OPINION: A day in the life of an eye amid London’s hustle and bustle

I was walking along a busy London street and eyes caught that word.

Gun.

It was a large colourful heavily advertised road. Gun advert? I almost vomited with disgust. But I was, immediately, soothed and calmed down. Beside the Gun advert was another huge pic of a man with thumbs up, grinning, beside a sunny sea. These sorts of posters are common in the northern hemisphere, where it is currently, very cold, i.e. winter time. The advert welcomed travellers to fly to hot tropical places: Mombasa, Rio, Bali, Zanzibar and so on....

I kept strolling, and next commercial proclaimed “5G is here”. The new mobile power phenomenon. I recall meeting a thin angry young guy in January. He warned:

“5G means better, faster communication but it is also a massacre of our cells. Radiation from these hand held gadgets...”

Now I remembered this angry thin white man.

5G.

Adverts are like plates filled with fantasy food.

I hobbled on but could not stop myself from turning and staring at the Gun ad.

I thought to myself, now guns are being advertised?

Are we becoming America? Gun purchase is as easy as buying a cigarette.

I sat down somewhere. Googled.

I was wrong.

It was publicity for a rock band from Scotland that has been around for several decades. They just released a new album (Re loaded) and among their tunes is a re-make of Stevie Wonder’s Superstition.

Superstition was a big hit. We danced to it in Tanzania, too, in the 70s and 80s.

The other day I was shocked when a 20-year-old student confessed he had never heard of the blind genius musician Stevie Wonder. But the lad was from a certain part of the world where Western music is considered evil and sin. Anyway, I looked over at the red and black lettering of Gun ...and sighed. Would you call your child Gun? Bunduki? Bastola? I kept searching and found another band called The Guns from Wales, since 2005...

Mmmh. I climbed up some stairs and waited for the train. During the ten-minute recess, which is average for overground trains (underground ones are more frequent and the average is two minutes)... a pigeon caught my attention. If you are a regular consumer of this column, you might have seen my tale of a pigeon knocked by a train few months ago ...well, pigeons are always running and flying around our cities.

This particular creature was feeding on a massive piece of bread. It was almost twice the pigeon’s size. Judging from the wings and shape of the bird it was male. Since birds do not have teeth it was slapping the bread on to the cement floor then gurgling chunks of the loaf. That went on for a while before another pigeon stepped in with intent to share.

It was a smaller bird and it did not stand a chance. I figured it must have been female. Away it flew. Yet another minute or so and a bigger feathered male squab hopped in. These two spent at least three minutes fighting for the bread. Each time the newcomer would delve in and each time it was chased off.

Finally the main feeder could not take it anymore and decided to end the “interference.” Their wings flapped and fluttered and flapped.

The bread was left under a chair while the two flew away boxing. Some passengers ducked. Up they flew still flapping and on to the train’s platform roof. Meanwhile a cleaner in orange uniform came over and cleared the debris. A minute or so the victor of the two duelling pigeons returned to an empty space. The bread was gone. Does violence help anything? Well...you tell me.

Having finished my errands I was about to catch a night bus, later, when I witnessed something equally captivating. Right where we stood, around seven people ...a man was bent peeling off his trousers. A woman quickly moved away. He took off everything. In front of us was a big glass billboard advertising stuff. The man kept looking at himself in the glass. Like it was his private mirror.

This is London, right?

You may witness anything by anyone, anytime. Getting naked however, and in public, is not an ordinary sight. Here we were, pretending we were not watching while the eyes whispered in Swahili: Macho Hayana Pazia, Macho Hayana Pazia, The Eyes Have No Curtains.

Of course the man was ill.

He was not a young fellow. Not white either. He looked African (to me) and as he got dressed again and matched away, I overheard him speaking (to himself) in an African language, which I easily recognised. It was not Swahili but as an African I can tell you I knew where he was from.

Sad, indeed.