Back again

I cannot believe how long it's been since my last post. And yet so much has happened at work, at home, on the national and the international stages...where do I start

In true English fashion I'll start with the weather- or the lack of it- today's been drab and dark with the pissy kind of rain that never quite seems to make up it's mind whether to fall properly or not. Last week, we did have a tropical, get-drenched-dashing-between-your-car-and-your- front- door type storm which beat down on everything in sight. Hwever because there are no zinc roofs here, I missed the drumming sound which as a child often had me convinced that the roof would soon give way to the insistent pounding...

The Conservatives have just finished their annual party conference and everyone seems to agree that Cameron put in a good performance. The question remains why the UK public- at least in the opinion polls are still very cautious in handing him their wholesale endorsement. To hear his people tell it- we all love Cameron but are skeptical of the Tory party- once famously referred to (by Teresa May its then chairman no less) as the "nasty party". Granted what she really said was that they were perceived as the nasty party but the quote stuck. Others argue that it's his image is everything, content is nothing approach to policies that are making the public wary. Whatever it is, his task of projecting the image of an inclusive caring sensible Tory party certainly wasn't helped by the utterances of some of his members. See http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1799471.ece for what I mean

Have just finished reading a book that I stumbled across in the library last week. It's called Desperately Seeking Paradise: Journeys of a Skeptical Muslim and it was well-written and very informative- tracing the Pakistani-born British Muslim author's journeys as he seeks to make sense of his Muslim faith in a contemporary setting. I found it very educatibve in understanding the history of the various strands in Islam- Shia, Sunni, Ismaili, Sufi and the Islamic contribution to Western civilization. What made the book fascinating for me was that the author wasn't writing from the perspective of one who had repudiated Islam, he was still obviously a committed Muslim, but was quite willing to question that faith. I did bristle at his repeated reference to Nigeria as a Muslim country and felt like firing off a letter to him to put him straight but on reflection, thought I'd just mention it here.....

I'm intrigued by the mysterious blog: stopsexpredators.blogspot.com which played a major role in the scandal engulfing the Republican Congressman Mark Foley who had to resign this week following the emergence of "inappropriate" correspondence between him and underage interns....amazing how it's blown up into such a huge issue. I'm sure all the jostling is to do with the forthcoming Congressional elections....

Saturday morning I woke up to a voice articulately laying out to one of the BBC Radio 4 interviewers the argument that the US and the West were responsible for the fighters who had overrun Pakistan. It turned out to be Pervez Musharraf, the military president of Pakistan and even though I'm no fan of his (I've heard horrid tales of what the military there have got up to in plundering the nation's resources- sound familiar anyone?) his argument was compelling...

At midnight on the 1st of October as I made my way to bed, I realized that it was Nigeria's 46th Independence Day. I still remember how awed we were as children to hear the that India was celebrating its 40th independence anniversary...and now we are 46, perhaps the continuing Obasanjo-Atiku brouhaha are the growing pains of a nation finally stretching towards maturity...