About-Town on A Geek's Life

'Big' Man coming, and finally getting my Abu Name

Fri, 05 Feb 2021 18:01:00 +0000

The bare, Spartan space just outside my window - which I can just see if I crane my neck a little just beyond its normal range - is just that, barely noticeable. At least it was until a few days ago when swivelling in my chair, the profusion of reds and yellows it has become caught my eye. So certain was I that the flowers were new that at an opportune moment, when I could pretend it was a casual question, I asked one of the guys to confirm. It turns out that I was right, the flowers had not always been there. The coming of a certain big man in a couple of days had prompted the ground staff into sprucing up our surroundings. I am thankful for the splash of colours which will remain with us for a bit at least, but what I came away with was the sense that big men everywhere carried weight. It is a truism, as an old teacher liked to say.

On Leaving

Mon, 11 May 2020 18:24:34 +0000

Of the many conversations I have had over the past few years, one sticks out in my mind, not for its length or its importance but for how odd it felt at the time. As I recall it, a travelling salesman and I had just finished a meeting and were heading to the kitchenette at work to drop our coffee mugs off when he asked: “How did you end up here?”.

Stripping, (TV) Binges and Thinking About Thinking

Mon, 05 Aug 2019 19:53:03 +0000

By some unexpected twist of fate, I found myself heading into Central London on the hottest day of the year, a fairly tropical 37 degrees Celsius, and that for the first time since last December. The destination was the Nigeria High Commission on Northumberland Avenue, the plan to get my expired Nigerian passport renewed. To get here I had had to jump through several tortuous loops, not helped by the fact that my trips down to England are scheduled months in advance with impromptu trips being aggressively minimised due to the costs. My takeaway from my dealings with the appointment’s system was that the (re)scheduling system could be significantly improved - first, you sign up via a third party web service, pay the booking fees and then get randomly assigned a date, one you can only change to a more suitable one by emailing back and forth, no less than six in my case – which meant in addition to the heat I very much had my mind prepared for a terrible experience which could potentially take the whole day. It might have been my low expectations, but the experience was far less stressful than I expected, sans the slow pace at which things trundled along from picking a ticket to getting called for an initial review and then submitting my biometric details. If there was a silver lining, it was that the slow pace of things – and the very many other Nigerians there for similar purposes – increased the likelihood of running into people I had not seen in a long time; 20 plus years and two kids in one case. That the most unsettling thing from all of that was wondering what the scrawny lad I ended up sitting across from on the tube from Charing Cross to Waterloo was up - to whilst reading from 2nd Corinthians 1 in a huge bible - is a miracle of sorts (events at the High Commission didn’t leave me mentally drained as they have in the past) or perhaps only the symptom of my low expectations.

Coming Up For Air

Tue, 27 Mar 2018 12:55:19 +0000

Photo by Zen Photographer on Unsplash

– Eat-sleep-work-walk; wash-rinse-repeat. This just about sums up the past six weeks for me, travel down south being one of the few brights spots in an otherwise humdrum existence. In that state the days blur into each other - the weekend when it comes offering scant relief - before being quickly subsumed by a new Monday morning and the start of a new cycle of drudgery. It is that time of the year when the final reports from last year are being reviewed and finishing touches made to the detailed plans for the new year’s work so there is little scope for escape.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Glow

Thu, 19 Oct 2017 17:57:12 +0000

More shimmer than glow but I suppose the view of the sea from the Beach Esplanade as I headed out to last Saturday’s Aberdeen Park Run counts. I am only five official runs in but it is very quickly becoming a key part of my Saturday mornings, when life allows me spend the weekend in the ‘Deen.

Next step the Baker Hughes 10k next year.

--- For the Wordpress Photo Challenge Prompt: Glow

Green, a collection

Thu, 23 Mar 2017 21:01:43 +0000

For the challenge, Green.

18. Bubbles

Fri, 20 Jan 2017 08:27:00 +0000

Source: Wallpaper.com

I come upon them suddenly as I emerge from the arch on Peacock’s Close onto the parking lot. I have my headphones in as always, humming under my breath as I drag myself home, the combination of the low light , my tiredness and that they have their backs to the road being the reasons why we startle each other.

What becomes obvious when I eventually take in the scene is that they — a woman and a girl I can only assume are mother and child — have been taking turns at blowing bubbles and squealing in delight as the light wind drives them away towards the road.

17. Anticlimax

Thu, 19 Jan 2017 17:34:52 +0000

The promised snowcaplyse never quite materialised. At its worst in my corner of the world, it deposited a layer of snow all around, the result of the intermittent dribbles of snow and gale force winds. The effect of that, and the small rise in temperatures followed by a freeze which thawed the snow for a bit, was to leave slippery layers of black ice on the pavements; treacherous for us runners and brisk walkers. A friend did fare slightly worse, the small matter of a fortuitous gap between her car and the one in front of her being the difference between safety and a minor crash when she skidded on a patch of black ice.

04. A Requiem for the Unseen

Thu, 05 Jan 2017 17:47:33 +0000

For the bank on the corner of King’s and Union which I pass everyday, only stopping to use its ATM on the odd occasion I need cash which has been closed for over a month. A closure I only noticed today because I needed cash.

Unseen.

Cabbie Conversations

Wed, 21 May 2014 20:49:32 +0000

On a typical day, the scene that meets the eye at the head of the airport taxi rank is one of barely controlled chaos - the line of passengers snaking along into the distance, two or three cabs pulling up every few minutes to whittle away at the edgy crowd and the harried dispatcher somehow managing to maintain a semblance of sanity in the middle of it all defining the mad half hour immediately following the arrival of an inbound flight. Today there is a line of taxis and no passengers waiting. Two men - and a woman - stand at the head of the taxi rank, talking. Their conversation is deep and intense - there are hands flailing about, gesturing wildly and a few guffaws here and there - such that I have to clear my throat to attract their attention. At the second time of clearing my throat, I succeed. They split up like people surprised, maybe even a little guilty. The woman - who must be the dispatcher given her fluorescent yellow jacket - waves me in the direction of the car at the head of the line, a jet black Audi. One of the men standing and chatting turns out to be the driver, his keys remotely popping the trunk as I dump my bags and as he makes his way to the driver’s side of the car.

Goings on - A few quick hits...

Tue, 16 Jul 2013 19:25:41 +0000

In line at my GP’s, waiting for an audience with the receptionist who I want to confirm an appointment with, I find myself growing impatient despite being only the fifth person in line. It looks, and feels, like everyone and their dog opted to stop by today. It is a warm day and there are at least ten people in various stages of repose on the chairs scattered around the waiting room. Inwardly I am cursing myself and my daftness for choosing lunch to do this. At the head of the queue, a large-ish woman engages the receptionist in a conversation of sorts - if speaking two unrelated languages can be classed as a conversation. She, like me, has an appointment to confirm, unlike me she needs an interpreter to pass her query across. The dour, matronly receptionist seems to be at a loss, unable to determine what is an appropriate response besides saying repeatedly ‘The nurse is not in yet, she’ll call for you when she has an interpreter on the line’. Six times and five minutes later, she has made no headway, and the woman has held the line up for all of that time. Our saving grace is the nurse calling out ‘Olga", allied with a name I can’t recall. Recognising her name, she makes her way to the consulting room to be attended to. Needless to say, I am not at my most gracious at the delay - unnecessarily so.

House Warming...

Tue, 09 Jul 2013 19:15:44 +0000

I was the first person in, just before 4.00pm. I had no choice but to RSVP in the affirmative when my friend O.’s invite to his house warming party finally arrived, largely because I had harassed encouraged him strongly into putting it together. He had just bought a house on the other side of town, and starved of hanging out time, I’d seized upon that as an excuse to badger him into setting something up.

About Town: Ambles and Musings...

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 15:00:20 +0000

It is no real surprise that I wake up on Saturday morning with an overwhelming urge to leave my house and let the cold, crisp air clear my head; a succession of events having left me feeling emotionally over extended as though more activity had been packed into the preceding two week period than the entirety of the year before that. My friends O and Alf must bear some of the responsibility for catalyzing those events, as does a not quite out-of-the-blue response to an application I had, almost as a matter of last resort, tossed out three months before. A brown roll and an egg chased down with a cup of strong black coffee and a quick Google search later, I am awake enough to grab my water proof jacket and head out into the streets with the Torry Battery as my destination.

Baby Birthdays, failed détente and motherly ultimatums

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 21:59:43 +0000

In what must be a first for me, I get invited to a birthday party over WhatsApp. Truth be told, there were mitigating circumstances. Although the parent in question and I have some tenuous familial connection - my grand father and her grand mother somehow managed to get entangled in the far distant haze that is a few generations ago - she and I haven’t stayed much in touch, in spite of us living the the small matter of the length of Union Street apart. I suppose the invitation was one last hopeful punt in my direction. If it was, it worked, the twin attractions of something to do on a Saturday afternoon and proper Nigerian food proving too strong for even I the quintessential recluse. Izzy, the kid in question had just turned One, and her parents keen to celebrate the milestone were putting together a small get together for the guys; for that I was very much a willing eater.

On My Return to the Middle of Nowhere

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 16:00:39 +0000


[Source]

I seem to have the knack for choosing the shittiest days to go offshore. Last November I end up stuck for an extra three days, thanks to Ambisagrus going berserk and my helicopter flight getting cancelled. Speaking to the heli-admin late on Monday as I confirm my booking, I have her take a quick look at the weather forecast; she confirms there are no extraordinary weather events forecast for the rest of the week. Satisfied, I confirm my check-in time and head out to pack my bags and plan.

Seasons of discontent, a Nigerian wedding and other musings

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 15:00:05 +0000

Although it is only September, there has been a certain nippiness to the last few Aberdonian mornings. If I believed the weather app on my phone – and the state of my ears when my brisk twenty minute walk ends with my bum at my office desk suggests that this is the case - it has barely been warmer than 7 deg C on each of the last few mornings I have walked in to work. Besides the early morning chill, fall has remained frustratingly true to type; too warm to warrant breaking out the full shebang of a knee length winter coat, but yet too cold to be out and about with only a wind breaker for protection. If how many people already sport winter coats is anything to go by, I’m up there in the upper 10% in the hardiness stakes. When it slips out in an unguarded moment of banter with my mother, she thinks it is silly. I suspect all it will take to prove her right is coming down with the flu, if history is any judge, a clogged nose awaits me in the not too distant future.

About Town: Chance Meetings, Moments of Discomfort and a life-in-a-song moment

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 17:40:30 +0000

A sudden bout of hunger assails me just before the clock chimes 5.00pm and I find myself making a detour - turning left at Guild Street and then making a beeline for the KFC on Union Street. Usually at this time of the day the singular focus is to get myself home, settle on my couch with a bowl of cold cereal and unwind with a Big Bang Theory/How I Met Your Mother TV marathon. Even the spectre of steaming morsels of eba potentially chasing themselves down my throat in short order is not enough to draw me home - the coup de grâce is, I suspect, the fact that it has been the better part of six months since I have savoured the fiery goodness of battered, deep fried chicken.

False dawns, god daughter shenanigans and an unexpected meetup

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 18:18:53 +0000

The mini heat wave that was, threatened to leave nerves frayed and tempers flared all week in Room 3.26 before - like a duplicitous conman - it vanished as abruptly as it had arrived. It just so happened that the air conditioning - perhaps suddenly burdened by the heat load and the multiplied tinkering of the occupants of the various offices in our section - huffed and puffed to an untimely death; leaving us in varying degrees of grumpiness. I had taken half the Friday off, looking to spend the afternoon strolling leisurely up and down Union Street, binging on the copious amounts of skin that had suddenly appeared, coaxed out by the warmth from beneath the bland greys and austere blacks that had been the standard fare for the last few months. The flirty weather had other plans though, and Friday morning arrived with a chill in its wake putting the dampers on any thoughts of prancing about town. I promptly cancelled my holiday, resigning myself to a full day of number crunching and copious amounts of milky, weak tea. So much for an early return to warm, sunny days!

About Town: Journeying to the Middle of Nowhere

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 12:31:45 +0000

I get the call late – sometime between 5.00 and 5.30pm on Monday evening - as I drag my bone weary self homeward, plowing a lone furrow down Guild and up Union through the masses of people heading home in the opposite direction. A sudden change of plans on The Project has thrown the curveball that is being the designated short term relief in my direction, and being the young, unmarried bloke on the team I get first dibs at the possibility of catching a 9.30 am flight the next morning. With the prospect of performance reviews due in a mere two weeks, I’m not exactly keen to refuse an opportunity to demonstrate my ability to ‘handle changing priorities’, so I shrug inwardly, accept my lot and grumble all the way home.

Kicking off the Christmas silly season, breaking my beer duck and the 2011 wrap

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 10:02:00 +0000

Mid December usually kicks off the Christmas party silly season out here. Given that as far back as October, our coffee room conversations had started to take on a decidedly Christmas-sy bent, it was no surprise that the first event of the season came early this year – a team lunch at the Soul bar on Union Street in November no less. Thanks to the atrocious weather I ended up marooned offshore, restricted to taking to Facebook to moan about missing the free food and a half day off work.

The weekend of debauchery (that wasn't)

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 11:13:45 +0000

It was supposed to be the weekend that banished my 2011 troubles from memory and got me to let my hair down - something I admittedly do not do often enough. There was the small matter of needing to send in my passport to Mama Charlie’s lackeys for an extension to my residence permit, as well as navigating a week of water survival training (given my well documented aversion for large water bodies).

About Town: Pub signage...

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 17:02:28 +0000

As seen in the window of a pub on Union Street.. Couldn’t be truer…

About Town: The Maritime Museum Edition

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 11:03:01 +0000

There is a distinct chill to the air. Surely the weakly warm sun is on its last legs - like a new born mother coaxed out of her bed too early, smiling weakly for the photo opportunity, keen to impress yet tired to her bone - and the prospect of yet another harsh winter is enough incentive for me to take advantage of the sunshine and get up and about.

Six degrees

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 12:31:24 +0000

Walking into the phone store in the bowels of the big sprawling mall that sits right next to the hell-hole I currently work at, my eyes are drawn to one of the lads at the till. My first impression is that he is Nigerian - what with his thick lips and his quick and easy smile. I am in-store to activate the 6 month’s free internet that should have come with the phone I bought. After much haranguing from my cousin about my being notoriously difficult to catch, I agreed to buy a blackberry - even though I am well aware of the madness being pinged at odd hours can cause.

Thankful... the kinda random thursday edition

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 17:44:34 +0000

Thankful for:

Top blokes: Met up for dinner with a chap I once worked for in Nigeria. He was one of the more senior engineers on my first job, was in town participating in a design review and called me up for dinner. We met up at an Italian place in town. The nachos were delightful, the spaghetti and meat balls were awesome too, plus he paid. Now I know where to take the lasses I am eyeing to for a ‘spoiling’ session. :)
Fortuitous nose bleeds: I haven’t had nosebleeds in a long time, at best they are unnecessary irritations at worst they can spoil a perfectly good day. In a first for me, a nosebleed saved my bum in a meeting just before I was due to get a grilling, talk about unintended consequences…
Milestone birthdays: Someone really close turned fifty (not me). Thankful for the opportunity to have shared their life over the past few years.

Shopping..

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 23:14:00 +0000

I finally went shopping, with a few friends from around the neighbourhood. Meat, tomatoes, onions, and a stop over at the African shop for some real rice meant my long running addiction to KFC is definitely in for a serious beating! Slowly getting used to this town, I cringe at the upheaval another relocation might cause if I get the job I am currently interviewing for..

The Christmas Blues....

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:54:00 +0000

Walked down Northumberland road today - had to go see the Opticians at Vision Express. Kenny’s official girlfriend’s bum broke my last pair of glasses - whether by an act of omission or one of commission I know not any more.

The entire street was lined with Christmas decorations, and manequinns waltzing to the sounds of well known carols blaring from the speakers on all the shops - Fenwick, M&S and the lot. It is a sharp reminder that its another Christmas away from family.