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I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you Nobody Too?
Then there's a pair of us-don't tell!
They'd banish us you know

Emily Dickinson 'Im nobody! who are you?'

love as a punchline

The day before I left Kampala, I went out for a drink with Ezra and we hooked up with a few of his mates. So there we were about six of us sitting around the table downing our cold beers when one of his friends turns to me and asks me 'so how are the girls in England?'
I tell him I've got a girlfriend here so I am not particularily qualified to answer that question in the spirit with which it is intended.
He looks at me in disbelief as if waiting to see if I'm joking. When it turns out I'm serious, he turns to the others and says 'This guy is in love!' and the entire table explodes in laughter for something like five minutes. I mean, guys were holding their sides! Then when they finally stopped for breath, they asked me again so are you really in love? And I said yes and they burst out lauging again. They were at it for ages. Everytime they paused, a guy from somewhere on the table would go 'he's in love!' and they'd be laughing again. I was laughing along as well and quite enthusiastically when you consider that the joke was on me.
'Ah, thats cool man, every guy has his reasons' the guy who asked me the question said when the laughter had subsided.
However there was a twinkle in his eye which said 'I think your'e crazy'

the mishmash chronicles continued:

So I'm leaving for Kigali tomorrow and my liver is already wincing at the battering it is going to take. I'd like to talk to my liver and remind it that everything is going to be okay- copious amounts of alcohol ahead notwithstanding- but the bastard doesnt talk much. You know, one of those quiet livers that just sits there?

Random observations:
- My girlfriend-sweet as she is, bless her- is also one of the most unreliable people I've ever known.
-Also she won't let me look in her handbag. Wha is it with girl's and their handbags? Do they have alternative nuclear-launching codes in there? Or is it one of those pandora's box kind of things but which can only be set in motion when a man opens it? Something like 'This is the plague of red lipstick which will be loosened on the world when a mortal man opens the handbag and lo the sky will turn dark?' I'm just guessing here, I could be wrong...
-I notice adverts here have also gone for the whole 'goodness' trick like they do in England. Don't you wonder what they mean when they say something is 'Full of natural goodness?' What is 'goodness' exactly? Can it be extracted from a lab in carefully controlled experiments? And if its natural why do I have to pay for it? And why does it seem to be in everything from milk to shampoo? Because if we are taking that much 'goodness' every day, we should be living until we are about two hundred.
-I dearly, dearly miss the soccer season.
-Tesi is your blg working? Cant access it!
- RE: England-I miss the 'Sunday times'paper and custard donuts and cursing the snack machine.

the mishmash chronicles: In Kampala

So anyway I'm in Kampala at the moment. This was only accomplished after an absolutely draining 18 hour drive from Arusha in a coach which thankfully had tall-people-friendly features. (i.e I could ALMOST stretch my legs) and then I got rained on at the Ugandan-Kenyan border in the middle of the night. What was I thinking at that moment in time standing there drenched, tired and hungry? Well it had nothing to do with world peace and harmony, I'll tell you that much.
I also got to see my girlfriend yesterday afternoon and I was glowing afterwards like one of those people you see in the shampoo/face product ads. She is really absolutely the sweetest. I shall not post anymore about it lest I gush like a schoolboy. Anyway when she left,I went with Ezra to Steak-out and who do I run into but Jones 'Matwi' himself. I had sent him an sms telling him I was in town, but turns out his phone was stolen so basically we just run into each other by accident. Small world innit? Also met Isaac who is finally blogging again: http://izakay.blogspot.com(and a big thanks to him for all the support he's been giving my blog)And my friend Romain has also joined the blog world (http://www.0neword.blogspot.com/) so congratulations to the funniest French guy I know (sample: "I think I want to sleep with me but don't tell anybody cause I'm just in the flirting phase with myself.I'll tell you when I'll score - I swear")I laughed about that for quite a while!
Raymond- I bet you are annoyed as hell about Sharon pulling out of the Gaza strip! But I seriously support that. There's no other way there will ever be peace there. Even Kim Jong-Il is prepared to give up his nukes if someone buys him a very nice pair of shoes. Who is Sharon not to make concessions? (The other day I was thinking of Kim appearing before the UN general assembly with a speech entitled 'I've got a nuclear weapon so fuck you all'. I bet he could pull it off)Also that church post you did was probably the best blog post of the year. Please pick your kudos at the nearest kudos-reception center.
I miss the kids already. It was amazing to hear how well they could speak English and read. They have also had a diverse range of influences (I cant tell you how startled I was when Gaaga first told me 'sure thing Nigga'). Also I noticed they watch some cartoons that are a bit disturbing. 'Samurai jack' is what you would have if Quentin Tarantino was allowed to make a cartoon. It is so violent that I cringe sometimes although Gaaga watches it with a smile on his face that I do not find reassuring. Another one- 'The Grim adventures of Billy and Mandy' has the Grim reaper (yes, death himself) living with two little kids and one of them- Mandy- is the closest thing to a child psycho you will ever see. The grim reaper is in it, but he's not even the scary one! All in all, the cartoon network is not the 'we live in a beautiful world' universe you would imagine.

We are standing on the edge

One of the things I re-discovered during my last month at Wantage was taking pleasure in the simple things in life. I’d take long walks and feel the sun on my face and think I’m alive and this is amazing! I caught a few dawns as well. It’s a beautiful thing to see. Suddenly it feels that with all the exam stress out of the way, you’re having a proper ‘road to Damascus’ epiphany and you are suddenly seeing the world in a new light in all its glory and putting yourself in it. It feels like the most mundane things around you are a lot more than you had thought them to be. I hadn’t for example really been listening to the bird that sings outside my window at 3.30 am every morning.

That kind of leads me to this tale because I was thinking of it on one such walk. One of my absolute favorite (supposedly true) stories is about an encounter between Diogenes the Cynic philosopher of Ancient Greece and Alexander the Great. Diogenes was a disciple of Plato but made some adjustments to the great man’s teachings believing that the path to a good life was completely shunning material things and living in a state that today would technically be refered to as a ‘bum’. Consequently he lived most of his life in a disused bathtub or in a barrel which is where he was when Alexander the Great stopped by while taking a break from conquering most of the known world. Is there anything at all in this world you desire? Alexander asked him.
“Yes” says Diogenes “Stand to one side- you are blocking the sun”

Killing me not so softly

I love Manzi my little brother- we get along like a house on fire. However since I got back he has been torturing me with his rap. I discovered that media player had nothing but gangsta rap and Manzi takes every opportunity to beg me to listen to this or that 'tight tune' even though he knows very well what I think of 50 cent, G-unit, The Game and all these 'bling and bitches is all we need' rappers. I despise them. I especially despise 50 cent because he is the epitome of all that is wrong with music today. I sometimes wonder why the guy who shot him nine times didnt add two or three more bullets for luck. He would have slept better at night as I surely would have.

"I like to leave my clothes out to dry in the rain"

Africa- aaah, I’m back!
The trip however was a disaster. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong on the day we flew out, and things were not helped by the fact that I had officially the world’s worst hangover and one, which lasted well into the next day. Infact my hangover got so attached to me that we formed an emotional bond even though it was making me feel like shit which to be fair is exactly what it is meant to do. I had a drinking session with Chris the night before as a farewell. We both got thoroughly drunk listening to Doves and Keane (I think Tom Chaplin has an incredible voice) and did a lot of reminiscing later followed by slurring. Then the next day, it was hangover from hell and last-minute packing and a nightmare journey. If I tried to put the details in this post, it would ages but suffice to say it was the worst traveling experience of my life. In the end, we made it so all’s well that ends well. A few days here and I’m continuing my do-nothing mission that characterized my last month at Wantage. Looking forward to going to Kigali in two weeks, but in the meantime I’m busy being a kid (in the daytime) and reading all the stuff I couldn’t finish before I left Wantage (at night) So far I’m managing to balance the two quite well. Thus endeth the update. We shall return to our usual incoherence when I find my feet. I also hope to meet up with my fellow cultists on MSN soon as there is a risk I will slowly go sane if do not.
Rod Liddle on Live 8 "Black people were allowed on the stage a couple of times, which was a generous touch, although largely only when they were chaperoned by nice white middle-class people like Dido. There were, so far as I could see, no black people in the audience, chaperoned or otherwise. I’ve seen greater racial diversity at a BNP meeting in Burnley"