Government to bun re-used plastic bottles

Govt to bun re-used plastic bottles

New Vision, Monday, 30th July, 2007

By Anne Mugisa
and Bebe Cool

THE Ministry of Health has asked the Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) to bun the re-use of plastic bottles, arguing that they are toxic.

“These bottles must be bunned like the buveera (polythene bags) because they are a big health risk,” the Minister of Health, Dr. Stephen Malinga, said at a press conference inna di ministry headquarters in Kampala yesterday.

The Director General of Health Services, Dr. Sam Zaramba, dem a say: “We are going to follow up with the UNBS until the bottles are bunned. Ca you know bad man no lie.”

Dem a fi bun down all a dem plastic bottles, ca when a man dem put alcoholic or acidic fluids inna di plastic bottles it a cause a chemical reaction which makes the content poisonous.

Kampala vendors sell fruit juice, millet porridge (bushera), medicinal herbs and local brew in used plastic bottles.

If looks could fulfil

I’ll be at charges for a looking-glass,
And entertain some score or two of tailors,
To study fashions to adorn my body:

I am sorry. I have a restless mind —it is always looking for something to gnaw on. If it had better taste, I would be talking to you about important things. Instead it decides to indulge in trivial issues, and there you go: I spend a week obsessed with the superficial, stupid, shallow utter non-issue of What Shall I Wear.

I mean, honestly, can’t I blog about the Crisis of Confidence the church in Uganda suddenly finds itself in? Can’t I blog about Warren’s Sunday Vision interview?

Can’t I blog about Bebe Cool’s new song, for crying out loud? Even that is more substantial than this nutty muttering about a “look”.

My friend Maybe said, and was right in saying, that it is silly to obsess over clothing. Once you are out of high school it ceases to matter. By the time we achieve adulthood we should have learnt that when it comes to judging the true worth of a man, clothes provide the weakest evidence.

One should be concerned with the substance, not the superficial; the essence, not the external; the inside, not the out. The soul, mind and heart; not the shirt, jeans and shoes.

Those are words to live by. I, personally, never believe the clothes. I don’t even accept first impressions.

But there are people out there who do, and I occasionally need to exploit their gullibility. Did I ever tell you the story of how I started to wear ties?

For the longest time I favoured what you could call “off-the-floure couture”. That is to say, I just picked a pair of jeans off the floor. If they were clean, I wore them with whatever shirt was nearest.

There were two reasons for this. One was principle. I hated fashion. I despised the idea of going through pain, effort and expense just so that the strangers in the street don’t disapprove of the sight of me. Dressing up for their approval? Shyaa… Approve deez nuts.

So I dressed with as little fashion as I could get away with.

The second reason was that I had little money and even less taste. I really never got the whole fashion thing. I mean, Kyana, you look incredible in those outfits, but I tend to think it is you who is hot, not the clothes. And as for men’s fashion, I haven’t considered anything cool since hi-tops. Everything since then has just been gay.

(By the way, I have noticed that for two posts in a row someone asked if I was gay. Good thing I am so secure in my manhood…)

Anyway, it was with this lazy-fair attitude that I entered the workforce and it is with this cavalier mindset that I proceeded to kick commercial ass. In addition to the great work I do at the Sunday Vision (I am particularly proud of this last Sunday’s.) I also do miscellaneous mercenary jobs. There is one I had done for some people. ’Bout a year and a half ago.

Note: A lazy-fair attitude is one that is so lassiez-faire that it can’t even be bothered to spell lassiez-faire correctly.

Every time I went to their office for my check, dressed in jeans, black sneakers and a polo shirt, they would feed me another nyanyanya-come-next-week.

I don’t remember what it was that made me wear formal pants and a tie that one day, but I walked in, asked for my check as usual, and had it by that evening.

It was as if the tie was a gun to their head.

That is when I learnt that this “apparel oft proclaims a man” thang needs to be studied. All along I hoped that my work and my attitude will determine how people treat me, but no. People prefer to react to ties.

So I have seven ties now. Each one of them lethal.

No we have come to the seven hundred word limit. Thicke, bring out the lolbes…

The most random thurrogits ever

It is Friday night and I have still not got a blog post. Ate I don’t like to leave the weekend empty. I don’t have a post. Well, not a complete one. I have old bits and pieces all over the place…
1. Opening Lines of a short story. Circa October/Novemberlast year:

I had been fired five times by the time I was 29 so losing no longer surprised me. I was able to meet it with calm and – this part is rare; few people my age can say this— with maturity.
Shit happens. This must be accepted. It is one of the lessons I have learnt, that I keep in a bound leather tome in a dark smoky room in a basement in a corner of my mind. There are a number of these lessons. It had been an eventful 29 years.
I have learnt that looks indicate something, but prove nothing. Don’t trust them. Use them. I have learnt that money is dust unless it is in your hands and you can see and feel it. I have learnt that everyone thinks they are the reason God made the world, but everyone is wrong. They are not the reason– I am.

I just got back. The dust is settling over my shoes and shoulders like a welcoming embrace. Now that I am back in Kampala, clean slate, fresh start, I will not forget that thing about shit. Shit happens.
But the trick is, when it does…

Make sure it is happening to the other guy, not you.

2. A portrait. Originally made at the time of the GAVI Arrests:

Mike Mukula, who before we go too far, is a captain of the plane-flying sort, not a member of our gallant and valiant armed forces, is not just a politician. His flamboyance, his extremely GQ appearance, his almost desperate camera clamouring antics, which are successful more often than not, have shot him like a canon above and beyond the mundane level recognition upon which we array our more typical politicians.

Mikey is beyond mere recognition. Mikey has celebrity. You could be forgiven for not knowing who the current minister for health is, but if you don’t know who Mike Mukula is, my dear, what is the name of this rock under which you have been residing all these decades? Olduvai?
He dresses like an Oscar awards host, is always impeccable in perfectly cut yards of Armani, and the ladies tell me he is quite the hunk, for a man his age. A cocky tuft of grey adorns his right temple of his hunky head and his perennial say-cheese smile is symmetrical and blazing white.

3. A plea unto the world. Somebody give me songs:

Chaka Khan, Love Me Still.
Everysinglething Monica as in Monica Arnold has ever uttered since she was born. I am particularly fond of material from her first album Miss Thang.
I will sever limbs for Brownstone. Five Miles To Empty, I Can’t Tell You Why and Sometimes Dancing are particular favourites.
SWV sang a song called So Amazing.
Does anyone remember All 4 One?
I want to listen to Dave Matthews Band and Hootie.

I mean, this is the Internet. I know somebody out there has a copy. Can’t we talk? 

Finally. Speaking of music:
Do you know what an empty street, round six-thirty, just after an evening storm would sound like if it was a song?  Like Again Never by the Branford Marsalis quartet:

Oh, you mad cos I’m stylin on you?

I am working on a “look”. As in a particular fashion theme that distinguishes me from the riff raff.

No wait. I am the riff raff. Let’s change that to distinguishes me from the rest of the riff raff. The reason for this is that I want to be sexy and attractive like the rest of you. Even me also I want to be kko hot, as they say.

So I am working on a look.

I got the idea yesterday. I was wearing jeans, a button-down shirt and a blazer. I was wearing the blazer because it is easier to carry those around in this cold weather than it is to tote a jacket everywhere you go. And I was wearing jeans and a button down shirt because that is what I always wear. It is kind of like my look.

Well, my former look.

So, let us change the opening paragraph again. I am working on a new look.

The blazer might stay. Only I will need a better one. The one I currently have is a bit… well, a bit kiganda. It was meant for a kanzu, and you cannot lose the feeling that it resents the jeans. I will need a funky yoof rock-n-roll blazer. Something neat and smart but still understated and subtle.

Something that is cool, rather than glam.

Like me.

And then the button-down shirt will be… wait for it… untucked! Eh? You see? Getting Sexier already.

Then jeans will also be upgraded. Until now I used jeans only to keep my goodies concealed because why should you see when you haven’t paid? But now I have come to be of the opinion that jeans can help one look like a social force to reckon with if they are shaped and tailored right.

So the next item on the “Look” agenda is nice jeans.

After I sort that out, I want to upgrade from a barber to a hair stylist. I usually just cut the shit wharrever, but now I want it styled so that, consequently, I can achieve being stylish. I wonder if the hair stylist will be gay. I never thought I would ever say this, but I hope he is.

So, what do you think? Does my bum look big in this?

Update: I was tagged. And I decided to take the tag too seriously. If you want, I put it on the back-up auxilliary blog .

Verbatim Vs Verbatim 4.0

In which our hero negotiates a business plan with his arch enemy, Screaming Lizzie, the kid from next door.

• Ernest, Dear.
• Don’t call me dear, Lizzie.You are three years old. It sounds patronizing. I have told you this over and over again. When is it going to sink in?
• But you are such an adorable, sweet, darling young man, Ernest and, in spite of your shortcomings, such as they are, I am quite fond of you.
• Umm… I am not sure but I think you just dissed me.
• That’s what I like about you, Baz. Even when I diss you, you are not sure.
• Whatever the case is, I don’t think I want to be called dear. Certainly not by, you know, a fetus. Members of your generation are supposed to call me Uncle Ernest. Please fall in line.
• Look. I am rolling my eyes. Have you ever seen a three-year-old roll her eyes?
• They look like boiled eggs.
• Did you just diss me?
• Heh heh heh. Now you know how it feels. Anyway, why have you invited yourself over to my house? What do you want to discuss?
• Me and my friends want to hire you as a media consultant. We need someone to plot a publicity campaign for our upcoming enterprise.
• Hah hah hah! I laugh uproariously and my sides shake like those of fat people. What sort of enterprise is this that you plan to carry out, you who is barely able to carry out a full night without wetting the bed?
• What I do in my bed is my business, Baz. Stay out of it. Can we keep this professional?
• You haven’t hired me yet.
• Now I am not sure I want to.
• Well, not that I am trying to advertise, but I have a lot of experience and my talents are so vast that were I to quantify them, you would be old enough to call me dear by the time I was through. Add this to the fact that my principles and integrity are exemplary and that the dedication I bring to the table makes me peerless on the continent and you shall have to conclude, little one, that you simply cannot afford me.
• Do you get paid regularly for the work you do?
• Of course. I am very particular about that. The last person who tried to renege on payment…
• Where is your customised Lexus Coupe and your designer wardrobe and your nine-bathroom mansion?
• What are you talking about now? The youth of today! Wait. You are three years old. Make that the youth of the day after tomorrow.
• I am saying that if you are paid so well and so regularly, why are you not rich? Why are you, rather, on the contrary, evidently miserably, wretchedly, pitifully broke?  Baz, the other day I heard the cockroaches at my house complaining that the cockroaches from your house are always coming over to beg for sugar.
• I am just not the type to go around in a flashy car and…
• Of course you are not. The type is rich. You are poor.
• You don’t understand, Lizzie, being too young, so young in fact that you only realised last weekend that you should not swallow the fifty-shilling coin; you should use it to buy sumbusa and swallow that instead. Financial matters are still a few decades beyond your grasp. But there is such a thing as the elasticity of expenditure. Ones expenditure always expands to fill and exceed ones income. The more money you have, the more money you need to spend. The more you spend, the broker you are. That is why my brokenness is proof of my wealth. You understand?
• No, I stopped listening at blah blah blah. You can really drone, Baz. It is cute, but I am not a patient woman.
• Woman. My eyes’ turn to roll.
• So, we have a singing group and we want you to feature us in the papers, as young upcoming gospel music stars.
• This is the point where we say tune in next week to find out what happens next, I think.