Finally, M has returned to Nairobi.

Which, as usual, was not bereft of adventure, and my old friends Air Botswana featured prominently in the same. It was not enough for them to keep me away from my luggage for a week, oh no, not them!

Thursday
Attempt to change departure date. Get run round so much it is simpler to call Nairobi to do it for you.

Friday
Get confirmation that flight is departing at 8:00 Monday morning

Saturday
With past experience of Air Botswana, call their airport office to confirm. Airport office tells you proudly they are not connected to their main office. Call main office. No answer.

Sunday
Call main office again. No answer. No answer at the airport either.

Monday

M: Good morning.
Staff: Good morning.
M: I’m here for the Jo’Burg flight
Staff: (Cupping hand behind ear) Do you hear that plane taking off?
M: Yes?
Staff: (Smiling sweetly) That’s the Jo’Burg flight
M: Krrrkmtz!!

Had I said what I was strongly inclined to say, I would have left little doubt that I would have made an excellent Commissioner for Oaths.

M: Let me get this straight. Your office confirmed to me this flight would leave at eight. I am here a full 80 minutes in advance and you tell me i’ve missed the flight?
Staff: (Smiling sweetly:) Yes
M: Krrrkmtz!!!

I left Botswana a full 12 hours later on a charter flight. Counting the pilot and two stewardesses, we were a grand total of seven. The pilot flew that craft in a manner likely to suggest that he wanted to land before he run out of fuel. Bets where being made as to whether the taxi to the runway took longer than the actual flight. The return trip to Jo’Burg took exactly a third of the time it took the other way.

The next time I will be on an Air Botswana flight it will be in a coffin, because short of Jessica Alba, Kelly Rowland and Ciara asking me sweetly, no other power of earth will induce me to use Air Botswana’s bollocks service again.

In true Kenyan fashion, the Kenya Airways lady handling the transit took her sweet time to show up and finally swaggered in 2 hours later. If only she knew how many times she was being beheaded, drawn, quartered, strangled, shot and set on fire as she made her unhurried way to her station.

And then I land in Kenya at some ungodly hour of the morning and find that the assorted trolls, goblins, oompa loompas and smurfs better known as Members of Parliament continue to prove that no matter how low you set the bar they will manage to slither under it.

Apparently it is the order of the day for nitwits whose only qualification for public office is binocular vision and bipedal movement to stuff their faces on TV with bananas with full sound effects before microphones and TV cameras! But that my friends is a topic that will be dealt with ruthlessly very soon.

PIC OF THE DAY

I wanna dance with somebody,
I wanna fell the heat with somebody,
Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody…

Mt Elgon MP John Serut feels Whitney Houston inspire him, puts his game face on as he and his partner take to the floor

THOUGHT OF THE DAY

Mwai Kibaki is so indecisive he probably came down both sides of his family tree

Phil Collins – Turn Back The Years