It has been a long time since I have posted something, will be blogging regularly from now on, here are a few of my recent articles, enjoy and give feedback, cheers

Cricket's Pink Triangle

Cricket’s detractors dismiss the game with a variety of insults, but the most ridiculous one seems to be ‘cricket is gay’. This juvenile taunt gets me pretty worked up.

So imagine my surprise when I stumble upon an advert in Time Out. ‘Graces CC, the world’s only gay cricket club, welcomes new players and supporters, midweek nets at Lord’s.’

A quick internet search throws up a few articles on them, none of which amount to anything more than a bunch of puns put together. More useful is their website, www.gaycricket.org.uk. Bowling and batting averages for every season and a discussion board show they are serious about their cricket.

With 60-odd members, Graces are fairly established on the London circuit. They were founded in the summer of 1996 with a passion for watching cricket together, but have since evolved into a serious competitive cricket team.

Duncan Irvine, founding member and honorary vice-president of Graces, is also one of the owners of Central Station, a pub popular amongst London’s gay community and notorious for its themed fetish nights.

“We are a nice, friendly little cricket side. The only thing is we are all gay, but we all are passionate about the sport,” says Irvine. “We organise social get-togethers pretty often and go along for cricket matches.”

“People think we are a bunch of poofs who play cricket in pink, but we win more than we lose.” Irvine remembers when the Brighton Argus did a piece on them. “We were on a photo shoot with them and they thought we would be dressed in pink or something. Then they lined up the players and the photographer said, ‘can you look a bit more gay’, and the guys are going, ‘how can we look more gay?’ I mean it was strange, after all we were in Brighton of all places.”

I watch Graces in action. They are playing a friendly game against the Foreign Office at the Civil Service Sports Club in Chiswick. The weather isn’t ideal: gloomy skies with a slight nip in the air and a forecast for some rain later in the day.

When I arrive, Graces are batting and the score reads 56 for two. The rest of the team are lounging in the pavilion. The next batsman is getting a few knocks in. Three of the players have been joined by their partners and they also have an able supporter in Corny, a dog belonging to one of their supporters. A copy of The Daily Telegraph lies on one of the tables, along with a few Coke cans.

Graces first hit the headlines when the press stirred up a fuss over their name. Patrick Sopp, one of the team’s founders, remembers the row. “The press got to hear about us and they went to the family of WG Grace and asked them, ‘how do they feel that a gay team is using your family name?’ There was a spat about it when they objected and few of them asked us to stop using the name, but it died out. After all it is to do with cricket and we are more concerned with cricket than anything else.”

The sticky wicket doesn’t seem to trouble the batsmen at the crease. They look confident apart from the odd mishit. James Carr, with a body and stubble resembling Mike Gatting, is in attacking mode and gracefully moves onto his half-century.

As the only gay team in the world, they hope to see gay sides elsewhere, especially Australia. “A gay side from Australia will be great, we can then play a gay Ashes,” says Sopp.

Back in the pavilion, the guys are busy chatting. “James is clobbering them, isn’t he? I may not get to bat today, thank god,” quips Jonathan Hardisty, a lawyer who has been playing for Graces since 2000. They reach 138 for five wickets in just 24 overs when rain appears and the players leave the field.


Club captain Richard Bielby is playing for the Foreign Office today as he works there. Vice-captain Stuart Knowles has taken over as skipper for the match. “It’s nice we have our own little team,” says Bielby. “We feel more comfortable here. When we have played for straight clubs, we have had to invent girlfriends and make up stories, it’s much more open here.” Their only problem since setting up their own side came four years ago when players on an opposing team made homophobic remarks.

The club president is media-savvy astrologer-cum-philanthropist Russell Grant, who is well connected with the Middlesex Cricket Federation, where Graces are based. “He’s right for the image of the club and is very big on his cricket. He’s also a very good businessman and it helps that he is quite camp,” adds Irvine.

The rain continues. Knowles decides to make a match out of it and declares. The Foreign Office need 139 to win from 24 overs.

The rain has not stopped, but these guys still seem enthusiastic. The Foreign Office batsmen are struggling, with the ball not coming onto the bat easily. Graces have a good bowling attack, although the fielding is a little sloppy and a few of them can look a bit camp when they chase the ball. Three wickets later the run-rate is beginning to creep up and Graces seem to be the favourites. But the Foreign Office batsmen start to make a game of it with some aggressive shots and boundaries.

The tide soon turns. 16 runs off two overs looks makeable – especially after two boundaries and four singles from the penultimate over. It’s in their faces - three runs in six balls, it can’t be won from here?

But a reckless final over sees the Foreign Office lose two wickets and score just two runs. Graces have win by a single run; they can’t believe it and are all over the bowler who won them the match with a tidy last over. A few of them slap his buttocks; others punch the air.

A straight team played a gay team and the gay team won. Or rather, the better team won. That’s what counts.


Medicine Man or Witch Doctor?

Outside the Peckham Rye train station in London sits Wahabu on a stool with a briefcase, handing flyers to the public. Wahabu is not distributing phone cards or flyers advertising club nights or gigs. He markets himself as someone who can treat diseases and at times even perform miracles. Wahabu can be called a medicine man, whose forte is traditional Nigerian medicine, or that’s what he says. I pick up his flyer and let him know that I will be in touch.

In simple terms, Wahabu can be classified as an alternative medicine therapist (he sells something not necessarily available in the mainstream market). Except he doesn’t seem to be the type of person your GP will recommend like those practitioners involved in Indian and Chinese medicine.

Indian and Chinese medicines have influenced our opinion of conventional medicine and are now living a healthy life on our high streets. They, come under the umbrella of alternative medicine, which as the name suggests is viewed as an alternative to conventional medicine. Both these medical systems had their origins thousands of years ago and have a rich culture and tradition attached to them. So too do the medicines from Nigeria and other African countries and yet their medicine is viewed more as quackery or a concoction of snake oil and other magic potions.

Wahabu has been treating people for the last two decades, and spends the year shuffling between the United Kingdom and Nigeria. I meet him a week later at the same place. As usual he is distributing the flyers and he seems to be wearing the same clothes as he was last week; white shirt, turquoise trousers.

“Come in the evening, personal problem or physical problem?” he asks.
“Mainly physical,” I say.
“Me busy now, meet me at Jabber Internet café, here is address,” he says and hands me a piece of a paper, with an address.

Unlike in the US these medicines have not been banned in our country and there is a huge market for alternative items both in the health and food sector. We have a long association with other cultures and lots of people from different cultures living here, which has diversified the market.

As the name suggests it consists of practices used in place of, or in addition to, conventional medical treatments. Dr. Jacqueline Young who writes for the BBC Health website says, “Alternative therapies are based on the notion that the body naturally attempts to sustain a state of balance, known as homeostasis, which is similar to allopathic medicine,” who is positive about the future of alternative medicine.

Chinese and Indian medicines have managed to gain a sense of credibility in the west, though they still have people who question the therapies. “Ayurveda and TCM focus on the whole person, with lifestyle, environment, diet and mental, emotional and spiritual health often being considered alongside physical symptoms,” says Young.

Alternative medicine still faces an opposition. On May 23rd this year some of Britain's leading doctors urged NHS trusts to stop using alternative therapies and criticised initiatives by Prince Charles (who happens to be a staunch advocate of alternative medicine), which suggested greater access to complementary therapies in the NHS.

The main cause for concern for mainstream medicinal practitioners is that its treatment has not been verified through peer reviewed controlled studies. Acupuncture being an exception.

The reality is that they are being used to treat serious diseases. Acupuncture and osteopathy are used in pain clinics, while aromatherapy and massage are frequently used in cancer care. Osteopathy and chiropractic are recognised by conventional medical colleges as being a useful treatment for back pain. Some practices have also included the services of such therapists in their clinics.
One of the main reasons why they have survived in the West is because of the ethnic communities living in the western world still hold on to their herbal remedies which have been passed down from generation to generation.
In my family like most Indian families in the United Kingdom (or anywhere for that matter), a cough is more likely to be treated with a paste of cloves, cinnamon, ginger, long pepper, turmeric or a glass of lemon juice with a few tablespoons of honey rather than cough tablets from a pharmacy.

Before the advent of the NHS most mothers in this country would also have used lemon and honey or had their children inhale the steam of hot water with Friars Balsam. Some people still continue to do so.

Likewise, in a Chinese family, a bottle of Chuan Bel Pi Pa Gao (Fritillaria Loquat Syrup) which is an oriental herbal remedy consisting of herbs like loquat leaf and apricot seeds, from the nearest Chinese herbal medicine store, helps moisten the throat and stops the cough.
And Wahabu is trying to provide that service for his countrymen living here.
For cough I recommend plantain juice with honey, two days, then throat all clear,” he tells me later, when I meet him that evening at Jabber Internet café in Peckham.
“So what’s wrong with you, what’s your age,” he asks.
“21, actually nothing is wrong with me, I want to speak to you about your profession and your treatments. I am a student doing research on alternative medicine”.
“What? Alternative medicine, this is traditional Ibadan and Lagos medicine. My culture’s medicine is very good, solve any problem.”
Here, in the west, these medicines are referred to as alternative medicine but that is not so much the case in their country of origin. There, these medicines are consumed by a majority of the population and due to their long history are integral parts of the culture.
Kalyani Ranade, a retired teacher of Indian origin, explains: “These remedies have been working for thousands of years and it is not an alternative for us, it is part of our culture. We use both conventional western medicine as well as what we have been taught to use. It is not strange for us to start with an herbal remedy and if it persists we move on to some stronger medicine or tablets.”

“I think the positive aspect of Traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurvedic medicine to some extent, is that it neither rejects conventional medicine nor embraces other alternative practices uncritically,” says Hilda Swenson, a salesperson at the H R Chinese Medicine Centre, a Chinese Herbal Shop situated in Bayswater, London.

“For us it is our history, for the west it is an alien medical cultural practice, but the bottom-line is that if it works, there is no need to speculate and theorize about it,” says Dr. Chenzuan-Ling, a retired Chinese doctor, who incorporates traditional Chinese remedies with western medicine.

Wahabu informs me that he will charge me for this session, even though he is not actually treating me. He says that he is going to be talking about his medicine and his life and he should be paid his normal consultation fees, (£15 for half an hour) as I am still availing of his service.

I agree after much hesitation, and feel a bit awkward at first, but at least I get him talking. “I am part sangoma (traditional healer), part doctor, I don’t con people. I have been doing this twenty years. I wouldn’t have survived this long if I was a fake.”

“I am here mainly to assist people from my homeland, and other West African countries. People from other countries are not interested and I can understand why. Different cultures have different interpretations, so I like helping my people and they like me for that.”

“Back home malaria is such a big problem, so people who come here still have that fear in their mind. Malaria can’t really survive here because of the weather. I recommend Halfan, a very effective anti-malarial drug along with some traditional Nigerian herbs. People here but it from me and back home everyone uses it.”

Halfan was a popular anti-malarial drug till it was discovered that it has dangerous side effects particularly related to the heart and is now illegal in the UK and US.

It is a long way before Nigerian medicine can be thrust into the niche that Traditional Chinese medicine and Indian Ayurvedic medicine has earned itself. With people like Wahabu, it will be long before it reaches Britain’s much-desired high streets.

On the BBC health website, rather expectedly, there is no information or resources on African medicine whereas the basics of Chinese, Tibetan, Japanese and Indian medicine are all explained.

Dr. Okonwo Bigwe, a GP from Nigeria, practising in London believes that the time for traditional Nigerian medicine is long past.

“Our medicine is dying. Aspiring doctors back home are interested in western allopathic medicine and not herbal remedies. I believe conventional medicine is the way forward. That’s the same reason I became a GP.” He is proud that more and more people from his country are opting to become doctors.

For him people like Wahabu are doing more harm than good by selling ‘quack remedies’ and giving a bad name to Nigerian medicine. “Our traditional medicine has always been dominated by faith healers who can’t be trusted.”

Dora Mohammed, a retired doctor from Nigeria who has been living in the United Kingdom for the last six years blames them for the health crisis in the country. “They should be banned; they have destroyed our primary healthcare sector. The presence of fake drugs in the market has always been a big problem and they have been the main culprits.”

Last year the BBC had aired a documentary titled Bad Medicine (which won this year’s TV Pulitzer prize) on the relentless battle against fake drugs waged by NAFDAC (National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control) in Nigeria. The trafficking of counterfeit drugs by drug barons had crippled the state’s healthcare delivery system.

When asked about the future of traditional Nigerian medicine here in the United Kingdom, she laughs and says. “There is no way it will become as popular as Chinese medicine. Can you imagine clinics and retreats with voodoo skulls and heads? Never.” It sounds slightly pessimistic coming from a Nigerian.

Her husband Kainyan is a bit more moderate in his views and feels the government needs the healers if it is to tackle the public health problem. He thinks they should go through a certification process and should be encouraged to collaborate with universities.

He says: “Collectively, healers have tremendous influence over the health of the population because of their power to instil or dispel belief, as well of the herbal treatments they offer. Thus people won’t suddenly stop using their services.”

GPs are divided on the issue of traditional medicine though there are more who are against it. Often, those of Indian, Chinese, Nigerian and other African lineage are the most vocal in their support for traditional medicine.

Dr. Pradeep Kothare, a GP of Indian descent, is however, a little sceptical about such therapies and believes that GPs should not involve themselves in ‘the new fad’. “We are professional medical doctors; our advice is followed by most of our patients, whatever medicine we prescribe they take. So, we have to be careful in what we prescribe. Giving herbs and other therapies are based more on the faith of the person taking it than the powers of the actual medicine.”

Dr. Prakash Talaolikar, a GP based in Chatham in Kent is a bit more open. He says, “I am not necessarily against it but I always ask my patients to inform me if they are using alternative medicine. Some alternative treatments may interact with orthodox medical treatments.”

In Africa, people first go a traditional healer when they have a problem. Thus Wahabu and others like him have a role to play in cities like London where many African people are based. They try to replace the traditional market present in every major African town.

Wahabu then takes me to a small room at the back of the Internet café. It has nothing but a few suitcases, three chairs, two tables and a calendar hanging on the wall.

“This is where I treat my patients. I don’t have all my equipment here as I use it in my second session after finding more about that person,” he says, as he makes himself comfortable on one of the chairs.

His paraphernalia consists of hollowed out gourds, which are then decorated with beads, filled with a green powder, along with sterilised porcupine quills and a few herbs of which he does not know the English names. “In London, luck medicine is very popular; it comes in the form of a piece of leopard skin, which if boiled in water and drunk is supposed to be extremely effective before a visit to William Hill or Ladbrokes,” he says. Then he takes me out of the room and seems reluctant to divulge any more information and quickly asks for his money as our half an hour session is over.

Ayurvedic medicine has its origins in the ancient Hindu sacred texts- the Vedas, where ayur means life and veda means science in Sanskrit. It covers a variety of subject matter from diagnosis, treatment, surgery, lifestyle and philosophy. The biggest exponents of Ayurveda in the west are yoga and massage therapy.

Anjali Karnik, a yoga teacher, based in Winchester, understands the views of those against alternative medicine but thinks they are making ‘a big noise’ about nothing. “For the Western world Ayurveda is this exotic branch of alternative medicine. For me it is part of my upbringing and I do not need to view it sceptically. The lack of research and investigation into it doesn’t necessarily make it less effective. If it works, well and good, if it doesn’t there is no need to make a hue and cry about it.”

Danny Cavanagh, one of the founders of Ayurveda UK, an Ayurveda & Yoga Retreat in Burton-on-Trent thinks Ayurveda is the world's most powerful means to relax the mind and purify the body. “The Ayurveda tradition is very practical and is ideal to help release imbalances, impurities, stress, tensions and toxins held within the body.”

Chinese medicine is even bigger than Ayurveda and it is known to be effective in treating disorders such as eczema, asthma, menstrual problems, insomnia, digestive disorders and joint pain. It is based on the philosophy of yin and yang; the universe exists because of two great opposing yet interdependent creative forces. The body is viewed as a microcosmic universe and the inner organs and their functions are classified according to their yin and yang properties. Therapies such as acupuncture, acupressure, moxibustion and herbal medicine are the most widely used.

Acupuncture is the most popular branch of traditional Chinese medicine. It involves inserting needles at selected points on the skin to balance the body's energy (chi), and thereby treating and preventing disease.

Persis Tamboly from the British Acupuncture Council (BAC) believes it to be a life-changing therapy and urges the public to only go to centres where traditional Chinese acupuncture is offered and not Western acupuncture. “These days, a watered down form of acupuncture is available, which should be avoided.” According to a report published by the BAC in 2001, 1.2 million use traditional Chinese acupuncture annually.

Wahabu then accompanies me to the door and shakes my hand and says, “Bye, boy, take care, sorry that’s all I can tell you. Have a good life and go to the doctor regularly.”

Expectedly, I didn’t come back with a huge knowledge on Nigerian medicine, apart from getting a bit freaked out by the image of someone drinking a solution consisting of leopard skin in boiled water.

The faith healers cum doctors, as they are referred to as, are the face of Western African medicine and after my experience with Wahabu I am not in the least convinced by his healing powers or for that matter even his medical advice, but I am intrigued. I must admit his advice of plantain juice with honey for a cough is tempting and might be his only tip worth taking.

The bottom-line seems to be that Nigerian and other African medicine continues to be associated with witchdoctors and shamans and till that myth is dispelled it will not rise in the west. Simple.

With campaigns like Make Poverty History and other global poverty movements drilling the fact that Africa is the poorest continent with the most number of diseased and malnourished people, it will be hard for a country like ours to embrace its traditional doctors. The use of effective and shrewd marketing techniques might be its only route to the mainstream. Saatchi & Saatchi, I hope you are listening, Wahabu needs you.