Thereby to see the minutes how they run,

How many make the full hour complete;

How many hours bring about the day;

How many days will finish up the year;

How many years a mortal man may live.

— Shakespeare, 3 Henry VI II, 5

WELL, here we are in the year of our Lord 2010, and time does march on, inexorably, creeping, crawling, nay, running, even sprinting, as the days do seem to get shorter and a month is as fleeting as the ephemeral flicker of a short candle flame.

Where did 2009 go, we think, and did I do all that I promised myself that I would? It’s now a new year, and I shall do my level best to do better this year, that is my resolve. But hold on a minute, even the word resolve, spun around, juggled up and down, spells the words love, lovers, loves, re-love. Wasn’t that the source of our problems last year, this thing called love? Well, you think to yourself, I shall fix it this year, that shall be my resolve for 2010. But not before some feedback on Tiger’s Wood.

Hi Tony,

The Tiger Woods saga I was not following up too much, but it is truly sad that we women are attracted to powerful men, and we are not cultured to accept these facts that come with their reality. We are not trained socially to share our men, and even women who have been burned the same way react with scorn and surprise when they learn that their man is sleeping with someone else. I guess to save our minds, women will have to find out how to de-programme and re-programme.

Deveane

Hey Tony,

My two cents on this whole issue is that I think that people need to leave his personal business alone and let him sort it out in private. At least Tiger Woods didn’t hit his wife like Chris Brown did with Rihanna, but he is almost as condemned now. So what if he cheated on his wife? Didn’t people like David Letterman, Mel Gibson and Sean Penn also do the same thing? I noticed that the backlash against them wasn’t as big. Also, who could forget John F Kennedy, who I can guarantee made Tiger Woods look like an altar boy. “He who is without sin may cast the first stone.”

Miles

Teerob,

Tiger Woods is a victim of domestic violence — simple — and needs to take his kids to a domestic violence shelter and get a court order for his wife to leave the house and also get a restraining order to keep her away from him and the children until the court decides when contact can be made. If Tiger Woods attacked his wife, that’s what she would be advised to do, irrespective of whether she had cheated on him or not. Donkey, and some men, say the world nuh level.

Lanny

So here we are into a new year, and this time around we plan to make resolutions and keep them. This time we will be realistic, set the bar where we can reach it, and not beyond our grasp, resulting in us ending up like last year. This year we will heed the words of Michael Jackson’s song, Man In The Mirror, and start with ourselves.

So first of all, “I’ll take a long hard look at myself, see my faults and correct them.” Naturally, all this impacts on our partner, for like it or not, our partners are a reflection of ourselves, and people do get the partners they deserve, and the government they deserve, it has been said. So it follows that if you treat your partner with casual indifference, you will get indifference in return. Therefore, this year you will be more caring and attentive. Very often we do sins, not by commission, but by omission, by simply being thoughtless.

So first of all, “I’ll take a long hard look at myself, see my faults and correct them.” Naturally, all this impacts on our partner, for like it or not, our partners are a reflection of ourselves, and people do get the partners they deserve, and the government they deserve, it has been said. So it follows that if you treat your partner with casual indifference, you will get indifference in return. Therefore, this year you will be more caring and attentive. Very often we do sins, not by commission, but by omission, by simply being thoughtless.

How often I have heard couples complain that their partner isn’t really bad or doesn’t have evil intentions, but is just thoughtless. But being thoughtless can be equally damaging. “You mean to say that you know that I was here painting the garage and you couldn’t even bring me a glass of lemonade?”

“Sorry Honey, I never even thought of it.”

So this year, there’ll be a change, you will make a concerted effort to put her needs first, and see to it that she is foremost in your mind, and not just there when you need something. As for her, she too has resolutions for the new year, for it is now a proven scientific fact that men have feelings too. “Oh, I used to think that he was just all macho and topped up with fuel-driven testosterone, but I will now cater to his sensitive side and not treat him like a tree trunk,” she says.

She will be more accommodating to his needs, not lock shop on him so often, and try to even appear to enjoy and appreciate his efforts to please her in the lovemaking department. He in turn resolves to be more sensitive to her needs. He will take time in the lovemaking department, cater to her, and not just make love to her during half-time of the premier league football game or lunch time of the cricket match. “Sometimes I will just turn off the sports and give her my full attention,” he resolves.

She in turn resolves to make love to him more often when he desires it, and not merely accommodate him with a monthly quota because she doesn’t want him to stray. “I must remember what parson said at our wedding, and submit to my man, submit, submit, submit to my man.”

Why is it that women turn off sex after a while, why do men always seem to be harassing their wives for a little loving and they in turn are full of excuses? Why is it that we never hear stories of wives demanding sex from their husbands and they in turn always make up excuses why they can’t? Why is it that men never say, “Not tonight dear, I have a headache?!” But that’s for another time.

Oh, he will suspect, but for her to actually admit to it….I don’t think so. But she will resolve to stop nagging him and accusing him of infidelity. “I know that last year I really gave him a hard time, but this year I resolve to be more trusting, less suspicious, less jealous and believe him more when he explains his whereabouts to me.” Nagging is a form of emotional abuse and has driven many men away from relationships.

Apart from this, the women resolve to really lose weight this year, and not just treat it like a joke that lasts a few days into the year. She must now realise that the man chose her not only for her personality, charm and character, but also for her body, which, by the way, is what he saw first. No man has ever seen a woman and remarked, “Wow, what an intellect on that woman, I’d love to meet her.”

Her changing from a size four to a size 24 does not help the cause, for if he wanted a full-figured woman he would have chosen a full-figured woman. So this year she resolves to really get on a programme to be the woman she used to be, to be the girlfriend that her man once found sexy, to apply some discipline and not just let go and be the leviathan that she is now.

Naturally, he too resolves to take care of his body, after all, he can’t very well insist that she lose weight if he doesn’t. That little paunch that made it’s genesis in 2000, and has now reached the proportions of a beach ball has got to be reduced. “I used to be so athletic, but look what I’ve become, a sumo wrestler. This year I resolve to shed this stomach and be how I used to be.”

I can never understand it, neither do I have any patience with young men who used to be so physical and simply let themselves go and turn into tubs of lard. There is no excuse, and a simple exercise programme can do a world of good. But laziness and bags of excuses weigh heavier than the excess weight that they now carry. I’m not saying that they should have a six-pack like an Adonis, but good grief, even a two-pack or even a flat no-pack can work.

Why should a man of 35 look like a 300-pound 60-year-old hog? And the painful part is, women tell me that these men are still on the prowl chasing them. “I had to tell one the other day, ‘Why would you think that I would go out with you…with that huge belly hanging down before you? You must be joking’.”

Both partners should resolve to listen to each other more, as it’s proven that most breakdowns are caused by the lack of communication. The resolve to be more understanding should also be paramount, as all opinions are important. The resolve should be made, not to try and change your partner, for that’s the way you found them, so live with it. They are not projects.

It does seem like an impossible, implausible, impractical, improbable ideal, all these resolves, and that they are unattainable. Well, perhaps they are, maybe I’m just an old-fashioned sentimentalist, a romantic from another era, but if you can even achieve one resolve, it will be a start. Remember, the person in the mirror, that’s where it begins. Have a great year, folks, and thank you for your tolerance.

More time.

seido1@hotmail.com

Footnote: There is so much talk about the negative side effects of bleaching, both from the physical and the emotional perspective, but still the practice persists. It is a sad reflection of the self-hate of some people and their low self-esteem. But have you wondered why it persists? Here’s a little hint. There’s a billboard at the corner of lower Barbican Road and Grants Pen that advertises the Yellow Pages. There are about five or six photographs of babies used in the ad, yet only one is of a dark complexion. That billboard would have been perfect in the USA or Britain, but certainly not here. When I first saw it I had to stop and take a long, hard look. And then we wonder why many of our youth resort to bleaching. Go check it for yourselves and give me your opinion.