1. Burnt Hummer
  2. Institutional Magnolia
  3. Sambo
  4. Warm Placenta
  5. Haliborange
  6. Coldplay Yellow
  7. Kilroy
  8. Autumn Phlegm
  9. Coelacanth Brown
  10. Conrad Black

[Despite / because of my being born into a country in the midst of the Biafran War, a conflict in which one weapon was starvation, it was normal in the house I grew up in for us to respond to uneaten food on a plate at tea time (“dinner time” to soft Southerners) with the Counsell family catchphrase “And what about the Little Black Babies?” We still use it, in fact.

Now that my sister has called her new baby “Samuel” I’m embarrassingly excited by the thought that he might grow up to have the same complexion as his sister. If he combines this with a similarly huge afro then I will enjoy referring to him as “Little Black Sambo“—until he is old enough to punch me.

You have to make your own entertainment when you don’t have a television.

Thanks to Auriol for the original idea for this post.]