It was first the sticker that got my attention. Like a bad word said at family supper, the stick figure decal stuck out with its subversive picture, of two adults having at it in public. And then I saw the car.
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Picture a police line-up. Yes, I know—we don’t do those here, but you’ve seen a ton of Hollywood movies. So, yes. Now, picture a police line-up. Ten 50-something-year-olds. All dark. Medium height. Verdant eyebrows. Controlled salt and pepper goatees. Polished domes. Your task: pick out Tajudeen Adepetu. Can you? Most people can’t. But if you ask Mr Adepetu, he’s just fine with that. For a person who’s been in broadcasting for more than 30 years, the legend of Tajudeen Adepetu — creator of hit TV shows Everyday People and Family Circle, as well as the Soundcity Radio Network, SoundCity TV, …
Chasing money, many have regrettably discovered, is like playing hide and seek with the ghost of Houdini. In Nigeria in particular, money continues to play hard to get with tens of millions of us that the country’s dismaying status as the global capital of involuntary austerity seems quite inescapable, or maybe even destined. Yet, right here in Lagos, there’s a young lady — intrepid, resolute — who has assigned herself the task of coaching a new generation of Nigerians on how to play this game of show me the money and win. This lady, her name is Oluwatosin Olaseinde, Tosin …
By WOLE SOYINKA To the affected governors all over the nation, there is one immediate step to take: demand the withdrawal of those soldiers. Convoke Town Hall meetings as a matter of urgency. 24-hr Curfews are not the solution. Take over the security of your people with whatever resources you can rummage. Substitute community self-policing based on Local Councils, to curb hooligan infiltration and extortionist and destructive opportunism. WOLE SOYINKA
Before he died in 2009, the King of Pop Michael Jackson owned at least 10,000 books. No kidding. Ten thousand books. Why? How can one man possibly read 10,000 books in one lifetime? This was apart from newspapers and magazines, emails, SMS, song lyrics. Plus, Michael Jackson was no ordinary man.
She calls and says, “I just want to hear your voice.” But my reaction was a massive sigh. And then I say, “Thank God.” to which she responds: “Why, you missed me too?” “Well, yes. But that’t not why I said thank God.”
When somebody famous dies, Twitter and Facebook go crazy with philosophy. “This Life.” “What a life.” “Life is short.”
One time, when I was younger, Sola, a neighbour, told me about two of our other neighbours who might be sleeping together. Sola and I were teenagers — 13 or 14 at the time. “No way!” I said, my eyes like bulbs.
Ordinarily, the masses root for the underdog. Scientists have said this is because, deep inside, we all take pleasure in the misfortune of others. They call this phenomenon Schadenfreude. This is why you prefer to see David destroy Goliath. But what happens when the masses root for the big guy instead? When you lick your lips and rub your palms at the prospect of freakishly huge Goliath obliterating that poor little shepherd boy David? That doesn’t sound or feel just, does it? Yet it’s what seems to be happening right now with the singer Blackface.
If Archimedes had slipped and fallen in his bathroom, we probably wouldn’t have known the law of fluid mechanics when we knew it. But he didn’t, thank goodness.
When the letter speaking ill of the dead and bearing the name and signature of former president Olusegun Obasanjo materialised on social media last weekend, the question was, Is this fake? But while we raked the internet for evidence, we also knew that, despite the scandalising content of the letter, it wouldn’t be out of place for it to have actually been penned by OBJ himself.
James Altucher has no filter. He exposes everything that has ever happened to him to absolute strangers on the Internet. He talks about his first divorce, he talks about his second divorce, and he won’t stop talking about his many financial failures. There was that time he moved into Hotel Chelsea in New York City, with a troupe of colourful characters as neighbours; and that other time he sold all his belongings so he could relocate into a duffle bag. James Altucher is an American businessman and writer who blogs about every single thing. He’s also Jewish.
In the past 15 years as a writer and consultant, I’ve worked with a number of private university graduates. The best ones are from Covenant and Babcock. Enterprising, entrepreneurial, high capacity to think fast, creative. You know what their schools have in common? They are owned by churches. Churches, especially the successful ones with tens of thousands of members, seem to be unable to spare any expense as they build their facilities and hire faculty.
When the euphoric effect of coffee hits, it won’t be out of place for the drinker to feel that the beverage is a hard drug. All hard drugs are controlled, if not absolutely delegalised. Which is why coffee used to be illegal in several countries, including Saudi Arabia. In Constantinople, the government used to flog drinkers and execute anyone caught with it.
Books are not the only source of information and intelligence these days. If you read the Brain Pickings newsletter, for instance, you could find yourself gradually becoming a polymath.
