Tag: Literature

Trace Elements: The Others

I caught the closing minutes of a TV property show last night. A couple had chosen (for couple, read girlfriend) the new home they were going to move into, with the main criteria being she wanted a...

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‘Someone who has seen the world, and doesn’t much like it’ : An Academic in Africa.

Trebuchet's Academic in Africa is amazed by the talents of Nigeria's ambulatory merchants and sedentary guardsmen. Plus nostalgic reflection on Wine Gums. There are a huge number of things...

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Trace Elements: iLove

Neuroscience reveals the brain’s love pleasure chemicals are usually released for 1½ to 3 years max. In other words, being in love should last you roughly as long as your next mobile...

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Bill Drummond Presents: SURROUND: Damascus in London

Bill Drummond - My Arab Spring - Part Two...

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Trace Elements: Mars & Venus, Mum or Dad?

There are countries where little boys and little girls grow up to marry their mums and dads. The UK is one of them. It may sound wrong, very wrong, but it’s human nature. So that includes you....

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Trace Elements: Romance

When writing fictional characters, a basic rule is females say it, males show it. In the real world this reveals itself most dramatically when men and woman date, then stop. He’ll often just...

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An Academic in Africa: Plagiarism

Second week of term, and we start to acclimatise ourselves to having all of these damn students around.  Although the first intake (ie. the 17 that have already done one term) have been pissing...

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Trace Elements: Trying it on

Picture a clothes shop: A customer walks in, eyes a garment, tries it on, says they love it, tells the assistant they’ll definitely be back tomorrow to buy. They’re never seen again....

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Trace Elements: Can I Have A Word?

Several months back at an advertising agency I won’t mention (coughs Billington Cartmell) I was pitching potential straplines for a Panasonic camera campaign. Its artwork featured a suited City...

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Decapitation: An Academic in Africa

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...

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Trace Elements: Catch My Pitch

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...

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Trace Elements: Namedropping

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...

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Wikithink: An Academic in Africa

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...

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Trace Elements: Marketing Copy

“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...

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Trace Elements: Off Course

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...

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Trace Elements: Commercial Breakdown

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”...

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Cockroaches, Clubs and Clocks: An Academic in Africa

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...

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Trace Elements: Screamer

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...

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Trace Elements: Workaholic

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...

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Fight! An Academic in Africa

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

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Trace Elements: Taboo

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...

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Riots and Rods of Iron: An Academic in Africa

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...

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Trace Elements: Twister

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...

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Driven to Distraction: An Academic in Africa

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...

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Monkey Kung Fu Fights – An Academic in Africa

“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...

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Abdul’ll Fix It – An Academic in Africa

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...

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Servants, Scrapes and Situations – An Academic in Nigeria

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...

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Anglicanism, animism, atheism and assessments. In Nigeria

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...

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Features and Speeches of Nigeria

“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...

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Fliers for Nigeria

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....

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