Politics

Image Copyright Sky News ** Hailing, as I do, from a corner of the world in which colonization has left its mark in more ways than one, I cannot help but see the stark similarities between the Afghanistan story and that of my other country. Two podcast episodes from the Rest is History podcast (a general one and one specifically focused on the First Anglo-Afghan War) provided some context to the history of the country, dotted as it has been with inter-tribal frictions and the burden of being prized as a gateway location. The similarities appear to be more than superficial: both countries have had borders drawn on the back of envelopes splitting tribes between countries, have fairly well established Islamic insurgencies and have significant deposits of natural resources. There is also the British (read East India Company / Royal Niger Company) connection too, the tip of the spear by which both regions were economically exploited. ...

I have now been out here for just over eighty days, days which have sometimes felt like they have been punctuated by starts and stops. There were the two weeks of self-quarantining in which nothing seemed to happen, then a two day week occasioned by the Eid al-Adha holidays, and most recently a three day week for the National Day Holidays. Though somewhat an accident of timing, I have been grateful for the opportunities to break the monotony of work; up by 4 am, on a bus by 6 am, back home by 5 pm wash-rinse-repeat, and the gifts holidays sometimes bring, like a large tray of meat I got during the previous Eid holidays. ...

For Wordle 381: --- Last night they gathered with intent, forty-eight memo s a lingering stench that could no longer be shrug ged away. Behind the bluster of “doing the right thing” was the lure of the key s to Number 10. When the frame is badly broken can the picture be restored? Is the crime of lying word s so great that everything is irretrievably broken and no longer of use? Inside, the Wounded lived to fight another day; outside the circling hyenas beaten back for a season will return.

With several cost overruns, a muddled award process and potential conflicts of interest, L ondon’s Garden Bridge has finally being put out of its misery. #WhiteElephant – Image Source

Speculations about the President’s health - fuelled by an extended medical leave and missed meetings - are now cleared up. He is to rule from home. #Resolved. – Image Source: PM News Nigeria

With a foreword written by the Nigerian Senate President who is in court on corruption related charges, Dino’s memoirs chronicle his life of fighting corruption.

Fittingly at Easter, New Jersey’s Brian McDowell having been caught on video asking sexual favours of a friend blames it all on being like Jesus.

Though Mo and P both pilfered stuff, their ends could not be more diverse. For his hard work he earned six strokes, For hers, apologies. For Dame J and Mohammed who though both in possession of items of doubtful provenance, receive different rewards. Image Source Unsplash/Claire Anderson

Brexit - full – It’s official, we’re the leaving kind after all. Voting last Thursday concluded with a 52% majority that Great Britain’s future path lay outside the EU framework, ending a 43-year association. The easy conclusion - particularly given how much the result has been affected by voted cast south of the Solway-Tweed line - is that insular England has held the Union hostage, but I suspect things are far more nuanced than that. ...

[ Source] If words were everything We would be halfway To the moon and back, A streak of light, white-bright Against the night sky Driving darkness far away Into the distance Of a forgotten age. If promises were The elixir of life We would nymph-like never age, Never yield to the chiseling Hand of time, etching its Designs into our very bones. Word by word they have built up Grandiose things, carcasses that Loom large, Colossus-like over us; Selling us bamboo dust for sandal wood, Trading Hope for the control A snake charmer’s pungi wields. ...