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Book number two is Lola Shoneyin’s The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives. This was one of the books I’ve actually tried to buy off Amazon and failed - twice (the other one being Teju Cole’s Everyday is for the Thief). I thoroughly enjoyed this one - maybe because Baba Segi used to be a moniker I was known by. My summary: Shoneyin takes polygamous life - the rivalry, the struggle for the bread winner’s attention, the gumption that ensures survival - and condenses it into a compelling narrative. The genius of it all is that is completely believable. ...

The last few weeks here have looked and felt like life on slow play. Days blending into weeks, weeks somehow adding up to January ending. Slow-ville … Yawn..

I finally finished Howard Jacobsen’s 2010 Man Booker Prize winning offering “The Finkler question” – if plodding through the equivalent of 320 pages on a mobile device can count as reading. The ubiquity of kindle apps for almost every connected device under the sun – and Amazon’s penchant for adding tons of cardboard to shipped books - made me try the iPad + Kindle app combo for reading books this year. In the main, reviews of the book were great - The Guardian , The Independent and The Telegraph all had high praise for the book. Although there were quite a few note worthy constructs sequestered within the text, I did however find reading it a wee bit tiring. What the book did well though, was to endlessly waffle on about the subject of being… ...

ISAs, Fixed deposits, Savings Plus, Pension plans, and playing the stock market…… Money on my mind and that not in a good way… If only I could win the lottery… Sigh.. :(

Genetically engineering plants to spot bombs may be the future of counter terrorism.. LED teeth may be the new cool.. If only in Japan.. Want to make the transition from talk to bed? Social media might be it after all. So much for Gladwell’s ‘diss’ of social media. Apparently brain scans can identify a predisposition to transexuality.. His Grace - Archbishop Crammer - weighs in on the lack of political voices speaking up on the abortion debate. Tyler Blanski encourages us to re-think sex One bloke got busted for importing cockroaches… HT @relevantmag

It has been aeons since I was tagged. Apparently Esco thinks we are stylish and versatile as does Jaycee… Versatile? Maybe.. Stylish? Definitely not.. Just ask the girlfriend… So here goes… My wardrobe is composed entirely of blacks, greys and whites - except for two shirts that were imposed on me in January by you know who… I am an Adult Child of Practising Preachers - I’m not quite the quintessential preacher’s kid although even I would admit I have my moments.. My mother’s first degree was in English - and she still corrects my text messages till date (which is why I do not send her a lot of them). The first non-explicitly Christian song I ever sang was A Whole New World from the Aladdin soundtrack. Blame it on a TV-starved, ultra conservative childhood. I love chilling to music… I once had Brooke Fraser’s Shadow Feet on repeat for close on three straight days… I’ve had Steve Fee’s When Everything Falls Apart on repeat today.. I’m a Football Manager addict player. Interestingly, I have a new pal at work who I connected with over Football Manager. These days we swap in-game stories over lunch.. My one moment of fame was being handed the role of the Magi bearing Myrrh in our Children’s church theatrical adaptation of ‘We Three Kings’ for Christmas back in the day. That has not prevented me from fantasizing about playing lead guitar at a live gig before 2020.. Fat chance I guess, but hey I can dream… Tagging? I’m not sure who has done this and who has not.. So.. feel free.. Run with it.. Its therapeutic..:)

Max Atkinson deconstructs JFK’s iconic inaugural speech and identifies Six Essentials. Apparently the key is utilizing contrasts; three-part list; contrasts combined with lists; alliteration; bold imagery and audience analysis. Useful for writers? Children who write by hand ’learn better than those who type’. However text messaging ‘improves children’s spelling skills’. Clearly the pen is mightier than the keyboard, but the cellphone is mightier still.. The woman who solved her own kidnap story. The evidence for manflu - even if its only in our heads… The genetic basis for friendships.. Surely it’s a first, but the city of Liverpool now has an embassy in the UK..

Another one of those songs that defined a season for me.. 1999, 300 level, juggling a ton of issues, looking for somewhere to read one of those Saturdays and I stumbled on the CFI choir practising for a music fiesta..It was my first Fred Hammond song. And I was hooked..

Having passed several chronological milestones, one increasingly has had to field questions that assume that all the basic competencies required to function as an independent contributor to life in various spheres have been achieved. Invariably these often centre on the achievement of academic, financial, material and career milestones. Amidst the focus on these admittedly essential categories is a lack of focus on the attainment of certain critical thinking skills. I subscribe to the belief that a child is born with a blank worldview - the so called tabula rasa. Over time he/she acquires knowledge about life; typically by experience. The child thus builds up a worldview- religious, social, cultural, sexual even. At it’s most basic, this worldview is a set of answers for what constitute good, bad, the why of life, meaning, etc. Of necessity, these answers have to be gleaned from others in the early days - parents and relatives, peers, civic and religious leaders and teachers. ...

One of the unintended consequences of my little 10 day holiday was rediscovering some styl-plus music from back in the day (and being made to watch Nigerian home videos ad nauseam). I somehow have been unable to remove the Iya Basira one from my head…. :(