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MME. SKIRT vs M'SELLE. BLOUSE (Round 1)

MME. SKIRT vs MSELLE. BLOUSE (Round 1)

MME. SKIRT: You're occupying my seat!

M'SELLE BLOUSE: We have not been allocated seats yet, have we?

S: You're a newcomer and you're teaching me an old hand the Rules of the House?

B: Anyone can read the Rules of the House!

S: [Hands on waist, looking aggressive) Eh? What did you say? Can you repeat that?

B: [Hands clasped together defiantly) Well, you don't expect me, who has just won the election as a prospective lawmaker, to not acquaint myself with the Rules?

S: Hmm? What an argumentative lot you new guys appear to be! Listen, in here, there are both written Rules and Respected Conventions.

B: Oh? Is that so? Well, that may have happened in the days of The Single Gown! But in this Skirt and Blouse era, we shall do things according to the book. If you object to my sitting here, wait until our Majority and Minority Caucus Leaders officially decide on the issue. Then when you have a complaint to make, you can take it to the leader of your Caucus! Ok?

S: If we have to have a round-table conference every time someone insists on going to the toilet first, and is then threatened with fisticuffs, when can we conduct proper business?

B: Are you not the ones who insisted that everything should be decided in court?

S: In doing that, were we not following your precedent?

(A THIRD MEMBER HAS BEEN EAVESDROPPING ON THE CONVERSATION. HE APPROACHES HIS PARTY “LEADER”)

3RD MEMBER: Sir, if we don't take care, our mooted co-habitation system, based on an Agreed Consensus....?

PARTY LEADER: Exactly!... Many of our members cannot even agree on where to sit? And we are going to bring up contentious issues for them to agree to? !

3DM: I swear! Just think of the Budget... or the Ministerial vetting or confirmation hearings....

PL: The allowances of Members of Parliament....

3DM: Car loans....

PL: 3DM: Who would be Acting President should (and I say this with my mouth “inside the rubbish heap”!) both the President and the Vice-President be stricken with, say, Covid-19?

PL: We need to work out an agreement pronto! With a fine tooth's comb.

3DM: Even if we succeed, who will interpret the agreement for us if one of the signatories breaks it? Especially as....

BOTH: … We are both awaiting the resolution of major issues by the Supreme Court?

(A COGITATIVE PAUSE MARKED BY TOTAL SILENCE)

MME. SKIRT: (SHHHH!) Did you hear what I just heard? Please come and take the seat! If we ALL don't take care and co-operate, we won't be able to earn even one month's salary before they dissolve the House and turn us loose on the electorate again.

M'LLE. BLOUSE: No! YOU take the seat! Who has the money to go and carry out another election campaign? My mortgage repayment will become due on the 20th. If I.....

MME. SKIRT: You too? These mortgage agreements look so sweet when you're signing them: y'know, brand new house, all kitchen equipment capitalised; pay nothing until the direct debit mandate becomes operational. But just experience an unexpected calamity and allow the direct debit to go unpaid. First your bank charges you for not having enough funds to cover the direct debit!! And then the mortgage company writes politely to warn you in menacing terms that if it remains unpaid for another month, the interest rate will be hikedand an additional sum will also be added to what you owe and then if it reaches a certain point, they will send you an adviser and charge you for doing that! But he will only tell you that you will be thrown out of the house and if they put it on the market and it doesn't fetch the amount you borrowed plus the “conveyancing expenses”, you will be sued for the difference and...

B: YIEEEE? Does the mortgage agreement say all that?

S: You didn't read the document before signing it?

B: Well, the Terms and Conditions were so lengthy..... I just glanced through it and winked at my lawyer, hoping he would wink back if there was anything wrong with it. When he didn't wink back, I assumed everything was all right and and I signed it!

S: I nearly made the same mistake myself. But I had been warned that one has to be careful about such things. Because lawyers always win – if you sue someone, they charge you! And if someone else sues you, they again charge you...

B: I wish the leaders of the House would reach the Cohabitation Agreement quickly!

S: I am ready to offer them my skirt, if it will save the situation!

B; Ho! Your skirt isn't as tempting as my Blouse, is it? With my Blouse, they can pretend to be dotting the “i's” or crossing the “t's” before they even think of your Skirt....!

S: Ho! Toying with the Blouse without getting down to the Skirt for “The Real Business” is called “teasing”, isn't it?

BOTH: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! WE'VE GOT TO WORK TOGETHER!

LONG LIVE CO-HABITATION!

------------------------------0--------------------------

So, Donald Trump has been banned from Facebook and Twitter.

What will he do next?

There's a posting on WhatsApp that suggests that he's making for – wait for it – Ghana!

I imagine that the reason why the creator of the image thinks Trump will be welcome in Ghana is is that here too, fighting broke out in Parliament when someone who did not want a vote counted, snatched a ballot box from its position in Parliament House during the election of the Speaker.

But that's not a fair comparison at all, is it? In Ghana, a place that, presumably, was one of those that Donald Trump famously described as the “Shithouse Countries” of the world, all that happened was that a ballot box was snatched. Oh, well, one or two ballot papers might have been masticated as well. And a blow or two to someone's solar plexus!

But Mr “Shithouse Country Creator”Trump actually incited his supporters, many of them armed, to go and break down the doors of America's Parliament House, known as “The Capitol”, and drive away America's elected representatives! The legislators were in the process of legally certifying the result of an election accepted by almost everyone (save lunatic Trumpites) as accurate and fair.

Trump's followers forced the elected representatives of the USA to find places to hide in the Capitol!

Trump's followers ransacked the papers which are used by America's elected representatives to make laws for the country! They stole some and left the rest strewn all over the floor of the offices of the Legislators.

The insurrectionist actions of the Trump supporters left some four or five people DEAD!

A tattooed moron impudently put his feet on the desk of the elected Speaker of the American House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi and took selfies of himself!

If these events had happened in Romania, Trump and his family would be dead by now.

Say nothing about how America had intervened to cause bloodshed in Chile, Guatemala, Panama, Nicaragua or Venezuela – allegedly to fulfil America's self-allocated role ofe “guardian of democracy” in the world.

Say nothing about the “Bay of Pigs” invasion mounted by America in Cuba!

But Donald Trump lives to try again another day.

Americans elected him President in 2016 despite the sadistic streak he had exhibited on Television week after weak, telling people: “You are Fired!”

And now that he has committed treason against the USA, some are saying that he should not be removed from office because that will “divide the nation”!

How much more divided can America be than it's been under Trump?

That truth, alas, will be hidden from the American people. By the American media giants, which waited until Trump had done his deceitful worst, before placing a “ban” on his lunatic utterances.

What a shame, oh Great America!

Cameron Duodu
Cameron Duodu, © 2021

Martin Cameron Duodu is a United Kingdom-based Ghanaian novelist, journalist, editor and broadcaster. After publishing a novel, The Gab Boys, in 1967, Duodu went on to a career as a journalist and editorialist.. More Martin Cameron Duodu (born 24 May 1937) is a United Kingdom-based Ghanaian novelist, journalist, editor and broadcaster. After publishing a novel, The Gab Boys, in 1967, Duodu went on to a career as a journalist and editorialist.

Education
Duodu was born in Asiakwa in eastern Ghana and educated at Kyebi Government Senior School and the Rapid Results College, London , through which he took his O-Level and A-Level examinations by correspondence course . He began writing while still at school, the first story he ever wrote ("Tough Guy In Town") being broadcast on the radio programme The Singing Net and subsequently included in Voices of Ghana , a 1958 anthology edited by Henry Swanzy that was "the first Ghanaian literary anthology of poems, stories, plays and essays".

Early career
Duodu was a student teacher in 1954, and worked on a general magazine called New Nation in Ghana, before going on to become a radio journalist for the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation from 1956 to 1960, becoming editor of radio news <8> (moonlighting by contributing short stories and poetry to The Singing Net and plays to the programme Ghana Theatre). <9> From 1960 to 1965 he was editor of the Ghana edition of the South African magazine Drum , <10> and in 1970 edited the Daily Graphic , <3> the biggest-selling newspaper in Ghana.< citation needed >

The Gab Boys (1967) and creative writing
In 1967, Duodu's novel The Gab Boys was published in London by André Deutsch . The "gab boys" of the title – so called because of their gabardine trousers – are the sharply dressed youths who hang about the village and are considered delinquent by their elders. The novel is the story of the adventures of one of them, who runs away from village life, eventually finding a new life in the Ghana capital of Accra . According to one recent critic, "Duodu simultaneously represents two currents in West African literature of the time, on the one hand the exploration of cultural conflict and political corruption in post-colonial African society associated with novelists and playwrights such as Chinua Achebe and Ama Ata Aidoo , and on the other hand the optimistic affirmation of African cultural strengths found in poets of the time such as David Diop and Frank Kobina Parkes . These themes come together in a very compassionate discussion of the way that individual people, rich and poor, are pushed to compromise themselves as they try to navigate a near-chaotic transitional society."

In June 2010 Duodu was a participant in the symposium Empire and Me: Personal Recollections of Imperialism in Reality and Imagination, held at Cumberland Lodge , alongside other speakers who included Diran Adebayo , Jake Arnott , Margaret Busby , Meira Chand , Michelle de Kretser , Nuruddin Farah , Jack Mapanje , Susheila Nasta , Jacob Ross , Marina Warner , and others.

Duodu also writes plays and poetry. His work was included in the anthology Messages: Poems from Ghana ( Heinemann Educational Books , 1970).

Other activities and journalism
Having worked as a correspondent for various publications in the decades since the 1960s, including The Observer , The Financial Times , The Sunday Times , United Press International , Reuters , De Volkskrant ( Amsterdam ), and The Economist , Duodu has been based in Britain as a freelance journalist since the 1980s. He has had stints with the magazines South and Index on Censorship , and has written regularly for outlets such as The Independent and The Guardian .

He is the author of the blog "Under the Neem Tree" in New African magazine (London), and has also published regular columns in The Mail and Guardian ( Johannesburg ) and City Press (Johannesburg), as well as writing a weekly column for the Ghanaian Times (Accra) for many years.< citation needed >

Duodu has appeared frequently as a contributor on BBC World TV and BBC World Service radio news programmes discussing African politics, economy and culture.

He contributed to the 2014 volume Essays in Honour of Wole Soyinka at 80, edited by Ivor Agyeman-Duah and Ogochukwu Promise.
Column: Cameron Duodu

Disclaimer: "The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect ModernGhana official position. ModernGhana will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements in the contributions or columns here." Follow our WhatsApp channel for meaningful stories picked for your day.

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