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Duganafi Gaenana Falaeh We will never forget…
Sunday, 11 July 2010 18:08
In this edition of Duganafi Gaenana Falaeh, Mr. Peters talks bout 7/7, asks the Pope to stay away, talks on Cheryl
Tweedy’s ‘unbelievable malaria,’ the England team, the World Cup final, an extraordinary octopus, tells off Lilo Lohan, tells men to man up and…Hahatai.We will never forget…
I remember 7th July 2005 like yesterday and it has nothing to do with the fact that I’ve been keeping a day-to-day diary for the past nine years.
It is just that my daily schedule has been groundhog day-like for five days of the week and what I did last weekend is pretty much what I would almost do for the upcoming one. It was a late shift, come home by 8.00, sleep till early afternoon, watch Neighbors and Doctors on BBC1, eat pasta and boiled chicken, wash it down with protein shake, head off to the gym, work out for three hours, take a shower, come home, eat again, sleep for three hours and off for another late shift.
The day before, the 6th July, London had won the right to host the 2012 Olympics and I was happy as the games would be held a train ride away from my then old place.
I was in bed sleeping when my phone went.
It was my dad asking if I was okay as there has been a bomb attack.
I mumbled I was okay and cut off the phone, probably cutting him off in mid sentence.
I woke up hours later and, instead of Neighbors on the screen, it was ‘breaking news: London under attack.’
Then I remembered the phone call I had earlier. Funny how a phone call a continent away had to inform me what was ripping, no pun intended, on my doorstep.
By the end of the day, the news filtered in. Fifty two people died from bomb blasts, triggered by three suicide bombers who travelled down from Yorkshire and detonated their death packages on London’s transport system.
Public transport system shut down for the day and thousands of Londoners had to make home journeys on foot or get cabs. A cousin had to foot it from Parsons Green in South West London to Hackney in East London.
For a whole week, one couldn’t blame Londoners for being jumpy. They showed a sense of solidarity by getting on public transport in droves but the fear in their eyes couldn’t be hidden. Lower decks of buses would be packed with no space to let off wind but upper decks would be a ghost town. This was because one of the bombers who blew up the number 30 bus-the same bus that gets me to my gym- in Tavistock Square did his evil deed from the upper deck. I did find it irritating having to maneuver my way through a mammoth crowd to get to the top deck with my gym bag but had to understand the situation.
Five years on this past Wednesday, the anniversary was so low key families who lost loved ones to the mayhem were both upset and angry.
Graham Foulkes, who lost his son David to the Edgware Road bombing, stated that ‘…it was pre-planned mass murder and there is not even a bunch of flowers from the Mayor.’
Wiping back tears, he laid the blame squarely at the feet of the government. ‘They couldn’t even be bothered to arrange something for us today. We had to organize our own commemoration.’
It was later learnt that Mayor Boris did send a wreath along with PM Cameron, but families and friends of the victims said that wasn’t enough.
George Psaradakis, the driver of the bus no. 30 that fateful day, lamented of a no-show by the authorities. ‘It’s hard for me to accept that no members of the government will be at any of the bombing sites in an official capacity. I’m very disappointed,’ he said.
Even an American national who survived 9/11 and flew over to show her support was shocked at the way the event was low-keyed.
Bonnie Giebfied said, ‘I’m amazed that there are no government officials here to be with the families. In America, you could accuse us of going over the top but we will never let anyone forget September 11.’
The authorities may have turned a blind eye to the event but us Londoners, by arrival and born and bred, will never forget the lives of the 52 Londoners cut short.
Our thoughts will always be with their families. RIP…
He might as well not come!The Pope is meant to be in the UK on a four day visit in September. Nothing wrong with that until I read the eye watering amount the said visit is going to wrench out of tax payers. The said sum is £12m, which calculates as £3m per day. Now, I don’t get why a four day visit from the head of the Catholic Church would spiral to that much. To further baffle Joe Public, Lord Patten, one of the organizers of the visit said it had gone up £4m more, which, says my calculator again, would have panned out as £2m per day.
‘The complexity and sophistication of the visit by the pontiff has been underestimated,’ he added.
I still don’t bloody get it.
And nor did taxpayers, who voiced their thoughts on the upcoming visit’s cost in public opinion pages, suggesting that the Vatican can keep up the bill as it is rich enough to afford it.
God knows I harbor nothing against the Pope ( I owe my nursery, primary, middle and high schools education to Catholic schools) but if the visit is going to cost that much, can his Holiness choose to stay away and have half the money, £6m says my calculator yet again, donated to, say, a charity in Haiti? Just a thought.
Are you sure?
Forget the Nigerian name; I’m as Gambian as they come.
I may have never contracted malaria in my life despite being born and bred in the heart of mosquito land, Banjul. However, I’m yet to meet, know or hear of someone who contracted malaria that took six months to heal.
My stepmother, despite all the attacks on mosquitoes with incense and spray, still gets bed ridden twice a year from the ‘present’ them whining lot pass around. I can’t, for the life of me, recall her being in bed for six months.
Cheryl Tweedy, a judge on X Factor, a telly show where, I think, one could sing themselves out of poverty or make utter fools of themselves, contracted malaria when she travelled to East Africa. Nothing news worthy in that except that she was told it will take six months for her to recover from the deadly disease.
She is currently bedded at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases for specialist care where she was diagnosed with exhaustion and soaring fever. Correct malaria symptoms but six months to shake it off? I seriously suggest Cheryl gets a series of tests as it is clearly not just malaria getting at her, methinks.
Maybe…
I watched highlights of the Germany-Argentina last eight game last weekend and concluded that, after Argentina were crushed 4-0, England weren’t so bad after all. They did give the Germans a game and even had a goal to their name and another myopically turned down, something Messi and co could not manage.
Still, heavily losing to the auld enemy like that should have earned them lot a perpetual stay in the Tower.
The future is bright, the future is Oranje!Some few columns ago, I wrote of being interested in the World Cup as I was in a hole in the head. My reasons were the teams I would back won’t do well and plus I had a John Grisham novel to polish off. I even chose not to support the home teams and even doubt my main team Holland, will rid themselves of the best-team-not-to-win-the-World-Cup tag.
Fast forward a month later, Ghana were only a penalty inch away from making the last four and, surprise, surprise, Holland are a win away from shaking off that infamous tag.
Tells you how much I know.
Never before have I backed a team from the word go to win the World Cup and they did it. I have always gone ‘English’ in the last four tournaments i.e., support your team, they get knocked out and you adopt another.1994 I was behind Nigeria and ended up with Brazil, same with Nigeria four years later, then I switched to the Dutch and rode with France in the final. 2002 I was with Nigeria and was neutral in the final, 2006 I rode with the Dutch, looked out for England and rode with France in the final and they er, butted themselves out of it.
This year, I rode with the Dutch from the onset, despite my not being interested in the tournament and, six games later, they are in the final against Spain. Something unique, that. Both teams have never won the World Cup before. Thus, Africa’s first World Cup would provide a first World Cup winner.
I’m riding with the Dutch. Yeah, the odds are against us against a team as littered with talent as the Spanish but no one gave us a chance against Brazil.
I’m going for a Sneijder goal in the 63rd minute to win us football’s biggest prize.
Pity the recession won’t allow me to be sail down the Amstel river for the celebration. Altruistic sponsors, anyone?
A tale of the eight-legged oracle
Heard the one about the octopus that can tell the future? Or, rather, correctly perm football games. Meet English-born, German-based octopus called Paul the water creature every German and Argentine football fan want beaten to a pulpy end.
Poor Paul’s crime, it turned out, was to have correctly predicted Germany’s win over Argentina and Spain’s win over Germany. He does this by picking a mussel out of one of two boxes in his tank which bears the flag of Germany and Argentina and Germany and Spain.
When he predicted a Spanish win in the semis, Germans hope he would be wrong for the first time.
He wasn’t, hence the death threats.
Thus, security was stepped up for the floppy footie fan when he made his prediction on Friday between Germany and Uruguay and later Spain and Holland. And it is not good news for Dutch and Uruguayan fans for Paul had predicted a win for their opponents.
The Dutch would hope Paul gets this one wrong for once. Even two networks interrupted their programmes for live coverage of Paul’s pick and so did networks across Europe, including Spain and Holland.
Strange times if we have to rely on a deaf water creature for results on the pitch.
I even feel guilty getting involved in the lunacy but, hey, he has been faultless so far. So much so marca.com, Spain’s biggest sporting daily website ran the headline: ‘The octopus Paul makes us champions.’
Just zip it, Lilo!Doesn’t it irk the dickens out of you when someone makes a rant over nothing or want to link the in-linkable? Is it me or doesn’t it make you get that urge of connecting with the back of their heads to help them think straight?
Some girl who pretends for a living, Lilo Lohan she is called, who was recently jailed for three months for breaching her probation, has been Twittering about her ‘ordeal’ as being ‘harsh and unfair.’ I read in the paper that the clearly deranged girl stated that the sentence was a breach of her human rights. She wrote on Twitter, ‘it is clearly stated in Article 5 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights that ‘no one shall be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.’’
If that didn’t get you scratching your barnet wondering what part of Article 5 to attach to her case, she went further to link an article on the plight of a woman facing death by stoning in Iran.
This is a bit like having a mild headache and wanting to beat the queue of cancer patients at your GP.
Can someone please shake sense into this flea-brained, spoilt brat before she anoints herself Nancy Mandela in three months time?
Belt up, man!
What is with men letting woman trouble go to their heads so badly they have to go murderously act out?
Remember that cab driver in Cumbria, Derrick Bird, who went on a pop-anyone-in-sight spree? We later learnt he was ditched by a Thai gal who, after making him send her £1000, called off the long distance relationship.
Now, barely a month later, we have Raoul Moat of Northumberland, who shot and critically wounded his ex-girlfriend, shot her boyfriend to death, wounded another police officer and went on the run for over a week before he had a stand off with the police and ended up topping himself in the early hours of Saturday morning. It kicked off when, fresh out of jail, his ex told him she is seeing a police officer, knowing or not knowing Moat has an inbuilt rancor for men in uniform.
In both cases, both men went off the rails, aided by women.
In both cases, lives were lost.
Got me thinking, is this my-girl-is-to-blame season? Can’t men shake off woman trouble like men and move on like men? I mean, like every man, I did have woman trouble but never had I thought in getting a rifle to be better understood.
Here’s hoping no more Derricks or Moats are lurking to let it off…
Hahatai…
An American wrote to the Chelsea magazine some years ago and professed of her love for the club but, as hockey is big where she is from, she wanted to know if Chelsea is planning on having a hockey team. The editor wrote back that ‘Chelsea has no hockey team and there are no plans to have one either. Advice to hockey fans: get rid of the sticks, make the ball bigger, kick it.’
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Comments
He is the man i wanna emualte down to a tee. Marry late, have four kids, etc. lol
Most people especially in Europe, America, etc believe one can always make life in his taste/liking which’s possible a times but NOT in all cases & must prepare to move on from disappointments . One must always realistically take another’s life as sacred as own.
Femi, the UK politicians need to be observant & attending such commemorations & also encourage debates in search for solutions for terrorists threats & global peace & security at large & incorporate diverse thoughts/suggestions in their foreign policy makings. If Europe & America are seen to take sides instead of neutral mediations/engaged in wars in Middle Eastern communities, others will try threats at our safety. It’s NO cowardice/’negotiate with terrorists’, to apply new strategies other than direct enemy combats & kill of local innocent souls whose interest they claim to be fighting along theirs in those communities. I doubt direct combats on war & destruction will solve for long term; but dialogue & raising awareness, etc, will help long term. Why spend so much on mere pope visit in times of belt tightened cuts & job losses to mend ‘Labour’s financial mess“?
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South African's to South Korean's.
The miricle of titanium technology?
Couldn't help lamenting...that the human challenge...to overcome any obstacle
has now been superceded by science.
Even my doctor has just conquered Mount Everest at the age of 50 and my dentist has done The London Marathon in 2 hours and 19 minutes.
Question...what can The Gambia or any Gambian claim as their greatest contribution.. to the pace of human endeavour?
Who are your role models and hero's
Mike.
May I salute General Tamba and his collegues.They did not betray their fellow officer cum President and brother right up to the end.
Yes...let me stand and salute such brave men.
The Gambia shall not die whilst such men stand for each other even when the odds and numbers are stacked against them.
This dishonour...goes to Nigeria.
Cameron could probaly finance a bunch of flowers from ASDA.But that's about all.
Meanwhile Obama announces the terrorists could plant a nuclear bomb in London...then the next day..I read Britain need to spend £18 billion pounds to replace American trident missiles by 2020.
Thing is,,,if a bomb does go off...who would get ours in return.
Iran must be barmy to want a nuclear weapon...The West would send them a shed load....for nothing.
Obama the great American salesman???
Rather give to the 3 million Brits on the dole...due to the collapse of American capitalism.
Rule Britania ...Not !!!
Have the Ravens left The Tower of London yet?
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