Many years ago, while in a job that I hated, one of my bosses ‘offered’ to spunk on my legs, among other delights. There was no preamble. We had barely spoken more than 50 words to one another in the ten or so months I’d worked there; there was precious little overlap in our duties [...]
Everyone calls me Bim. Everyone. For most of my life that’s what I’ve gone by. Bim. B-I-M. Three letters, one syllable. Bim. When I was concerned by these things, I would lament its cuteness – “that’s not a sexy name,” I would think. I would put on Billy Crystal’s voice and paraphrase his line from [...]
Last week I watched While You Were Sleeping, which is but one leaf on my ‘Christmas Movies – Romcoms’ branch. I love this movie. It is cute and funny and genuinely romantic, and it stars Sandra Bullock, a fine actress who has contributed much goodness to the genre. I <3 Sandy, man. And speaking of [...]
Here’s something I’ve been ruminating on for a while, forcibly brought to the forefront of my mind given recent events, so apologies if it’s not terribly coherent. A quick perusal of comments sections across the breadth of the internet throws up the ‘but do you want tokenism?’ defence. I mean, practically every comment section has [...]
Last week, my Tumblr dashboard threw up a teaser promo for Solange Knowles’ upcoming single, Losing You. I watched the clip (less than a minute long) three times in a row, liking what I heard and saw much more with each viewing. Then I re-read the blurb an earlier poster, Britticisms had written: Preview for the new [...]
I just finished Girls In White Dresses. It could easily have been called ‘White Girls In White Dresses’ or even ‘Lena Dunham’s White Girls’ or ‘HBO’s White Girls In Dresses’… I think you get the point here.
“If you could live in any other era, when would you choose?” Around me, co-workers pick their favourites – a lot of attention is being showered on the 1920s and 1940s: “the dresses!”. Others pick the 60s: “swinging London, the music!”. You know, all the usual popular period suspects. Then my co-workers’ attention shift to [...]
My sister sent me this piece from the Wall Street Journal last week, and we had a short angry ‘WTF?’ conversation about five minutes after I’d read the first couple of paragraphs. This bit, from the event organiser Rachel Chan was interesting to me: “For most guys, especially bankers, they say, ‘I’ve seen many, many pretty girls [...]
When I hear women talk about their bodies – and it is something that we all seem to do, however enlightened we are – I find myself having to bite my tongue often. This is down to two things: I am in the privileged population, body-wise. I am slim, have proportionately large breasts, and long [...]
With the shock passing of Whitney Houston this past weekend (I wrote something about her for the Guardian here), it’s been the perfect time for the media to showcase their spectacular ignorance/laziness when it comes to the identification of black and ‘urban’ performers.
For the last few months, I have been thinking and vaguely discussing with my sister the idea of ‘something more than an oral history of Nigerians in Britain.” We all know Olaudah Equiano (hold tight, Nigerians in pre-1800 UK – braaap!) but how much do we know about the lives of British Nigerians over the [...]
I think every black British person on my Twitter timeline had seen the video of the woman who launched into a racist tirade on a tram somewhere in London before noon on Monday morning (watch it here if you fancy topping up your daily dose of rage, avoid if not – it’s pretty vile). A [...]
I’m currently in a job which gives me Fridays off. I’m so grateful for it – as well as having a designated day of non-work writing, it allows me to have a lie-in on a weekday (woo!), and I get to do the necessary-but-boring stuff like paying bills and returning library books.
Yesterday on Facebook, I came across this post on Anglo-Nigerian publisher Jeremy Weate’s page: “In Aba, they make Italian-style shoes from Kano leather which are labelled “Made in Italy”. No one would buy them if they said “Made in Nigeria”, although everyone knows they are made locally. Nigerians don’t trust products made in Nigeria and [...]
*I want you all to imagine that in the sharp tones of authoress Ms Maya Wilkes (played by actress Golden Brooks in much-missed sitcom Girlfriends) Tuesday afternoon’s rain brought with it a thick fug of wild rumours of the demise of the relationship between Will Smith and Jada Pinkett. (And of course, the firm assurances [...]
