OK, one FINAL one for the road. I promise.

The look on Jeff Koinange’s face in this particular screenshot is just priceless.

I’ve had my share of 411 fraud letters but this one takes the biscuit.

It is reproduced here in full with all the grammar and typos intact

US DEPARTMENT OF TREASURY

Thanks
Respectfully,
Mr. Timothy Geithner.

Human beings in all their wisdom, eccentricities and brilliance are at the end of the day very strange beings that behave very strangely, both while alone as well as in the society of their fellows.

In the middle ages we had the age of chivalry – knights, armour and jousting. Not too long ago we had the age of duels – guns, swords and fighting. Today we have driving.

At first glance driving seems like a pretty straightforward exercise. Get in car, move car from A to B and get out of car. Foolishly lulled into a false sense of security, you enroll in driving school and are introduced to a concept known as the Highway Code. This is a set of guidelines, complete with signs that guide your activities on the road. You apply yourself to these with zest.

Driving the actual car is never much of a problem. Of course there is the initial bit of bother a few minutes into your first experience when you break so hard the instructor checks the consistency of the windscreen with his forehead, expressing his conviction that your parentage on the paternal side is unsure.

There is also the tricky business of the clutch, where 11 times out of 10; you stall the car without even trying. It eventually becomes a pleasant surprise to move the car more than a few metres without stalling it.

The examination is a mere formality, due to the fact that driving a car is a trivial exercise. But just to make sure, there is usually a memorandum of understanding between the examining authority and the driving school that results in impressive pass rates.

The real world, having waited politely outside, cap in hand, now comes barreling in with the subtlety of those bulls that run through streets in pain.

You learn very quickly that there is a time period smaller still than the micro second. This is defined as the Nairobit©, and it is the time interval between the light turning orange and the outraged driver behind you hooting. This is a very small time interval indeed.

You will also find that the Highway Code you were instructed with went out of production and out of application some 40 years ago. No one follows those rules. No one recalls those rules. There are signs and symbols on the road that have no corresponding entries in the Highway Code. On raising this topic last week I was asked earnestly if the Highway Code was some species of frog.

You will find that the driving schools have failed to keep up with innovations in road construction technology. How else can you explain a road like Moi Avenue that generally has three lanes and then suddenly only has two. Not a warning. Just before the Muindi Mbingu junction the three lanes suddenly become two. Words cannot express the range of emotions that go through one when a lane suddenly disappears and the three of you drivers have a Nairobit© (see above) to figure out how to allocate the remaining two.

You will find that traffic lights, God bless ‘em, are largely vestigial instruments. The traffic light on the Kenyan road is the equivalent of the tail bone on the human body. Drivers treat them largely as well meaning but buffoonish suggestions rather than the law. Although in their defence drivers are so used to seeing traffic police at junctions, consistently contradicting them, that if the police were removed drivers fail to see the lights at all. Anyone that does not understand Pavlov’s dog would do well to spend a few days with a driver here.

Another source of angst is fellow road users. The general rule of law is that you and you alone are a sane, talented and handsome driver, while everyone else is the spawn of Beelzebub, incapable of a single wise decision while at the wheel.

The horn, you will find, is an essential tool for a driver. There is an initial panic as you realize you have no clue how to make use of this instrument. But eventually you learn the ropes. A horn can perform the following functions

· Notify other drivers and road users to beware

· Hail your friend Jeff and ask after his weekend

· Congratulate Jimmy on the new baby

· Alert those fools up front you have no intention of using your brakes

· Tell Carol that new hairdo looks like a dead cat on her head

The horn can perform all those, and many other communication functions. It is in fact possible on a particularly slow traffic day to conduct entire conversations using that device. Wireless communications indeed.

Then there is the roundabout. Its chief purpose appears to be for one driver to waste the time and grey the hairs of three others, all the while testing the functionality of the horn.

Then there is of, course, other drivers. But that we can discuss another day

Nomenclature

Jood Good Morning. My name is Alfred ‘The Sailor Man’ Mutua.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to clarify some facts to Kenyans, for as you know the only facts in this country are those that come from my lips. Ha ha!

First of all I object to those who threw eggs at my Volkswagen Jolf. That car cost me a lot of money and I must insist again that all those human rights activists take their activation elsewhere.

I would like to take this opportunity again to remind Kenyans that our officers do not shoot people dead. What happens is that people position themselves just as bullets fired from our officer’s weapons arrive at the particular point at which they have positioned themselves.

I also want to single out the small boy who laughed at the music from my car. Elton Gohn is a timeless artiste.

I would like to assure Kenyans an Ujandans that the following are indeed part of Kenya

• Jarissa
• Kapenjuria
• Mount Kilimangaro
• Jatundu
• Kakameja
• Kagiado
• Wagir
• Lanjata
• JilJil
• Bunjoma
• Lokichojjio
• Muranja
• Namanja

Jood Good  day Kenyans.

It is said that the first step is denial. Well, I am pleased to report that I am no longer in denial.

This country, ladies and gentlemen, is for all intents and purposes a banana republic, only without the bananas.

Reading from light to left:

• An indecisive president rejoicing at the miles of fencing he has at State House at his disposal to sit on.
• An ineffective Prime Minister, allegedly charged with coordination of Government Ministry. Judging from the Babel from the said ministries, we are  pleasantly surprised he can coordinate trouser and coat
• A government spokesman whose own mother is unlikely to take seriously, let alone 29,998,000 Kenyans
• A cabinet which judging from the intelligence demonstrated by their banter and pronouncements, are unlikely to have the capacity to tie their shoes before descending on their Morning Cerelac
• An Attorney General who fondly believes he is perpetually auditioning for a Colgate advertisement
• An anti-corruption commission that zealously goes after chicken thieves and pickpockets
• A trigger happy police force that lurches from crisis to crisis
• A civil service run by tottering old men that refuse to give way that continues to amaze with its ineffectiveness
• A juvenile parliament, complete with soiled diapers that is more interested in grandstanding than legislating.
• A self deluded judiciary that fondly believes it is effectively discharging its mandate
• An ever naive public that refuses to see that it is viewed as nothing more than a source of funds, votes and foot-soldiers.
• A now defunct electoral commission unable to accurately count a single coin toss. It takes some effort and quite the imbecility to announce with a straight face a candidate had 40,000 votes in a constituency that has 30,000 people, let alone voters.

Most people in positions of governance give impressions of an urgent need of a swift kick in the seat of the trousers.

The nail in the coffin was this public announcement laying blame for corruption at the foot of couples working in Government offices.

Digest that for a minute. The Government position is that people who answered in the affirmative to the question “Wilt thou?” are the source of stolen public money.

After laughing myself to tears, I deployed my crack investigation team, whose findings stunned even me.

Pictured below is the Government Of Kenya Policy Maker & Decision Making Device

This device, acquired in 2002 has been behind all Government decisions and policies to date.

To many of us who have long been of the opinion that some of the decisions taken by the Government cannot possibly have come from a Homo Sapiens with opposable thumbs and binocular vision, much makes sense.

Going back to the couples, I have in my possession I card from Reverend Moon that I feel the authorities should investigate further

Willing hands have pitched in to address the Prime Minister’s complaint as to having nowhere to spray his napalm or drop his depth charges

Yesterday, one Hussein Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States of America.

Kenya, as it is generally wont to, sent a contingent  of idlers and freeloaders, captained by Foreign Affairs Minister Moses “I’ve just been to Optica” Wetangula, who must be full from his numerous helpings of humble pie as he is the unfortunate who said “Who is Obama to tell us anything? He is just a junior senator from Illinois.” Wetangula famously pronounced the ‘s’.

Speaking of humble pie, I am eating my share of the same. I could never have wagered that Obama would win the election, much less the democratic nomination. Considering that Obama could not have won on the strength of the black vote alone, it speaks volumes of the American people walking the walk rather than just talking the talk.

I categorically eat my words and my hat.

Well in Mr. Obama! Well in America!

Although in my defence my jaundiced view is not helped by the poor calibre of leadership shown by our leaders and the tribal myopia of an embarrassingly large contingent of my fellow countrymen.

I have no doubt Obama would have lost the election if he run in Kenya.

If he was lucky enough to find his name on the electoral roll, and was even luckier to find his face and name on the ballot, he would have been sunk by voter turnouts of 340% voting for the incumbent. The final nail in his coffin would be the swearing in taking place while the ECK chairman is having his announcement typed by a ‘secretary’ in a beret , green uniform and a G3 slung across his shoulders.

But I digress.

Contrast

The biggest contrast I have ever seen in a long time was the way Americans looked fondly with admiration and pride and even love at their new leadership yesterday, compared to the *****, *****, ******, ****** and ***** with which Kenyans regard their leadership from the swearing in todate. What a vast difference! Rest assured you useless logarithms, that is not the way we look at you!

Why oh why can’t we get such a man instead of the hyenas and garden gnomes we have now!

I was in a passionate argument with a gentleman yesterday to the effect that America has had 200 years to get themselves in order whereas we are a young country.

I find this to be a bullshit excuse not worth the 1ply it deserves to be written on. Show me the commandment that dictates we must learn from the school of hard knocks! Is it not wiser to learn from the successes and mistakes of others.

AOB

Pal: Dude, clearly you’re being looked after well, you lucky bastard
M: I cannot tell a lie my son, that I am, that I am. What makes you say that?
Pal: Before you got married my guy you carried biscuits and snacks in all the oddest places. In your pockets, in your laptop bag, in your car dashboard 
M: I categorically deny!
Pal: Now you actually have a sealed container, something that cannot possibly be your doing!

Indeed, I am a lucky man. My dearest, YOU ROCK!