The Small Claims Man

That afternoon, he was uneasily installed behind a tiny, dark-wood desk. That morning, he’d chosen a chimera of a lime green shirt matched with a black necktie with dirty white stripes...or a white necktie with faded black stripes. If planned as a weapon to disorient me, then first blood to him. While he negotiated a small insurance claim with me, my eyes tried to negotiate a huge, yellow splotch out of his tie. Both negotiations failed. We agreed to come back another day. I then escaped from this semi-piebald-semi-skewbald circus.

On the Transience of Public Office

I want to live my life
Above political strife
The level I'm at today
Shouldn't overnight sneak away

Honey, I Changed My Face

I guess padded bras and bums fall in this category – duty of disclosure. My office mates cannot agree on whether she should have told him. I’m talking about the ‘ugly’ Chinese woman who went under the knife, erased her past, loathsome life, and then became a wife. If there’s a duty, is it legal or moral? Office Female Miss Little Naughty says she didn’t owe him zilch. But she says he’d have owed her a duty of disclosure if he was a transsexual. How about hair implants? Or breast enlargement? Or replaced teeth? Liposuction? It can get absurd. Oh, bleached / toned / lightened / de-melanin-ed skin? Duty, anyone?

Washington Monument to be Renamed for Obama!

This heading doesn't deserve 'funny'. But, then again, ha ha ha ha ha. Ha! Funny and disturbing at once. It is a joke. In more ways that one, it is. It would not happen in the United States. But it is threatening to happen ... in Ghana (where else, but God's own country of doltish pantomime?). Citizens stirred one morning to hear about a change. A monument named after the designer of our flag (God bless her flowery creativity) was about to be ... deflowered. The national hockey stadium was named after the hallowed matron and was well-received. Somebody ejected prematurely from their bed and decided to change that. It was going to be renamed after a much-loved ex president who died on the job. Never mind that the former 'High Street' and a few other monuments are already his in name (directly or indirectly). When the public rightly cried out, an anaemic explanation was offered: "We won't rename the entire stadium; only the brick and mortar; we will keep her name on the grass". Okay, so it is not really grass they play on, but you get my indignation. Rubbish, poppycock, claptrap! AND WHILE SHE IS STILL ALIVE! When people get hare-brain ideas (in a land of little light) and zoom off to announce it on the nearest working microphone, this is what happens.The president appears indigné aussi. There's said to be a summons to the presidency. How do you start to explain away such a cerebral non-event?

(Picture credit - www.edelgrass.com)

Neither is Spelling!

Life is not eaZy?

As seen near the presidential palace.

Judgment Debts & Other Random Questions

Will Martin Amidu now go far back in history?

Will the fires stop if the petitioners win their case?

Will RLG next build houses for members of the opposition?

Will something, anything, please keep Kevin-Prince from Ghana?

The Man Who Wanted Minerals

He's a cool-looking dude. I can almost see the silver spoon in his mouth. I can see the 'uppity' in his face and all, except he needs the 7-minute workout. He plonks on the seat next to me in business class and kicks off his shoes. Strike one. When the stewardess shuffles over to us, she sounds genuinely like she's from Southern Africa. She asks if I'd like some tea, hot chocolate, coffee or juice. I say juice. She says she has pineapple, apple and 'mengo'. I choose 'mengo'. Seat-mate has already snoozed off. She wakes him up and repeats the 'mengo' speech. Then he asks, 'Don't you have minerals?' Strike two. She's lost; I'm shocked. Were we in 1985? He goes on, 'Like Coke, Mirinda...' That's strike three. She shakes her head. He whines, 'I don't like those hot things.' So he picks pineapple.

Poor Mother of Poor Twins

The sex was unlawful - sixteen year olds can't have legal sex in Ghana - and poorly executed (unprotected). I guess she didn't feel like a child then. The twins are lovely bundles of joy as children should be, except they're just one bundle! Suddenly their mother is a child; not mature enough to accept other children (her children) as they are. Then, again, I wonder if I'd be different.

Early Early Birds in the City of Accra

Is there still such a thing as stirring early at 7 am in Accra? The traffic has wrought wise owls of us all. We've had to push forward leave-nest time by 15 minutes every 6 months for the past 10 years. Now I wake up at silly-goose hour. The city flies the coop when a subway is suggested, and we're all chicken-livered at the idea of bicycles. But why should we ride and be a sitting duck for the trotro-bus to peck our limbs off? They swoop around the city as the crow flies. By the time the city authorities get their ducks in one row, the early-bird worm will wriggle out at 2 am.

How the Military Assaulted, Non-Assaulted, then Un-Assaulted a Journo

When you blow a cloud of dust on my face, or spill a cup of water down my back, tickle my pits, dribble your forefinger down my cheek, or trickle melted chocolate on my chest while I’m asleep, without my consent, you have assaulted me in law. So when videos went viral of Ghanaian G.I.s (hyperbole alert!) choke-holding, hammer-locking, strong-shoving and face-tossing a pussycat journo on Independence Day, I joined to shout the ‘shame’ refrain. And when the military opened Ostrich investigations, called as many as zero witnesses and played possum with the raw, stripped, naked truth, I dog-pissed on their decency. What did they go and do? They went to say sorry. I accept; I hope the victim does too.

Kantamanto - A Reason for a Fire

I recently favourited a tweet by @Be_Wisdom: “Surburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them ~ Bill Vaughan”. Some developer or interloper whooshed a flame through a tin-and-wood Central-Accra market that's crowded thick as fleas. The police won’t find the arsonist. I suspect strongly that the cinders are intended to make way for the construction of a capitalist, concrete-architectural crime-scene (how else to describe the explosive sprout of sterile office and apartment blocks in the least-green city that I know?). These traders are squatters in most of these settlements – we all know that; but usually squatters on governmental no-man’s land; permitted to settle for a decade or two or three. After the cinders, the riots, the cracked skulls, the lies, the justifications and the public loss of interest, a hideous and humongous habitat will hulk over the land that was known as Kantamanto.

A Set of What?

I bet your system includes a planet called Pluto. 

2 reasons I wouldn't buy that.

German Football Highs & Other Random Questions

Will all German teams now score 4 goals in their sleep?
Does live tv make court proceedings better?
Will Luiz Suarez grow up at last?
Will Apple's fortunes go down forever?

MPs' Pay & Other Random Questions

Do our MPs really identify with us?

Will Hillary Clinton 2016 happen after all?

Will the government buckle to the doctors or lecturers first?

Who does the thinking for the National Service Secretariat?

Illegal Chinese Miners & Other Random Questions

Who else will go on strike tomorrow?
Will the lights be on when I get home today?
How many guinea fowls will GHS47m buy?
Will China lend money to Ghana again?

Blogcamp 13...is about Tilapia

Nobody can regale you with the savoury story of how to 'tooth' the char-grilled flesh off the skeletal frame of the Piscean, Tilapia, better than a Ghanaian/Ghana-resident. That’s why I blog; I know the pulse of Ghana; I sing her song.

Blogcamp 12 was a platter of soft-cooked Banku with devilish dollops of sweet pepper, shito and Kpakpo, and a greasy pound of queen tilapia tiara’ed with tomatoes and golden onions. A palette of pleasant people; soul-stirring storytellers looking for an audience with eager palates.

So what will 13 be like? Come Saturday, come hungry for fun.

Social Media

Year - twenty thirteen
Samsung - Tech Queen

Hangout - Facebook/Twitter
Reason - Flirt with not one jitter

Others? - Those mental dances
Pay-off - Network it enhances

You No Go Sort Me Out?

‘Chale, I dey go house wey my fuel short. Make you sort me out.’

Impetuous, inane, puerile ... thing; moulding pie with putrid hubris for filling. Demanding dough with a sense of entitlement. I stone-face him, power up the window and cruise down Spintex Road.

‘Oh, you no go sort me out?’ he barks.

He does not say ‘please’ once. In my rear-view mirror, he’s already trudging up Spintex Road.

I Don't Know What to Say

Are you saying somebody will find 100 Cedis and give it to the anti-social person? Are you really trying to stop a bad habit?

Flower Girl in the City of Accra

At Ridge, where Gamel Nasser Avenue deceives to fly over the Police HQ, I watched a tight, green, Afric-fabric frock ‘hallmarked’ with delightful petals...on a milk-choc mannequin on the move. Loose, flair-sleeves, rich-blue, florid frills like garlands on the neck. Sitting on her body like the immaculate skin of a flawless fruit. Frivolously creased at the hamper-hips, where the dress rode up. Why did she have to go and tug it downwards? Our little love affair was quickly done.