Just when you think you are humble...

For all of those who know me, I am the son of a teacher from a family of teachers. Please if you notice anything wrong about my grammar or punctuation, let me know before mummy sees it.

Pride goeth before a fall (Proverbs 16:18)

It has been a few weeks since I last posted. A new venture has been taking up a lot of my time, there is just enough time for grazing, chewing the cud and sleeping. I have now had more than enough of each in equal measure, so I have enough time to mull over a number of issues. Sadly, football will NOT be one of them. Sorry.

I do not know about you, but sometimes, I get "Screaming in the Forest Syndrome". This is not about  naked men with increasing girths and full guts stand in Epping Forest, shouting to get back in touch with their inner man (who disappeared years before the flab took over). 

This is about when you remember an incident and how you reacted (or did not react); and how you wished you could have avoided humiliation by just being a little smarter, or saying the right thing, instead of just looking, well, foolish.

Well, my SITFS moment is thus. I have already mentioned my love for reading and how I voraciously devoured as much written material in the English language as I could manage. I therefore went into secondary school with a reputation for being good at English language and literature. This went to my head so much so that I earned the nickname "Ble" (for the uninitiated, Ble was the short form of Blefo, English). So my reputation grew daily as I attempted to top the class and keep in touch with the elite few whose names I will not mention.

So, a group of lower sixth formers heard about me and asked me to read their huge scholastic tomes in my dulcet tones. Coriolanus, or similar. I had not yet acquired (and perfected) my sexy, baritone lady killer, telephone manner delivery. (By the way, when our children ask, Why do I have to learn this or that? I am never going to need it in future. We should agree with them and say, "My son, my daughter, you are probably right. However, knowledge is power. The more of it that you have, the better equipped you are for life. Like the spare tyre in the boot of my/your car.") This was more a pre-pubescent cross between the croaking teenage frog and the high-pitched screech of youth, but who cares about the delivery when the maestro was at work? Now these sixth-formers were foreigners, in other words, they had attended forms 1 to 5 in some far-away distant establishment (Adiasadel, Achimota, Mfantsipim, Prempeh) and had risen to the heights of scholastic achievements by attending PRESEC. Well, that was our way of thinking in those days. So I read to them. That is when I first came across the word "denouement", pronounced dey-noo-mah. Or something like that. But to my untrained (and arrogant) eye, it looked nothing more than an English word that I would pronounce like, Permanent, Testament. Denouncement.  Apartment. You get the idea. These seniors made me repeat the word over and over again without attempting to correct me, whilst they sniggered into their cover cloths, behind their opened books and into their coffee mugs. They never corrected me.

Perhaps, it was their way of saying, "Is this really the best PRESEC have to offer?" Perhaps, this was their show of fists against the snobbish attitudes towards them as "foreigners" who had given their gift teeth to be in the presence of greatness. Perhaps, they were just small-minded people.  As we also were, at the time. As they say, youth is wasted on the young.

So what lessons have I learnt from my SITFS moment? Well, now, I always use a dictionary and in the absence of Google,  I always ask. Second lesson, I learnt that no matter how wickedly brilliant I am at something, there could be someone out there who might know of the one thing that I do not. Final lesson, even though I say I never look back with regret, there are times when I sure could use wisdom that I could pluck from the future to redeem my present.

So sometimes, when I remember this humiliating incident, I scream silently in my pillow. Loudly, yet silently.

Where were you when....

For all of those who know me, I am the son of a teacher from a family of teachers. Please if you notice anything wrong about my grammar or punctuation, let me know before mummy sees it.

Footballing matters

So, again, my country has been knocked out at the crucial stage. No, not England, but the Black Stars.The problem was not the Stars, the coach or even the game plan (which admittedly, was virtually non-existent).  Out by penalties in the semis.  It seems to me that our starting point then is the semi-final, How do we develop our game from the semi-final to get to the trophy? That is the big project. The answer does not lie in seriously brilliant talent. We have had that for ages. It does not lie in foreign coaches. We have had the so-called stars, the foreign coaches, the opportunities (home advantage) for so long and we have always arrived at the same point. It lies in a local coach who can work with players, humble enough to respond to the call and not be too late to catch their plane (Mr Ayew, take note!!!). We are not too far from the finished  article, we need a little bit more to take us a little further, we are within touching distance. I hope that we have that little bit more, the polish, the finesse to take us back to where we once belonged, the pride of footballing excellence, a mantle that has been worn by the likes of Ivory Coast, Cameroon and the North Africans for so long.

Where were you when....

As a footballing fan, I am a hapless victim of "were where you when"... In this instance, I will recount 7 of my favourite instances and not in any particular order.

·         26 May 1989 Arsenal v Liverpool - In footballing matters, I have always had the fortune of being the black sheep in the family. Whilst the whole family had been Asante Kotoko driven, I was the lone voice celebrating the Phobia. Whilst I proudly followed Arsenal, other family members held fiercely onto the red colours of Northern England, Liverpool and Manchester United. So it was with that we settled before my newly-acquired 28 inch TV set on a rickety table in our upstairs front (back?) room to watch Michael Thomas perform the acrobatics of desire to push the ball over the line to give Arsenal the first title win in 18 years. How sweet. That song Goldigga, listen to the lyrics carefully about 18 years? Even Kanye knows.

·         21 May 2005 Arsenal v Manchester United FA Cup Final We were in my brothers’ home (Liverpool supporter) watching the most one-sided event as Mr Wenger employed negative tactics against a marauding Manchester United and won an undeserved trophy (based on performance) with the last kick of the game (and the career) of Vieira who had been Captain Fantastic for an era.

·         2 March 2002 Newcastle v Arsenal. A week before my birthday and family members needed a reason to get me an Arsenal replica jersey. As we watched in my front room and as I tried to justify the investment in said garment, Denis Bergkamp came to my rescue with a goal that confounds logic and defies reason – and sceptics still ask if he  really meant to do it.

·         23 October 1999 Chelsea v Arsenal in my front room, I had been told off for screaming the house down as a seemingly inept Arsenal struggled in vain to find a path past Chelsea. Then arrived Mr Nwankwo Kanu, the giant of a man with a tongue twister for a name, who then reduced Chelsea fans to tears with a hat-trick.  And I needed help up the stairs after I hit my hip against the door post.

·         2 July 2010 Uruguay v Ghana and Asamoah Gyan misses penalty. I was in the front room. The dent in the wall proves it.

·         4 May 2002 Arsenal v Chelsea In my front room as the Invincibles finish off Chelsea. Those immortal words from Tim Lovejoy “It’s alright, its only Ray Parlour”, before the Romford Pele released a 25 yard screamer into top corner. Priceless.

·         8 May 2002 Manchester United v Arsenal In the local pub with work colleagues from Barclays Bank. Wiltord scores. And the Gunners equal United’s record of 3 doubles.

Now these were not my 7 best, that would be much more difficult to select, these were the 7 best moments when I remember exactly where I was at the time.

Were You There When They Crucified My Lord

To continue the theme of "where were you when..." I now turn my attention to Easter. Lent starts next week. Catholics and Anglicans (and other denominations) the world over will be preparing for Easter and traditionally  most people will be giving something the love up for Lent. It seems a cruel twist of providence that Lent should start the day before Valentine's day when chocolate will be sold in abundance, all these women who cannot indulge in gifts from their beloved ones could result in an increase of incidents of road rage on February 15th!!! Whilst for many, this is the only time to get "spiritual" after 10 months of living outside the Christ zone, I think there is a trick here that today's (evangelicals, Pentecostals, Charismatic) child of God is missing. I do not need a set time in the year to remind me of the price that was put on my head and the One who set me free, but as we approach Easter, I pray that I will remember daily how precious a price it was. Isaiah 53:4 and 5 graphically describes what that was all about. Let us not make Lent to be like the story I recently heard about a preacher who was held up in a churchyard by a robber who asked for his wallet. The priest took out his wallet but in so doing revealed his collar. The robber, on seeing his collar, relented and started to walk away but the priest offered the man a bar of chocolate, to which he received the response, "I'm sorry, Father, I have given up chocolate for Lent". I was not there when they crucified my Lord, but I didn't need to be. And I do not necessarily need to give up anything to remind me. All I need to know is that the price has been paid. In Full.

Reading... and the Departure Lounge

For all of those who know me, I am the son of a teacher from a family of teachers. Please if you notice anything wrong about my grammar or punctuation, let me know before mummy sees it.

Reading

I love reading. As a young person, I loved to go to libraries and browse through shelves of books, both fiction and non-fiction. I remember going to the United States Information Services, British Museum and Accra Central Libraries and disappear into the fantasy world that authors had spun, worlds in which I would disappear for hours, sitting on the toilet, in a tree (not at the same time!!), at the dinner table. A book inj my hand was my excuse to be allowed to leave the real world. I devoured writers in the African Writer's Series reading about characters in Lagos, Cape Town and Nairobi  I understood that  issues like corruption, disease, power, famines were not just real-life issues they held ore important places in books.

My favourite Library, though was the Kaneshie Children's Library. When I joined the library in 1973 or so, they would only allow me to borrow two (2) books at a time. By the time I had got home on public transport, I would be halfway through the first one, only to return the following afternoon to change my selection. After the first few weeks, the librarian decide to let me have 7 books at a time. Like Alexander the Great, I was disappointed when I read all the books there was in the library and had no more literary material to conquer. Then I was referred to the Central Children's library.

T M Aluko, Peter Abrahams, James Ngugi, rubbed shoulders with WM Thackeray, Mark Twain and Sir Walter Scott, all vying for my attention. Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys one day, and then Henry David Thoreau the next. Clay boy from Spencer's Mountain with all the values that a white Virginian Christian logging family had were competing with Flora Nwapa's Efuru. Even as I am writing now, I am surprised how well my memory serves me. I wish my children would read like that.

We now live in a commercialised world that tells us that Disney has the "rights" to Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid" and distorted stories that I have held dear for years (101 Dalmatians is not a Disney book, it was written by Dodie Smith!!!).

Perhaps then, it is interesting that nobody has been able to do to the Bible what has been done to our best-loved stories. As I have read the Bible more, I now realise that it is a book that has so much to offer. Every time I read a chapter, there is  new meaning;  a new take; a clearer interpretation, an angle that I had not noticed before, a new discovery. There is no better description than the one that it gives of itself, "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Hebrews 4:12".

I would like to see Disney's take on that.

The Departure Lounge

In any station or airport, passengers ready to leave and their loved ones staying behind are hugging, kissing, lovingly holding onto each other, trying to squeeze out that last bit of togetherness before separation. Sometimes, it is laughter that signifies the importance of the group, sometimes its tears, sometimes there is a lull in the conversation as a loaded, heavy silence takes over. Once in a while though there will be a solitary passenger, sitting all by themselves,  nobody to see them off. I sometimes think, "How sad". I heard of a departure tonight that filled me with sadness, and memories of another time, almost an epoch ago, I hear heavy footfalls of jogging around our house one early morning; I am awakened by the early arrival of  a traveller who insists that household chores be carried out pronto; I am yet awakened on other mornings as our early traveller prepares their bag to leave. I am reminded of the authority that a presence carries into a room, one almost of palpable fear as people scurry around to finish off duties or face the consequence. But I also see shoulders that bore a responsibility of ensuring that their family was always fed. A leader who felt that they had to take on the mantle of authority. All I can say is RIP, Head.