Monday 20 April 2009

Communication! Communication!! Communication!!!

I really cant over state that this is needed in every area of our lives. Even though most of us know this we still do not practice it. What brings me to this post? It was the removal man that helped me move on Friday. I had been disappointed by a friend who had promised to help me move. When he couldnt do it I called my standby as I figured it may happen and he too gave stories about doing the move in his small car so he asked me to get a man and a van which he paid for and he even came to help me do the packing and unpacking.

The van man was a very talkative but intelligent Bangladeshi man. He told us about his vast land in his home and all the extended family that rely on him as the head of the house. He said they see him as a millionnaire because he has a flourishing removal business but little did they know that he was neck deep in debts. His wife doesn't work so he has sole responsibility of everything and everyone. He was one of those people that took out mortgages with fake employment so it turned out he couldn't afford to pay his mortgage anymore. In the wake of the credit crunch things became really bad but his wife kept on spending money on the same level as she was before. He said he was never rich but now he is even poorer than he was but his wife didn't seem to care and one day they had a row and he asked her to go get a job.

He said she came back home one day only to have found a cleaning job of £10 an hour but they could only afford to give her 2 hours a day meaning she only makes £20 a day. By the time they deducted how much it will cost her to travel she would be left with just £10. Of cos that was nothing so he asked her to stay home but watch how she spends. He then went on to give a glowing remark about how her spending had reduced and how understanding she had been since his financial situation came to light.

I said to him that his wife was never an unreasonable woman. As long as he continued to make out he is rich then she will spend. It's a simple formular really. If I know a well that never dries, will I not go there to fetch all the time as much as I want rather than if I knew a well could dry up? I told him that his wife ought to have been his partner in life therefore she should be kept abreast of everything that's going on with him including the true picture of his finances. It just made me remember two of my exs and why we broke up. Men need to put communication before pride. A problem shared they say is half solved and I'm sure when a man opens up it doesn't get him ridicule from his significant other.

So the message today is communicate with your spouse/partner and you'll be suprised at how relieved you will be. Have a great and blessed week everyone.

Thursday 9 April 2009

Rant!

This is going to be a rant and most of you may not identify with it but rant I will anyway. Jade Goody just passed away and even in her death people have not stopped heaping criticisms at her. Anyone familiar with British television will know Sir Michael Parkinson and may just be aware of his recent comments about the deceased that she represented all that is paltry and wretched about Britain.

I personally believe that those comments were totally uncalled for. So Jade may not have what people see as traditional talents or the sort of intelligence that have been cultivated through having a decent education. But I believe she did what she could to better her life. Not all whose father died of a drug overdose in a KFC toilet and one whose mother did not give a damn could have turned themselves around like she did. Some people with her background could have turned out a drum head, in prison, a destitute ,a prostitute and the list goes on and on. But she made use of popular culture to be who she was today.

There are other people with better background who dream of having half the opportunity and fortune she had when she was alive. She rose from a nobody to someone whose photographs and news sell magazines. So she doesn't know how to play the guitar or sing like an angel, but what she had she used and what she was given she appreciated. She made mistakes just like everyone else but she learned from that and tried to make amends. Instead of the likes of Sir Parkinson to blame Britain and her parents who let her down, they decide to take an easy target like poor Jade.

I am sick and tired of these people who live their lives on old ideologies and old money and believe other means of making money or living your life is inferior to theirs. Rap music incites violence, opera music replenishes the soul, what bollocks. The world have moved on from the bourgeois ideology and will continue to do so, popular culture is here to stay and whether they like it or not it will continue to expand.

Ronan Keating said he hopes his children doesn't turn out like Katie Price (Jordan) asking what talent has she got exactly? What talent does a woman who made her money first from modelling, then diversified into lingerie business, writing kids story books, and one day hoping to represent her country in equestrian sport in the Olympics not have? It beggars believe that Jordan has done more influential things than this Ronan Keating guy who believes he can sing and therefore he is better than her.

Just because she made her money from modelling doesn't mean that her money is worth is less than that of someone who made it from e.g. painting. Talking about arts has anyone of you been to the Tate Modern lately and seen the so-called post modernist arts been displayed. How did we move from paintings such as the Mona Lisa to a careless smudge of paint on a canvass and call that art? Yet it commands millions of pounds in sale? They want the people to accept that this is contemporary art because it was probably painted by someone in their elite group they cant come to terms with the fact that youths derive a lot of enjoyment from dancing stanky legs?
I could go on and on but I'll better stop here. Have a good Easter everyone and God bless.


P.S.
Buttercup, ShonaVixen, Vera Ezimora, Temite, Good Naija Girl, Afrobabe, wordsmith, Ms Sula and Tigress are starting a blog titled The African Women so please check them out and add to your blogroll.