Blame Val for distorting my mind and giving me post ideas to fill my break. I need a break anyway and since it’s been a while up in here – I might as well fess up.

1. Last beverage:
Nice properly ground coffee – always works a treat early in the morning. None of that instant stuff.

2. Last phone call:
My graphic designer in Kenya – I’ve got this habit of insisting that I won’t employ someone in my neighbourhood when there’s a cheaper (not always though) alternative that will give someone a few bob at home to do his or her thing. Don’t ever say I didn’t help with the economy Back home.

3. Is there a number 3?
Val – what’s the conspiracy with this omission?

4. Last song you listened to:
Tabu Ley Rochereau – Muzina. Always in the car – and have my son singing along…

5. Last time you cried:
You’re fucking kidding me, right?

HAVE YOU EVER:

6. Dated someone twice?
No! – but if you mean had sex with an ex-girlfriend for old time sake – Yeah! I wouldn’t go as far as calling it dating again though – it was just a booty call. Why complicate things by letting another relationship get in the way of a perfectly legitimate good old fashioned arse tapping?

7. Been cheated on?
Probably – I’m not one to try and ask questions that have answers I’m not prepared for. Some sleeping dogs are just best left the fuck down.

8. Kissed someone?
Is the Pope Catholic?

9. Lost someone special?
I’m philosophical about this one – and I suppose it depends if they were mine in the first place. But I’ve had break-ups if that’s what you mean.

10. Been depressed?
No, not really – but I suppose if you asked a shrink they’d want to justify the fee and suggest otherwise. There was a time though many years back that I had to start learning how to live my life from scratch because of a life changing experience – but I was probably too busy learning how to start life from scratch again to even be depressed.

11. Been drunk and threw up?
Is this a trick question?

LIST FOUR FAVORITE COLORS:
Would it surprise you if I told you that the concept of colour is one that is foreign to my vocabulary?

12. Black – my car is metallic midnight black – love it.
13. Black – My laptop is black and no, I don’t do Goth.
14. Blue – I was in Batian House in primary school and we wore blue.
15. Beige – don’t know why, it just looks cool.

HAVE YOU:

16. Made new friends:
Yes – I recently met new friends and had a ball. Her of the crazy variety cooked me a platinum dinner of Olympic quality, although FG and M were still eating it as they carried it home the next day, and I was left driving home salivating for the second round…LOL.

17. Fallen out of love?
Now why would I want to complicate my life by contemplating such nebulous questions.

18. Laughed until you cried?
No!

19. Met someone who changed you?
Yes, my son.

20. Found out who your true friends were?
Oh Yes – a very long time ago.

21. Found out someone was talking about you?
Never gone looking but tis a fact of life – and all the more reason not to spend my energy looking.

22. Kissed anyone on your friend’s list?
On FB? Yeah – but that would be telling. Wanajijua wenyewe. →

23. How many people on your friends list do you know in real life?
Define ‘real’ life? I didn’t know the internet was fake. But just for consistency in answering the question, I know everyone on my FB list personally.

24. Again Val, where is No. 24? Is there a conspiracy?

25. Do you have any pets?
No! Now why would I want to live with an animal in my house.

26. Do you want to change your name?
It’s a bit too late for that…LOL

27. What did you do for your last birthday?
Worked during the day, went for dinner in the evening, and the rest would make my wife blush.

28. What time did you wake up today?
5.00 am as I do every weekday.

29. What were you doing at midnight last night?
Sleeping.

30. Name something you CANNOT wait for:
For project A to become a reality. It’s stressful being in the ‘sausage factory’ with this one and I’ll be glad to see it through and move on to the next thing.

31. Last time you saw your father?
Is this another trick question? I could say a few months ago, but those who understand will know why I ask if this is a trick question.

32. What is one thing you wish you could change about your life?
Another trick question…LOL! It can’t happen so let’s move right along.

33. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom?
Yeah, several.

34. What’s getting on your nerves right now?
The biased, unprofessional, pathetic and criminal media shit stirring being conducted by the western media about Africa. Everything to them about Africa is a cesspit. It really doesn’t help that the Coupe du Mond is being battled for in South Africa starting Friday.

35. Last visited webpage?
Project A. You’ll have to wait for a few weeks to know what I’m visiting out there.

36. What’s your name?
Darius.

37. Nicknames?
Stone Cold.

38. Relationship Status?
Married.

39. Zodiac sign?
Aries

40. Male or female or transgendered?
Go figure.

41. Primary?
Westlands.

42. Middle School?
What is it exactly that folks do here?

43. High school?
Patch

44. Hair color?
Black (when there’s some on my head)

45. Long/medium/short?
I’m clean cut most of the time, or low crop during winter. Nice, simple, no drama – and it brings out the handsome in yours truly.

46. Height?
6 ft and a cigarette butt.

47. Do you have a crush on someone?
LOL! Don’t know what stuff like this feels any more – it used to be easier.

48. What do you like about yourself?
The fact that I’m not vain enough to answer this question. It’s for others to decide.

49. Piercings?
Need some guidance here – does helping someone lose their virginity count? I’m struggling.

50. Tattoos
Hell No!

51. Righty? or lefty?
→ Righty, though I confess, it’s been a while since I wrote anything by hand…

FIRSTS

52. First surgery?
Don’t remember much probably because of the next 7 that followed. But I remember Deborah – she was nice and she took care of me. I remember thinking it must be really good to bang her in her nurses uniform…

53. First piercing
See number 49 above.

54. First best friends
Jamo. Still hang out until now.

55. First sport you joined?
Football of course.

56. First pet?
Please – no animals.

57. First vacation?
Mombasa…stayed at Whitesands hotel…and that was a long long time ago.

58. First concert?
Opening concert for Kasarani Sports Complex before some nutcase named it the Moi International Sports Centre. It was just before the 1987 All Africa games and the headline acts were Jermaine Jackson and Franco and his TPOK Jazz band. Also had my first kiss that night – met the girl there and we hang out the whole time together. I remember she was a year older than I was.

59. First crush?
Not telling, she’s on my FB friends list and probably reads this blog…LOL!

60. Eating?
Nothing, but I had a bacon sandwich earlier.

61. Drinking?
Fizzy water.

62. Already missing?
Arsenal playing twice a week. The world cup is not the same – club football is the bread and butter and lifeline for my Arsenalitis disease.

63. I’m about to?
Go back to what I was doing before I started this crazy list.

64. Listening to?
Nothing. →

65. Thinking about?
The next business activity after Project A is up and running.

66. Waiting for?
The second knock out round of the world cup when the chaff is separated from the wheat and we can start watching football proper.

YOUR FUTURE :

67. Want kids?
Already have one – but will think about more.

68. Want to get married?
LOL! Too late.

69. Careers in mind?
Anything away from the rat race. I love my freedom and flexibility and harmony.

WHICH IS BETTER WITH THE OPPOSITE SEX?

70. Lips or eyes?
Lips for sure – nyonyarable lips like Natalie Imbruglia’s lips. If I was to be honest, I’m a breast man myself….not too big, just nice and supple and easily fits the hand….but I digress…LOL! Lips will have to do. 

71. Hugs or kisses?
This is one of them functional questions that you see how it goes…LOL! But I don’t go around hugging people for the sake of it…its damn hard work.

72. Shorter or taller?
Not fussed.

73. Older or Younger?
Not fussed as I’ve buttered both sides of this slice, Age isn’t an issue believe me.

74. Romantic or spontaneous?
LOL! Wait till you get to my age.

75. Nice stomach or nice arms?
No breasts?

76. Sensitive or loud?
Sensitive rules.

77. Hook-up or relationship?
Are you trying to get me divorced?

78. Trouble maker or hesitant?
Trouble maker…

HAVE YOU EVER :

79. Drank hard liquor?
Is that what it was?

80. Lost glasses/contacts?
Don’t need them.

81. Had sex on 1st date?
Yes. And you know what I don’t get – it’s this “I can’t fuck someone on the first date nonsense”. What’s the point in waiting if you’ve already decided – and believe me, girls already put you in a zone within 5 minutes…LOL! “He’s a no no”, or “Hmm!, he’s got game…let’s see” or “But of course”…

This not doing it on a first date thing to protect my modesty and respect nonsense just amuses me…bang the bastard already.

82. Broken someone’s heart?
Yes. It wasn’t going to work.

83. Had your own heart broken ?
Yes. Should have never got in…LOL! She was poison (not in that nasty way…) – we’re still buddies but she was the ladies equivalent of a ‘bad boy’.

84. Been arrested?
This is arguable and I plead the 5th.

85. Turned someone down?
Yes…I was once proposed to live on an internet forum…very embarrassing considering who else was reading that stuff…LOL Funny that I’ve actually met the girl and we’re good friends.

86. Cried when someone died?
Is this another trick question?

87. Liked a friend that of the same sex?
You’re fucking kidding me, right? DO

YOU BELIEVE IN:

88. Yourself?
If I don’t, who will?

89. Miracles?
Yes.

90. Love at first sight?
No, lust at first sight has some mileage.

91. Heaven
I’ll pass on this one.

92. Santa Clause?
LOL – Hell no.

93. Kiss on the first date?
If you don’t get one on the first date, then it was a really bad day at the office. Otherwise it wasn’t a date.

94. Angels?
Guardian angels are all around us.

95. Is there one person you want to be with right now?
Can I plead the 5th amendment here?

96. Had more than one boyfriend/girlfriend at one time?
That would be telling…

97. Wish you could change things in your past?
Never going to happen, let’s move on.

98. Are you posting this as 100 Truths
99. What, we’ve run out of questions? You still haven’t told me what happened to no. 3 and no. 24.? → Yup!

100. Where are you right now?
In my home-office.

I think it might be a good idea to get back to work now….it was a nice break.

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.

“Dear God. All I ask you is to let me live for one more day, and I promise to do whatever you want. Just one more day and I promise I’ll never drink again. I don’t want to die like this”

That was my cousin JQ narrating to us his conversation with his God when he woke up in a sewerage gutter somewhere in Kayole estate. He doesn’t recall how he got there, but we all agreed it had to do with consuming copious amounts of alcohol, though the jury’s still out as to whether it was regulation booze or the kumi kumi variety from Mama Pima.

He vaguely remembers sounds of people and one or two cars passing by, but not much else apart from the realisation that he didn’t want to die. It sounds tragic, but his narration of this near death experience was too hilarious – and JQ was compelled to divulge all after he declined a routine 3rd round of booze as we sat outside a bar in Hurlingham some time back. JQ is not one to turn down a drink, but he was already uneasy about us being there. You see, he’s the sort of chap who’s conscience doesn’t tolerate paying a price for a beer that you can get cheaper elsewhere.

His protest was clearly visible each time the waiter brought a round of drinks and he quickly grabbed the bill before reminding us “majamaa, hizi pombe na weza sakanya 33 bob kule kwa mahindi” (Guys, I can hustle this booze for 33 bob in the maize plantations). At one point, he actually challenged the waiter to clarify whether the figure on the receipt was the actual bill or a phone number.

JQ was the last person I suggested to that he was seeing dead people, something he really couldn’t argue with as that is what he felt when in that filthy gutter. So you can imagine my surprise when while on the concourse of Charing Cross Station in London, a familiar voice shouted to me “Hey – I see dead people”.

Most people around me thought Jamie had lost the plot, but there was no mistaking that husky voice running at me from the direction of platform 6 shouting “you jammy bastard”. The bear hug and the testosterone filled hi-fives confirmed to all and sundry that it was possible that we had indeed seen dead folk.

Talk about a blast from the past. I hadn’t seen Jamie for over 8 years if not more, and he hadn’t changed one bit. It wasn’t long before we were in the nearest pub catching up on the good old days of our mis-spent youth.

You see, the first time we coined the catch phrase of “I see dead people” was some time in the mid 90s. I lived in a close Knit community in a small village in the county better known as the garden of England.

Jamie was the bartender at the local pub which literally became my second home. It wasn’t just because of the booze, the landlord and his family became very good friends of mine, I could have passed for a family member if I wasn’t black. The landlord Nash and I clicked the very first day I walked into the pub as both of us were wearing replica Arsenal shirts, and he pulled a bar stool right next to his and bought me my first drink. Jamie was behind the bar.

Over the 6 or so years that I lived there, we had life changing experiences that I’ll never forget. During Christmas breaks, usually one of the days between Christmas and new year, we had a tradition of getting together all the usual suspects who frequented the pub, and we’d have our very own cultural exchange madness. Each year, every household will be nominated a country, and they would then take the mantle of representing this country in a crazy fun-feast for all participants.

So if you got Germany for example, you would have to cook German food, dress up as Germans would, serve German drinks, etc. If you get Mexico, you had to dress up like Mexicans, hook up some Mexican food and drink, and blast Mexican music when the village madness hit your house and so on.

Everyone would then meet at the pub at 12 noon, have a single drink, before starting a crawl round everyone’s house beginning furthest afield. Everybody would enjoy the delights and booze of one country and after dancing to some obscure music from that country, we would all then file to the next destination for a new experience. Naturally, the lightweights will fall off the cliff or black out somewhere along the way, though nobody really cared as they would be expected to sleep it off in readiness for the last round at the pub. If you think of it, crawling at least 12 to 14 different countries, eating and drinking God knows what, and aiming to be at the pub before 10 pm was quite an expedition.

This one particular year, Nash and his wife didn’t get past the 5th house, which was not unusual, so folks decided to end the party at Jimbo’s house instead of the pub. Hindsight would have brought some perspective to this decision, but I doubt if anyone was compus mentus enough to predict the drama about to unfold.

Jimbo is a Kiwi who was prone to do stupid and dangerous things like luring me into an Australian pub in London on the day that the Wallabies were beaten by the All Blacks and only suicidal folks would walk into an Aussie pub wearing an All Blacks jersey. The smirk on his face while doing this was priceless though, just the sort of thing a crazy Kiwi will never hesitate to do given the opportunity.

The stunt nevertheless got me into a tight spot and my only get out clause was to dance and mime to Alanis Morissette’s Ironic on top of a table with a beer bottle as the microphone. Oh! Don’t you worry, Jimbo and his 14 stone All Black self was on the table next to mine also doing his Ironic routine with the rest of the pub cheering like crazy.

That particular night, I had done well even to make it back to Jimbo’s, though most of the folks by then were the ones who had blacked out earlier and bought themselves a new lease of life. The last thing I remember was playing grab ass with Katie and dancing to Brown Girl in the Rain by Boney M – now that I think of me singing that song in the state I was in, I shudder. I don’t even remember when Marco, my Aussie house mate and partner in crime switched places with Katie and started slow dancing with me. I guess it took me a while to notice that his chest didn’t have the customary C cup cushioning that I had already warmed up to, his prickly stubs of a beard that needed a shave were scraping my face, and his ass wasn’t as supple and rounded as Katie’s was.

There was some cake and snacks being dished around and who was I to refuse some good ol’ fashioned Mexican cuisine. Only problem was that Jimbo and his twisted pals decided to lace the sugar they baked the cake with. I have since taken the 5th when asked what was in that cake, except to ask the inquisitive party – “what is white and can be used to lace other white stuff put in a cake?”, and you quickly get my drift. If this was a practical joke, then no one saw it coming.

My next interaction with the world around me was when Marco and Katie’s dad were carrying me into a taxi. I could still hear voices and it was as if people were talking about me like I was dead. Somebody did insist on asking if I’ll make it and I distinctly recall Marco responding “Darius is OK – he’s just seeing dead people”.

He then turned round to me and tried to get me awake before asking me if I was seeing dead people. I honestly don’t know if they were dead, but I had visions of a familiar room with folks that I thought I knew. Leslie (at least I thought it was though I couldn’t see her face) was at one corner and kneeling down as if praying though she was speaking Gaelic, and I remember wanting to shout to her that it’s OK and that it’s peaceful – she didn’t need to fight it. There was Pauly as usual scrounging around for his last blunt, and swearing that he can’t finish the job until he gets that spliff but what distinctly worried me was that I recalled him stripping the tables and chairs in the pub and using them to build a weird shaped casket. There were other people I didn’t know repeatedly chanting some stuff like “Hamnyo mlengonyo” almost as if they were in a temple and surrounded by smoke filled enclosures and the smoke rising and forming images on the roof.

The cab driver was getting a bit anal and wondering whether I’ll throw up in his taxi and arguing with Marco about who will clean it if I do. Apparently, I then told the cab driver to relax, I wasn’t going to throw up, I was just seeing dead people.

And the catch phrase was born.

One thing that riles any boss, especially during times of economic hardship, is providing unnecessary concessions or time off to their most expensive resource, their staff. It’s the age old battle of an employer who tries to get the most out of an employee at the least possible cost, and an employee who is determined to get the most reward for the least amount of work.

I first came across this memo from an employer to his employee years and years ago, and hadn’t seen it again until this week – and thought it was still an excellent piece of diplomacy. I must remind myself to use it some time.

From: Team Leader

To: (Enter employee’s name here)

Subject: Your request for a day off work

Thank you for submitting a request for a day off work. I’m concerned though, that you haven’t looked at things from my point of view, so I think it’s important to examine what you’re asking for.

There are 365 days in a year, and out of these, you only work during the week, leaving us with only 261 available working days.

Out of these 261 days, you are only theoretically available to the company for at most 8 hours a day. If you take the rest of the 16 hours a day as a whole and calculate them into days, then you don’t work for another 174 days, technically leaving you with 87 working days in a year.

If we then subtract all public holidays and the period between Christmas and new year when the company is not open for business, you will see that you only have 74 working days.

We haven’t even considered the time that you have off for lunch, tea and coffee breaks in the morning and afternoon, and the down time that you have for chit chat and office gossip. Take all these in totality through the year, and you effectively have 52 working days left to offer the company.

You will also be aware that the company has a policy of setting aside 1 day a month for staff training. Add to this, the time you spent travelling during the day to and from company clients, and we clearly see that there’s at least another 24 days down time through the year, technically leaving us with 28 working days.

Now, I’m reliably told by the folks in the IT department that on average, you spend 30 to 45 minutes a day browsing websites that have nothing to do with why we employ you. We don’t want you to consider us anal, so we normally overlook this sort of down time for most employees, but give or take, I suggest that this leaves us with 26 working days in a year.

Apparently, the government requires that we give you a mandatory 25 days off work for annual leave, leaving you with only one working day in the year.

I’LL BE DAMNED IF THAT’S THE DAY YOU HAVE IN MIND!

You’d think that by this point in my life, I’d have mastered the art of shall we say, getting out of tight situations unscathed. I’m not talking about some closer shaves of a misspent youth that brought out the Hollywood stuntman you never thought was you.

You know them tight situations when a father comes home from work for lunch unexpectedly, and the biggest problem isn’t that his daughter hasn’t prepared lunch yet, or doesn’t look like she’s anywhere near preparing anything edible. The biggest problem is that you happen to be naked and firmly anchored in between his teenage daughter’s legs – and as he calls out for her, you’re traumatizing about whether to complete an exercise in coitus that is a justified reward for the time and effort that you’ve clearly invested your whole school holiday in, or jump out through the second floor bedroom window and take your chances with the unsuspecting neighbours who you’re about to grace, truth be told, with what you can find of your clothes in one hand, and if you’re not injured – trying to cover a rock hard penis with the other hand.

No, no – this recent close shave wasn’t as dramatic, but nevertheless, a gentle reminder about why it’s important to keep alert and avoid “sitting duck” situations. So while with a friend of the family, we bumped into some folks from the church that the friends go to, and the chit chat and nosy enquiries started.

“So are you all from the same country?” “Did you know each other before you moved here?” “Do you speak the same language?” “Do you live locally?” – you know the usual check list.

“Hey P, why don’t you invite your lovely friends to church this Sunday, it’ll be really lovely, we’ve got a really worthy theme this Sunday”

And before I could process where all this chit chat was going, P turned around with that “Sure, you guys can come right? You’re not doing anything this weekend…”, and turning back to the friends, assuringly concluding “don’t worry, I’ll make sure they’re there”.

I should have said something. You know when you get those moments, those split second situations where a “no” may sound really cold, but it’s so much better for everyone. Well, my no moment passed and come Sunday, we found ourselves looking for a free parking zone (parking attendants out here get paid on commission for the number of cars they clamp, so even on Sunday, I was taking no chances)

Side bar here. I’m not averse to attending church – really. It’s just that since I left my mother’s house many years ago to go to boarding school, my perception of things have changed and the rest is complicated (at least for the scope of this post). Before then, it was a cardinal crime in my mother’s house to miss church every weekend, and I do respect and appreciate why she took this stance. But she also gave us the freedom to decide what to do about attending church once we were older and could make that decision ourselves.

I even had the privilege of being one of the chapel wardens during high school helping the Chaplain run the school chapel day to day – and got involved in everything from organizing the cleaning (first form rabbles did it of course), to helping coordinate regular services and managing finances, and on a couple of occasions, being very proud to be one of the wardens on duty when the chapel hosted the funeral services for two fellow students who passed away while we were still in school.

The long and short of it is that it’s a very long time since I went to church, the only two exceptions being my brother’s funeral service several years ago, and the wedding of our close friends (to each other), both of which meant a lot to me in different ways.

So when my opportunity to step in and say “no, we actually have plans” faded past amidst the “great, we’ll see you Sunday” byes and hugs, I was left with that “what did I just get myself into” feeling.

‘Er indoors is fine with it and attends church very regularly, but there’s just something about these local churches that even she finds unnerving. We have a small church less than 400 metres from where we live, but that’s just gossip central. My neighbours and folks in the surrounding area don’t go to church to know the town gossip, they just go to find out and confirm whether the local paper printed out the version of the story they had heard. Drama central describes the culture of it much better.

So when we entered this new (for us) church as they were singing a hymn, the deacons and ushers sat at the back scrambled to make space for us to sit together, and we just calmly slotted in and assumed the necessary by joining into the chorus. I must have heard this hymn somewhere but I didn’t know the words so I just sang what they were singing only a second or two late – it works.

As we sat down, I thought I’d readjust my chair only to be put in my place by my son. I’m sure he totally didn’t mean to embarrass me (kids his age will say the darnest things), but shouting “don’t be silly daddy, sit down” in a church with pin drop silence doesn’t normally achieve that desired “I didn’t mean to” effect. After the laughter, I knew I was fodder.

My wife’s attention was caught by something else on a projector screen and it was only when she turned around and whispered to me in Swahili did I register her disappointment at the semi-naked starving boy from Liberia that they had on the screen in your now classic International NGO “give us your frigging money for poor African’s” mode.

If you read my post Cynicism in its true colours – Well!, they’ll say they’re saving the world , then you’ll clearly understand my lack of enthusiasm for all matters innately patronizing.

I thought we were coming for a church service not a frigging fundraising event. For the sake of expediency and acceptance that I can’t afford a law suit, I’ll refrain from naming the organization involved, but this was a new low.

I’ll come back to the “give us your frigging money” story in a second, but I digressed when talking about my project of sitting down without any more embarrassment. The next speaker at the pulpit then pronounced the dreaded phrase – “I understand we have visitors today – We’d like them to introduce themselves!”.

I don’t know if I can aptly explain how that call for visitors in a church evokes certain feelings in my being that freak me out. Maybe it’s the conditioning I got as a child every time we visited the grandparents in the bundux and when attending the local church with them – they couldn’t pass the opportunity to show off their neatly dressed grand children from “the city”. We had to stand up, wave and smile back at everyone, and I guess anyone in a church who says “we have visitors”, triggers those raw emotions.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not afraid of crowds or speeches for that matter, far from it. I’m actually quite good at it when I’m in my element. It’s just that being paraded for everyone like a dairy cow from Athi River about to be sold at an auction is not my style. A couple with three kids quickly came to our rescue as they made their way up front. What a relief, but then again, I was busy trying to figure out where P and her family were. I just thought it would be useful, while we have the breathing space to just remind P that I was not averse to breaking legs if I had to – and I’ll do it if it’ll stop me from being cajoled into standing up and walking up front like the couple and their 3 kids.

Apparently though, these folks had been debriefed and they were only being introduced as they were new folks who wanted to become members. For some reason, I thought that churches let any Thomas, Dickson and Harrison walk through the door, but maybe I’m mistaken. What I wasn’t mistaken about is that I wasn’t about to fill any membership form.

Fast forward to the service and we come back to the travels of the speaker (who I understood was a guest speaker) talking about his travels on behalf of a charity working in West Africa. I kid you not, if I had a brick, I would have thrown it at the dude with the precision of Andrew Flintoff trying to dismiss the batsman of the Australian cricket team. He wasn’t preaching for crying out loud, he was running a full length live infomercial with video props to boot.

At one point, I wanted to storm out when they started showing a video of how they’ve helped poor Africans plant tomatoes or breed chickens. Clearly, this is something a population of over 850 million people from 52 countries wouldn’t know how to do, and only westerners running charities know how to “teach” the natives. My wife had clearly picked on my mood and as I got shifty in my chair, she stepped on my foot with enough to transmit her clear message “you ain’t going anywhere – sit down”.

I had to endure another soppy story of dilemmas in life where the dude talking had to struggle to make a moral decision to give a pen to a child in the village. His dilemma apparently was that if he gave the child a pen, then every child would then want a pen, and considering that they can’t read and write, this was a big issue. This dude even ask the congregation to tell by a show of hands how many would have given the pen. It was so surreal I just had to lean back and look at the roof.

And the moral of the story – as if it was unpredictable – “Give us your frigging money – we’re saving poor Africans”. If he would have just started with that 1 minute advert, it would have been less painful.

I didn’t realise it was possible to go lower than the very patronizing daytime “please give us £2 a month, we need it to save poor people in Africa” advertisement screened every 5 minutes on cable and satellite TV. Adverts like this one or this one. This dude was actually pulling it off in church – and the congregation were all teary eyed and possibly contemplating their wicked shame of living without caring for the poor of the world – or more succinctly, what William Easterly calls “The white man’s burden”.

If you thought that was dramatic enough, then you must have been as confused as I was. You see, churches out here have a small gathering after the service where the congregation mill around, share a lousy cup of tea and a few biscuits and cakes. It’s during this time that I got reminded how it’s very important to take things in context as the alternative is to get arrested for expressing your contempt about what is being said and the undertones it’s being delivered in.

So while sitting at a table with P catching up, sipping the tea and biting into a biscuit, regular folks pass by, say hello and pull a chair, and the hits just keep on rolling.

(Note to reader: The questions and awkward conversations are aggregated from different “well meaning” smiling people – And the answers up in here were the one’s in my head, but not what I responded)

Q: “So how did you come to the UK?”
My thoughts: A fishing boat
Q: “I didn’t realise you had it that bad in Africa – do you know that village?”
My thoughts: “Yeah, it’s just down the road from where my family is from
Q: If you’ve lived for that long in this area, why haven’t you come to church like your fellow Africans?”
My thoughts: What? It’s now a crime?
Q: “Do you work? The economy is really bad – it must affect you?”
My thoughts: Actually, I run a brothel from my basement during the day – pretty low key, only referral punters, and a different girl every day.
Q: “Are you on benefits (welfare)?
My thoughts: Do I have a frigging sign on my head saying – post office regular every Thursday to cash welfare cheque?
Q:”You know the church is always here – if you’re ever in difficulty, you and your family must ask us for help”
My thoughts: What the fuck!

You get the gist anyway….

This was as bad as the funky outfit in Kenya that got a group of my mum’s maendeleo ya wanake group hooked on their fascinating take of why the world was so troubling – got to admit though, they got my friends and I (see – the mum’s dragged all their teenage kids to such redemptions from evil) singing “Riswah” at every available opportunity – it was a ball….

….Or the shenanigans of a one Mary Akatsa, the prophetess of comedy – did I tell you that I had the privilege of visiting her and being prayed for to rid me of the demons of my misspent youth(this is clearly a story for another blog post)…

…Or Kenya’s very own Mr. Miracle Baby, a one Pastor Deya, but that also ladies and gentlemen, is a story in itself.