If You See the Trek Wey I Trek This Morning!

If You See the Trek Wey I Trek This Morning eh! Una go pity me! 

I woke up early enough considering it was the first workday after a 4-day weekend, thanks to our Muslim brothers. I had shared a bottle of  wine at a friend’s last night so falling asleep was meant to be easy but no thanks to a noisy neighbour who hasn’t realised that he is no longer at the university, it took longer than planned.

So I woke up early and got to the major road a good fifteen minutes before the staff bus’ scheduled arrival at Ajah. But lo and behold there were no okadas in sight! Ten minutes later, na so I begin dey panic. Missing the staff bus would not be funny at all! Instead of me to enter keke jeje I was still forming. You see I don’t like kekes, to me they are like tortoises who think they are rabbits. In my mind, they appear a lot more fragile than the okadas. Irony eh? Besides the kekes take longer to get to the Ajah junction/roundabout than the okadas that can squeeze through two Toyota Sequoias on a good day. Please note that it takes the average car 40 minutes to get from Badore to Ajah junction/roundabout, no thanks to traffic caused by the abysmal slow pace of work on the Lekki-Epe express road by our beloved Hi-Tech Construction Coy. So I held out for an okada. I buzzed my guys on the bus; they were about to pull out of Ajah. Chei! And I was counting on the early Monday morning traffic to slow the bus down. Oh well, shit happens. I told them to go and that I would take public transport aka danfo to work. I waited another ten minutes before I got an okada. The fare of N150 automatically became N200! I tried to bluff the okada man but he called it, so I quickly said no problem and I got on. I got to Ajah in no time and handed the man N1,000. He began to vex asking where he would get change from this early Monday morning. I quietly handed him N150 in change. He looked at me and with a grumble and went to look for change. He came back shortly and handed me my change. 

I walked over to the bus stop. Chei! See crowd! No bus! At this point it was 7am. I called my only friend in Ajah to find out if he and his Kia Rio had passed that point already. He picked and said that he had just gotten to VGC where he was about to pick up some of our friends. I quickly told him I would look for an okada and join him. For where! I no see ONE okada! He had to continue his journey. At this point I decided to walk forward hoping to catch a danfo to Sand fill/Maroko. No such luck. After about 20metres I got a bus to Lekki Phase One for N200....nothing spoil for I could still get an okada from the other side of the road to my office in VI.

The bus picked some secondary school students with the conductor screaming that he would not take less than his advertised fare. The students still got on with full mind and along the way declared that it was N150 that they had. Conductor screamed and threatened. Bus driver joined in. Students screamed back. Bus driver parked his bus and opened the boot for the students (six in number) to get down. Nigerian standoff. Eventually, the students handed over the required fare, but not before cussing out bus driver and conductor. Bus dropped us at Phase One; time check 7:45am. I got to the other side and lo and behold where there were supposed to be okadas at New Market, I saw none! I decided to wait with a bunch of other people. A few okadas came around but none was willing to go my way, except one and he demanded N400! Try as I may, my Warri mind refused to part with that amount of money. It would not, never give in to another man’s greed or exploitation of my misfortune! The government might fuck me in the arse but not an okada man! Never! So after waiting another five minutes in the early morning sun, I decided to trek.

Omo see trekking sha! I walked o, went through Oniru estate. I did not feel too bad as I was quite sure that I would get to the other side way before the traffic-snarled vehicles I walked past. I trekked o, all the while thanking God that I wore my slapping-friendly shoes. My thoughts turned to how I would reward them with a fine coat of polish and myself with a bottle of Lucozade Boost. I got to the other side of Oniru and I spied a solitary okada coming my way. I promptly stopped him. He charged me N150. I did not blink. I got on and arrived at the office at 8:30am, sweaty but in one piece.

As I got into the lift all I could think of was “You better wake up thirty minutes earlier son, ‘cos Fashola no send you!”

N.B.: To the uninitiated "okada" is a commercial motorcycle, and "keke" is an auto rickshaw.

My Name is Bond....

When I was kid I wanted to be James Bond. Yes! He of the “My name is Bond...James Bond” fame. And why exactly did I want to be like Ian Fleming’s super-spy creation? Perhaps it was the guns, the uber cool cars, the charm, the suave dapper of the iconic character, or maybe the not so subtle hints that women fell at his feet (including the female villains who wanted a taste of the man before doing away with him!) So I prayed that by some twist of fate I would find myself working for the British Secret Service or MI6, where I would be trained as a super-spy  imbued with a wide range of skills from being a sharpshooter to an excellent skier, diver and skydiver capable of manning any land, sea vehicle or aircraft known to man including space ships. I would always look sharply dressed in the best that Savile Row had to offer, while saving the world, necktie and cuff-links still in place. Sigh.

However, by the time I hit 16 I gave up on my dream, with reality biting me in the right places.

And just how did my love for the world’s most iconic fictional character begin? I was about six when I saw my first Bond film. I had the unforgettable pleasure of watching Goldfinger at my uncle’s house in Warri. Many would agree that there is no better Bond movie to begin the series with than Goldfinger, which went on to become the template on which all the subsequent Bond films were based. My uncle had about four Bond films in his collection of VHS cassettes. I am willing to bet that James Bond was the reason he named his last child, my cousin, James.

Having been bitten by the bug in Warri, I discovered that my new neighbour back home had a collection of Bond films. In addition, a cousin and her family moved down the road from ours, who had all the Bond movies that my neighbour did not. I was in heaven. My weekends and holidays were filled with watching and re-watching the films I had access to. Thus, my love for James Bond and everything he stood for grew.

And what exactly did James Bond stand for? Even in my young mind, I understood that he was that emblem of huMAN freedom, a bastion against the enemies of freedom and liberty. He was the good guy, a veritable weapon against the axis of evil (East or West). He never dies; he kills the bad guy and gets several women on the way. He was a man’s man. So confident in his abilities that he rarely used an alias: “The name’s Bond....” I mean what kind of spy goes around telling everyone who he is?! A super duper spy, that is!

I was awed by the gadgets and the cars provided by Q Branch. I mean, a CAR EJECTOR SEAT!! A car that transformed into a boat!! A wristwatch with lasers! Little wonder he never dies! His fighting skills until recently were a form of art, from Sean Connery to Roger Moore, he never seemed to break a sweat while in the throes of danger. Pierce Brosnan’s Bond brought a lot more physicality to the role but he still never seemed to get a hair out of place! Bond’s fighting was like ballet (don’t touch me! Don’t “dirty” my shirt!), and like a certain Argentine with a football at his feet, it seemed effortless. Daniel Craig’s Bond on the other hand is Bond with the rough edges, before the smoothing out and touching up. With him Bond is brutal and hard. Efficient. Real. However, he still looks good doing it! In the preview of Skyfall, there is a clip that shows Bond following an explosion, jumping into a dissected train carriage and yet still taking the time to adjust his shirt cuffs and jacket before walking off! SWAG! Come on!!

Indeed, each and every actor who had the good fortune of playing 007 brought his own interpretation and unique qualities to the role. 

Roger Moore, the third Bond as my fellow Bond aficionado and friend Tosan would say was a comedian and an “ashawo”, which in Yoruba refers to a man that likes and chases women a little too much. I mean Bond is the consummate lover but Moore’s Bond seemed to enjoy the women a lot more than the rest, with the way his baby blues would light up upon seeing a beautiful woman. Moore’s funny innuendos and double entendres were unforgettable, in this regard only Pierce Brosnan came close. 

Tim Dalton, the fourth actor to play Bond, was easily the most business-like of them all. His Bond did not have time for flirtations. He was grim and serious, a cold blooded superspy. 

Daniel Craig, the actor who introduced Bond to a new generation of movie watchers is in many ways like Timothy Dalton. Critics and James Bond experts agree that both of them closely resemble in character Ian Fleming’s description of 007. Dalton’s Bond is not judged to be the most popular but he is well appreciated by the critics. It is important to note that Dalton’s Bond movies: License To Kill and The Living Daylights marketing were hampered by budget constraints suffered by Eon Productions. In all the Welsh man did a very good job.

George Lazenby the least known Bond is just that, the least known Bond, and maybe the handsomest of the lot.

Pierce Brosnan looks like he was born to play Bond. The Irishman certainly looked and played the part so well that when Goldeneye was released we kinda forgot that other actors had played the role before him. Goldeneye (sans the opening airplane-catching scene) was a very good reintroduction of Bond and some real British superspy intelligence to fans who had been starved for six long years.

But the Bond of them all is Sir Sean Connery. Don’t get me wrong, he is not "the best Bond" neither is he my favourite Bond, however he as the blueprint very successfully introduced Ian Fleming’s James Bond to the big screen. Just imagine if Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Thunderball had been crap (please note that Thunderball, released in 1965, is recorded as the most financially successful Bond film.) we probably would not have gotten as many Bond movies as we now have. So if Roger Moore was the playboy, Dalton the grim one, Brosnan the fine yet skilled one and Craig the rough one, then Connery was all in one, the complete Bond who had all the characteristics aforementioned.

And it is these characteristics that made me want to be Bond. In my mind he was the complete man: super smart, sexy, a gentleman, a playboy, a great lover, a fighter. James Bond, who achieved the rank of Commander in the Royal Navy, speaks several languages, dresses better than Prince Charles, Tony Blair and Puff Daddy combined, can man numerous vehicles and aircrafts, skis, bungee jumps, skydives, water dives, dates numerous exotic women (without catching an STD!), kills the bad guy no matter how the odds are stacked against him and always saves the day! That is my definition of a man, the man deep down inside I still want to be.

So as the world celebrates 50 years of the original super spy, Ian Fleming’s James Bond “007” and 23 great movies, we say thank you to Mr. Fleming, Albert R. Broccoli, Harry Saltzman (who bought the rights to the Bond books) Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson for continuing to make us happy, Eon Productions, Monty Norman for the iconic theme, John Barry for the music over the years, the various scriptwriters who weaved fantastic plots, and actors who played the unforgettable villains –Auric Goldfinger, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Jaws, Mr. Scaramanga, Le Chiffre, Dr. No, Max Zorin, Mr. Kananga etc, the actresses who played the beautiful Bond girls – Honey Rider, Pussy Galore, Jinx, Domino, Solitaire, Kissy Suzuki, Teresa di Vicenzo aka Mrs. Bond, Tiffany Case, Xenia Onatopp, Wai Lin, Paris Carver, Anya Amaosva, Holly Goodhead, Mary Goodnight, May Day, Kara Milovy, Elektra, Vesper Lynd etc, Miss Monneypenny, Q the Quartermaster and finally to Sean, George, Roger, Tim, Pierce and Daniel.

Thank you guys, thank you!

And oh yeah....Daniel Craig is my favourite Bond! :)