Lessons learnt, now loving Seth's Two Lives and an opaque shuffle

I keep my phone permanently on vibrate, because I've learnt I can't trust myself to remember to switch it off. I learnt this bitter lesson after a particularly embarassing incident when I was doing my postgraduate degree and a very distinguished professor had come to teach us. So we're sitting in this cavernous lecture theatre, and I'm stuck right in the middle of one of the rows.

Back then I used to keep my mobile phone in my back pack- now I carry it on my person always- except when I go to bed. So Distinguished Professor is just launching into a particularly elegant part of her discourse, when my phone goes. She smiles wryly as first, as does the rest of the class, and then as I scramble through the different pockets of my backpack looking for the phone, the smiles fade. Then there's silence from everyone except my phone which won't stop chirping.And I can't beat a hasty retreat as half the people on my row will need to stand up to let me pass. I finally found the phone and turned it off, but made two vows then- always to keep my phone on vibrate and never to sit in the middle of a row if I can help it.

I've finally got into Vikram Seth's Two Lives- I'm lugging it everywhere I go at the moment. His depiction of the lives of his Indian dentist uncle and the German (Jewish) woman he married is harrowing. I'm reading about his aunt in the immediate post war years and having to come to terms with the fact that her mother and sister were exterminated in the death camps while friends stood by and watched. Reading the letters from some of her friends describing the hardships they face in post war Germany, I feel like yelling- "Yes, but you're alive!" Seth writes searingly of how he becomes unable to enjoy his favourite German composers while he is going through material for the book- all beauty apparently tainted by the evil. My recurring question of what makes ordinary people, turn against their friends and neighbours, as in Nazi Germany and in Rwanda, continues to haunt me.....

The cabinet reshuffle in Nigeria bemuses me - so many theories, so many analyses. I'm pleased that the universally acclaimed Obi Ezekwesili is moving to Education- it's time we started putting some of that money we've saved to use in improving the education and health of the people. But she is to do that in addition to Solid Minerals? And Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala moved to Foreign Affairs, but "retaining headship of the economic team?" Nasir El Rufai is also running two ministries- what Obasanjo should be doing is finding more people to support his technocrats not devolving everything to a small team.....The saddest thing is the lack of transparency which breeds rumours and gossip. Or perhaps that's what this is supposed to achieve...I'll be looking forward to reading Ngozi's memoirs.....

As we approach the summer season and I brace myself for the onslaught of friends and family here on the annual Nigerian summer junket, the news that the Nigerian Government has issued a warning to travellers to the UK to beware of conmen seems to have ruffled feathers in the BBC who suggest it's a tit for tat thing. But it isn't. Anecdotally I know quite a few friends who've had bags and laptops stolen, and they've all seemed slightly perturbed by the fact that the perpetrators are white.....so I say to them did you think white people do not steal? A friend of mine, quite well educated and a middle level professional in Nigeria was shocked on his first visit to London last year to see white people begging on the street. When I see reactions like these, I worry about the lingering effects of what we used to call "colonial mentality"

David Cameron, having finished a fight with Gordon Brown about who was the real football fan,now uses the phrase "big up" in an official speech. Just a normal turn of phrase at Eton I presume....

Unfair summer clothing rules, drooling over Galvin and Vikram Seth's Two Lives

It's been a hectic few days dashing here there and everywhere and the summer doesn't really help- ever been on a busy train carriage with broken down air conditioning, with your feet sticking to the insides of your shoes and you wishing to kick them off but not daring because you fear the stench? I think women are a bit luckier as far as summer office dressing is concerned, they can dress down and even wear sandals without looking totally and utterly unprofessional. What I'd really love is to just wear shorts and sandals and a short sleeved shirt.....

Great meal at the weekend, at Galvin, the London bistro owned by the two Galvin brothers who have worked in virtually every top restaurant in London and which has been getting rave reviews. I had a delightful crab salad to start followed by confit of duck and they were both great. The simplicity that is the ethos of the place ran through from the unstuffy staff to the food and the wine and best of all the prices. I'll certainly be going back....

On the reading front I got into Vikram Seth's Two Lives this week. As an avid Seth fan- I've loved all his books, A Suitable Boy, An Equal Music and even The Golden Gate, his California novel in verse that I resisited for a long time because I couldn't imagine getting into a novel in verse. I eventually read it and loved it- it's witty and fun and literally unputdownable...but I must say I'm struggling with Two Lives. It's interesting but ever so slightly reportorial.....if there's such a word. But I'll keep going.....

Had interesting conversations with friends visiting from Nigeria over the weeknd...there does seem to be a sense that this time around we want a true leader, with a vision, not just someone from a particular area or religion or interest group......

Sad over a closing shop and swinging football loyalty

Walking to work this morning, I notice that the Korean/Asian deli/supermarket that opened just a couple of months ago on my regular route has closed. I looked through the window and it was empty, all the furniture taken out. It seems like only yesterday the shelves were bursting with exotic fruit and vegetables, and I was bound to catch a whiff of something as I power walked past its entrance....Seeing it closed made me feel sad in a way, not because I ever went in, but I just liked the thought that it was there and it was open and that perhaps one day I could pause and buy a Korean pear for my lunch.

To be honest, I'm not surprised it closed, even though I willed it to stay open. It was situated on a small lane not really near to anywhere- and there was no obvious immediate market... I should have guessed the minute the signs went up saying that they now did lunch- a tiny table was squeezed in and places with cutlery laid out along it, but it was too cramped, too small to tempt any of the office folk from around who on their lunch hour, liberated from their desks, want to luxuriate in space.....

Watched the England Trinidad match yesterday. At the beginning of this World Cup I'd promised myself I was going to support England- I live here,have friends and family here and Nigeria isn't playing this year; Plus none of the African teams particularly inspired my support.....and it worked well for the Paraguay match. I was able to yell with the best of them at "our" boys to raise their game.....and joined in the screaming as we celebrated our lacklustre victory...

But yesterday with Trinidad, I could not help it- I think it was something about my instinctive sympathy for the underdog- but even though I started out supporting England, a little bit of me thought- winning for the English team will be a so what moment,what with pundits predicting a drubbing for the Trinidadians. But for these boys, holding England to a draw would be truly magical- can you imagine the celebration?

And when it looked like the boys were going to hold England to a draw, and as England players lost chance after chance, my sympathy slowly swung towards the Trinidadians...sadly (or happily) the last ten minutes of the match turned the world back to rights with two goals pushed in by the English and the drream of a giant slain by a dwarf crumbled.... I hope the English team raise their game and inspire me to cheer them in the Sweden game

To make up, I tucked into Ayelet Waldman's Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, a tale of contemporary stepmotherhood set in New York (what's with me and this new New York love? I wonder) which was smart,daring, bold, funny and ultimately uplifting....Roll on the weekend!!

June 12 and railway signs and a Labour meltdown?

It was only after I'd put up my last post that I realized it was June 12 and I felt I ought to say a word or two about it. Thirteen years ago, on this date, Nigerians voted in what many agreed was the freest and fairest elections ever held in the country...I remember that day vividly and the excitement building up to it- who can forget the campaign jingle "MKO is ouuu..rrr man O! Pity that all that joy and promise was cut short by Babangida and his pals for reasons best known to them...which brings me to one of my frustrations with Nigeria- the absence of good quality investigative journalism.

Why thirteen years after June 12 do we still know so little about why that election was annulled?

Why is there no national monument to MKO Abiola, who (like him or loathe him) became the symbol; and a martyr for Nigerian democracy?

Perhaps it is because of our poor collective memory that we continue to repeat the mistakes of the past....

Saw a sign in a train station in Valencia at Easter. It read "Please be aware that not everyone in this station is a traveller. Take care of your belongings" or words to that effect. How much more elegant and restrained than London Underground's brash "Thieves and pickpockets operate in this station, please take care of your belongings"

It seems not a day goes by now without the announcement of some new New Labour government "scandal" or another- yesterday it was the scandal of tax credits being paid to immigrants who did not qualify for them, today it was about the Assets Recovery Agency set up to confiscate the assets of convicted criminals- but which turns out to have cost far more to set up and run than it has ever collected....I'm not quite sure if there is a vast media conspiracy dripfeeding these negative stories on a continuous basis, or whether the government is in such a shambles as it appears to be......whichever it is, I fear that this constant barrage will do the Labour government lasting damage.....are we perhaps witnessing the last days of a Labour government in Britain? I suppose the answer is that there's time enough before the next elections for things to turn around...but I'm not holding my breath...

Just finished Jake Arnott's truecrime and Sarah Waters' The Night Watch, so have been immersed in a London rather different from what it is now....but no less engrossing. I suppose that is one of the skills of a good writer, the ability to recreate a time and place so vividly it seems real...

Now reading Nicole Krauss' A History of Love- It's quirky and different and I can see why it was shortlisted for the Orange Prize

Pity none of the African teams at the World Cup have won their first matches so far, I can hear you say what did you expect, but hey we're all allowed to dream.....all eyes on Tunisia tonight to hopefully give Saudi Arabia a drubbing....

Second thoughts on NYC, not so summery feeling and Google trawling

Been away a while- in New York- which is slowly growing on me.

I didn't take to it the very first time, something about the vast numbers of towering buildings crammed into such a small place sparked off a claustrophobia-like feeling in me- hardened city lover that I am- But, following this, my third visit, NYC is beginning to grow on me.

Been back a while now but twice in the last month when I tried to blog, blogger was down...unfortunate timing..

Anyways...

The sun is out, real summer is here and everyone is as usual relishing it. In the square outside various bodies are sprawled in varying degrees of undress, united in the universal English ritual worship of the sun, a ritual you cannot understand until you live through your first dark, dank, winter. I must say I'm beginning to think summer's overrated, frankly- sweaty feet,the lethargy that the heat confers on you,itchy eyes, throat and face (if like me you suffer from hay fever)....the list goes on. I suppose it's the idea of summer that we love so much...not really the real thing

Been reading a prodigious amount. Of note were Rachel Cusk's In the Fold- a beautifully balanced English social commentary which is one of the successful examples of where a writer manages to convey a deeper meaning without distorting the beauty and pace of the story..., Leila Aboulela's Minaret which again successfully presents a sympathetic almost subtly proselytizing picture of Islam but because the story and language flow so well, it doesn't grate quite in the way that you would imagine the proselytizing might.

Also enjoyed Gerald Donovan's Doctor Salt, a kafkaesque commentary on many social issues, psychiatry, drug companies, contemporary American society- witty and spare- it read well....As did Romesh Gunesekera's new book The Match which is different in style from Reef his other book that I've r

Looking forward to reading Wole Soyinka's You Must Set Forth at Dawn, which (unusually for me) was the ONLY book I bought in New York....but somehow nothing elseseemed to capture my attention while I browsed in Barnes and Noble. Perhaps I timed my visit wrong- maybe this is the famine season for American literature. I did try to get two other books - Caine Prize nominated Laila Lalami's Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits and Emily Raboteau's The Professor's Daughter without any luck- they weren't in stock. I know I should just buy them off Amazon, but frankly I prefer doing my book shopping live, so I can browse through, flick through and dillydally before I finally decide to buy or not...call me Luddite if you like...

Over in Naija, the hustling for the now obviously soon-to-be-vacant Aso Rock continues apace - with even third termites (an apt appellation borrowed from Thisday's Simon Kolawole) who had sworn that no one else but Baba Obasanjo could rule Nigeria post 2007, jumping into the race....

And in the UK, I am beginning to fear that Labour might actually need to find someone else other than Gordon Brown to give David Cameron a good run post-Blair. The problem is as I see it, that everyone is disillusioned with Blair, and Cameron offers a fresh (even if blank and policy free) alternative. Those Labour supporters who have a strong historical aversion to voting Tory don't hold the deciding votes- it's the more easily persuadable middle of the roaders that do. And when it comes to a contest for the hearts and minds of these fairly fickle bunch between dour Gordon and smiley Dave, guess who's going to win.....

I notice Google's cofounder Sergey Brin has finally admitted that the company had compromised its principles by yielding to censorship in China.When I blogged on this a while back http://snipurl.com/ro5f , a nice anonymous person posted a link to an article which they claimed "provided some perspective". I remember marveling at what I immediately assumed was an exercise in damage control by some corporate bods- trawling the blogs, to find blogs critical of Google and posting helpful balanced links on them....Nice work if you can get it