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Amidst the madness - sometimes controlled but largely tottering on the edge of spontaneous combustion - that has marked the last couple of months, it has become increasingly difficult to meet up with what few friends I have left in town. This week has been typical; planning a plant turnaround, updating the 2012 business plan and hosting a couple of blokes from Corporate HQ concurrently have combined to make this another one of those long arduous weeks. Leaving the office late for the umpteenth time, on a whim I decide to make a pit stop at the Nando’s next door. It appears fairly deserted for a Thursday evening. Usually the family friendly spaces are crowded on a Thursday evening - so it is strange that I find a seat without so much as a wait. ...

Amidst the continuing babble of concerned friends, I may have hit upon my very own final solution. Granted it is decidedly more benign than the Nazi version, but as a strategy to buy myself much needed respite, it has worked like a charm. When asked awkward questions about being single when hanging out with the lads, my answer goes along the lines of being too busy, but declaring that I am very open to recommendations from so-called ‘knowledgeable others’. ...

Between working extra hours on a couple of projects at work - and my natural proclivity to laziness - honing utilising what precious little cooking skills I have has been relegated to the very back of a fully loaded back burner. It hasn’t helped that the main African shop in town is off my route (and involves an extended walk to and fro the nearest bus stop if I were to use it), or indeed that the final surviving African eatery in town closed shop a couple of years ago. ...

… when after finally finding a seat on the packed bus, some odd smell hits your nostrils like a Mike Tyson left hook. It is an odd mix of stale sweat, putrid urine and beer. You look around, wondering what the source might be. When the portly gentleman seated right next to you moves, a fresh salvo assaults your nostrils identifying him as the culprit. Unfortunately, the next stop is a full fifteen minutes away, so you are stuck with ‘savouring’ the smells. ...

It is the end of May, and spring is finally seguing into summer. You wouldn’t know this if the last few days are all you had to go by. We have been besieged by a procession of colder weather, rains and strong winds - winds which have caused no small measure of chaos in the highlands so far. Thankfully today the sun is out - almost Lagos-esque in its warmth - and the dull grey granite walls which define this city by their ubiquity already look better thanks to the dash of colour the sun adds. ...

One of my lesser known ’life skills’ is eating piping hot dodo - and that fresh from the frying pan. Looking back, this non-trivial skill was honed in the kitchen of #19 Aiguobasinmwin Crescent. It must have been sometime in 1986 - those were the heady days in which Lawrence Anini our very own Robin Hood-lite and his side kick Monday Osunbor reigned supreme in Benin City. Sane, un-jazzed-up people stayed indoors, the not so sane limited their night-time frolicking nonetheless. ...

Given my decidedly abysmal attendance at church this year, it is somewhat out of character that I arrive early enough to catch the beginning of the opening hymn, the incredibly mellifluous All Things Bright and Beautiful. It is one hymn, in all its variants of tune and stanza, which I have come to associate with growing up all those many years ago on a University campus in Nigeria. For all of ten years, it was a perennial favourite amongst the teachers and prefects who led morning assemblies, and along with my well worn copy of Songs of Praise remains stuck in my head as markers from that phase of life. ...

Based on data extracted from this Nairaland thread. I was bored at work so I took the liberty of trying to create an infographic from the pros and cons (for women) on the list. I shrunk the pros and cons into twenty one categories and gave each ethnicity a ‘+1’ where it was a pro, a ‘0’ where they were not assessed and a ‘-1’ where that category was marked as a con. The ‘pros’ have been condensed into a fraction measuring the potential returns on investing in a Nigerian woman, whilst the ‘cons’ have similarly been aggregated to give a measure of how ‘high maintenance’ a Nigerian woman can be. The size of the bubble is a measure of the chikability (how likely it is that a bloke’s toastings will gell). ...

Friday night just happened. A flat battery led to two of the guys hitching a ride with a third back to the city centre. The fourth guy happened to be home alone after his wife and kids travelled to Nigeria, and I the perpetually ‘alone’ guy was asked to tag along. All five of us piled into our friend K’s 4-wheeler and we decided to hit the an African spot to unwind. ...

The pointlessness of most work is never more obvious than when it is suddenly cut short. Like an unexpected breath of fresh the relentless flow of work in my direction has suddenly stopped, even if only for a day. In it’s stopping it has become clear that a lot of what I had- as a matter of course- sifted through daily was unnecessary. It is the team day off, and the brilliant sunshine currently bathing the city in its glow makes it seem like a particularly potent rainmaker was contracted to make it a success. Usually by this time, I have been on the phone five or six times to clarify one issue or the other with my offshore counterpart (who I outrank on paper, but earn way much less than), attended a couple of meetings and or have had to respond to a request for information. ...