Greyness, painting, muddledness in Nigeria and wanting

Gosh, I really am slacking on the blogging front. It's not like nothing's happening- loads are but I just get sucked up by other stuff and so don't get round to blogging. Perhaps it's something to do with the grey days that are fast upon us here. There's something about the greyness that almost seeps into your soul as My talking beginnings muses on his blog.... http://mytalkingbeginnings.blogspot.com/2006/10/sigh.html

Had a good weekend even if the all day rain yesterday made any and every thing that required any energy an unappetizing prospect. I still managed to drag myself to the National Portrait Gallery to meet friends for the David Hockney exhibition that just opened. I just love the man's use of colour- it's so vibrant and warm, but then I like colour. I also admired his photographic collages which made very interesting viewing. I was quite interested in a series that detailed portraits of all the people who had visited his California studio one year, and was struck by the absence of a single black person. But later down a few rooms there were paintings of an African American doctor, a close friend. Should I have noticed, or am I becoming paranoid?

Dinner on Saturday night with friends in their modernist flat in the East End. Crab done in three ways- a souffle, dressed in its shell and as a tart with smoked fish. Delightful. Amazing views of the Thames and fireworks exploding everywhere over London- we debate whether they mark the end of Ramadan or Diwali- no one seems to know for sure.....

I still do not know what to make of the events in Nigeria. Everyone I speak to at home is convinced that there is some grand plan by Obasanjo to foment chaos and render next years elections unworkable. Yet there is very little in the public domain to confirm or deny this. I suppose the people at home are privy to all the little tittle tattle that in Nigeria is often better than any formal media for communicating happenings in government. I do find it strange that only a few months to the elections, all remains so quiet on the campaign and manifesto front.....

The police say they have found the killers of one of the governorship aspirants who was murdered recently in Ekiti State. I would ordinarily congratulate them except that there already seems to be much murkiness and things that do not add up in the alleged confessions. On the subject of murders, it's twenty years this month that Dele Giwa, the journalist was killed by a parcel bomb while Babangida reigned as president. No one has ever been found guilty of his murder. In a few weeks it will be five years since Bola Ige, serving attorney general was killed while Obasanjo reigned as president. No one has ever been found guilty of his murder either. When I think of all the murders that have happened and been solved in the years that I have lived here, I wonder what it would take to just find one set of these Nigerian killers.....

I have just started reading Ahmadou Kourouma's Allah is Not Obliged- a fictional account of life as an African child soldier. It's quite different from Uzodinma Iweala's Beast of No Nation, to which it will no doubt be compared. I'm loving the humour in Allah is Not Obliged and can almost visualise the cheeky war hardened little boy narrator......

It was good to see the veil debate put in perspective. Apparently less than 10 000 women wear the veil.The majority of Muslim women in the UK do not wear the veil. In a country of over 50 million, debating the veil issue surely seems like really really high priority

I want to go and see the Velasquez exhibition and I want to go and see Caroline or Change- the new musical set in civil rights America that's written by Tony Kushner and I want to read the new Ngugi wa Thiongo and I want.....that'll have to do for now