The Lounge

The Couple

As I sat in the lounge waiting for my train, I had made a cup of coffee when this person walked in with baggage and all hung a coat on the stand and sat to have a snack.

The concierge advised that food was not allowed in the lounge, which is a shame because airport lounges at least have free snacks; the ones in Germany have biscuits for the coffees.

Settling down, later on, another person walked in, they knew each other, they hugged and kissed as they shared the events of the day that just closed.

Their eyes radiant, they looked like very successful and busy people, the weekend away was probably time to spend quality time together.

They held hands, caressed each other – somewhere between preening and grooming, these were people into each other so much, any observer would see this was love.

They left hand-in-hand for the train soon afterwards, we all smiled – for those with partners they must have wished they had theirs to have and to hold – to those without, inaudible sighs about a life that could be.

Then to the strains of The Rose by Bette Midler, you realise that it is the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance.

I learnt that the expression of love between people is theirs for each other; how they share it is nobody’s business if we concentrated on strengthening our own relationships rather than attacking others in the hope that ours might appear better.

The Archbishop of CounterBury

The Bishop's bad move

The furore over the Archbishop of Canterbury's comments about the inevitability of Sharia Law in the UK is gathering considerable moss and it might just roll over the man who started it off.

Now we have to deal with clarifications and re-interpretations of what the archbishop said so that we do not all get in a tizzy about the balance of conservative adherence to the role of the Church in the State and the development of liberal contemporary ideas from the headship of the church that questions the basis of our faith.

One only has to read the synopsis of the Bishop's Gambit episode of Yes, Prime Minister to realise that the appointment of the Archbishop of Canterbury is probably more a political than a spiritually lead anointing.

The Prime Minister of the day recommends names to the Queen who is the defender of the Faith on the advise of the Church of England and influenced by political and religious leaders.

Between adherents and atheists

It was interesting to note that Sir Humphrey Appleby argued that the government had to keep a balance of bishops in the Church between those who believed in God and those who were agnostic bordering on atheists.

The problem is, unlike the papacy, this position is only available to archbishops in England, and if any ethnic minority of the larger representation of the church in Africa were to assume that position, they would have to lead diocesan archbishoprics in England.

The greater risk is to find a heretic or an apostate leading the Church.

In a time when the Anglican Communion worldwide is undergoing the turmoil of schism regarding the ordination of woman bishops and the acceptance of homosexual clergy, it beggars belief that the Archbishop of Canterbury would suggest that the cradle of Anglican Christianity, flawed as its inception might be would suggest that Sharia law be juxtaposed with civil law in the UK.

This is England NOT Arabia

Indeed, The UK is now accommodating larger numbers of Islamic faith adherents, but they very well recognise that the UK is not an outpost of Arabia, we all have a clear equality before the law in terms of civil law.

One is however not encouraged when even in the Netherlands, a Calvinist/Catholic entity that it once was, not one person in my office challenged the view that Easter was 27 days after Ash Wednesday - maybe, it is indeed time to allow all these alien cultures and traditions to subsume our traditional identities.

The need for conservatism

This encroachment however, should never be encouraged by the leader of the Church, having veered into Pentecostalism; I still hold my High Church Anglican upbringing dear and would rather be at a traditional Christmas service than the raucous cacophony of a happy-clappy bazaar.

Before long, with this man at the helm, would allow the Anglican Book of Common Prayer to be infiltrated with references to Quranic Suras and worse. Gone are the days when the tower served its function, then it was believers in God would were executed, it is time for apostates, just as you have in Sharia Law to be decapitated forthwith.

In other words, maybe, it is time for Dr. Rowan Williams to vacate his office and seek the counsel that returns him to the core tenets of the Faith.

He is acknowledged as a formidable theologian but cannot continue to counter our beliefs and bury the faith, erudite and liberal as his thinking might be.

Nigeria sets no good examples for Africa

That Cliché about African Leadership

What is happening in Africa today bothers me a lot because it all concerns leadership – poor leadership, rotten leadership, leadership acquired by violence and corruption, leadership held onto without offering good governance, idiotic leadership and sprinklings of good leadership.

Very few countries in Africa can boast good leadership, there is hope, but what does surround us now is chaos.

For instance, today, Darfur in Sudan still represents an intractable problem of genocide that is quickly fading from urgent action; the completely botched elections in Kenya has caused so much unrest, violent displacement and killings that it might slip out of the control of the political leaders, Zimbabwe has registered an inflation rate (150,000%) that makes the mind boggle and rebels are trying to unseat a government in Chad.

Africans adrift in Africa

The result of this is Africans are refugees in their own Africa, displaced because of policies implemented by fellow Africans who want power and give no respite to their people – savagery, murder, hunger and displacement becomes the lot of the masses whilst the middle-classes and the rising prosperous classes are completely oblivious or indifferent of those problems in the slums, villages and the hinterland.

However, I only have to go back to my blogs in April 2007 where I lamented the issues around the Nigerian election to see why Africans are unlikely to have African solutions for African problems.

Africans silent to African suffering

The issue in Darfur never became a crisis until others outside the continent decided they could not stand for such large-scale suffering, Africans are still dragging their feet on the matter.

The elections in Kenya were most definitely flawed as the head of the electoral commission eventually said he was not sure of who won. African leaders then welcomed the imposed president who “stole” the elections whilst he left his country behind burning.

The entrenched eternal incumbency of Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe should have come to an end with the people of the country being able to choose who would lead their country out of the morass it is in, but for the appeasement of African leaders that continues to make a bad situation worse.

It would take the threat and actions of the French army in Chad to keep a democratic dictator, Idriss Deby who has done nothing for his country in all his years in power that others who think they can do the job better have to resort to arms to unseat him.

Where is the country?

The question is, where is the African country with the authority, clout, gravitas and respect that can speak up for the downtrodden masses and exert the kind of influence to ensure things are done right in the “Dark” continent, such we can all be seen in the light as enlightened, emancipated and in control, able to solve our problems with confidence?

Step forward – Nigeria? The Giant of Africa in size offers none of this ability, its institutions are still mired in corruption, its elections are flawed that it cannot condemn the ones in Kenya, its leadership skirts illegitimacy so it can say nothing to Sudan, Zimbabwe or Chad.

In all that has been happening in the last few weeks, we have heard not one squeak from the Heart of Africa because it has a bad heart.

The insignificance of the giant

We have the biggest sporting event going on in Africa and the grand populace of 130 million could not produce a team that could survive the first stage of eliminations.

This is result of our polity not realising the example we should be setting for Africa so that things can be done right and if done wrongly, we can be a model for correction.

Unfortunately, South Africa cannot step into the breach because they have not been able to raise the expectations of their people beyond subsistence; they would end up with a leader very much in the mould of the many that gives Africa a very bad name.

Africa can only begin to solve its own problems when we deal with each other honestly, truthfully, fairly, justly and with mutual respect based on leadership and governance that eschews corruption and nepotism, that embraces transparency and begins to tackle with vigour the problems that affect Africa and Africans.

There is hope for Africa, but in the meantime, it would require a lot more international intervention and scrutiny to ensure what we are doing is well beyond reproach and within globally acceptable standards before we are respectfully left to maturely seek African solutions to African problems.

PS: This was written to highlight the frustration of a fellow Nigerian about his country not being able to address African issues with boldness because we have set bad examples and lost the moral authority that could be projected with our greatness in Africa.

Scanning Starbucks' Napkins

The name sells coffee

As I changed trains on Sunday, I had a 30 minute stopover at Duisburg and decided to get a coffee.

Of all the coffee shops in the station, I had seen a Starbucks Coffee sign on the platform which was 70 metres away – I was willing to drag my baggage and self all the way to the global giant in a German city railway station.

Not so much for the coffee but for the fact that they do muffins – the muffins are not perfect, there are times I have looked at the muffins and thought I was in some biohazard laboratory with fungal spores cultivated on the surface of the muffins.

But ignore the eyes and mind, go for the taste and all will be well. I hate chocolate in my muffins, in fact, I only do blueberry muffins and when hard pressed vanilla or banana.

I’ve been silly

Too many choices of coffee and as I remembered the Undercover Economist, I realised I had been fleeced the moment I walked into the café, I was suckered and the fool in me was about to be parted from my money.

I ordered a Caffe Mocha Grande from the wall menu which according to Page 35 of my copy of the Undercover Economist with embellishments translates to - I want a cappuccino, mix that with hot chocolate; I feel special - and then make that big by adding water and milk; I feel greedy - and top it with whipped cream; I feel piggily gluttonous. Then charge me over twice the price of a regular coffee.

Did I also get a lemon cake too? My waistline is getting strained already.

I settled in a corner to down my coffee, muffin and cake and as I wiped my mouth of the crumbs, I noticed my napkin had one of those green messages that is supposed to make you feel concerned whilst delivering nothing in reality.

Annoying napkin

The napkin was made from 100% recycled fibres using a bleach-free process, one can be glad for that but the other messages took away from my satisfaction with the snack.

I could not say if it was the More plants, More planet. STARBUCKS COFFEE or the Less napkins, More plants, More planet that annoyed me more as a message that was a non-message; though if contrived enough, it could mean we all depart for the moon.

Similar to the message to save the trees as the paper is friction and pressure heated to bind the toner as you stand by the laser printer ready to pick up your essential printouts.

The trees have already been felled, that is why it is already paper in the laser printer – For crying out loud.

So, here I was in Duisburg, Germany using recycled paper to wipe my mouth and then noticing that the napkin was manufactured in the Netherlands; it would had have to be transported from somewhere in the Netherlands – so much for recycling and the carbon footprint of transportation.

Less Schmaltz, More muffin, More Coffee – I say.

Punish Spain hard for Sport racism

Abuse again

Hearing that the golden boy of Formula 1 racing was racially abused in Barcelona, Spain was quite disheartening.

Louis Hamilton stirred the imagination of motor racing fans and the general populace when in his rookie year (2007) he lead the championship for almost half the season and it was down to the very last race before a champion was crowned with him coming second in the championship points.

I am of the view that McLaren his team wanted to stage an amazing climax in what really should have been concluded in China at the penultimate race – the rest is history.

Louis Hamilton’s motor-racing skills proved he was not a token equal-opportunities face and it pitched him against a two-time champion who being unable to retain the mystique of his achievements over the young lad turned the championship into a rivalry within the team that cost the team very dear.

They have form

There are some who would say that the animosity Louis has suffered from Spanish crowd stems from the soured relationship he had with Fernando Alonso but that would really be disingenuous to say the least.

The Spaniards have form when it comes to the racist abuse of people of colour and it has been exhibited by people as highly placed as the Spanish coach.

English football players of colour have heard despicable monkey chants which really should have one thinking, who really is playing monkey – definitely, not the one being abused.

Other players of colour in the Spanish league have been subjected to this primitive behaviour of assuming to be of a superior standard of race and rectitude.

A fitting punishing deterrent

It would appear the sanctions that have been levied against the perpetrators and the Spanish sporting authorities have not served as enough a deterrent to stop this loathsome attitude.

If is includes taking to two Formula 1 races out of Spain to more deserving countries with responsible fans, then it would not be a sanction too great to teach a very hard lesson.

The picture of blackened faces with Hamilton Family vests cannot be a costume party joke regardless of the anger fans might have felt about the Hamilton-Alonso rivalry .

To eliminate racism in sport, the pain of punishment must be felt very hard and the one about Hamilton must be taken as a general trend rather than a particular instance.

The same racist Spanish fans of motorsport could as well be football fans doing the same thing – until proven otherwise a fitting sanction and punishment must be meted out forthwith.

Like Hamilton, I love the city of Barcelona but would not condone this behaviour, somebody had better be doing something before a groundswell of indignant inquisition wipes the Spanish of the sporting slate.

We look forward to Louis Hamilton going for goal this season but not with this kind of nonsense coming into the foreground.

Saving my uninsured legs

Static I see

Having astigmatism in my right eye, I have learnt that my perception of distance and speed is very poor. It explains why I was useless at the tennis lessons I took when I was 8, my lazy eye working with my better eye just could not track the ball.

This knowledge also comes in useful when crossing roads, I would rather I saw the whites of the eyes of a driver approaching a crossing with an acknowledgement before I cross.

I remember vividly about 23 years ago; rather than walk the almost 1 km Isolo flyover with the 300m walk to the bus stop, I decided to cross the 10-lane Apapa-Oshodi expressway, everyone was calling out and I did not know I was centimetres from becoming a bloody rag-doll result of a horrific accident – I did not see the car that whizzed past the front of me.

In fact, I was once subjected to the socialist punishment of doing squats in public whilst pulling at my ears for crossing the same expressway during the Muhammadu Buhari’s War Against Indiscipline crackdown on jaywalking delinquencies.

That same crossing witnessed the possibility of religious unrest but for reason that prevailed, when a lady had her burqa ripped off by another man because she crossed seriously endangering the lives of her family that included two children, one strapped to her back.

Road crossings

My friends who drive, cross busy roads like they are still in their cars, I really take care of number one in these matters, I would rather use a pelican crossing, zebra crossing or some designated pedestrian crossing than skip like a listless buck across the road.

Sometimes I quip that my legs are not insured and since I still need to get around with them more often than not, I owe them a duty of road-crossing care.

However, I have feared for one thing and it happened this evening – pedestrian crossings with traffic lights but allowing for discretionary access to vehicles turning into a T-Junction.

Much as I have right of way, I still require that drivers notice me, they have to stop for pedestrians to cross and then even when the lights are green for pedestrians, and they can drive through if no one is present to cross.

I was crossing and this was after 3 cars had sped through, the 4^th noticed me and stopped, but as it stopped, the third car in line bumped into the second – the makings of a traffic jam and anything else that transpires.

No cause, real effect

Now, that accident happened because I was crossing, but the cause it was because the driver was not being attentive or the car brakes were defective – I did not witness the accident, so there was no need for me to wait around as an eye witness.

I was glad that the bump did not create a domino-cascade that could have affected me, sorry as I felt for the situation, I really could not throw a guilt-fit and feel at fault – just as the butterfly happily flapping its wings at one end of the world cannot necessarily be responsible for the tornado somewhere else – I am NOT the purveyor of chaos even if I happen to be coincidentally in the vicinity of the same.

Heathrow needs to grow

Busy, busy Heathrow

Anyone who needs convincing that London Heathrow Airport, the busiest airport by volume in Europe needs another runway to augment the critically overused existing two needs to travel through one of these days.

Many a time I have arrived at Heathrow where we have had to cross the other busy runway to get to the terminals.

Recently, our flight was delayed in Amsterdam for 90 minutes because Heathrow was too busy to receive our flight on schedule.

Fantastic controllers

Then leaving Heathrow, I took an interesting picture of airplanes queued up to take off, there were at least 5 in row from where we were.

In fact, there was close to 15 trying to take off on that foggy morning, the planes fed into the runway from 4 feeder lanes with each plane taking off every 2 or so minutes.

I watched 9 planes take off before it was our turn; thankfully, it was just before the mega-jumbo that would have created so much turbulence in its wake.

I have to give it to the air-traffic controllers, as for every 3 or so take-offs, one plane was allowed to land, supposedly giving time for the take-off turbulence to settle before allowing another flight in that direction.

Shoe bomber absurdity

I could not help but notice that at the security checks a majority of passengers had taken to wearing zip-up boots or slip-on shoes, of the 10 around me, only one had to do his laces, others like me just slipped off our footwear and after the checks slipped them back on again.

The absurdity of the checks that presume everyone is a potential shoe-bomber is almost laughable, but that is Heathrow where paranoia rules with a firmer hand than the natural phenomenon of the weather and what it brings.

Not hearing roosters or owls

Back to the runway, one has just about gotten tired about the protests against a new runway – everyone who chooses to live in the environs of Heathrow should know that it would not be cocks crowing at dawn or owls going too-wit too-woo at night.

The natural expectation of living close to an airport would be to hear the sounds of roaring engines of little turbo-props or humongous jet engines.

That reality should have set in for quite a while, it has been open for civil aviation since the 31^st of May 1946 and it has expanded organically since then.

The UK now requires an airport that can not only handle the capacity that is being stretched today, but one that is fit for its status as a major global economic centre.

Green – my foot

Regardless of our lip-service to green accolades that contributes more carbon-dioxide through protest and talk, the facts are as obvious as anyone can see.

The only problem is that we have a democratic process that allows for necessary decisions in the interest of the nation to be bogged down in the activism of idle placard anarchists looking for a cause to justify their remaining on welfare. {An unfortunate generalisation.}

For the others who genuinely feel that a new runway blights their lives, welfare or property, much as I sympathise, living near an airport has its hazards – noise pollution being the obvious and development being the risk you take.

Giving way

A hamlet called Heath Row was destroyed to make way for the airport, the hamlet would have been located where we now have Terminal 3 – that is expansion for you, as Slipson might be the next village to give way.

Heathrow has a future and it cannot be in the cooped up place that it is now, it needs to grow.

We must agree at this point that moving to the environs of an airport is a gamble you most likely would eventually lose to the compelling national interest of development.

Ditch your placards and start shopping for a home well away from the airport and move.

Thank you very much!