As twists of fate go, my beloved old man is also in Kampala on business and I can’t think of a better way to pass time than spending some time with this gent. When it comes to interesting tales and dispensing sound advice this gentleman is hard to top.

Again he is on site at the Sheraton making sure that the builders keep the floor at the bottom and the ceiling on top. While waiting for him to appear from the depths of the building I spent time with one of the security guards. Unlike the security guards back home armed with nothing more than a glorified toothpick, painted black in the fond belief that it looks threatening, guards in Kampala are altogether a lot more liberal when it comes to tools of trade.

Hamis, the gentleman I was talking to was dressed in some sort of blue uniform and cap and his preferred deterrent to the shadowy elements of the dark side of the law was not a baton or a torch, but a silver coloured, pump action shotgun. Leading him skilfully along a path of small talk and favourable comparisons of his country’s security position vis a vis my own and drawing in for the kill was a moment’s work. Within a few minutes John Wayne and Clint Eastwood were puny Davids to my Goliath.

I was holding a shotgun.

When it comes to making large holes with people around them, Hamis confided in me, a shotgun was hard to top.

This was easy to believe. I was angling the gun to look down the barrels when Hamis flicked a speck of dust from his shoulder and wondered if it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to get my finger out of the trigger guard, lest I open an avenue to the skies for the shotgun throgh the back of my head.

Contrary to popular belief, a shotgun cannot be carried in the cavalier fashion so popularized by numerous movies where heroes pick one up with the ease and dexterity of a fountain pen. A shotgun is extremely heavy, at least the one I was carrying. I asked the gent if there were chambered rounds in the gun and he said that there were not. I asked if he’d mind me doing the pump action thing and he answered in a manner likely to suggest that he was amused at foreginers fascination with Uganda’s easy relationship with firearms.

So in my best Terminator I jacked a shell into the shotgun and looked around for someone to make my day. If I chewed tobacco I’d have spat it out. If I smoked cigars, or indeed happened to have one in my pocket I’d have lit one and languidly looked around the perfectly safe car park for bad guys crawling out of the woodwork so that I could give them a bellyful of lead. Yessir, there’s a new sheriff in town.

I was brought back to earth by the guard, clearly an old hand at these things, tapping me on my shoulder and bringing me back to earth. I was not a gun slinger with black spurred boots, black overcoat and black hat but a plain old M in black shoes, no overcoat and no hat. He retrieved his property and the Pater appeared.

He was, he confessed, suffering from a cold.

“And just how the devil,” I demanded mopping my face with a handkerchief, “did you get a cold in this heat?”

He was unsure of the specifics but it was only a matter of time before lunch was organized and that topic died a speedy death. We fell upon the repast without wasting time. Matoke, fish, rice, chicken followed by pineapples, bananas and ice cold water… It’s a good thing I don’t put on weight.

AOB
No Kelly, I have not killed pic of the day – only that I don’t have my usual notebook that has all the nice tools I use to doctor prepare the photos

QUIRK ABOUT M
I am deeply suspicious about people who use the word “friend” at every opportunity.

James Brown – Sex Machine