SNAKE IN A POT

Turning 40 is meant to be a time to assess where you’ve got to in life and to measure your achievements against your youthful dreams. A lot is said about turning 40, some of it scary. I woke up today expecting to experience some of those things. It was like any other day in my life. I looked in the mirror; there were no obvious signs on my face to show that I am 40. My yesteryear memories began flashing before me as I recollected. I thought of how lucky I am today, to have the most amazing wife and be a proud father of four! While I was still contemplating my past, I thought of the 40 things that have come to define my life thus far. Even I found some of them interesting (and surprising): 1. I have no fear of caterpillars, chameleons or lizards but I would not sleep in a house with a snake that has not been killed. 2. And I’m neither superstitious nor religious! 3. My wife and mother are the most important women in my life. 4. I did not celebrate my birthday until I was 15, even then...

Right from my primary school days, I was never known to be a long distance runner. In fact, I was never a sportsman of any repute though I tried my hands at basketball and badminton. Nevertheless, I always thought I could perform better at distance running especially after I joined a house team in high school and completed the cross-country race in a respectable time without training at all. Although I was a skinny boy throughout my school days, I piled on so much weight between 1997 and 2001 that it became a risk. I visited a doc who said that I was in danger of becoming hypertensive unless I reduced my weight. I am always ready for a challenge and I was not about to say ‘I cant’ this time. In 2002, I attempted to play badminton again but it did not seem to work (I now know that it was due to a host of other reasons too). In 2002 I embarked on a serious regime of gym workouts and nutrition and eventually managed to bring my weight down from a whooping 102kg to 78kg. While still...

I am one of those who believe that the English press over hype and over-rate their country when it comes to matters pertaining to football. This weekend, all major sections of the British media were at it again, after losing the 2018 world cup bid and this time I think they have every right do so. Last Thursday, FIFA the game’s governing body, decided to award the right to host the 2018 World Cup to Russia in preference to bids by England and some other countries. As was to be expected this has led to recriminations from countries that didn’t get the nod of approval led by England. The politicians, the media and not to mention the country’s long-suffering fans are all bashing FIFA and its 22 man committee and why shouldn’t they. Those in support of FIFA claim that the reason for rejecting England’s 2018 bid (and that of the US in 2022) was because FIFA wanted to take the game to countries that have never hosted the event. Fair enough. It is a plausible and just principle but t...

Reading today’s (9.8.10) Education Guide in The Monitor, I could not hide my delight that there is at least one person who feels like me. Some of the people close to me know how much I have been concerned about the English today’s future leaders speak, write or use to communicate. I was never the best English student at school, but even I find some of the English used inexcusable so much that sometimes I have had to engage the offenders, to their surprise and irritation. As a person completing my fourth decade on this scenic planet, I am probably from prehistory. I spell the same way in emails, FB, documents, and text messages. It's not that much extra work, as many of today’s indolent young citizens would want us to believe. I hear it is a sign of progress to come up with new words or completely write them in a different way, but I think there is a difference between inventing words and adulterating those that have been in existence for years. The youths especially have mas...

Some PR slip-ups are spur-of-the-moment, while others are planned events gone wrong. A few days after one of their wells in the Gulf of Mexico began spewing crude into the sea, BP started making some PR maneuvers that haven’t exactly been successful. It is my opinion that their handling of the spill worsened by the day through their PR. This PR debacle from BP got me thinking about other PR mistakes that have been made this year. I’ve compiled a list of my worst PR moves this year (so far) and I am sure when the experts finally sit down at the end of the year to take stock, many of these will make the list. No. 1 - Tony Hayward CEO BP. It is hardly surprising that he takes this place, especially that this piece was sparked off by his poor handling of the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. This rather smart and nice looking gentleman kept making PR mistakes, one after the other, one would wonder who his PR advisors were. The lowest for me is when he insinuated that the whole ‘oil...

Last night England was ejected out of the FIFA world cup 2010 in their worst defeat ever at the finals. As is expected, pundits are falling over each other to break down for us laymen the reasons for this latest debacle from the ever chest thumping but good for nothing three lions and their army of fans. As the experts are busy outdoing themselves, this is a layman’s take on things: There is this tired argument that England is among the world’s football powers, which just needs to be re-examined. I suspect that this fallacy has been mainly perpetuated by the English media and their fans. However, sober minded people need to ask themselves, what has England done in the last 40 years that warrants them to be mentioned in the same breath with countries like Brazil, Germany, Argentina or Italy? As far as I know, all they have done since their controversial win of the 1966 World Cup over the Germans is reach the semi finals of this competition. And before you applaud them for that ac...

I am sure some people (especially my friends) may find it offensive to say that I tend to understand bigots who claim that black people are less intelligent than white although I do not necessarily agree with such chauvinists. In 2007, one of the world’s most eminent scientists caused a stir by asserting that black people were less intelligent than white people. Mr. James Watson’s assertion reopened the explosive debate about race and science and almost all black empowerment movements called for his head. I am one of those who found his statement very insolent, though I chose to hear him out by reading what he had to say in full. Apparently he had given a newspaper interview where he had made these comments. Dr Watson told The Sunday Times that he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really". He said there was ...

Last month, Apple launched its newest toy yet, the iPad. This device comes at a time when I feel that Apple has taken a substantial amount of my hard earned cash over the past 8 years and I am now seriously trying to resist any temptations to send more of my money to 1 Infinite Loop Cupertino, California – an address that sounds as beautiful as the gadgets they produce. In one of the so many articles about Apple’s success story it is said that ‘since its establishment in 1976, Apple has upheld its philosophy of comprehensive aesthetic design resulting in a unique reputation in the consumer electronics industry and a customer base that is devoted to the company and its brand’ – that customer base includes yours truly. In 1991, I used my first Apple product - a Macintosh desktop, which was also the first computer I ever touched. While it was nice and easy to use, the lack of compatibility of its operating system with the more popular IBMs (Windows operating system) meant that I had to...

Recently I had a very interesting conversation with my university going nieces. It turned out to be a very fascinating and revealing chat as I played out times of our lives at Makunika – forget about MUK, ours was always fondly referred to as Makunika probably adopted from the cables address of the university. As I happily relived the memories of those good old days, it was obvious that they did not even come minutely close to what we enjoyed as their marvel at my stories could hardly be suppressed. It is at that moment that I felt a little bit of sympathy for them. Where else will they ever get the opportunity to behave so stupidly and stand up to authorities without being locked up or sacked? I also asked myself what became of the good old university life, as it is known. In or around the year 1996, a few residents of Northcote Hall got involved in an ugly incident where it is alleged that they sprinkled broken glass in dishes that were being prepared for the Afrostone dinner (a ...

March 2010 will go down as a memorable month for so many reasons, most of them unpleasant I am afraid. At the beginning of February, I took a rest from running and any other workouts that would strain the underside of my right foot because according to the doctor ‘that was enough to ease the searing pain under there’. Come March 8th, the recommended 30 days had elapsed and I hoped by now I would be able to run. Although the pain had subsided a little, it was still there and my attempts to conjure up a run came to a grinding halt just after 1.2 km. I could not afford to run any further and walking back home proved to be such a painful affair that by the time I got home, I needed some ice to soothe the pain that was now raging like a fire underneath my foot. I blamed it on the humid weather in Accra (they call it Anti Cold Climate Running Association) and when I returned to Kampala, I decided to see a ‘Specialist’. They (specialists) come up with professional names for all sort of...

A few years back a play dubbed “The Vagina Monologues” was scheduled to be staged in one of the theatres of Kampala. The moment the originators of this idea started promoting their thing on the FM stations of this dusty town, hell broke loose. There were people who did not want the play to be staged because it was some form of lewdness unaccustomed to African societies while others just hated it because of the word ‘Vagina’ in its title. ‘These days I have had to stop listening to the radio, because the word vagina is over used’ and ‘what are we teaching our kids, that it is okay to say Vagina whenever you want?’ were statements I heard a number of times as the debate raged on. In no time, one or two cabinet ministers had jumped into the fray and things were getting hotter unnecessarily, I thought. Thankfully for the promoters, the play had now got all the publicity they wanted and some neutrals like me where now seriously considering taking that heavily pot-holed road towards Ntin...

I have meant to write about this for a long time and for some reasons, I kept finding better and more interesting topics. However with my latest argument about queuing, I find myself urgently compelled to put my thoughts on paper about this subject. I have travelled a bit here and there, but I have not found any other place where people have no respect for a queue like it is on the beautiful continent. Not only at the market, but also in bars, banks, airports and traffic, Africans find it very hard to line up and patiently wait for their turn. I have seen this and some times, I have been the direct victim of queue jumpers in Kampala, Nairobi, Accra, Lagos and Lusaka. To the contrary I have not seen any body jumping a queue in all the other countries I have visited outside Africa. So my question is; what is it that makes Africans so antipathetic to queuing? Is it simply the way we are brought up or just a desire to have commotion and mayhem in every thing we do. I come from a ve...

I am a very liberal but old-fashioned guy in many ways. I still believe in the institution of marriage and what it stands for, I attend church in the old traditional churches (split along the Anglican/Catholic/Orthodox lines) rather than the infinitely hyper and hugely entertaining Pentecostal churches. I also consider myself largely tolerant of views and practices other than mine. In this vein, I am very tolerant of people who choose to adopt new cultures and values like guys piercing their ears, gals with pierced noses and/or people with a different sexual orientation other than mine. After that small intro I hope that when you read the next few lines, you will agree that I am not an old geek or intolerant conservative trying to be negative about a new style or culture. ‘Pants dropping’, ‘underpants expose’ or ‘balance’ (as is commonly known by young people) is a craze that has mystified me. A few years back all the little gals around town were busy dropping their pants and skir...