Zain Zugzwangs MTN

While all Accraians are mulling mass migration to the ‘new experience’, the old guard is asleep – still MainTaiNing its unexplained inadequacies which cost us all time and money. And while the newcomers are zigZAggINg from Cape Three Points to the Paga Pond with innovative introduction, systematic seduction and electrifying entertainment, we see no responsive movement or MoTioN from the telecoms dodos. If they were looking hard, they would know about the more than 0.26 million Accraians who have already pre-registered to access the ‘new experience’.

The Ghost Carvers in the City of Accra

Fancy furniture, stone sculpture, frilly flower pots, crosswise-woven, kente cloth and fermenting flowers line up on the rough shoulders of the streets to the suburbs of the City of Accra, as Accraian artisans make a living on their skilful(?) creations (hopefully they all go to bed at night, and do not do dark deeds at night to up their ‘income’). The weavers on the loom, wicker workers, furniture makers and dilettante florists are up at daybreak creating art, beauty and business. And the carvings! Odum giraffes, Mahogany gazelles and Sapele rhinos range and illustrate the busy streets. What you will never see is a work in progress. You’ll see them polishing but never creating, carving; but they swear they did it themselves.

Minima Black

Forgive my shifting mind, but my best friend says my original template has more (he calls it) mystique than the others. So, to please him (yes, I listen) I'm back.

Blogophobia

Fellow bloggers, permit me to speak on behalf of as many of you as are like minded. I heard a man diss our craft on BBC on Tuesday, November 18, 2008. He called us untalented amateurs who should leave blogging for professional journalists to do. He keeps a blog himself, ergo, clearly in his elitist mind, he is supremely talented and qualified to blog.

When I blog, I want to write about simple, silly things. I want to create light reads. I did (and do) not set out to write serious stuff. If serious stuff results, it does so by accident. Serious heavy-lid topics are for others (boring people). The world has so many of them, and we’re still where we are – nowhere!

The snotty, poor-competing blogophobe does not live in Burma, China or Zimbabwe. His journalism is not censored; his life unthreatened. In many countries, the only news comes through blogging. It is the only window to lifestyle, culture, humanity. So must we wait for journalists who cannot write because the State hounds them, when ordinary people can still tell a story?

He said literary pieces on farting dogs get more reading on the internet than the serious stuff. I say so be it! Unless he has 101 farting Dalmatians in his living room, it is grand, grand news, and he’s being a hoity-toity hypocrite. The world takes itself too seriously anyway!

The Shadow Walkers

Whizzing homeward late after work, I happened on a man, who was no spring chicken, wandering in the wooded shadows with a kitten of a girl. Their bodies brushed over and over against each other, and uttered loose language. When my headlights groped their grovelling guilt, they seemed to shilly-shally, and then they came a yard or two apart, but they kept on waltzing with uneasy gait; he, with a stalking saunter, and she, beside him, with summary steps. The uneasiness betrayed that they knew they shouldn’t be there – a psychedelic fact which surely doubled their thrill. As the brightness slunk away, they quickened their steps again, and were soon lost to my rear-view mirror.

Three Decimal Places

My common measure of love is the barriers I’m easily willing to breach for a person, no matter what. I think of all the people that I love or that this society tells me that I love (sometimes giving me no choice) – family, friends, Lil Girl. Then, I look in the past. What has everyone asked of me? And how has everyone bruised me? By my reaction in each case, I know how much I love each of them to three decimal places.

Football - A View from Ghana

The ball rasps the net and drops in little bounces till it comes to rest on the cushion of grass behind the goalpost. The striker had cradled it in his broad chest, let it drift downwards, and booted it on-the-volley, twelve inches above the turf. The winger had deftly dummied it past himself, and torn after it down the flank. It had been a speedy counterattack, and he had only needed to skirt one tired lunge before floating it into the penalty box. It had started as a goal kick. The goalkeeper had launched the ball straight down the middle of the pitch, and seen the ball travel to number 10. Number 10 had feinted this way and half-turned that way, sweeping the entire opposing midfield out of his way. Then, he had lobbed the ball over a couple of legs to his team mate on the wing.

Football is rather like real life. No, football is real life dramatised in a grassy arena. You have to play the game; throw in hard tackles; ride the tackles of others; deal with censure and yellow cards; be buoyed by the cadence-cries of the fans cheering you on; throw the ball back in, when it goes out of play; rely on your team mates (be they family, friends or workmates). And football replays all life’s real problems in ninety minutes. It figures that we hate a goalless game.