends come and go

I am not trendy by half

Sometimes we find ourselves in places where we are observers of people, times, events and trends. One could not help but notice when a group of people probably in their late teens or early twenties got on the bus I was on in Barcelona.

They were all wearing sunglasses, well sunglasses with huge frames that more or less gave the raccoon effect. It was quite amusing as well as interesting.

I would not call myself trendy, in fact, I have never had opportunity to be trendy and probably that is a thankful situation and less of a burden on my psyche of trying to keep up with what is IN or discarding of what is OUT.

Wearing out of fashion

I remember in times past when my father sometimes complained of that fact, somehow, I always appeared in his office in traditional apparel of no significant fashion value.

My mother who always did the shopping on my behalf to the extent that there were times she bought my shoes because we had the same size when I was 11 did get some good stuff but that meant I was wearing what was probably 2 years out-of-fashion.

You will have to excuse the pun that I never really cottoned on and anytime I tried to follow the trends I just felt frustrated by the exercise that I gave up.

This is even more evident in the fact that you cannot get a decent pair of wearable jeans – I admit – everyone who wears what is in vogue seems to like what they have.

Royalty

Princess Anne once had the indignity of having worn something for an occasion so many years before and then having worn it again, the fashionistas had a field day. It is an impossible world that if you are famous you can only wear clothes like a wedding dress, once for the event and then passing it on.

Basically, the expensive dress would self-destruct after one outing.

Dancing the night away

The biggest social event when I was in secondary school was the Literary Day; there was nothing literary about the day apart from the expectation of attending the one-off disco, very much like the much-popularised American proms.

That meant we were allowed to dress up in clothes other than the regimental school or hostel uniform. As my trendless evening would transpire, I has a pair of trousers handed down from daddy which would have put me squarely on a golf course and a shirt probably four times my size.

My prankster colleagues then concealed my well-pressed clothes that I only got access to them with hardly any time to spare for the event.

Well, my oversized shirt and trousers had me dressed up to the nines with the help if some cord to keep the trousers up.

Bellies or backsides

Nowadays, I cannot really say what I find most irksome to the sight, the exposed bellies of unlady-like girls who have done no gym work looking a healthy 6 months pregnant from wearing cropped tops in the summer or the exposed backsides of underwear of young men wearing trousers very much like the cut of my daddy’s hand-me-downs.

That is fashion, they say, the trend of today. Young men walking down the street unable to keep their trousers up even though they have belts bigger than Mohamed Ali’s title belts.

The walk of big balls

More so, the trousers so affect that gait in that the full extent of stride cannot be realised with trousers so far down the legs everyone moves with a swagger almost like having to cope with genital goitre.

It is a sad state of affairs that the quest to belong is a madness of conformity that makes every foolish trend look like the best thing around and any smart observer of these trends who does no participate is almost always square and an outsider.

Hey! I’ll rather be outside this folly before I find myself growing up ever so disgracefully. I guess I am just old-fashioned.