Articles Tagged Humour

Another Sunday Nation stalwart has left us. Gerry Loughran, the “Letter from London” columnist, is no more. I will miss Gerry’s weekly missives for two things. One was the positive human spirit with which he reported on events taking place in Blighty. He often told us about things he found disturbing or distressing, but would […]

Fear of automation and disruptive change is everywhere. The traditional occupations are all under assault. The rise of artificial intelligence and robotics is expected to lay waste to so many traditional jobs across the world. Some think a third of all current jobs in the world could be rendered obsolete. Even the hallowed professions are […]

It’s Nairobi. There is, of course, a traffic jam. Many, many people are stuck in their vehicles. What is interesting is how agitated everyone gets. No one is calm. No one is reflective. No one meditates. No one takes the opportunity to catch up with the news headlines on the radio; to chill out to […]

Something I saw online made me laugh out loud the other day: “Life is too short to remove USB safely.” Computers ask us to ensure we don’t just pull the USB cord out; we must follow the proper procedure. Most people don’t do this, of course – they just yank. That’s because the consequences are […]

This column continues its campaign to make April Fool’s Day a national holiday in Kenya. This is because we take foolishness to peculiar heights year after year. The Daily Nation, like most newspapers, has a tradition of creating a spoof story every year on the day that honours fools. My point is this: around these […]

We say so many things so often, that quite often they lose all meaning. Some phrases, however, are used even when their true meaning is the exact opposite of what is said. Here are some to liven up your Sunday. I’m truly humbled. Ah, that favourite of Kenyans, especially when accepting an award. Ostensibly, it […]

As we all know, we live in a peculiar country. A very peculiar country. There are so many confusing questions that bedevil us every day, and precious few answers. So I have decided to occasionally become an “agony uncle” in this column, to tackle some of your more thorny conundrums. Here’s the latest instalment. Q: […]

There is nothing quite like Kenyans when it comes to our propensity to laugh at ourselves. I discover this every so often on Twitter, when making a few comical observations: often the hashtag created will go viral in a matter of minutes, as Kenyans on Twitter pile in with their own rib-tickling insights. #HowToSpotAKenyan was […]

I was sitting by my favourite ocean (there is only one) the other day (I was on a break, remember) and I noticed some ominous-looking dark clouds over the ocean. I asked a passing waiter whether he thought it might rain. He looked at the sky, and said with gratifying certainty: “No chance. Those clouds […]

“As a simple example of fluff in strategy work, here is a quote from a major retail bank’s internal strategy memoranda:”Our fundamental strategy is one of customer-centric intermediation.” The Sunday word “intermediation” means that company accepts deposits and then lends them to others. In other words, it is a bank. The buzz phrase “customer-centric” could […]

Once upon a time, it rained and rained and rained in Kenya. And then it rained some more. It began to look like the rain might never end. As the nation had never invested in proper drainage systems, the whole country looked like it might be lost underwater. Someone came up with the bright idea […]

As we all know, we live in a peculiar country. A very peculiar country. There are so many confusing questions that bedevil us every day, and precious few answers. So I have decided to occasionally become an “agony uncle” in this column, to tackle some of your more thorny conundrums. Here’s the latest instalment. Q: […]

Corporate executives must really hate their work. I only say this because they seem to need a different language to describe what they do, liven up their meetings, dress up their mundane lives in metaphor. How else do you explain the modern disease known as corporate jargon? A recent Forbes magazine article defined jargon as […]

As we all know, we live in a peculiar country. A very peculiar country. There are so many confusing questions that bedevil us every day, and precious few answers. So I have decided to occasionally become an “agony uncle” in this column, to tackle some of your more thorny conundrums. Here’s the latest instalment. Q: […]

Many of you have asked about this. As at this time, Storymoja advise that the following outlets have stocks of The Peculiar Kenyan: 1. Nakumatt Karen 2. Nakumatt Ukay 3. Nakumatt Galleria 4. Chania CBD 5. Prestige Bookshop CBD 6. Stanley Bookshop CBD 7. Wells Bookshop-Lifestyle 8. Bookpoint CBD 9. Bookstop Yaya 10. Simply Books […]

A job description, as every human-resource professional will tell you, is a very important thing. It specifies the nature of your role and what particular activities and responsibilities are most important for you to fulfil your remit. In Kenya, however, most of our jobs are not as straightforward as they might be in other parts […]

I wish to announce that I am entering a new line of business. From tomorrow, I will be opening a whole new kind of advisory service. I will be known as Dr Sunny Day, and will be addressing all the common problems of humanity: love affairs gone wrong; business failures; bedroom mishaps; uncertainty about the […]

As we all know, we live in a peculiar country. A very peculiar country. There are so many confusing questions that bedevil us every day, and precious few answers. So I have decided to occasionally become an “agony uncle” in this column, to tackle some of your more thorny conundrums. Here’s the first instalment. Q: […]

One thing we seem to sorely lack in this country is linguistic intelligence. We are acutely unaware of the power of words, and how to harness and use that power. As a result, we use the same old cliched phrases every day. These phrases are so overused that they actually cease to have meaning. We […]

Safaricom CEO Michael Joseph is perplexed again. His company’s latest promotion has turned out disastrously. The offer of ‘free’ calls after 9.00 pm every day has clogged the network and proved a nightmare for people trying to make calls at night. Why? Because Kenyans keep piling in in droves to make their calls at precisely […]

We all receive a lot of stuff via e-mail, and most of it is garbage. But just once in a while, something does make you laugh out loud. Again, I don’t know who wrote this, so apologies to the very witty author for the lack of attribution. Enjoy! YOU KNOW YOU ARE LIVING IN 2007 […]

Language is important. Words matter. It was with these sentiments in mind that I began noticing how many of us say things that we just don’t mean. I’m not referring to the glib things we say which are economical with the truth; I’m more concerned about those expressions we routinely deploy that actually mean the […]

This year April 1st fell on a Sunday and, like many of you, I began perusing the newspapers trying to spot the spoof stories. I do this every year, and it is an exceedingly difficult task, because the line between reality and farce is so thin in modern Kenya. For one thing, April Fool’s Day […]

This is the last day of the year. As we all put down our glasses to wonder about next year, many questions come racing into our minds. What changes will 2007 bring to Kenya? Will life get better or worse? Will it all be very dull, or unbearably exciting? To answer your questions, I decided […]

Patriotism is back on the agenda. We are at that stage in our evolution where we need to define what a ‘Kenyan’ is. Nations only prosper when its people possess common cause and unity of purpose. But what, exactly, is a Kenyan? Is it something defined by your passport or ID card? Your domicile? By […]

We are a nation of creative entrepreneurs, we tell ourselves. Our ability to get something from nothing, to create hot air from thin air is the stuff of legends, we tell visitors. A Working Nation, half a million jobs a year? Ha, we tell our leaders: we have no need for the platitudes that feed […]

Much confusion is caused in this country by the fact that many words do not possess their common meaning. A great number of people out there have an enduring interest in the affairs and enterprises of this land: from investors to development partners; students to learned professors: tourists to journalists. All of these people face […]

The Sunday Nation dispatched a senior editor to the offices of the Government Spin Doctor: Dr. Abunwasi bin Uwongo, the Secretary for Policy Interpretation of Government Actions (PIGA). Dr. Uwongo, a graduate of the London School of Truth Economics, granted a rare exclusive interview to the Sunday Nation. A wide range of topics was covered, […]