Of Bent British Coppers** and Life on Mars

Life on Mars - Sam Tyler (John Simm) in the centre

Back in 2008, I blogged about my  fascination with the UK TV series Life on Mars. Quick recap:  The year is 2006 and the setting is Manchester where a high-ranking police officer (Sam Tyler) gets hit by a car while listening to the David Bowie classic Life on Mars? (great song, horrible video...orange hair and a pastel blue suit? Seriously...like what was David Bowie thinking back in the early 70s?). Anyway, Sam Tyler wakes up in Manchester in 1973, is he in a coma? Has he traveled back in time? He is completely clueless and so are we.

So Sam Tyler is stuck in a 1973 nightmare without the internet, mobile phones or computers. He is also forced to put up with dinosaur police colleagues who are sexist, racist and smoke too much. The best character on the show is Sam's whiskey-swigging wise-cracking boss from hell Gene Hunt; an expert at making sexist comments, planting evidence, carrying out grievous bodily harm and of course taking bribes. Since Sam comes from 2006 where all policing is followed strictly by the book, he feels like he "landed on another planet" [part of the show's tagline],

Modern British policing all strictly by the book? Hahaha!  The recent phone-hacking scandal in the UK revealed (among other things), that journalists bribed several police officers over an extended period of time in order to get information about criminal investigations. As appalled as I was about the revelations, the fact that policemen in a model western democracy took bribes gives me ample satisfaction. Why? Well, over the years, us in the [so-called] Third World have been preached to, patronized, and admonished by the West about our weak and corrupt institutions. Turns out people who live in glass houses.....

However, I cannot be rubbing my hands with glee for too long. One thing I know is that once the problem has been identified in the UK, swift corrective action will follow. Indeed, as I type, heads have already started rolling. Alas, that is the difference between our part of the world and the West. On a few occasions, we actually identify the rot but we are either slow to act or choose to ignore the problem for various reasons. So in the end who gets the last laugh?

By the way, someone better tell Sam Tyler that he may be better off staying put in 1973. After all,   things may not have changed that much between then and now. 

**Bent British Coppers= Corrupt British Police officers

Memories of my father and debates over Seal

Whenever I hear any song by the unique talent that is Seal, I think of my father. Back in the 1990s I was a huge Seal fan. I think it may have started with Kiss from a Rose from Batman Forever.

In my teen know-it-all days, my father and I had a heated debate over Seal's origins. Mind you, this was long before Wikipedia, Google or even Altavista could have solved any argument within seconds. I insisted that British-born Seal was of Jamaican descent which I had read in either Smash Hits or Number One magazines. My father begged to differ. He insisted Seal had distinct Yoruba features and half-jokingly suggested that his facial scars could be as a result of Yoruba scarification. This was an argument that could not be won. my dad stood his ground and so did I. I think I was more perturbed that parents were not supposed to even know anything about contemporary pop music. They were supposed to be listening to classic highlife, the Beatles, Fela and Osibisa!

As it turns out, my father was halfway right. According to Wikipedia, Seal was born Seal Henry Olusegun Olumide Adeola Samuel in London. With a name that includes 'Olusegun', 'Olumide' or 'Adeola', one can only be of Yoruba descent! However, the jury is still out on the scars. 

Seal is probably one of the under-rated musical geniuses of our time. Those amazing lyrics and that atypical singing voice. Seal first hit the scene as a vocalist on Adamski's Killer in 1990. Which raises an even bigger question; like where is Adamski these days? Then there was Seal's 1991 unforgettable hit Crazy. I must say I was glad when Seal finally chopped off the dreads. 

Seal  in the Crazy video with the dreads

Interestingly, at the height of my Seal adoration, I had the surreal experience of walking between him and his model girlfriend (at the time) in Heathrow Airport. Its a true story I used to tell anybody who would listen. I had just gotten off my flight from Johannesburg and had a few hours to kill before a connecting flight to the US. I could not believe my eyes as I walked between Seal and his German model at the time, Tatjana Patitz. As they towered on either side of me I was in awe. I was so shocked that I went back and followed them wanting to ask for an autograph.  In the end, I did not have the nerve. I turned around and went back to look for my gate. Oddly, the real-life encounter led to a cooling off of my appreciation for Seal but I was still a fan. 

Recently I have re-discovered my appreciation for Seal with the beautiful song The Right Life. 


Well, its my Father's birthday today and I'm celebrating with my Seal collection. I just wish I could have told my father in the living years that he was right about Seal; he is indeed a (super-talented) Yoruba man.

Fun and GAMEs with FONKAR, OLONKA and GARI

The Cocobod House in Sunyani, the capital of Brong-Ahafo. Source: www.panoramio.com

Apparently, all roads [in Ghana] lead to the capital of the Brong-Ahafo region, Sunyani this weekend. From all accounts, these roads are already congested and laden with heavy traffic transporting ruling party faithful to the congress to elect a party flagbearer. Over the past 6 months, there has been much discussion about the hotly-contested race between the incumbent president of Ghana, Professor John Evans Atta Mills and an unlikely contender in the person of the former first lady of Ghana, Mrs. Nana Konadu Agygeman Rawlings. I will not even want to delve into the much-dissected reasons why Mrs. Rawlings is challenging the one-term incumbency of President Mills and the implications of such a move. 

Rather, what I find fascinating is the proliferation of grass-root pressure groups  supporting each side. 

It all started with the emergence of FONKAR (Friends of Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings) which burst onto the political scene with a glossy website, beautiful portraits of Mrs. Rawlings and a list of her achievements. With the birth of FONKAR came the first real  indications that Mrs. Rawlings had her eye on the presidency not in the distant but rather the immediate future.

As time went on and the whispers of Mrs. Rawlings running started to become a reality, the FONKAR website suddenly became filled with President Mills' pictures and a strange "we was wrong"  disclaimer that they (FONKAR) had been supporting Mrs. Rawlings for a 2016 bid and not a 2012 one. The plot grew even thicker when FONKAR emerged to say their website had been infiltrated by the Mills camp. Clearly an easy chair and popcorn were required to follow all the action.

Eventually, the incumbent side kicked off their own game-plan with the wittily-named GAME (Get Atta Mills Endorsed) campaign. This launch was followed by curious radio ads by Friends of President Mills in the Eastern Region** declaring their love for the President and deep gratitude for the new roads, school uniforms and abolishing schools under trees. With the GAME campaign in full swing, came accusations by the FONKAR side of intimidation and abuse of incumbency. There was also talk of a GAME budget running up to 90 Million Ghana cedis  ($60 million) and an elusive tape (that never surfaced) to supposedly buttress the accusations. The twists and turns were becoming riveting.

Well, the President laughed off the astronomical budget claims and I mean literally laughed it off. His rich laughter can be heard on an audio clip from an interview first broadcast on Asempa FM. Of course I was hoping the laughter would be followed up with an actual budget outline since having the Friends of Atta-Mills in the Eastern region ads in heavy rotation on the radio cannot come cheap!

Aside from the very active FONKAR and GAME, there are other pressure groups in operation:

• GARI: Get Agyemang Rawlings in
• FOAM: Friends of Atta-Mills
• OLONKA: Original Ladies of Nana Konadu Agyemang.
• SADAM: Sons and daughters of Atta-Mills

The clear overlap between the mandates of  some of these groups could only lead me to one conclusion; the real battle is about which side  can come up with the wittiest acronyms!

Meanwhile, over in the main opposition camp (yes, there ARE actually opposition parties in Ghana and not just opposition from within one's own party), a nationwide campaign by the presidential candidate Nana Akuffo-Addo has kicked off. This Listening Tour/Campaign sounds mysteriously like then-candidate Mills' House-to-House Campaign in  2007/2008. Ironically, this very strategy was laughed off (literally laughed off) by the then-incumbent and now-opposition New Patriotic Party. Well, I guess it is true what they say that "he who has the last laugh, laughs longest" since the house-to-house campaign proved that it indeed had GAME. After all, it Got Atta Mills Elected (GAME).


**Not sure why I heard only ads by Friends of Atta-Mills in the Eastern Region. If anyone heard ads by other friends in other regions, please let me know.