Two Indian travellers just plonked themselves (with a certain amount of courtesy, I must admit) at my table.  I was happily and nonchalantly scoffing my beef pie, washing it down with a refreshing local lager: White Cap.  Thinking about how I could possibly kill 1.5 hours stuck at JKIA (Jomo Kenyatta International Airport), I was suddenly struck with an urge to type.

 

So here’s what’s going on around me.  Hope it will be as interesting for you to read is, as it is for me to watch.

 

A colic-consumed infant screams its lungs off – it sounds very painful – time to turn up the volume on my iPod.

 

A young local has just sat next to a stranger complete with two bottles of beer – apparently not prepared to stand in line for a 2^nd – and, I, having been queue jumped while I was there, totally sympathise.  And since there is a Kenyan peculiarity of drinking alcohol and soda drinks at room temperature – I don’t suppose he’ll care when the 2^nd bottle is already lukewarm.

 

A group of Scandinavian backpackers are crumpled on a tiny table behind me with their Mac and delighting in reminiscing in their recent safari  and African village adventures.  Cows mingle with elephants and the odd native in a bright red blanket wrapped around him making him look rather like a Quality Street sweet.

 

A wobbling blue-clad policeman passes by the cafe rubbing his chin – I wonder if he longs for a nice lukewarm beer too.  The peak cap he wears suggest authority and the 35cm cane he has sandwiched under his armpit suggesting even a tad more than that.  He about-turns and heads off in  the direction he came from .

 

One of the Indian travellers opposite me, just yawned so widely without covering his mouth I could almost see his colon never mind his tonsils.  Sigh.

 

And a female beauty in red just joined the young guy with the two beers for a “hello”.  He immediately introduced her to his new-found friend on the same table and she instinctively reached out her hand to shake the stranger’s.  He lingered, holding on for longer than a European might be comfortable with – making that African connection – conveying friendship and respect in a lengthy grasp.  A quick almost-dismissive tug of hands will not suffice here – and I like that.

 

Passengers are coming and going and I suppose I could ramble on for hours describing the funny, the fat, the fragile, the frisky or even the fatherly.  The suited, the slumped, the stressed, the shopping and even the sexy.  And coincidentally, the fatherly and sexy just happen to be the same, as I notice that my White Cap is empty. 

 

When I paid for my beef pie and beer about 20 minutes ago, the server didn’t have the correct change and he gave me extra to save the hassle of me waiting.  He smiled and said you can offset it against your next purchase...I retorted: “I might not have a 2^nd purchase, but will see you on my next flight,” – but as with people experienced in certain fields however banal or pedestrian, he knew better and thus, please forgive me as I complete this blog entry to skip to the counter for my next beer.

Replying all - ignoring all?

Just a couple of days ago, the mammoth straw was cast upon my unsuspecting back and I snapped.  Like Chinese water torture, the torrents of Reply All comments had dripped and dripped into my inbox.  I duly deleted them.

Fortunately with auto-view I can see the rubbish that people dump in Reply All mails and quickly abandon even opening them up to get annoyed at the nonsense people write in such mails - and the irrelevance they contain - sometimes even to the original sender.

This latest instance was a valid request from a colleague for information to help secure a client contract - a noble aim indeed.  However, the innocuous, unhelpful, unfettered garbage that ensued was pique of waste.

A waste of effort on the senders' part; a waste of time for the poor original sender - since all the comments were saying "Sorry, I don't have anything...!"; and a waste in general for all the other poor sods in the Reply All To box.  [This is not to mention the waste of electrons whizzing around the planet to send the emails from sender to all the recipients, then from the stupid recipients back to all the other recipients and then on top of that all the Out of Office Notifications that are returned to said stupid recipients who hit Reply All.] 

So what did I do?  Well I hit Reply All and kindly - it was polite I must confess - requested people to at least "think" before they robotically hit Reply All - I was hoping to keep my inbox a little cleaner and my synapses too...!

No wonder emails go unanswered, no wonder mails are lost in the forest of junk we get in our inboxes.

Join the crusade - tell the stupid ones, that we, the enlightened, will not hit Reply All, unless it's relevant to all those in the To line and edit the recipient list to make sure we are communicating sensibly as opposed to blindly, bumblingly and in a bothersome way.  The notes of "well said" I got back from people I don't even know suggests there is a war in great need of being waged here.

You can't hit Reply All on this blog - but you could forward to others to help share the message and clog up your friends' inboxes.

How ironic would that be!!!

Put another coin in the Lusaka meter?

I was a tad bored, I must confess.  Sitting at my dining table in a swanky Lusaka restaurant called "Rhapsody's", I swished through the pages of Africa Geographic and thought I wonder whom I could call to have a chat with.  Mind you, the menu, which is pictured below, was rather thought-provoking in itself.

My good friend in Maryport sprang to mind.  I dialled and got through with a crystal clear connection from Zambia to England.


We talked about many things, but the opening sentence set the scene and I was challenged about why I was calling.  The assumption was either that I had been stood up by a date, or the electricity had gone off (again) and I was bored.  Well, needless to say I was slightly miffed by the insinuation, but continued to talk to my so-called chum regardless.

There were discussions about schooling and the British press and even a momentary murmur a propos UK high-street fashion.  I was trying to end the conversation with my garrulous gal on the other end by saying I should really hang up and was accused of having to put a 50p in the meter to keep talking.  This lead me to telling a tale of when I was about 8 or so and me another young schmuck were hijacked on our way home from primary school by a rather histrionic grandmother claiming her electric meter (remember those?) was jammed and the imminent power cut would render her cold and cooker-less. 

She implored us to rush to the local electricity provider (NORWEB as it was – remember that?!) and ask for help.  My friend and I duly sped down the street and barged into the “showroom” as they were called back in those days. 

We explained the lady’s plight and gave her coordinates.  The lady behind the counter, sighed, laughed, scowled and finally imparted to us that the silver-haired granny in question was a known hijacker-of-kids-on-their-way-from-school and should be condescended to but not taken seriously.  She had a habit of stuffing the meter full of 50p coins out of fear and probably had enough coins jammed in there to last a week.  My friend and I continued on our merry way with a mouthful of Black Jacks (now who remembers those!!!) and went home.

I do hope the granny didn’t freeze to death.  But I shall never know – the hijacking was a one-off occurrence.

And so my chatty counterpart and I continued for another 10 minutes or so.  I persisted, I must go.  And then came the thunderbolt.  “Oh, I see, you really do need a 50p for the meter, don’t you?!  No wait...”  she pursued, “perhaps you could maximise your 50p...!”  I was intrigued to know how.  “Well,” she continued, “you don’t put it in the meter and that way you’ll be plunged into darkness and the date that you’re denying is waiting for you in the wings will be spared the embarrassment of your visog.”

Well to say I was miffed, is an understatement, but not for the reason you’re perhaps thinking.  I was annoyed she’d delivered the same witty remark I was about to make before her – and the cow beat me to it.

That’s when you know you have a real friend.

Anyone got a spare 50p?