V & S Blogger

Violence and Sex! Apparently that’s all I write about. Just kidding. Enyonam called me out for this 'award' – Versatile and Stylish Blogger. The crown fits with difficulty, but my thanks are sincere.

The rules say to tell 7 things about myself and to pass on the award to another 15. I can find 7 things to confess, but I don’t know if I can sincerely point to only15 bloggers – I am positive there are 200 with style in Ghana alone. I ordinarily wouldn't play this chain email/post game, but I can make an exception for the Diva.

7 Things

1 – I get angry everyday

2 – I dream everyday of flying by simply flapping my arms

3 – I eat very little and sleep even less

4 – I believe in systems and formulae for everything we do

5 – I’m afraid of standing out in excellence

6 – I’m crazy about ‘breastices’

7 – I dream of wild fame (funny considering my point # 5)

15! Hmmm!

1 – Muse

2 – Nash

3 – Nana Fredua

4 – Kwegyirba

5 – Myne Whitman

6 - Muze

7 – Kitchen Floor Cockroach

8 – Mr Knight

9 – Ms Understood

10 – Nana Darkoa

11 – Esi (of course)

12 – Nana Kofi Acquaah

13 – Ato KD

14 – Kajsa

15 – Daixy

The Failure of the Cashless Society in Ghana

Money is dangerous ... to carry. You could lose it, or lose your life over it, right? So the Bank of Ghana introduced a debit card that you could ‘load with your money’ and use for all transactions. Ain’t that cute? But it failed.

Why did it fail? Culture!

Many years ago in Europe, the currency was gold. Then bankers came up. They took in your gold  and wrote an acknowledgement on paper, and a promise to give back your gold whenever you presented your IOU. Because the IOU was backed by gold, traders accepted it as payment for goods and services. That paper evolved into cash.

After the Colonialist has taught the Ghanaian to accept paper in place of cowries or shells or cola as money, somebody gets up and says let’s now use plastic. We will put all your money on the plastic and you can pay for anything with it. I look at my wad of 1000 Cedis and wonder how you can put it all on a little plastic card. No Sire, I beg your pardon.

So the card failed. Many have one in their pocket. It’s as light as the wind and as empty as a vacuum. Next time anybody wants to change a system of doing things, let them not ignore history and culture. Smh.

(Picture Credit - Countingoncurrency.com)

We Used to Learn by Playing

In these our lands, many years ago, we used to learn by playing. Through song and dance and theatrics, we learnt what was relevant for our circumstances then. 

When the colonialists came to inflict their cut of formal education on Africa, we left the fun behind. Classrooms are rigid, sterile, solemn spaces, rewarding routine and culling creativity. The youth only disport in nursery school or after school. 

We grow up maybe smart but certainly unimaginative, uninventive, uninspired. Just for example, we have windy plains aplenty and a brilliance of nuclear sun all year, but we’re short on energy and everything else. The former colonialists are increasing the play in their learning – the way we used to do many years ago in these our precious lands.

(Picture credit - tobeworldwide.org)

When is Sexual Harassment True – Or False?

Suddenly, sexual harassment claims are flying about in the media. Each complaint is by a woman against a man. It makes one wonder many things. Is it all true? Are there so many male bastards out there? Are the women now sprouting a voice? Are the men innocent? Is the allegation of sexual harassment becoming a new tool of oppression by women against men?

Too Kind to be a Judge

What did I overhear in a court today? Rumours that the judge in a motor offences court was transferred to some backwoods because she was too lenient to a particular offender.

Fat Women with Big Baw-Taws in Ghana

“He’s very fat, and I’m also fat. I can never like him. We fat women, we don’t like fat men, we like slim men. I am not just fat, I am shapely – Coca Cola – with big baw-taws; and, in Africa, men always worry women like me.”

Say what? Fat women prefer slim men? And men always badger women with big baw-taws? Hmm. It’s a serious allegation of sexual harassment by a woman against her former boss. And she said something like what’s above on radio. I shouldn’t trifle with it.

But, seriously, are there any truths in her statement about fat-women-and-slim-men? And do men hound and harry women-with-big-baw-taws any more than slender women or women with small ‘tings’? I want full-bodied comments with big baw-taws, I beg.

Sanitizers or No-Handshakes in the City of Accra

Toyota Avensis – you know the first generation patterned after a plastic Parker pen case. I saw a sparkling, sienna-lacquered Avensis rolling along the Independence Avenue this morning. I was craving-curious to see who its cultivated handler was. You don’t like to hear this said, but it was a swain in a suit, whose mug-shot exposed where he was reared - a place without grace or finish. I was beginning to feel guilty about my prejudice when, at the Akuafo Intersection, he plunged his index finger up his nose and foraged around his nares. So, I repeat with warrant – he looked and acted like a barbarian.

(Picture Credit - zazzle.com)

Hearts and Kotoko – No Heart, No Bristles

They are no longer the prickly porcupine and humongous Oak tree they used to be. Things are the same, and yet they’re changing. The league games remain drab, humdrum – it’s more thrilling to watch an ice cube melt. However, there’s a shift. It’s like climbing the stairs upside down. Kotoko and Hearts are either at the rat’s-arse end of the table, or the building’s still wrong-way-up. Sometimes, when the Young grow, the Old should just give way to them.

(Picture Credit - myjoyonline.com)

Wikileaks – The Coming Swiss List

A few individuals must be jittery in several African states. They are flat-broke public servants (past or present) in beggared countries; but when Mr Assange casts the new list loose, their names will be minted in Swiss bank vaults.

Palimony – ‘Sleeping’ with Sense

Imagine living with a man or woman who you are not married to. Despite not being married, you contribute (in cash, comforts, emotions, time, personal sacrifices, etc) to the home, to property, to entertainment (including sex). Then you break up. If you were married, somebody would be entitled to alimony. Shouldn’t you be awarded a financial payment for your investment in the relationship, especially if your partner has become successful in life because you were there to support? You only get this money if there was a contract - written or oral.

Sleeping Around – A Western-Culture Import?

A woman is carnal with a mere-familiar in order to feed and clothe her kids, while her husband is away on an expedition for the good of the nation. What is wrong with that? My history-loving and traditional uncle said this to me. He says it is different from sleeping around, which is a modern-day, cosmo-city, western-culture import. I have no thoughts on this, beyond bewilderment. Do you have any?

Beautiful Africa – The Sidekick*

Before European acquaintance, the sidekick was big. He was different from the apprentice. He did not have to tread one pace behind his mentor. He strutted beside the priest or linguist or captain. He had a hero’s hand in all the drama and protocols. If the champion succumbed to the summons of the gods, the sidekick slipped sweetly into his sandals. Life went on. The early Europeans bullshitted the Africans that the sidekick was a slave because he was not free to go. These strangers to our customs could not discern that what kept the sidekick by his master-friend was a moral bond, and not manacles.

*Here’s something I will introduce to this blog from time to time – Beautiful Africa. I will share phenomena I consider beautiful about Africa. 

(Picture credit - showbiz.peacefmonline.com)

Masters Milking Maidens in Our Braineries

Comment doit-on commencer? Sex for grades? A ‘lil’ squeeze for a favour (like punishment passed over)? It’s wickedly wanton and widespread in our higher-learning braineries. The odd weasel wriggles out of the high-school box. But when the headmistress of Aburi Girls lays open to the media that some of her male mentors roll out the red carpet for the mademoiselles they’re meant to teach, in their rooms, then we have a pickle, no, a botheration! Besides, the crick is cranked up considerably, when the Principal admits that she once shielded the predators.

Bigger is Better in the City of Accra

Women and men, pumps for your boobs or burritos are on sale in the City of Accra. The wonder is they took so long to come! The no-wonder is they surfaced from China! Fix a different-size cup, and between squeeze and pleasure, boom, you are bigger there! But the FDB says no! Why am I positive the FDB will lose? Ghana is already bingeing on‘Beelzebub’ bitters, brewed for size, stamina and spice.

Food Riots Everywhere

(Picture credit - thesunblog.com/gourmetgal)

The Helium Effect. Crude-oil hikes hoist up essential-foods rates. They’re scuffling with cudgels and pebbles and Molotovs in Tunis and Algiers. In other metropoles too. Fathom my flaming fear when food prices leapt up in Accra. But Accraians won’t flock to the streets – they whisper but don’t raise their fists over the bread-and-sugar spend.

Priests and Pastors in the City of Accra

So many clergymen are facing criminal charges these days. That is an incorrect comment. So many priests are attracting bad media. That is unfair too.

But...

Too many pastors are allegedly committing fraud and other crimes. That is spot on. People always said there was a difference between a priest and a pastor. I think I know now.

But...

It is easier to be a pastor than a priest (education, hierarchy, strict liturgy and all). So, maybe, more pretenders end up as pastors.

(Picture 1 credit - religion.phllipmartin.info)

(Picture 2 credit - news.onlinenigeria.com)

Rogue Doctors in the City of Accra?

A doctor is a lapdog-yessir-how-high-should-I-jump slave. Their patients rule them, dominate, oppress and sometimes make them lose their jobs. You may have murdered their mother – they cannot turn their back on you! So if the nurses rap on the surgery door, and the doctor declines to exit, is he always unjustified? Just asking...

(Picture credit - clarkcapitalfinance.com)

The Love Race in the City of Acccra

 I just saw a man from a shack on a moped win a girl over a man from a chateau and on luxury four-wheels, although her father was an arse. All in a Ghanaian movie. I totally took notice!

(Picture credit - current.com)

Street Fighting in the City of Accra

Me in a street fight. Well, not quite. The urchin did not put up a fight. He swung out his hand and broke my side mirror and indicator light. I had seen him from far. I had even swerved to the middle of the street. It’s a new trick in Accra. New for the past five years or so. Desperados take this risk. Then, then they ask for 50 Ghana Cedis to go to the ‘hospital’. It’s happened to me twice already. Not a third time. I came out of the car and grabbed him. I did not let go until I got help. It was in a gentle neighbourhood – Ridge – so I did not risk a stabbing. At least I hope so. He’s now behind bars. He’s headed for court. 

Resolutions = Rubbish

You don’t know when a discriminating asteroid would wipe out most of the opposite sex, compelling you to a need for prostitutes/gigolos. And so life goes. It is fluid – we don’t know what’s around the corner. It makes little sense – to me – to make New Year Resolutions. They only mark your own  ill-discipline. You can make resolutions as and when you need them. A toilet-moment resolution. A post-orgasm resolution. A born-again resolution. A birthday resolution. A Chelsea-slump resolution. An Obama-inspired resolution. When resolutions are made for particular moments, don’t they stand a better chance of success? Now I must go do a no-more-late-bath resolution.

Family Reunion

Family reunions go so wonderfully well if the old people gather away and leave the now-timers at another place. And the fufu, jollof and the cake-and-ice-cream-with-brandy are evenly lavished in both places. I will remember that when I grow old.


(Picture credit - dailymoaner.com)