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I turned down another job offer, opting to stay with the safer option (yet again). The first time it was to a competitor in my city, this time it was back to Nigeria, and a return to UX5 where I cut my teeth and learned the bulk of everything I know. There were a number of issues - a few powerful interests stacked up against me courtesy of toes I’d stepped on in the past, and the fact that I’d seen all that and done that before. The key sticking point was that the pay on offer was ridiculous - clearly designed to price me out of accepting (plus rumour has it that on of the lead engineers on the project had a candidate).. ...

I have died- Seven times but one; Crushed beneath the weight- Of pain’s unrelenting Hammer blows. Straight right. Left hook. Right uppercut. Left jab. Right hook. Left uppercut. Cheek bones splintered- Lip leaking blood, Teeth- Bludgeoned until loose. Head spinning. Time, space Distance blending- Into a confused blur. Then over-hand right - And sight mercifully fades- Into blissful blackness. I have died– Seven times but one; But like a rubber ball Squashed flat against a hard place, I rebound seven times, Reborn.

Given our propensity to moan about the little corner of the North East where we currently live, it is somewhat strange that I, and the four or so long term friends I have here, do not make time out to meet up more often. In fairness to my friend O, it is not for want of his trying; several attempts to organise a meet up have floundered, torpedoed by our wildly varying schedules and travel plans. ...

Gross post alert The one thing being suddenly pushed out of my sheltered teenage years into shared hostel accommodation (in a very rugged Nigerian University) taught me, was that squeaky clean loos were a luxury. Growing up, we didn’t live a posh life, but thanks to theOOhj Snr’s day job in the academia, we had decent living quarters - complete with a loo I shared with the kid brother. On pain of a severe caning, Mrs RustGeek (Snr), ensured we kept our little loo clean. Unbeknownst to me, that luxury would be rudely snatched away from me in short order. ...

A few weeks ago, ‘Jane Doe’ prompted some deep thinking by Single Nigerian, leading him to ponder if trying now and then was enough when others had sacrificed things (even their lives) to ‘get the word to the common man.’ I was listening to an old message by Al Mohler - Being Men and Raising Men [ mp3] - whilst walking to work today, and a section [begins at 51;11] struck me as being a very apt answer to that question. ...

Up until this week, I didn’t know that lumbering along at a fairly respectable 4.5km/hr for 1.3km only burned calories the equivalent of a 34.5g bag of Walkers ready salted potato crisps. I blame my sister for that. She - all sharp mouthed, 5’-4", verbal terrorist Edo woman that she is - decided that last Saturday was the day to put her foot down and insist that something had to be done about my burgeoning waistline. I couldn’t have guessed our little chat would segue into those matters, if I did I would have invented a network failure and hung up. She, the mistress of subterfuge, began by regaling me with our usual fare - stories about the nieces and cousins, about who was seeing whom and all the other mundanities - before mentioning that she had run into an old schoolmate of mine. Said schoolmate was this huge, built-like-a-wardrobe bully who terrorised us all those many years ago in primary school. We had a nickname for him, puff-puff, only used when he was out of earshot; given because he looked like a hurriedly fried, misshapen ball of puff puff. I hadn’t seen him in years, but by my sister’s account he had morphed from puff-puff into a Fally Ipupa clone. ...

Big, potentially career defining, decisions to make.. The safer option - stick with my current job for the next three years and decide what the next steps after that will be: The pros - stay in a truly professional work place where my skills are appreciated, working for a boss whose ar*se I don’t have to kiss, remain in an environment that allows me complete my progression to Chartered Engineer status. The cons - sky high taxes, an increasingly hostile host population, remaining in a section of my field I’ve spent the last six years - and some - working in and a government that seems intent on playing to the gallery on the immigration debate. ...

My sister, the doctor, says I am morbidly obese. That is as brutal as they come. When I have looked at myself in the mirror, I have rationalised my size by looking at other people, or by blaming the mirror for being too convex. The harsh cold truth though is that I am at my heaviest ever. Whilst I can count to a plethora of reasons why, the fact remains that my current weight is a health risk. ...

Thanks to lulls here and there - as opposed to the fast pace at which April, May and June went by - I managed to do a bit of reading: Salman Rushdie’s - Midnight’s Children (1981 Booker Prize winner, 1993 Booker of Bookers Winner & 2008 The Best of the Booker Winner): I read this one mainly on the go, off a hand held device which probably affected my enjoyment of the book. I did think it was a laborious read at times. It might be a thing I have for Booker winners, as I didn’t exactly enjoy my reading of The Finkler Question either earlier in the year. Ian McEwan’s - On Chesil Beach (2007 Booker prize shortlisted): Good read, if only for its description of 1960s England, before the advent of the pill and the mainstream-ing of contraceptives. Don Miller’s Blue Like Jazz (2006 New York Times Bestseller): An engaging read on Christianity, and how it is meant to be a passionate relationship not based on stultifying rules. The section on being addicted to solitude hit too close to home too… Definitely one I should re-read at a more leisurely pace. Haruki Murakami’s After Dark: Seven hours one Tokyo night… Part real life, part dream.

Given the decidedly appalling weather we have had out here, the very first signs of sunshine returning are enough to tempt people out of their various hiding places on to the public spaces again. Walking down my usual route back to work - after a quick lunch hour detour into town - I notice the forecourt at the Square is a lot busier than usual. There are people seated on the wooden benches, others standing in little groups and more , like me, passing through, all united by the desire to soak up the rare sight of the noon day sun. ...