Month: May 2011

There Be Dragons

Published by Osemhen

Even saints have a past. And in Roland Joffe’s new movie, There Be Dragons, he attempts to outline the past of one of the most controversial saints of the twentieth century, Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei. Yes, the one parodied in The Da-Vinci Code. It’s an epic film, set in Spain and revolving around the Spanish Civil War (time to get our history groove on!). A modern-day journalist, Robert, is trying to make up with his dying father, Manolo who fought in the war. Then he discovers that his father was a childhood friend of Josemaria who is, at the time, being considered for sainthood. Drum roll, please! I’ve only seen previews and heard about the movie on the grapevine. It hasn’t begun showing in the cinemas here yet (I hear they’ve begun previewing though) even though it was released May 6th. But I can gather from the trailer that There is a beautiful girl involved (as always). Manolo did something quite evil. Josemaria was quite brave, reaffirming his identity as a priest in times …

I Was Going To Write A Story (Really!)

Published by Osemhen

So I plugged in my trusty Azure (she’s a solid black HP, not blue like her name says), booted her up and opened a new page in MS Word. My story was quite a simple one. A love story. A heroine. A hero. Boy meets girl. Crisis. Attraction. Love. Marriage. The End. Your typical M&B. Only Nigerian. My heroine was called Edel. Short for Edelokun. Edelokun means The river can’t ever be greater than the sea. A typical Ishan name. Wantonly boastful. I liked the name Edel, still do. It sounds exotic, doesn’t it? I mean, a girl called Edel, what would she look like? You see? Edel, however, did not like her name. “It sounds French, Osemhen. I prefer Elokun. It’s a more appropriate name for a proud, black, African woman.” And just like that she went from being a slightly light-skinned, tall, slim, size 6 chick with a fantastic Brazilian weave to being the colour of burnt sugar, with a size 14 figure and a full head of beaded dreadlocks tied up in …

To My Network Provider

Published by Osemhen

Dear Network Provider, Hi. Odd, isn’t it, how my text messages bounce back but the ones that political parties send me, the ones that you send me, manage to find their way to my inbox. Odd that. Odd, isn’t it, that you advertise a certain “bundle” for a certain amount and then when I register for it, I find out that the associated data allowance has been conveniently discontinued. Odd that. Odd, isn’t it, that data-sapping Snaptu opens Facebook and Twitter effortlessly but my phone’s browser will not open Gmail or Yahoomail on pain of death. Really odd that. It’s odd that you persist in inundating me with ads that advertise all sorts of call rates to all sorts of people. And yet, I cannot find out how to set up my voicemail without navigating, in endless circles, syrupy voice prompts. Odd that. It’s odd that I spend the entire morning trying to download a 125kB document and then you have the effrontery to send me a text message that my time limit of 100 …