The World as I see it.

Since her tragic death, I have refused to believe that there was any “funny business” involved. Up till now, I have not been able to put together enough evidence to tip the balance. Also, in cases of this magnitude I feel we all need to put suspicion and gut feeling aside and let the evidence do the talking. Many a man has stood accused of high crimes, jailed, sentenced to death – even lynched – just because some story had some sort of credibility. I never felt compelled to doubt the official story so I didn’t. But now I am not so sure and my reasons for being a doubting Thomas – I am sharing with you.

Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss announced on April the 24^th that she is stepping down, come June, as coroner for the inquests into the death of Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed. That struck me as strange especially after finding out her reasons for doing so…

“These inquests now require a jury, and I do not have the degree of experience of jury cases that I feel is necessary and appropriate for presiding over inquests of this level of public interest.”

Words, words and more words. Lawyers and Politicians are known to be very good at using language. This woman has actually used careful language to conceal her real reasons and sold us these lines. Many will fall for it – not me! What on earth does she mean - Degree of experience, Jury Cases, Necessary and Appropriate, Level of Public Interest? What more experience does she need? This is a woman who called was to the Bar from the Inner Temple in 1955, appointed Registrar at the Principal Registry of the family Division in 1970, became the fourth female High Court Judge in 1979, became the first woman appointed as a Justice of the Court of Appeal in 1988, became the first female President of the Family Division of the High Court of Justice in 1999 and the highest ranking female judge in UK until Brenda Hale became the first female Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in January 2004!!

The summarized CV above doesn’t conjure up images of someone lacking “Jury experience” that is “necessary and appropriate” to me. Neither should it do so to anybody else for that matter, even in the slightest – I would have thought. Lack of experience or not, this woman doesn’t strike me as one who will back down from something as minor as jury experience in the line of duty. If that was the case her CV would not be full of all those firsts [1^st woman appointments]. Common sense tells me that this is the type of case one jumps at to makes one’s name. The average ambitious person would jump at this case of a lifetime. I think this case is much bigger [Her vs. The Establishment] than any case she had come across in her entire career. Also we all know that there is only one way this case can go – tragic accident – no matter the evidence presented! That, my friend is what [it seems] she is afraid of and decided to jump ship. Is it not scary to even think of finding the establishment guilty of murder!! The stakes are as high as they get in this case and looking at it properly, if it goes the other way it will shake this nation to its very roots. In fact, if it goes the other way it will be the greatest demonstration of the independence of British Justice in the history of this nation. I will be following every bit of it with baited breath.

Her carefully-chosen words left me agreeing 100% with George Orwell, in his essay – Politics and the English Language – where he quite correctly stated that…

“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind”

I must admit, I had my suspicions from day one. Imagine Diana, a blue-blood Caucasian female, a perfect-fit, a top-breed, a lady hand-picked [by the establishment] to be the queen of England, marrying Mohammed Al Fayed’s son? This is the same al fayed, a non-white, a foreigner, an immigrant made good, a well known enemy of state since the 80’s, a Muslim, an Egyptian, – these facts alone have swayed millions. Yes, like millions of others, I had my suspicions but as a civilized gent, I waited for evidence. In what is turning out to be a long-winded face-saving exercise in damage limitation and spin, by resigning, Lady Butler-Sloss not just tipped the scales, she broke them. I am now convinced there is some funny business involved.

Let’s now take a closer look at the event [the death of Diana] as it has been officially presented to us and the history of the investigation into the event. I am principally looking for things that do not add up so as to assure firstly myself, and subsequently anybody reading this, that all my suspicions are not lifted from thin air.

The Mercedes-Benz S 280 in which Diana, Dodi, their driver – Henri Paul, and body guard – Trevor Rees-Jones were traveling in when they left the Hotel Ritz in Place Vendome- Paris on that faithful day [31^st August 1997], crashed as it entered the underpass below the Place de L’Alma. They were being followed at high speed by 9 French photographers. Their car collided head-on with the 13^th pillar in the tunnel. Immediately after the crash, Diana was reported to have been conscious and was murmuring some words. Dodi and Henri Paul died at the scene. Trevor Rees-Jones was conscious. Diana was trapped in the mangles of the car and would remain there for almost an hour before she was cut free and taken to Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital a little after 02:00 hours. By 04:00 hours she was pronounced dead due to extensive internal injuries.

A few facts that I feel don’t add up.

1. After the event, their was no official inquest into her death till 2004 – seven years after.
2. In 1999, the French investigation concluded that their car had come in contact with another vehicle – a white Fiat Uno. The driver and the vehicle have not been found till this day.
3. In the Sunday times of 29 January 2006, it was claimed – and this was later confirmed – that there were British secret service agents in Paris on the night of her death.
4. Two American eye witnesses of the crash were never interviewed or mentioned in Scotland Yard’s official report.
5. Lady Butler-Sloss is not the first coroner to abandon the inquest into Diana’s death, Michael Burgess before her, did the same claiming the workload being “heavy and constant”.
6. 1^st coroner – workload “heavy and constant”
7. 2^nd coroner – “Lack of Jury experience”
8. 3^rd coroner – Lord Justice Scott Baker - we just have to wait and see.

In conclusion, I used to think an inquest was an investigation in to an event. If this is not some pre-determined inquest, why would two adequately qualified Judges Jump ship? I conclude it speaks volumes as far as this inquest is concerned.

Was she or wasn’t she killed? As I said earlier – I will be watching with baited breath.

All I will say is this - whoever resorted to kidnapping an innocent 3 year old for whatever reason deserves the death penalty. I do not agree in capital punishment but in cases that involve the abduction of children, public beheading suits the crime. Not only will it serve as perfect retribution but also a good deterrent.

Only God knows what her family and friends will be thinking now. One cannot help but think the worst – yet appear positive. I hate it when things like this happen because I always assume the worst. I mean why would any one want to kidnap a 3 year old girl? I cannot even bring myself to share with you what I really think. When they eventually find her, what state would she be in? Safe? Alive? Dead? As I said, one wonders.

I have seen, done and heard a lot of stupid things in my time but the OSCAR definitely goes to this young man.

  A lonely man is £16,000 poorer after sending money overseas to two women he fell in love with over the internet, in the hope they would join him in the UK .

I gave up my lunch break to write this simply because I just could not resist – I mean, how can anybody? I was shaking my head in disbelief as I read each line.  In this day and age of Identity theft, cyber-crime and all other shenanigans that result in innocent people being fleeced via cyberspace, this donkey was stupid enough to trust something he met on-line simply because he was promised love. [Let’s face it; we all know he was hoping to get some nookie and by this account, he must have been very desperate!!]. I thought we had all wised-up to these types of pranks.

I remember way back at university, when some students used to spend all weekend in the computer rooms chatting day and night. On Monday mornings, they would talk about it and laugh and share funny stories on how they pretended to be some “Hot Swedish blonde” and some far-away sad old men would lust after them. In fact it used to be a competition to see how much attention one would get in chat rooms. I don’t blame them. What else do you expect from students far away from home seeking some weekend kicks?

But this miserable old man takes both gullibility and stupidity to new heights. He is not student and has an elderly mother to look after and still falls for the cheapest trick in the book…

David Hodgkinson’s borrowed money from his elderly mother and re-mortgaged his home in Margate, Kent, but neither woman showed up at the airport.

Now, he gets on-line, exchanges lines of text with someone claiming to be whoever, this mysterious person expresses undying LOVE, Mr Sadness personified falls head over heels, Miss smitten asks for £10,000.00 to cover travel and visa costs and donkey sends the money!!! If it was his own money it would have been bearable. But no, he borrows poor old mummy’s money. Not only that – it happened to him more than once!!!

Mr Hodgkinson, who is a full-time carer for his 86-year-old mother, turned to online dating after he became fed up with being single. He first struck up a relationship with Natalia, from Russia , who he met through a dating website. He sent her more than £10,000 to pay for her travel and a visa so she could be with him. He went to meet her at Heathrow Airport four times, but she never arrived. He then turned to a Christian dating website and met Amada, from Senegal . He sent her £6,000, but was again left waiting in the arrivals lounge of the airport.

Four rimes he went to meet this girl at the airport! Where do we get people like this from? This so-called “Natalia from Russia ”, only God knows if she is in fact female. I bet good money that she is some crook looking for some moo-moo to swindle. On the other hand, I should not be too hard on this guy because he is lonely, has “past it” and not exactly blessed with good looks unlike me. That might explain his repeated failure to hear those deafening alarm bells ringing when in the first instance Natalia was nowhere to be seen at the airport!!!

People like Mr Hodgkinson deserve no sympathy. I urge all Natalias out there to even ask for more money next time. If someone can be that gullible then the Natalias out there are providing a service by trying to educate the Hodgkinsons of this world. His mother is elderly and has been left to pay-off his love-debts. To show how sick this man is, he even has this to say…

                “I feel no ill in my heart. I did really love her,” Mr Hodgkinson told the BBC.”

Something tells me that nothing has been learnt here.

“A 93-year-old former vicar and train enthusiast has become the oldest person in the world to               gain a PhD.”

I find him interesting because I used to think one is “past it” academically by 25 considering that almost all geniuses come out with their best works before hitting 30. I am over 30 and having been flirting with the idea of doing something in the field of mathematics for a while now, what the famous English mathematician – G.H Hardy – has to say in his wonderful book on the aesthetics of mathematics – A Mathematicians Apology – does very little by way of encouragement. Chapter 4 begins with…

I had better say something here about this question of age, since it is particularly important for

mathematicians. No mathematician should ever allow himself to forget that mathematics, more

than any other art or science is a young man’s game. To take a simple illustration at a comparatively

humble level, the average age of election to the Royal Society is lowest in mathematics.

Trying hard to find something positive in this article I realized that this former vicar is a bit of a book worm.

                Reverend Edgar Dowse, who does not own a computer and dictated his thesis, already has six other degrees.

Six other degrees?

At least this man puts his brains to very good use.

Alarm bells started ringing as soon as the headline hit me, “No sleep means no new brain cells”.

Missing out on sleep may cause the brain to stop producing new cells, a study has suggested.

The work on rats, by a team from Princeton University found a lack of sleep affected the hippocampus, a brain region involved in forming memories.

The research in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science showed a stress hormone causes the effect.

A UK expert said it would be interesting to see if too little rather than no sleep had the same consequence.

This has more meaning as someone who nodded off in the middle of a serious meeting at work recently. The thing is for years now I have been an insomniac and that means that I cannot for years remember the morning I woke up fresh and full of energy. As a result, during the day at work when normal people are buzzing with mental and physical energy, I feel so weak and tired and see myself nodding off whenever I have nothing to do. As from 7pm onwards each day, I get this surge of adrenalin that goes on till very late resulting in my inability to fall asleep in good time. I did mention here that one of my New Year revolutions is to go to bed early everyday yet that has been extremely difficult. I do go to bed early but falling asleep is another thing. I normally eventually nod-off around 2-3 am having actually being lying in bed around 9-10 pm. And considering I have to get up at 6am for work the next day – 4 hours sleep tops leaves me gagging for more sleep. Even at weekends I wake up around 8am after going to bed generally later [3-4am].

Any ideas will be highly cherished.

I saw two things today.

1. A mother light-up and puff-away [a cigarette] in full view of her on-looking toddler saddled in her pram.
2. A father put money in a slot machine and play away [gambling] again in full view of his son, similarly placed in his pram also.

Why am I writing about this?

Because as the mother was arrogantly lighting and puffing-away and the father ignorantly slotting and playing-away, their children were – naturally – looking on. As harmless as their crimes might seem to those of you who have not gathered by now why I was so moved by these sights, I think those two young ones are guaranteed – thanks to their parents - to be smokers and gamblers respectively.

You need no degree in Human Psychology to realise that one of the strongest parameters that shape children’s values are parental influences. Of all ideals and values to instil on one’s own young offspring, these two stupid parents decided to instil the vices of smoking and gambling respectively. I have nothing against these two individuals smoking and gambling respectively but deciding to do it in front of their kids disturbs me. They might as well be telling them to smoke and gamble. No amount of education can change habits like those once learned.

I felt so disturbed by the sight that if I had the power, those two sad excuses of parents will be punished severely.

It is bad enough to waste ones own life but to guarantee the destruction of a young life – especially your own – defeats me.

What say you.

By Believing we become willing,

By willing we become driven

JIDEOFO OBIANYIDO 2007

As someone who - for a very long time – has watched and wondered from the sidelines why certain people achieve success “no matter what” while others seems equally incapable of making good of themselves in similar circumstances, cracking the code very late in life is such a relief.

These feelings started to awaken in me ten years ago when I dropped out of university. I now conclude that for some reason which I can only attribute to a very personal “family experience”, I assumed that success was, in my case a birth-right waiting to happen.

Wrong.

It is hard graft or nothing. And anybody willing to put in the pain will definitely get the gain. I am yet to meet a person who does not agree with but history always repeats itself. Some succeed while others don’t - period. As we are intelligent [ability to learn] beings it should be very shocking to us all that some people in this relative land of immense opportunity still fail to succeed. My joy today comes from actually realizing that agreeing with or knowing something that is accepted to be common sense is not enough. Knowing is very different from believing and knowing is worlds away from willing. For those of us with no blue blood, connections in high-society and simply with no skills and want to succeed in life, it is more of a belief and will thing than anything else. Majority of us are not believers and the same majority are not willing [in possession of little or no will power].

By believing you become willing, by willing you become driven.

Belief is very important because that is the only way you keep going [driven] when the going gets tough. To illustrate, consider yourself a boxer. If you believe you are a superior boxer to your opponent but he/she manages to catch a clean shot at you and actually knock you down in the first round, what do you do? Say he was lucky to get a clean shot and give up altogether or comeback to the second round with a point to prove. We have seen this over and over again. It is very likely that if initially you believe to be stronger, even if your opponent knocks you out in the first round, you will come back in the second round even more aggressive. If on the other hand if felt your opponent was stronger, chances are you will throw in the towel. Why carry on fighting with someone who will beat you up anyway? It is just like that with life and that is the difference with driven people and the rest of us. Most of us give up too soon or do not try hard enough. It is all about belief. All other attributes necessary for success will be added on to those of us that are willing and driven. All that nonsense about natural ability, talent, gifted, that-type-of-person, and whatever excuse mediocrity has used to describe personal triumph is nothing but signs of weakness and ignorance. Sadly there is a lot of that in society. I do not believe anybody will wish themselves failure if they knew success is very much within reach. They fail simply and squarely because they do not know any better.

Now question is, what do you know? And now that you know, what are you going to do about it?

Environment where one comes from is of the essence here minus the “very few greats” amongst us. People who do well academically for instance do “certain things” that make them good – they study more than the average. It is very sad that through out our formative years that for some reason, majority of us believe that we are not the type to succeed.

Naturally after failing to secure a job after dropping out of university, I started to wonder if there was something wrong with me. I assumed that employers would discover my talents and employ me anyway. But that never was the case. How that troubled and affected me. Logic should have told me that it is not what you are capable of doing but what you have done already. Put yourself in any employer’s shoes. Who would you employ if you were to – a graduate with glowing references or a university drop-out? That is it. Life itself is like that. Winner takes all. So the question is – Are you willing?

At the depth of my lows, I read so many biographies of men I so much admired. Martin Luther King Jr, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Wole Soyinka, Julius Kambarage Nyerere, Kwame Nkrumah, Che Guevara, Nelson Mandela, Samuel Smiles, Malcolm X, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, Karl Popper, William Spencer Churchill, Bob Marley, George Soros, Milton Friedman, Booker Taliaferro Washington, and many more that I wont bother to mention and one thing becomes staggeringly obvious – self belief and hard work.

I must note here that not all human success stories follow this theory down to a T. For some people, success comes with little or no evidence or awareness of difficulty, struggle, courage, drive, confidence or ambition. They just cruise into it. Good luck to them. Now is not the right time to compare the relative ease with which some find their journeys in life. Let them be. You should only worry about yours. So bottom line is you got to believe in yourself. You got to be willing to succeed.

Are you really willing to believe?

Thankfully, the DJ on duty that night played the extra-extended version and I danced through it all. You should have seen me on the dance floor. Some thought I was incredibly good. Others thought I was high to the sky on sweet potato pie. If only I had it taped I would have posted it here also.

In fact enjoy the music.

As I predicted here, the chickens are coming to roost one by one – and I am loving it.

What strikes me is how on the day, they were all vile. On being exposed they deny racism. And upon reflexion – after watching and thankfully sinking in, they regret but still deny the flipping obvious – it is cold-blooded racism.

I am beginning to get pissed off by all those that choose to call it “Bullying”, “Classism” or any other “ism” out there. Even Jade and co made it clear from day one that the main reason they didn’t like Shilpa was simply and squarely because they had no idea who she was and even if she was a celebrity in India, to them she wasn’t any celebrity and shouldn’t behave like one!! Lets face it, to scum like them, India is still 3^rd world [Danielle confirmed it]. If that is not racism, blow my black brains out. Had Shilpa been an American Celebrity of whom they knew nothing of, would they have been so vile to her or would they have been quick to hide their ignorance? I know what I think.

That level of ignorance stupidity and racism reminds me of the WAG wanna-be Jodie Marsh, who in the Celebrity Big Brother of January 2006, upon being asked to rate the celebrity of the other contestants in the house put Denis Rodman and Traci Bingham at the top simply because they were Americans. Yet the likes of George Galloway were in the same house! While Jo O’Meara, Jade Goody, Danielle Lloyd displayed their true racist colours in that house little did they know that an Indian is richest in the UK and fifth richest in the world. In addition, there exists in this country a separate Asian Rich list after it became obvious there were too many “Indian” millionaires in this country.

For all I care, let Jade Goody, Jo O’Meara and Danielle Lloyd suffer beyond their wildest dreams. Many a good man from 3^rd world countries has suffered unspoken horrors because weasel-nut racists like them exist.

What do you think?

As bad as the publicity that goes with the current “Celebrity Big Brother 2007” is, I think it is more of what I call “exposure of necessary of evil” rather than anything else that got me so interested in this series. If such ignorance and lowest-common-denominator, vile blanketing exists in our society, then I support every manner and medium of exposing it. Channel 4 via Big Brother, less a few antics, is doing a splendid job in exposing to millions reality beyond belief. It has always been my point that the fact that one is not aware or exposed to certain realities – as is the case with many in the UK - does not necessarily mean it does not exist. And for that simple reason, channel 4 gets my vote for going ahead and exposing it – even though I know their reasons for doing so are very different. My only qualms with Channel 4 is their failure to intervene much earlier and letting Shilpa suffer as a result. But I am still up for Channel 4 showing Big Brother. What is the alternative? For people like Gordon Brown to fly around the world preaching that ours is a nation of fairness and tolerance only for the likes of Shilpa Shetty to receive such shock-horrors at the hands of racist low-life bullies like Jade, Jo, Jack, Jakiey, Cleo and Danielle? It is my sincere wish, Cleo Rocos – the weak has-been airhead and two-faced chav, Jack Tweed – the moronic waste of human tissue, Danielle Lloyd – the airhead WAG and Jo O’Meara – the most vile and dangerous of the lot, get their dues. Jade Goody, by the looks of it is getting pay-back. If only she thought of her kids when motor-mouthing off in the house. What do you think?