I always figured I was in the wrong profession. Not that I’ll even get away with trying to sell my body. A sell-by date doesn’t even apply in my case. I doubt that I’d ever pass any type of screening that would declare me fit for purpose for what seems to be a very lucrative trade in austere times.

Legend has it that there’s only 2 professions in the world that are recession proof. Being an undertaker and prostitution. You’ll never run out of a ready customer base willing to pay the going rate for services rendered.

But of course once in a while someone just takes the piss and redefines their own rules in the market. Take poor old Dawn. She thought she’d hit the jackpot, but didn’t account for her client being a thief. For the record, whoever pays for sex to the tune of £1.7 million in less than 3 years deserves to be locked up in prison and the keys thrown away. That kind of stupidity endangers the human gene pool.

It’s bad enough that the guy steals over £3 million from his employer, but he should have been executed for the manner in which he spent the proceeds of the heist.

The lady argues that her sexual services were value for money and the guy was prepared to pay the market rate – a rate her accountant estimates at about £20,000 a week. Even the judge in this case hard a problem with that appraisal of the defendants market value as a professional provider of horizontal refreshments. Which makes you really ask the question – is any pussy worth circa £3K a day? The law of the land clearly thinks not.

But then again, what price do you put on someone being a platinum idiot and agreeing to pay that amount. The lady is clearly aggrieved that she’s losing the fruits of her loins, literally – but you really can’t argue about a judge clawing back the proceeds of crime. It’s forbidden fruit.

My take – she should have hired a more savvy accountant to keep her hard earned money away from the long arm of the criminal justice system. There’s nothing that’s more of a bastard than thinking you’ve earned £1.7 million for a judge to tell you “actually, sweet heart – you need to pay that shit back”.

Or maybe she should have opted to become an undertaker. There are no grey areas when it comes to splitting hairs over the prices of the services rendered.

So I’ve also joined this twitter thing. I’m told its safer and more sane than MKZ – but what do I know. You can follow me on twitter and find out whether I get the hang of it.

So a few weeks ago while relaxing with some friends, I was asked to consider talking some sense into a dead beat dad – who for all intents and purposes, had left a poor girl at the traffic lights, literally holding the baby.

I guess I was only asked when it turned out that I actually went to high school with the said dead beat dad. You’ll be surprised how 6 degrees of separation can make the world smaller than it really seems.

I think we were talking about how kids change people’s lives – and one conversation too many ended up with the story of my former schoolmate. The said girl abandoned at the traffic lights is his ex-missus, so you can just picture where this conversation went short of wishing that she had actually been with us at the time.

I’ll plead the 5th amendment right here on going into the specific story of this couple for the simple reason that there’s a very high possibility that they will be directed to read this post.

I don’t consider myself a marriage counsellor, but for what it’s worth, I thought that this once, I’d provide a public service based on my experience and that of my peers. If it helps even one girl to make better choices in men – or convinces even one other guy to take care of responsibilities, then the post is most definitely worth my time.

It’s certainly easier than sitting down to talk sense to – you know who.

Girls, here’s 5 Stone Cold sure fire ways to identify a dead beat dad from a mile off.

1. Follow your instincts

God gave you instinct to protect you from the evil in this world. Use the damn instincts and save yourself from the world.

The best advice you can ever get is not to get yourself into certain situations especially when all your faculties are telling you that it’s plain madness. Your body is wired to be selective and to use any stimuli it can to detect what is inherently dangerous for you.

You have signs all over that only you choose to ignore – habits, what he says, what he does, the choices he makes, the risks he takes – even his scent gives you an indication about how dangerous the proposition is.

Let’s get one thing out of the way – you’re not going to totally avoid danger. There’s no such thing as zero risk. Everything you do is risky.

Even for a guy, looking at a girl’s ass is risky because it presents options not previously available. For a girl, the risks are different. I’m just saying listen to your instincts and minimize that risk.

2. Follow your instincts again (ground hog day, huh?)

Of course we live in a world where warm blooded males and females have raging sexual hormones so it’s inevitable that you’re going to get laid.

Having made that choice, you still need to exercise a level of ruthlessness that will put Jack Bauer to shame.

Simply put – unless you’re totally convinced that the man you’re shagging is material for being a decent father – never let him anywhere near an ejaculation. It’s his right to blow his load, but it doesn’t have to be inside you.

There’s a very big difference between boys that you want to get jiggy with and satisfy your sexual desires, and daddy material. For the former, you can pick up any rough neck from wherever.

But unless you’re sure the dude is made of daddy stuff – bullet proof yourself from conception even if you have to use a cocktail of birth control methods at the same time.

My point here is that the choice of who you have unprotected sex with is not for legislation. Just make sure if anything goes wrong, he’s someone who you can take home to your parents with a modicum of self respect and explain yourself.

3. Love is over-rated

When it comes to bringing up kids, there’s absolutely no place for romance. Your relationship with your man has little or nothing to do with the day to day responsibilities of raising and caring for a child.

It’s a full time job 24-7. Contrary to folklore – love will not conquer.

Bringing up children will test you in all the ways you can think of. It will make you scream, it will make you cry, it will make you curse. They focus on the fact that it’ll make you happy and provide you with something to live for yada yada yada.

Let’s get one thing straight – even your mother can’t prepare you for the drama your children will unleash on you. You’re mother has already had her share with you and your siblings and if anything, she’ll be laughing because of all them times you gave her grief.

There’s a lot you can already tell about how your man will cope with the responsibilities of bringing up a child. Does he have selfish habits? Does he still think you can both go gallivanting around town and hanging with the boys and stuff? Does he look at you with that ”how do I change this diaper” face? Does he roll over and fall asleep oblivious of the sleepless nights the kids are unleashing on you? Does he find it strange that being a father involves things like – giving the baby a bath and reading to them?

Love has a place in relationships, but this isn’t one of them.

4. It’s all around you – don’t ignore it

The bachelor pad tells you a million things a guy will never tell you. Everything from how clean the toilet is to what he has in the fridge is a message.

There’s something wrong with someone who’s driving a luxury car with all the trimmings, yet he doesn’t have enough toilet roll in the house or the stuff in his fridge expired 4 months ago but he hasn’t noticed. The car seats are more comfortable than his sofa, and the walls are overdue a lick of paint.

You can tell a lot from how often dude changes his sheets, to the extent and immaculate way (or not) he has wired his surround system in his bachelor pad.

Kids cost money – don’t let anyone lie to you and you can tell a lot about how a guy can cope with the financial responsibility by observing how he spends his money.

The point here is that the signs that a child will throw a monkey wrench into dude’s whole programme are there to be seen.

5. If he says he doesn’t want a child – listen to the bastard

I couldn’t be any blunter if I tried. He’s not ready so just move right along and find yourself another guy.

The years and time invested so far with him can never justify the heartache you’ll put an unwanted child in.

Cut your losses and run taking comfort from the fact that it’s better to have loved and lost than to have spent your whole life masturbating. It could be worse – believe me.

And guys, don’t worry – I have my own personal tips about how to totally avoid the dodgy broody girls you have to stay miles away from.

Unfortunately, they don’t come with signs written ’Certified Psycho’. Fatal attraction is nothing compared to what these girls will do to make your life hell.

When chatting to a good friend on new year’s day, I asked how her daughter was, and at first, it seemed that the question had dampened her spirits.

“Darius, she’s in secondary school now”, was the subdued answer and it was quickly followed by a resigned “Dude – it’s official, we’re old”.

But even after we both cracked out laughing, the thought lingered and you begin to take stock. I guess that the main change in my life over the last several years is that some things have become more important than others and you tend to prioritize better and focus on what’s important. What hasn’t changed though is the ability for nostalgia to hit you hard enough to make you home sick especially with the sub zero temperatures and snow storms that box you in the house and makes you ask that dreaded “what am I really doing here” question.

It made me think of the good old days growing up and enjoying some of the simplest and most cherishable moments life will ever present.

Don’t know about some readers up in here, but there were times when 5 bob could take you a long long way back in the day. My dad used to give us 5 bob a day and that would cover bus fare to and from school, a soda and a snack of some sort (usually quarter bread bandika) for lunch, and you’d still have left over change to buy roast maize with pili pili or patcos to carry you through the evening.

Long before the advent of satellite TV with over 20 exclusive movie channels, local entertainment back then was fronted by public service open air movie services like Tazama Mobile Cinema pitched up in an open field once a month to bring to you the blockbuster of the day. They had this strange habit though, of commentating the movie as it went on in a manner that was as equally funny as it was annoying.

Speaking of entertainment, there were classic shows that would definitely be in my DVD collection right now – From Vioja Mahakamani and the comical antics of the residents of Matopeni, to Vitimbi and the real celebrities like Othorong’ong’o and Masanduku (forget all these latter day celebs who think they’re celebs because…well, anything makes you a celeb these days). There were shows like Tushauriane that were banned outright because they showed a couple embracing and the chap started unblousing the girl. Or even the days when we didn’t have mobile phones and you had to walk a kilometre to the nearest phone box where there was a massive queue of all manner of people – and you’d be mad when your ‘girlfriend to be’ plays hard to get and pulls that stunt of asking you to call later because she’s watching No One But You or The Rich Also Cry. The ungrateful heifer – after all those hours you’ve waited in line to make that call….LOL!

And how was it that folks could actually watch such shows. The acting was so bad and the love scenes so predictable and drossy. Maybe I just hate them coz’ they cost me many a date.

Thinking about dates, I miss those day time dates where you save up the whole term and during the holidays you can take the young lady to a respectable restaurant in town followed by a movie. The only down side is that she has to leave by 4.30 pm so that she can get back home in time before her dad and mum arrive from work. It was such little time you didn’t even get the space to express yourself and give yourself a chance to get into her panties. The strategy was always to buy time and charm her enough to warrant the next date – and perhaps you might get the chance to start early enough in the day.

The most affordable place seemed to be Wimpy on Kenyatta Avenue where you had to contend with their Indian manager always shouting orders at waiters like ”upstairs-downstairs”. But the funny part was the red and blue Bata rubber shoes that they used to wear as part of their uniform. On occasion, some of them would be allowed to wear North stars – but you catch my drift…LOL

But on the entertainment – I miss shows like This is it whatever happened to Sam Madoka the presenter of the coolest music video show at the time); or Family Affairs that had Mambo and Riziki and their troubled family. On radio, there always seemed to be the same 3 or 4 folks sending salaams on shows like Yours for the Asking. I think there was Robbie Reuben Robbie and Agnetta Machinga who would never miss a shout out on radio. And of course Sundowner with legendary DJ’s like Ike Mulembo.
And what
Happened to Kenya’s best known (now he is a celebrity for sure) radio news reader Agao Patrobas. I used to think he was called A gang of robbers. But Patrobas used to front every news bulletin on radio until he became a household name. Legend has it that the reason why he was too good on radio and wasn’t seen on TV was that he was too ugly – but I honestly don’t think so. But a gang of robbers had the mojo for radio.

There were times that it was so boring during the day in the estates, my best friend and I would wear our Sunday best suits and head for town and just walk around. We would carry them brief case type portfolios and fill them with newspapers and Malkiat Singh text books just to give them substance. If we met someone we knew, they’d be impressed about how sharp and on the ball we were even though we were barely out of school. We’d try to say something intelligent to give our cover story some credence.

Speaking of Malkiat Singh, that dude had to be my best author during that time. He was either a mega multi-talented factual author of text books on every subject including Christianity, or he was the biggest conman in town. Either way, he trousered millions of shillings from unsuspecting Kenyan students.

But despite being in town, we would always end up at Jivanjee gardens at lunch time. It was the place to be. If you were lucky, you’d have a few bob to buy some chips and sausage at the only Kenchic in town at the time. Watching those naked chickens rotate on that machine was bad enough knowing you were never going to afford them – but what made Jivanjee gardens interesting is that most if not all of the folks hanging out there were broke like nobody’s business and they all came to pass time and listening to them loud lunch time preachers. But if you looked into the eyes of most of the people, they couldn’t disguise that hunger that oozed out and screamed ”I could murder a bandika and cold Fanta right now”.

We eventually figured out a way to survive being broke during meal times. We would go to Burma market by City Stadium and in the market, there is a long row of restaurants that do nyama choma. The idea was to pop into every restaurant and ask for a sample which would come on a very small plate. After you had the sample, just respectfully decline the offer of a meal and move on to the next restaurant. By the time you hit 8 or so restaurants, you’d have had a whole meal and all you have to do is ask for a glass of water to drink. It wasn’t glamorous but it worked for sure.

Down town Nairobi was a very interesting place though. I always thought the funniest part was whenever there was a fracas of some sort, people would just explode and run away in one direction. But if you even asked someone why they were running, they’d scratch their heads and say “I don’t know – people were running”. I never did figure this one out.

And who can forget the lunch time kiosks along the route to the railway station. I had a friend who used to work with mum and set out to start his own food kiosk called Aluta Continua. The thing was this though, Johnny used to give my best friend and I free meals and once in a while, he’d ask us to run him some errands – collect stock, heavy lifting, that sort of stuff. Sometimes when we got pressurised by girls who were only interested in being taken out for dates in expensive restaurants, we’d get them all dressed up and eventually weave our way to Johnny’s kiosk. There was a bonus for us of course and it’s not just the free meal. If we brought a pretty face it enhanced the equity of the kiosk and was the envy of many others around it – so Johnny would throw in a Fanta madiaba for good measure. Some chicks couldn’t cope and considered it humiliating – LOL, but some took to it like water off a ducks back. You can’t beat fried matumbo and chapos even if you were dressed for a lunch date at Trattoria.

For most people, losing out on a job opportunity is quite a depressing affair. When you get that world famous “Unfortunately on this occasion, you were not successful…” letter, self doubt and low confidence invariably creeps in – even before insult is added to injury with the pretence of the letter’s author wishing you all the best in your job search.

Imagine then when the reason for you not getting a job is self inflicted. And it has nothing to do with your performance on the day of the interview. Well, it was only a matter of time before employers resorted to using Facebook for intelligence gathering about current or prospective employees. It’s like everything else in life, we don’t think it’ll ever happen to us and demons from our past come back to haunt us like a nonsense.

I bumped into a casual friend who was still job hunting and he was lamenting how times are tough out there. We occasionally have a drink at the local watering hole and have a good chin wag. His latest disappointment was that a prospective employer admitted to him that he had to make a tough decision on who to appoint and the young man lost out because this employer decided to look at the Facebook profiles of the last 3 candidates in question. Let’s just say, his own Facebook profile left a lot to be desired and he admitted that if he was the employer, he wouldn’t employ himself based on the shenanigans on his profile.

I sometimes wonder why people assume that their online persona’s are a plug and play component of their life that they can switch on and off when it’s convenient. It’s even more damaging for those who don’t realise the intricate electronic footprint that they leave behind with every single action they take on an electronic network – whether it be the office network or the internet. The register of mortified parents is littered with those who are shocked beyond repair when they find out that their kids as young as 12 are taking nude photos of themselves on cell phones and posting them on YouTube – simply because they think it’s cool and everyone is doing it.

Years ago in a job that I did in a previous life, I was nicknamed the ’Network Hitler’. This was because of my no nonsense ruthlessness when dealing with misguided colleagues who thought the company network was their pissing pot. Instead of carrying on with their job like the rest of us, they spent most of their working hours visiting some unsavoury websites that would make anyone’s mother blush and die in embarrassment.

I ordinarily wouldn’t mind, but when the alert console on my screen keeps popping up dialog boxes every 10 seconds telling me that someone is continuously trying to visit porn sites that the network has quarantined, then it becomes an itch that I have to scratch. My M.O was simply to freeze the account remotely and force the employee to explain to their supervisor why the guys in IT have blocked his network account and why he can’t work. Let’s just say I rarely bought drinks and dinner on nights out with colleagues…and only I knew why.

But my advice to all the transgressors was that the minute they logged onto my network – I owned their arse and could tell every single thing that they did and every single location on the internet that they visited and what they did there. I was sometimes shocked by the brazen and reckless attitude of most internet users, including company directors who were oblivious to the ability of a network to retain certain information. We of course acted absolutely professionally and without question – but if you gave me an itch, I would scratch it.

There was even an occasion while resolving a virus attack, I came across a series of emails that had two colleagues explicitly discussing their affair notwithstanding the fact that the woman’s husband worked for the same company and I knew all three of them. It was my job to fix the virus and not to be a marriage counsellor and the professional thing to do was forget every single thing I had just seen in the emails.

I’m still amazed today when I see how clueless some folks are when it comes to being careful with their internet footprint. The internet is a very small place and believe it or not, it’s possible to do something or say something that will come back to haunt you. Facebook seems to be the new frontier. Only recently in the UK, some woman lost her job because she constantly bitched about how her boss was a nasty piece of work and how she hated to go to work. Her only problem was that she forgot that her boss was one of her Facebook friends and could read every single thing she wrote on her wall.

The boss didn’t disappoint for he handed the woman her notice of a summary dismissal right on her Facebook wall telling her not to bother coming into work on Monday and that her P45 was in the mail.

I rarely get giggles or motivation from forwards sent to me with a threatening “you will forward this to 25 people or else you will die” type of e-mails.

This one caught my attention though as it’s not only true to life, it’s also hilarious. And my buddy who sent it didn’t threaten me with something dodgy if I didn’t send it on. Any parent will relate to this. Enjoy:

Birth order of children

1st baby: You begin wearing maternity clothes as soon as your doctor confirms your pregnancy.
2nd baby: You wear your regular clothes for as long as possible.
3rd baby: Your maternity clothes ARE your regular clothes.

_____________________________________________________
Preparing for the Birth:

1st baby: You practice your breathing religiously.
2nd baby: You don’t bother because you remember that last time breathing didn’t do a thing.
3rd baby : You ask for an epidural in your eighth month.

________________________________________________
The Layette :

1st baby: You pre-wash newborn’s clothes, colour coordinate them, and fold them neatly in the baby’s little bureau.
2nd baby: You check to make sure that the clothes are clean and discard only the ones with the darkest stains.
3rd baby: Boys can wear pink, can’t they?
______________________________________________________

Worries:

1st baby: At the first sign of distress–a whimper, a frown–you pick up the baby.
2nd baby: You pick the baby up when her wails threaten to wake your firstborn.
3rd baby: You teach your three-year-old how to rewind the mechanical swing.

______________________________________________________
Dummy:

1st baby: If the dummy falls on the floor, you put it away until you can go home and wash and boil it.
2nd baby: When the dummy falls on the floor, you squirt it off with some juice from the baby’s bottle..
3rd baby: You wipe it off on your shirt and pop it back in.

______________________________________________________
Nappies:

1st baby: You change your baby’s nappy every hour, whether they need it or not.
2nd baby: You change their nappy every two to three hours, if needed.
3rd baby: You try to change their nappy before others start to complain about the smell or you see it sagging to their knees.
____________________

Activities:

1st baby: You take your infant to Baby Gymnastics, Baby Swing, and Baby Story Hour.
2nd baby: You take your infant to Baby Gymnastics.
3rd baby: You take your infant to the supermarket and the dry cleaner.

______________________________________________________
Going Out:

1st baby: The first time you leave your baby with a sitter, you call home five times.
2nd baby: Just before you walk out the door, you remember to leave a number where you can be reached…
3rd baby: You leave instructions for the sitter to call only if she sees blood.

______________________________________________________
At Home:

1st baby : You spend a good bit of every day just gazing at the baby.
2nd baby: You spend a bit of everyday watching to be sure your older child isn’t squeezing, poking, or hitting the baby.
3rd baby: You spend a little bit of every day hiding from the children.

Folklore has it that only 2 professions in the world can withstand anything thrown at them – whether it’s the mother of all economic recessions, a world war, or a once in a lifetime occurrence of that infamous and elusive force majeur principle – an act of God. Yup! You’ve got it – prostitution and running funeral services.

They’re the only two professions that have withstood the test of time. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the tax authorities can easily be your new found best friend if you register your sole trading vocations as funeral services and sheltered adult entertainment services. It’s the combination that’s a killer – the revenue folks don’t flag up each of them in isolation.

I even remember a story a few years ago in the famous Kondele area of Kisumu City. There was a chap who religiously attended church every Sunday and vociferously prayed to God to bless his business and ensure that there’s always a ready stream of customers. You see, this chap was the most successful coffin maker in the area, and most definitely a believer in the school of thought that unconventional and diversified marketing, if carried out with discipline and without fear, can yield incredible results.

It’s not surprising then, that the oldest profession in the world has caught onto the most popular phenomenon of latter day citizen media – this here blogosphere of ours. I think it’s safe to say that residents of the local stiff house will never take advantage of the wi-fi provision in their guest house facility, though I’d hazard a guess that you’ll find a mortician or two blogging away to pass time while literally doing the graveyard shift. No, no – I’m talking here about prostitution getting the most high profile attention any blog in the world will want.

Until this week, the biggest and most sought after secret of the blogosphere was the identity of Belle du jour, a high class £300 an hour London call girl who anonymously blogged about her exploits in the sex industry. Her blog – The Diary of a London Call Girl – was a witty, matter of fact kind of blog about her experiences with her punters that whilst not necessarily explicit, left very little to the imagination.

From the time her blog (which unsurprisingly has been moved offline was chosen by the Guardian Newspaper as the best blog of 2003, the literary world and the tabloid and mainstream press set out on a mission to identify and flush out the person behind the blog. There were even claims that the blog was a work of fiction by some professional writer, or that it was written by a man.

Belle du jour, eventually unmasked herself to the Sunday Times in fear that an ex-boyfriend was about to cash in on one of the best kept literary secrets of all time. Now known as Dr Brooke Magnanti, a research scientist in cancer and epidemiology at a Top Bristol hospital for children, she admits that she worked as a prostitute for 14 months to pay her way through graduate medical school.

Her exploits as Belle du jour also earned her a neat cushy income with 2 biographical type books based on her blog and work as a prostitute, and a novel classified as fiction, as well as a TV series based on the life and times of Belle – who was played by a famous actress Billy Piper. Until this week, only Billy Piper had met Dr. Magnanti when familiarizing herself with the role before doing the TV show. Even her publishers Orion had no clue who she was.

Flat-backing your way through school is not a new phenomenon (well, maybe writing about it and publishing a couple of books is a bit different), but the truth is that if you look at most if not all the universities around the world, you’ll find a story to tell. It’s like one of them taboo things that folks don’t speak about – but it’s the white elephant in the room. The methods of payment may vary for most students trying to pay their way through school, and these range from favours, to rent payments, to good old fashioned hard currency. In recent times, many have resorted to publicly auctioning their virginity to pay their way through school.

You could always make a moral argument about whether flat-backing is a sign of an industrious and entrepreneurial spirit, or whether it’s just pure ole exploitation of girls who are desperate to change the course of their lives by daring to aim for the best careers. A good friend of mine I went to college with saw it totally different – “Pragmatic mi old chap, pragmatic” she used to say.

While I understood her reasons for doing it, my only gripe with her was that as a Business student, she was short-changing herself. It’s the classic business conundrum of how to build equity by not committing yourself too much. My argument with her was that if she turned tricks herself, her body could only let her work a finite amount of hours. However, if she got a customer willing to pay £100 an hour to tap arse, and gave someone else £70 to do it, she could better spend her time pimping and building equity. If she had 4 girls working in one hour, she’ll break even and some, and she didn’t even need to stare at the ceiling and think of the Queen.

LOL! Stop looking at me like that. The girl simply asked me for my advice. I was just thinking of the quickest way she could pay her way through school and finish paying off her student loans.

But seriously – like with anything in life, there’s a nasty side to the game. For those like Dr. Magnanti, it probably is a happy ever after story and she’s got her PhD and working in a cushy job (with a few bob also from her books and TV show).

For millions of other girls and women, prostitution is a means of survival and will never be a glamorous affair or the stuff of Hollywood. It was only in September that I wrote about the exploitation of children in Mombasa in We’re not going to hell, we already live in it.