Feed the world. Let them know it's Christmas time.

Feed the world. Let them know it's Christmas time. 

I like those lines because they aren't terribly specific. And let's face it, feeding the world, not just Africa but the whole entire world is a lovely sentiment. So, Yay Bob! Well done Bob! I like those three lines so much that I forget about the rest of the song is questionable. 

I'll walk you through it. 

It's Christmastime, there's no need to be afraid.

 Lies. Christmas is a scary time of year. I don't just mean from the Nigerian perspective, it's a global fact that everything is a little bit more dangerous at Christmas. Drinking goes up, Stalking goes up, Burglars get apprentices, Armed Robbers pick up side gigs as kidnappers, fraudsters become just as common as shoppers, etc. So there's every need to be afraid. Christmas is not for the faint of heart. Christmas is only good in the places where Christmas is not celebrated. 

At Christmastime, we let in light and we banish shade.

This too is relative. In my house in Lagos, Nigeria, I will be letting in light. In my friend Ogilvey's house in Gloucester, it's going to be dark by 4 in the afternoon. What is darkness but moon shade eh?

And in our world of plenty we can spread a smile of joy

Throw your arms around the world at Christmastime.  

Delightful. Delightful. I'll grip the globe as hard as I can. Hugs for everyone. 

But say a prayer, Pray for the other ones

At Christmastime it's hard, but when you're having fun

There's a world outside your window

And it's a world of dread and fear

Who are the other ones and how are they any different from me and you? Now dude, you're contradicting yourself. If there's no need to be afraid why are you telling me that there's a world of dread and fear outside my window? Thankfully, I already knew this.

When the only water flowing

Is the bitter sting of tears

This is confusing, because I don't know where he's talking about. I'll assume that he's referring to aliens now, because on Earth, there's always water flowing. And even i water wasn't flowing, I don't think it's possible to cry when you're dehydrated. 

And the christmas Bells that ring there, are the clanging chimes of doom

Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you

Wait so I'm supposed to be thanking God for another man's misery? What kind of a Christian/Muslim/Religious person are you? 

And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmastime

Thank God for that! Since when is snow a good thing? Ask the homeless man outside your window, Snow = Hypothermia and Frost Bite. Have you ever tried to dress up like a slutty clown when it's snowing?It's not the nicest thing. It's shitloads of nipple erectus and I can't feel my treasure trail. 

The greatest gift they'll get there is life.

Again with the here there thing. But it doesn't matter. Life is brilliant wherever you are. MOre life for everyone!

Where nothing ever grows,

No rain or rivers flow.

Hold on! I think I'm gerring it. Dude's talking about Africa! Are you trying to say that in 2010, there was no rain... that no rivers flowed, and nothing grew? Dude you are wrong for that. Did you not have one cup of Kenyan/Ethiopian coffee in 2010 Bob? You know coffee is a plant right? It isn't the biproduct of African Volcanic ash you know.

Do they know it's Christmastime at all? 

This is a tough one but I think so. Almost everyone has a calendar now. 

Raise a glass for everyone

Spare a thought this yuletide for the deprived

If the table was turned would you survive

Very good questions I think. But you need not look too far. There's a suicidal brother not too far from you. All you have to do is give a couple of thousands to Samaritans, so that they can afford a new campaign, that way, when suicidal bruv is about to off himself he'll remember to send an email to jo@samaritans.com, and they'll do everything they can to talk bruv out of it. 

Here's to them

Underneath that burning sun

Isn't this why you holiday in Egypt and Gambia in Christmas? The Burning sun can be a good thing man! All you need is some air conditioning and you'll be A Ok. 

You ain't gotta feel guilt just selfless

Give a little help to the helpless.

We've been through this already. There are helpless people everywhere. Stop implying that Africa's the hoe of helpless people. I don't even feel fine calling Africa Africa. Africa isn't a country and stuff.

DO they know it's Christmas time at all?
It's starting to get a little bit repetitive now. :(

That was in 2010. I thought we were done with all of that patronising, us them, here there, stuff, but apparently I was wrong. Ebola, presented good old Bob with the opportunity to gift us with a threepeat and he jumped at it. He gave us Band aid 30, aka Band aid 3.0. It's almost identical to the one that came before it, in that it's got a lot of the same lines, so you can infer that the here - there, us - them, thing remains.

It's all the same until you get to,

There's a world outside your window, and it's a world of dread and fear.

After that it's genius.

Where a kiss of love can kill you,
 I know Ebola's spread through bodily fluids and saliva's one of them, but what of the flu? Isn't the flu a far bigger deal than Ebola? Don't 49,000 people in the U.S.A die from the flu? But thanks for letting us know. Angelique Kidjo sang this line, and in the song, I guess she's the token African person. She's your standard on offensiveness. You're thinking, if she's fine with it, the they're all going to be fine with it. No. I can't speak for that many people, but I'm not cool with it. That's how if I make it out of Lagos for Christmas and end up at a nice New Years Party the girls will be unwilling to pull me because, I'm black, and West African. It isn't fair. 

And there's death in every tear,
I suppose there's death in a lot of tears. When my dog died, there was death in my tears right? 

And the Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging chimes of doom.
The truth of it is, the only bells that ring here are the bells that that they ring in schools. Period. The bells that tell students to move from point A to B and rendevous at point C. I'll be the first to tell you that I have never heard a bell that isn't a clanging chime of doom. Ebola didn't do this to me. This is why my parents are saying, "Go back to school!" and I'm saying "Too many deadlines. Too many bells saying start and stop. I want to be free." Mama Afam's going to confront me about this later. I'll stand at the ready. 

Well tonight we're reaching out and touching you.
 I don't get this one at all. Don't reach out and touch me please. You might have ebola. Isn't this the whole premise of the song? It's made clear in a couple of lines. 

Bring Peace and joy this christmas to West Africa.
Even though this line is nice sounding I don't like it. I hate it because it's the sort of patronising empathetic bullshit that doesn't actually help you. It's just so vague! What do you mean by Peace and joy? And where in West Africa are you talking about, because some other idiot is going to hear this song and think that all of West Africa's affected, so when one Edward from Ghana goes on holiday, he will be forced to have the following conversation over and over again...

Enter Edward and foreigners

Foreigners: Where are you from?

Edward: Ghana.

Foreigners: That's in West Africa right?

Edward: Yes. 

Foreigners: How are they dealing with the Ebola outbreak there. 

Edward: There's never been an Ebola case in Ghana...

Foreigners: Really? I'm quite sure that there was. It was all over the news a couple of years ago.

Edward: That was mostly Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. There was a bit in Nigeria, a bit in Senegal and a bit in Mali, but never Ghana. 

Why is comfort to be feared, why is to touch to be scared

This line made me mad. Not only is it a shit line, but it's also sang by Sinead O'Connor who's contorting her face like she's having some sort of fit. When you ask her she'll say that she was so moved by the plight of the affected that she lost all control of her facial features, and that what we saw there on the video was genuine emotion. But we know better. She was standing above a latrine and was suffering from a severe bout of constipation.  





How can they know it's christmas time at all.
:-)

The song means well. It's seeking to raise money for a decent cause, but the manner in which it does so is inappropriate. You shouldn't have to reduce a few countries to scenes from the worst horror movie imaginable just so you can raise a few thousand quid. Charity shouldn't have to be about the direness of the situation, it should be about the hope that exists there. They'll say that as long as it raises the money needed to by extra beds, and hazmat suits in Sierra Leone everything's good, but what about when the crisis is over. What will you do when there's a stigma against the people you were meant to be helping because you wrote lyrics like,

Why is comfort to be feared, why is to touch to be scared?

and How can they know it's Christmas time at all?

And I'm not being pedantic. All of this rubbish is only contributing to the view on Africa that already exists. So help us, but don't do it at the expense of our dignity. I won't ask a man in need to tell me that he's a poor leper of an idiot, before I give him a dollar. This song does something similar. It has Bono, and Bobby screaming, these guys are poor useless baggers who don't know when Christmas is or what Christmas means in 2014, and as if that weren't bad enough they're living in fear because there's this virus that renders them incapable of comforting or loving one another, so let's step in and give them all of our good good loving because they're too daft to do any of it themselves. It helps your saviour complex, but it doesn't do the people you're supposed to be saving any good in the long run. If you want to help, don't buy that wack ass single, donate to Doctors without borders. You'll do just as much good without spreading the foul message that the song is.

I've been meaning to write this one for a while, but when the material is large, it is difficult to articulate completely. I thought it charming. I still think it charming. The clothes are pretty and the cuts, somewhat conventional. Even when she throws in an oversized bow, the scale is not so impractical as to be cartoonish. The clothes are interesting but not so much that they become parodies of the central theme. The clothes come from a cerebral place. She is deliberate in everything that she does. The illustrations of her theme do not come across as random bursts of creativity.  

Her collection is a discussion of both virginity and the virgin. I’d read about it, but I didn’t really feel it until I saw the collection’s film. In the film a group of men discuss the veiled figure before them, before succumbing to the prospect of owning her. You see them reaching into their pockets, pulling out ever so slightly, and reaching in again. It is too reminiscent of masturbation for it to be anything but disturbing. Yet the model sits there, not unaware of their ministrations but accepting of them. Most modern theories would object to this sordid objectification of the woman. She's been reduced to the most basic reflection of her gender; her vagina. So, it is only fitting that the vulva finds itself expressed in the clothes. 

You may not notice this at first, but once you have seen it, you cannot deny it for what it is. It is at the front of the black blouse and in one of the Adire prints that she has become famous for. There's always the question of originality whenever Adire is discussed. While Maki may not have been the first to print Adire on silk, she did it at a time when no one else did, and at a scale that far exceeded anyone else's at the time. There was no flirtation, only full immersion. As a result of this, any one that employs a similar technique will find themselves compared to her. 

Adire isn't the only maki-ism that makes it through. The boxy shapes, the diagonal cuts, the midi and the too high slit also feature. The slit is interesting in this collection because it is only completely shown once. At all other times you are aware that if not for the silk that's laid above it or    the silk that peeks out from underneath it, the model's entire left thigh would be laid bare. 

It is unfortunate that I did not get to see it walk. I did, however, see the clothes on the rack, and they are far better than the pictures can say. The pink blouse with tufty feathery appliqué is neoprene mesh and the black beaded vulva dances. When you see Maki's clothes you do not like them or dislike them. They are greater than that. Even when you would not wear a piece, and this for me is everything she's shown, you appreciate the scope and scale of it. 

Lagos Fashion and Design week ended two weeks ago. I didn't do it like I did it last year, and that makes sense. I'm not the same as I was. Last year it was exciting and fresh and new. The novelty of it spurred me to exertions quite unsuitable to my normal pace of doing things. I do things slowly. I process slowly, and I tire easily. You could probably say that these reviews are too soon, because I'm not done processing. My opinions are not fully formed. But alas, if I were to wait any longer for the sake of processing, you would forget that I was there, and my words would lose whatever weight they had. And that's enough of an introduction. The night isn't young anymore, and in an hour or so,  my words will be tainted by fatigue.

Tiffany Amber is a brand. And that brand has a girl. I cannot quite say that it is a girl I like, for I like my girls to be real fully formed creatures, with complexities, and secrets that their treatment of chiffon often fails to convey. Moneyed princesses and political wives and debutantes are one thing, but I prefer tortured souls and character traits that hide themselves in seams. 

The clothes are beautiful in stride. The models kick, and the fabric follows. There is beauty in that, and there isn't a single soul that would deny it. But what happens when it all stops? When the five foot eight and above hangers stand to allow Folake Coker play to the crowd, are the clothes as impressive as they were mid-lunge? They're not. That's the simple answer. The magic is lost, and the moment that could have been had is too. The lux materials she's used no longer seem as impressive as they were a moment before, and the girl isn't as intimidating as she was when she marched down with her head held high. I do not forget that I was smitten as they walked, but as they stand there and clap, it feels like an undeserving infatuation. It's the moment when you find that your idol isn't worthy of your adulation. I know it well. 

The photographs say the same. They do not elevate the collection as they should. You see that the dress you thought was perfect didn't fit all that well, or that the fabric you thought was richer than anything else shown in those four days wasn't as exclusive as you imagined. It is stronger than her display last year, but whether that is strong enough or not, I can't say. I can tell that her girl will be pleased, but I fear that she hasn't said anything new. In this age when every one begs their designs to transcend the constraints placed by stitches and cuts and slits, is it not a missed opportunity?  

Random Night in November...

Time - 00:27

Weight: 60 kilos on the dot. Must gain more.

Cigarettes: 0

Other malicious and undoubtedly evil substances: 0

Cups of tea: 2

Now, where to begin? I could start with the fact that the cable isn't working. I'm not sure that I'm allowed to say what cable company it is, but it's the one everyone has here. It's the one with four letters that half the daddies and bars abandoned that one time because they failed to secure the Premiership rights. It's the one that releases a new magic decoder every year. The decoder I'm looking at is three years old and it shows. What's supposed to be the HD movie channel is Signal not found, please check that your set top box is properly connected to the cable point. Thanks, but no thanks. 

I'm deathly afraid of wires. The last time I approached an electrical connection with wild abandon, was the prelude to a dance of death on a viridian lawn, that left me bruised, burned, and without a voice for three days. I know it sounds like the side effects of a particularly thralling BDSM romp but it wasn't. The only good thing about that experience is that it is unlikely that the parental units will ever ask me to sort out the christmas lights again. This is good.

Lagos hasn't been particularly good to me. Someone once said, "don't try to rush Lagos or Lagos will rush you." The person lied. I have never hurried Lagos, but Lagos has harried me. I think the city wants me gone. I shall oblige. I should have obliged when my tyre burst on third mainland bridge. As they say, hind sight is twenty twenty. This too is a lie. Because of the variable nature of the future hindsight is 0. There is no reward in looking back. We must race towards the future with the past firmly in mind. 

The one thing Lagos has been good for is learning. When I first arrived here all my fellow IJGBs regaled me with tales of vast nothings, and boring nights of sameness and routine. I found this both repulsive and enchanting. Doing the same thing with the same people every Friday night was as charming as St. Elmo's fire in my imaginings. Doing the same thing every Friday night in reality was nothing but one of the many proofs of life. I live, I am young, so therefore I am at one Thai/Indian inspired restaurant/club every Friday night. The idea of this soon became repulsive to me. "I am a man of varied interests, so shouldn't my exploits reflect this?" I thought. And they did for a time. I went on picnics organised because, the picnic culture in Lagos was apparently dying. The organisers of that one would say that they felt honour bound to prevent the loss of such a tradition, and I would nod fervently. I honoured their seriousness with the enthusiasm of my head, knowing full well that my nodding was sarcastic. The people at those things were always fascinating, always interesting, always enchanting, but I found myself craving the sameness of my Buddha inspired restaurant of a Nightclub. That was when I realised that it wasn't that Lagos didn't have anything to do, but that it was I that didn't want to do anything.  

I realise that I haven't told you what it is I have learned. I have learned that I am hermit crab. Everyone who isn't hermit crab gets the shell, and those who are get me.