Literature Archives Page 4 of 5

Decapitation: An Academic in Africa

16/02/2012

I’d like to share a story with you. It comes from an online newspaper here. Suspected ritualists on Tuesday in Lagos beheaded an unidentified man and chopped off his manhood. Residents of...

Trace Elements: Catch My Pitch

07/02/2012

Picture this: An Oscar-winning super producer, a TV network super suit, their brand new Central London indie offices, and me in the hot seat (it’s still warm from the legendary actor...

Trace Elements: Namedropping

31/01/2012

Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Robert Pattinson Name-drop a celebrity in a digital headline and extra clicks are guaranteed. They’re like the sugar that tempts mouse-holders to nibble at your...

Wikithink: An Academic in Africa

25/01/2012

The first week of term has arrived, and with it about 100 students. Frankly, this is a bit of a shock to the system. And not just mine, the whole delicate ecology of the university is...

Trace Elements: Marketing Copy

24/01/2012

“How old are you? And are you married with children?” I was asked by a potential client last week in Canary Wharf. My top of the range anti-wrinkle cream allowed me to subtract vainly for...

Trace Elements: Off Course

17/01/2012

I used to live across the street from Hamburger University, where McDonalds teach staff the innermost secrets of the McMuffin, Happy Meals and Going Large. Unusually for a seat of learning, it was...

Trace Elements: Commercial Breakdown

10/01/2012

A commercial break on Pick TV has just made me question the way that I’m living life. And not in a “It’s Saturday night and I’m sitting here on my own watching Pick TV”...

Cockroaches, Clubs and Clocks: An Academic in Africa

04/01/2012

I have missed being here, and it is good to be back. I think I have missed the life and the people rather than the place itself though. The familiarity which has made it so easy to settle...

Trace Elements: Screamer

03/01/2012

Back in the sixties, teenage girls in their thousands would cram into concerts given by The Beatles and scream hysterically from first note to last. The songs were seldom heard. Those teens could...

Trace Elements: Workaholic

27/12/2011

During a party thrown to celebrate my 2nd birthday, apparently, my Grandma asked me the big question “Where’s Daddy?” I’m told my response was to point over to a framed photo...

Fight! An Academic in Africa

21/12/2011

I did not really understand about how he owed N20,000 to some sort of workers’ co-op on campus. ...

Trace Elements: Taboo

20/12/2011

So it’s Tuesday morning and I’m writing copy from home for a tobacco firm. What makes it worse ethically and karmically is they’re global. Plus I’ve just noticed the words...

Riots and Rods of Iron: An Academic in Africa

14/12/2011

It is both a curse and a blessing that we don’t know what other people think of us. I am much better than I used to be, but I know that I still spend much of my time in conversation with an...

Trace Elements: Twister

13/12/2011

I’ve never been to Mumbai, but if their train journeys into work are less overcrowded than London’s, I may outsource myself soon. Plus a mutant insect flew into my mouth I guess I’d...

Driven to Distraction: An Academic in Africa

30/11/2011

The rage has been building. For the last few days I have been incapable of driving here without the stupidity of it all getting to me. This morning, for example, I was genuinely nearly...

Monkey Kung Fu Fights – An Academic in Africa

16/11/2011

“So who would win, a man who knew kung fu, or an adult male chimp?” “The chimp would kill you.” “Even if the man knew kung fu?” “It would not matter if he...

Abdul’ll Fix It – An Academic in Africa

09/11/2011

For the last six weeks I have lived in Nigeria as an illegal immigrant. My visa (which I don’t think ever technically allowed me to work here anyway) expired on the 6th of June, and no...

Servants, Scrapes and Situations – An Academic in Nigeria

02/11/2011

Deprived of cultural stimuli we appreciate every cultural artefact in a much more intense way. Saturated with cultural stimuli that intensity, in one sense, is diminished. That’s not to...

Anglicanism, animism, atheism and assessments. In Nigeria

25/10/2011

News of my atheism seems to have spread. I’ve not exactly been evangelical about it – in fact I’ve barely mentioned it. But when a colleague with whom I have never even...

Features and Speeches of Nigeria

08/10/2011

“The matriculation ceremony really isn’t about the students,” David said, and boy, was he right. The whole thing took around 3 hours and of that their part took about two and...

Fliers for Nigeria

29/09/2011

Last Saturday I was supposed to hand out fliers for my university to students taking their JAMB tests. This is the Nigerian equivalent of SATs, and you have to take it to get into college....

Damned Mosquitoes, Damned Frailty

10/08/2011

Ill again. After 2 and a half months I hadn’t been sick once, and now it’s twice in two weeks. This time I think it’s a mixture of something I ate and the fact that I got eaten...

Matriculation and the Turning of the Soil

04/08/2011

We are having a matriculation ceremony on Thursday, and suddenly the university is a hive of activity. I swear more has been done in the last week than in the previous two months. Most if it is...

The ‘13’ Rules of Left and Learning.

21/07/2011

When strange rituals become rules, and rules become superstition. I have a list in my head of things that make a good man. The ability to play a good F chord, all frets barred, no muted...

Slum

04/07/2011

The university hostels back on to a slum. This is in the “Life Camp” area of Abuja. I have no idea why it’s called that, but apparently it’s where all the workers...

Patrolling the Edges of Panic Town

01/07/2011

An academic navigates the great and small encounters of Ex-Pat life in Nigeria. Yesterday, I loaned my car to Joy and Julius. She said it was her birthday, and it seemed like a good idea at the...

The Loneliness of a Long Distance Academy

24/06/2011

The university is open, and the experience has been, somewhat predictably, a mixture of the shambolic, the absurd, the vaguely promising and the outright perplexing. We have a programme for the...

A Casual Bombing in Nigeria

21/06/2011

On the 16th of June there was a bomb blast in Abuja, at the police headquarters. At the time of writing this they had not released the figures for the number of dead yet, except to confirm that...

Scenes of Plenty: British Library

14/05/2011

'men seek after a better notion of riches and of the art of getting wealth than the mere acquisition of coin'. Essay on Wealth...

On the Brink of Democracy

27/04/2011

Nigeria is a confusing country for the stranger, and the situation only gets worse when you start looking at politics. As such I’m not going to try and give you a nicely crafted or...

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