My Christmas Holiday

 Yes, I'm writing you an essay as if I'm still in primary school because this holiday was worth writing about. I was hoping to get a week off work but between December Decembering, rheumatoid arthritis, and procrastination, I did not finish my assigned work (and not all of it) until the 24th morning. 

Let's see there was a lot of swimming done.

                                                                 Christmas Caroling

Birthday Lunches

got a new tattoo

got a dog.

As you can see, I was super busy.

So anyway, on the 24th, we set out for Weathercock House in Limuru. Yes, just as the name suggests, it was a colonial throwback to the glory days of the empire. 

We arrived quite late what with rushing to finish work, the mechanic taking his time making the car roadworthy, and shopping for supplies. When we got there, the house was on top of a hill and the car kinda refused to climb it. 

Stress.

However, Timothy, the owner of Weathercock house offered to drive the car up the hill and proceeded to do some four-wheel drive shit on my poor not four-wheel drive car. The sun was just setting over the property and it bathed the garden in beautiful golden light. And what a garden it was. It's the reason I'm writing this essay.

We hadn't eaten a thing all day and were hoping to get a meal at some nearby restaurant but Timothy was like kill that story. Danger! Thieves! Also, there was no Uber, or Bolt, nothing operating in Limuru. Timothy was leaving so he wouldn't be available to drive our car back up the hill if we used that. 

Sadness ensued.

But we had with us, some frozen chips and chicken pieces as well as salad. We had wine, we had ice cream, we had chocolate chip cookies. We made do. Happily, we'd hired a chef for the next day so that was taken care of. 

An actual fire in a fireplace. A 72-inch tv. and creepy ass pictures on the wall. Weathercock House was like a journey into my own past. I grew up in a neighborhood where every other house had a zebra skin on the wall. Seeing it brought back memories of tagging along with my mother to visit her friends.

The kitchen had an honest to god Aga. The fridge was from 1950 but in very good working condition. The same could be said for the bathrooms, absolute 80s decor, except for the instant shower which was the only thing not working up to standard. A real pity since I really wanted to take a bath in the bathtub. Really relive my childhood.

The bed was like sleeping on a cloud. 

However...

Creepiness abounded as I said. There was, what I eventually realized was a 'service corridor' which actually ran parallel to the main corridor. The bedrooms were in an entirely other 'wing' of the house - very helpful for me to picture the manor houses I write about in Regency romances. And there was a hidden staircase that led to an attic - which I immediately decided was occupied by the ghost of this guy.

That wasn't the only creepy picture in the house. There were several.

But there was also a very cute little bar in the second part of the sitting room (it had three parts) and the reading nook was to die for. They let us have one pet so we brought our dog, who we thought was Alejandro at the time, but turns out she's Alejandra.

She was remarkably well-behaved. Didn't poop in the house once.

We woke the next day to a breakfast that was mid at best. I wasn't holding out much hope for the chef. But again, we had ice cream, we had Amarula, we had chocolate and we had the great outdoors. 

The gardens were remarkable. At least 40 years old, the trees were living things. We could feel their spirits. If there was anything that cemented to me the importance of conservation, it was being in the presence of those trees. So old that other plants had rooted in them so that every tree was festooned with at least two other trees, a vine and a flowering plant all tangled together and growing from a single root it seemed. Just standing beneath those trees was a spiritual experience.

Lunch was a million times better and so was dinner. Chris and I pretended to be slaves who had broken into master's house to drink his wine. 

Then we shot some sort of gangster movie that I'm still waiting to see. (Chris says he's editing). All in all, as Christmas goes, I'm counting it as one of my best - peaceful, full of love and food and rest. The journey back to Nairobi was also super smooth. And that's my Christmas holiday. If you want to tell me about yours, feel free. 

How Are We Feeling About AI?

 

So I've been on the anti-AI train for a while, mainly because the way it works now, it basically steals the work of creatives in order to produce just like...struggle versions of their work and suits, who know nothing about creative work, use AI to cut costs regardless of the quality of the work.

So just as someone who values quality, I've not really thought of it as a good thing. But recently, most of the programs that I use for creating designs such as Canva and even Microsoft, have come up with AI options for generating images.

Before, when I was creating a social media post or book cover, I'd search images for pics I could use but then, the other day I thought, what if I generated the image? After all, it's not as if I would have used an artist before, and this is an opportunity to get exactly what I wanted...I thought.

But surprisingly - or perhaps not - I found that it's just as difficult to generate what I want as it is to find it. Haitian Zombies? forget it. Mixed race couples? Da fuck? That's dangerous, no can do. African Gays? What? No.

So in conclusion, AI is just as unimaginative as the white suits who invented it. Creatives have nothing to worry about.

They have nothing on you.

Speaking of extremely creative and original work, In Search of Paradise is on discount. 

Have you copped it yet?

Book Sale In Search of Paradise

Occasionally as my skills get better, I like to improve aspects of my work where possible. I particularly love this new cover so I'm discounting my book by a lot to promote it. Please do buy for yourselves and your friends. It's that affordable.

Share this post and I just might buy YOU a copy. I want you to enjoy it. I know you will. So choose how you want to get it. Buy? Share? the choice is yours.

Christmas is around the corner after all.

Shades of Grey: the saga of Israel and Palestine

 I grew up watching South Africans fight for their freedom. They did some shit; burning people with tires in the middle of the street because they were identified as snitches is just one example. On the other hand, the Boers were busy beating people to death, right on TV because they dared to protest. They massacred students in that very famous massacre the year I was born. They detained people, from Nelson to Winnie to that Jewish guy you can watch in Live to Lead on Netflix. He lost his leg in a bombing in Malawi and when he woke up, he was terrified that the Boers had him. When he was told he was still with Frelimo but he lost his leg, he was relieved.

Can you even imagine the alternative if the loss of a leg fills you with relief?

The West called the South African freedom fighters, terrorists. Nelson Mandela was only removed from a terrorist watchlist in '94 or thereabouts when he was already the president of South Africa. It was only after the South African embassy in London was literally under siege (and it became less profitable to support it) that the beginning of dismantling apartheid in South Africa began. Now they all want to pretend that they were always huge supporters of Nelson Mandela and the ANC.

The narrative is the narrative until it's not.

That's why it's important not to wait for other people to tell you what to think. You must seek your own information and make up your own mind. 

The dichotomy of black and white, good and evil, is what trips people up I think. People think that if you fight back, using the same tactics as your oppressor, then you're not just as bad, you're worse than them. It's you, you're the problem, it's you.

Guys, it's all shades of grey. The meek might one day inherit the earth but they generally do not survive oppression or brutality.

They never give you alternatives for what you can do to mitigate this oppression - have you noticed? Every alternative is wrong. 

We've seen this with Black Lives Matter too. 

When it comes to Palestine though, there seems to be an extra layer of dgaf that happens. People are dead-eyed in the face of gruesome pictures of Palestinian children, shot, bombed, beaten, brutalized in every way imaginable. Somehow, it's all fine. 

It's all okay. 

It's antisemitism if you protest. It means you hate Jews. You want Jews to be killed. 

Jews are the victims. Don't you see that?

Hitler killed six million Jews a century ago. How many Palestinians have Jews killed?

Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.

I don't know how this is going to be resolved, but what I see is the Israeli government acting in bad faith. I see that they are the oppressors. And if there is to be any hope for humanity, we must all stand against this.

We in Danger, Girl...

 Okay, hear me out, this is going to be a long post with a lot of threads to connect. The world is ending and we're all just sitting on our hands. Here we go.

Let's start at the beginning and that's the Cold War where Russia essentially 'threw in the towel' right? Capitalism won...allegedly. So fast forward to 2020. Trump is the president of the United States. He's shown signs of being very pro-Russia and his fans of course are following behind like sheep.

Because it didn't matter that he was bending over for their supposed worst enemy. Just as long as he continued to discriminate against the coloreds. Then Byline Times today, posted this video:

Please watch to the end. It actually brings together a lot of the threads I was going to have to connect for you. Trump wins in 2016, right? Soon after or before this, Boris Johnson becomes PM of England and midwifes Brexit into existence. What is the result of these two things?

1. The rise of right-wing ideologies worldwide leading to social schisms that will be hard to heal. From that Marie le Pen chick in France to the Italians to the Germans - we saw the return of actual Nazis, increased hostility to colored folk, all of that. What did that lead to?

Well, look at England now. It's practically a failed state. America is a third-world country. France is on fire. They're killing homeless and sick people in CANADA. The first world is a mess. 

But that wasn't the only consequence.

2. Attack on truth. Thanks to Trump and Cambridge Analytica nem, what is the truth became subjective. It would have been one thing if this was confined to one country but thanks to Twitter, it's easy for ideas to spread and many people (who should have known better) were subscribing to the notion that COVID isn't real and the vaccine is a trick. Now I could totally understand why black Americans would be wary. After all, the American medical field has used them time and again as guinea pigs. There was that time they injected black soldiers with syphilis to see how it progressed untreated. Then black women have been sterilized without their knowledge in many instances. But you, my African brother (and it was mostly men) what is your reason for believing that a vaccine is some sort of 5G, the gov'mint is watching you nonsense? There is no excuse for you. 

Why are men so gullible?

I digress.

Speaking of Africa, let's take a look at what neocolonialism is doing. While the US and the UK, France as well, are doing their best to maintain their footprint, the colonized are fighting back. Unfortunately, this isn't all self-motivated. There are puppets, with strings, calling the shots. Just look at what's happening in Niger this week. They've thrown the French out but they're busy raising Russian flags. The French are fighting back of course, joined by none other than the US. When you hear Nigeria is cutting off power to Niger, who is pulling those strings? Americans? I doubt it's the UK. My point is, change is happening right before our very eyes.

Russia, China, the Middle East (not Israel) are out here getting hands on African real estate. Did you see the CNN documentary which showed how much Russia has taken ownership of the Democratic Republic of Congo, possibly the most mineral-rich country in the world? UAE just offered to buy the port of Kenya for six billion dollars. You know that greedy man is going to take that deal. He knows nothing but avarice.

China has been giving loans to African governments for a few years now and what's the collateral? Land. 

Incidentally, just by the way, Africa seems to be the only continent not overtly affected by climate change. Yes, we have famine that is very manmade, but we're not experiencing extreme weather events like everyone else is. I'm even afraid to say so lest I jinx it.

Which brings us neatly to BRICS. This coalition of nations is trying to phase out the dollar as the world currency and replace it with gold. It is made up of Russia, China and the three biggest economies of South America, Asia, and Africa. 

Y'all seeing this?

I am not necessarily opposed to the removal of the dollar as the world currency. I simply fear the consequences. The devil you know etc. 

So we have the same players coming up over and over again, shaping world views, controlling world politics, and doing it in a very quiet, underhanded way. 

Where does it end?

It seems as if these people are trying to end geopolitical borders and have just blocks of places ruled by a particular supervillain named Putin, whatever the Chinese fellow is called, or Middle Eastern royal families.

I keep telling my son that we're already living in a dystopian future, we just haven't realized it yet. He tells me I'm a tin hat. But just look around you. Climate change is here. It's not pending anymore. Saudi Arabia is building 'The Line' a futuristic city straight out of Ready Player One, Elon Musk is trying to make Twitter a hub for misinformation (and who are his backers? A bunch of Saudis, Russians, and Chinese), see this article which connects the dots more beautifully than I ever could.

What's the endgame?

I think the endgame is what the endgame has always been with supervillains - to rule the world. Now the thing is, if they wanted to destroy themselves, that would be one thing. But I fear that just as what happened in the movie 2012; the 'survivors' will end up here, in Africa, pushing us aside and claiming that they bought the land from us so now it's theirs. They'll use words like conservancy to justify it, if downright theft does not suffice.

And then we'll end up living in the sewers with the rats which will grow fat from all the dead bodies they're gonna eat.

Yes! It's gruesome. Deal with it.

My son and I were actually talking about this and we brainstormed an entire video game based on this premise. Now all we need to do is create it. We're going to call it The Rat King.

I'd like to end on a positive, uplifting note but I see nothing but doom and gloom. So all I can do is wait to tell you...

I told you so.

Postscript: Just as a by the way, there's this tabloid journalist named Dan Wooton whose name I would never have known if he wasn't such a big Harry and Meghan hater. Anyway, last week a byline article came out chronicling his years of blackmail and extortion towards fellow journalists and other big-name individuals. This man was so protected that not one British newspaper printed the allegations. Isn't that interesting?

Kompromat.

That Keke Saga

 Last week was interesting; plot twists galore, discussions on boundaries, insecurity, and of course, Harry and Meghan dominated the twitter space. 

If you're still on facebook only, you might not know that Keke Palmer went to see Usher in concert, in Vegas. As he is wont to do with any celebrity who comes for his show, he serenaded her. There was hugging. There was dancing. 

Keke was wearing a black sheer dress atop a bodysuit, which showed off all her gorgeous new curves. 

While we were all cheesing and saying 'aww, she's really enjoying those motherhood curves' her baby daddy was eating sour grapes, gnashing his teeth and fisting his hand. After probably working himself up into a frothing rage, having watched the video for the fourth time, he proceeded to post this on twitter.

"Is she a mom, Darius? Is she? And you think she's unaware of that fact?"

At that point, it might have been passed off as a joke, a moment of weakness or stupidity. But no, Keke BD had to double down.

I'm not one for respectability politics. I'm sure I once was but that was a while ago and I don't remember it. I don't beleive in performing for the crowd which is what respectability politics is in a nutshell. I don't much subscribe to it because it comes with a heavy doze of hypocrisy. This same man who is trying to slut shame Keke also posted a pic of her in a leopard print one-piece, shaking her new ass. That same man also posted a pic of himself in his underwear.

So these standards and morals that he has are very selective.

This man was perfectly within his rights to be upset, to be jealous about Keke kiikiiing over Usher. But that was a conversation to be had in their house, in person, not blasted all over the internet for all of us to see. So you have to ask, what was he trying to do? Humiliate her? Did he think the internet would side with him - a man whose name nobody even bothered to find out - over Keke fucking Palmer?

Can we get serious for a minute?

Why are men so delusional?

Anyways...

I made a small observation. For about a day and a half, everyone was in accord that Keke BD was a fucking idiot in the wrong and Keke should dump his ass. But of course, the forces of evil rallied and the "It was Keke's fault" guys came out of the woodwork.

One thing I've noticed about these vultures is that they always have an angle. Hate is for profit. People hang around trying to come up with an angle to provoke outrage and then peddle that for clicks or whatever. 

Then there are those who literally go around looking for something to be mad about. 

Both of these kinds of people do not contribute positively to your mental health. Social media on it's own isn't poisonous. It's the tendency to focus on the negative that is.

Because of all this with Keke, an ex-girlfriend of Jonah Hill posted texts showing how controlling he was, using therapy language in a bid to control her. As a result, the entire twitterverse had an enlightening conversation on boundaries - what they are, what they aren't. 

As a last hurrah for twitter - if indeed it is dying - it was not bad.

Help Me Help You Get Books at a Discount

 

In my attempt to 'water the plants' that I have i.e. my books, here I am, reminding you all that Smashwords is having a sale this month. 

And because I know how y'all can't be arsed, here I am, making it easier for you to cop a book by upending your email or the email of whoever wants to get a copy onto this form and I will send the link and discount code of whatever book you want to buy.

Aside; *lowers voice* You should know that most of my erotica books are free this month. I see that some of you have found them (a lot of you. Like wah) but yeah. Follow the link if you don't want to go through me to get your steam on. Enjoy!

I know y'all can do with the escape.