The Pineapple Part II

Must say that the Pineapple Part II sounds like a spoof gangster film. But the fruit still continues to make a welcome addition to meals.

It has been one of those days when the rest day for the footballers has meant the same for me.

For some reason I don't feel that wonderful in the morning. I don't know why. Maybe it is the air conditioning in the hotel rooms. Maybe it's the anti-malaria tablets. Whatever it is I am not 100 per cent of a morning. This is not usually the case with me.

Staying around the hotel today therefore suited my disposition. I had a rendez-vous wth a man from the Ghana Tourist Board who wanted to drop off some brochures for me.

I phoned and told him not to come over. Moreso since I was on something of a roll preparing for Sunday's quarter final between Ghana and Nigeria here in Accra.

It is going to be a long day because the second quarter final starts at 8.30pm in Sekondi.

I'll watch that one on TV while having my supper.

I can't think what I'll have for dessert.



I'translated into

The Pineapple

Getting petrol in Kumasi was a production. The pump attendant also doubled up as a forecourt cashier which meant that she was forever stopping to give people their change rather than filling up the vehicle.

Thirty minutes out of the city we were on a road under construction. I like these kind of dirt tracks. It makes me think I'm in some kind of sweaty jungle adventure starring Clark Gable.

But no. This is not a film just me trying to get back to the capital in one piece and not trying to save some luscious maiden from the perils of the savages.

The car was not built for the journey. It shuddered and shook. Foster coughed as much as the car juddered. He said he was pulling over and bought a coconut by the roadside. Pierre did likewise and they slurped the milk from the insides.

I think they were following fashion as about 15 minnutes earlier I asked to pull over because I liked the look of the pineapples.

There's a logic to the interminable roadworks. The queues allow hordes of traders to skirt along the vehicles and offer various wares.

You could call it hustling. Maybe they're being entrepreneurs. It would be economic hari kiri to shun a captive market.

I didn't succumb to such hard line tactics, I preferred the soft sell and bought the pineapples from a lone trader by the wayside. I got out of the car with Foster and she gave us five for 3 cedi. She gave Foster one on the house so to speak.

By the time we reached Accra I was nauseous. Pierre's much hyped shorter journey was nothing of the sort. But I guessed that was going to be the case. I have to say that I've never felt so depleted after a car trip.

My hotel room wasn't ready so I went to the RFI studio to prepare for the broadcast. I felt awful but after a sandwich I started to perk up.

I did a tiny bit of yoga and freshened up for my evening meal. Supper was fish and chips. My dessert treat was the pineapple from this afternoon. The waitress asked me if I wanted the kitchen to cut and peel it.

I said not necessary because I only wanted a tiny bit. She gave me a knowing look as she brought out a sharp knife from the kitchen.

I lopped a tiny bit off, took a bite and had a religious experience - not surprising really since the Living God had been kicking around a few days earlier. I sliced off some more chunks and savoured the sweetness.

It was the most palatable part of the journey.

The Taxi Drivers

Being flexible is a wonderful thing. We arrived at the Miklin Hotel on Wednesday night after the Egypt v Zambia match to discover that we'd been assigned rooms in another hotel.

The receptionist explained that the rooms that had been reserved for us had developed terrible faults which hadn't been rectified during the day.

I wondered if the difficulties had anything to do with the Senegal football team and attendant delegates staying in the hotel and thus needing rooms which had been allocated to someone else.

Pierre sat down in the foyer and refused to go to another place. I felt it best to leave him there. I'd only anglicise his gallic strop and it would lose its potency.

I said I was going up to the studio to start working and told one of the in situ RFI people that I was more than happy to stay in the studio for a couple of nights.

The studio has a double bed and internet. I'm availing myself of the internet right now. And I intend to snuggle down as soon as I finish this.

Last night it meant that I could harvest a modicum of normality by listening to the BBC World Service through the night. Only thing was that I was too tired to take much in and there was no 23-month-old boy to wake me up for world news bulletins. I miss my little cuties.

I woke up and did some more work before asking Foster to take me to the airport so I could buy a ticket for Monday's Accra-Kumasi trip.

It was quite a long way from the hotel and the traffic seems immense. At jams like this I notice bad driving.

And I'm particularly impressed by the taxis which have scripture passages on the back window.

Unfortunately the more fervent the message, the worse the driving. The chap with: "Jesus is Lord" nipped hastily into a space and the car which undertook on a sandy bank to get ahead sported: "God Lives".

The subtext being, the way I'm thrashing this motor about you'll find out for yourself fairly soon.

I'm not too chuffed about meeting my maker due to a traffic accident in Kumasi. And in truth it's unlikely as there are so many vehicles around it's a virtual standstill.

Not helped by traffic lights being out on the approach to the stadium.

I would have thought that with a match at a soccer tournament, you'd have got a few traffic cops to sort the thing out.

No that's obvious. A few people from the Ghana Tourist Board dropped by at the hotel in Accra last Saturday and asked about my impressions of the place.

I was positive about my experiences outside the Africa Cup of Nations but the structural issues of the event leave a lot to be desired.


I've seen loads of matches. In this afternoon's one Senegal and South Africa played out a 1-1 draw here in Kumasi.

In Germany during the World Cup, coaches were laid on from the station to the stadium. There's nothing quite like that here.

In Germany I relied on taxis to take me around.

Thank God that's not the case here.

The Living God

I was sitting on the steps outside the RFI studio at the hotel in Accra and a man came up to me.

He introduced himself and asked me for my name which I duly gave him. He then inquired about my profession. And again I obliged.

He told me he had been in touch with RFI a host of times to ask them to pay for his flight to France so he could spread the message about him being the Living God. And as I seemed to be connected with RFI, maybe I could help out.

Still feeling quite tender from a bubbly tummy, I said wanly that I was on the verge of a six hour drive to Kumasi so I wouldn’t be able to help out until at least Friday afternoon at the earliest.

As it was, we left 90 minutes later than planned for Kumasi, Pierre spent the time doing something. Ninety mintues? He didn’t say what he was doing and I did not ask.

I mean why not just say 10.30?

But the upshot was that we still had to be in Kumasi for a 5pm kick off and the road is very slow.

Pierre has got a cold – quite a feat with the searing temperatures that we’re in - so it meant the air conditioning couldn’t be on in the car. No problem for me, I’m a windows open kind of guy.

But he was an impatient passenger and felt that the route to Kumasi should be done by going along the coast to Cape Coast and then up from there.

Personally I think it is going to take a lot longer than the five hours we spent today but we will try this route out on Friday when we return to Accra.

And since we don’t have to be back in Accra for any particular reason it is bound to take longer. For example we plan to stop for lunch.

So it was a stressful ride because the driver, Foster, is not a speed merchant and the man who made us late was trying to get him to drive faster.

It all added up to a worried Paul in the back as Foster was egged on to overtake where he really didn’t want to overtake.

Ultimately I implored Foster to take it easy. And since I wasn’t the one who had held us up for 90 minutes I would have risked a frisson in the car by pursuing that line.

The stadium for the Egypt v Zambia match wasn’t packed at all. Strangely the noisiest supporters were positioned right in front of the commentary boxes, so I guess all the listeners to the broadcasts would have thought the stadium was full.

Oh the deceptive joys of radio. TV couldn’t get away with such subterfuge. The cacophony didn’t bother me as I wasn’t commentating – just watching and waiting for the mixed zone.

What impressed me the most was the way the rowdy bunch stopped making any noise when it was time for the national anthems. They stood in silence as the Zambian one was played and sang their hearts out when it was the turn for the Egyptian tune.


They then returned to their joyous uproar. Seeing that perked me up. Nirvana was attained as both teams came through the mixed zone. The Egyptian player who speaks good English, Mohamed Zidan, didn’t stop but enough of the Zambians did.

The Zambia skipper, Chris Katonga, had been answering questions for a few minutes when a burly policeman took it upon hiself to start hustling him though the mixed zone.

It was starting to look like harassment with Katonga analysing the state of Zambian football while being brusquely moved along by the long arm of the law.

Ultimately a very tall South African reporter told the copper to stop it because if a player wants to talk then he should be allowed to chat – especially a captain who scored a cracker of a goal to equalise.

The overzealous officer still hovered over Katonga. Finally the South African journalist said while pointing at a man with quite a few stripes: “If you don’t stop it we’ll tell your general what you’re doing and he’ll transfer you to Tamale.”

The policeman arrested his behaviour.

The Towel

Only remembered to book my flight to Kumasi as the car wended its way to the Ohene djan stadium. Do I not like flying that much?

It's been hotter than usual today so maybe my brain was a bit more shrivelled than usual.

Watched Cote D'Ivoire dismantle a vapid Mali side. They looked so incapable against the Elephants.

And so it was 3-0. I thought after the match that the Ivorians are starting to ooze the sheen of champions. They simply beat the opponent. It's good to watch.

What wasn't good to observe was some of the so called journalists in the mixed zone;

Ever grateful to the players who stop and speak, the zones also double up as a place where mates greet and embrace and talk loudly over your interview. Best is the one where someone is so eager to ask a question they cut off the player's response.


Tonight a barechested Didier Drogba strolled through stopping to answer questions as his awesomely honed Ivorian trunk glistened under the lights.

He performed his functions with the French speaking journalists and just as he started to speak to the Anglophone pack, there was a surge and someone tried to take his towel.

Whether it was homoerotic adoration or not it was plain stupid and Didier trunk turned away in disgust. The fined muscled shoulders and the stitched abdomen barked: "I'm not a man for turning."

And so he left.

I'm not surprised the players are avoiding the mixed zone if that kind of thing happens. I never saw anything like that in Germany.

But things were organised there.

The Class Players

Ghana got through to the quarter finals. The crowd was happy. The football was good and I am back in Accra. At the Ohene Djan stadium, the mixed zone not only exists but also works.

The Ghanaian players came through and though some did not speak, a few did. The Moroccans who speak English, Abdeslam Ouaddou and Youssef Hadji, will always get my good wishes. I'm their new biggest fan. They stopped and spoke even though they'd lost. Class. Pure class. I'm starting to forget errant South Africans.

The Scrap

Regular readers will know that i'm not Mr Jet. But after having done five and a half hours on the Kumasi-Accra main road, even the usual horror of speeding along a cushion of clouds at 31,000 feet, becomes welcome.

The Antrak flight from Accra to Tamale is only 45 minutes or so and therefore not enough time for even someone like me to froth up to a frenzy.

While Philippe, my French colleague, was preparing for his match commentaries on Sunday morning, I got talking to Mark Bright, former ace footballer and now a BBC commentator.

I was looking at BBC World which was blaring out in the concourse lounge and it showed a feature on how some chap had filched billions from Société Générale.

Bright said the bank had closed in one country - he couldn't remember which - but he'd heard about it as one footballer had investments in it there.

Société Générale has my morcels in it and the accounts of my little sweeties back home.

I really couldn't get stirred up about it given my pre-flight disposition. I didn't think I'd be around to complain about the plundering.

Clearly I survived.

Though in retrospect oblivion would have been a more appealing place after the Tamale experience.

The matches themselves were excellent. Eight goals in total as Angola came back against Senegal to win 3-1 and Tunisia outclassed South Africa by the same score.

What happened afterwards in the mixed zone continues to baffle me. The zone is supposed to be a place where players can respond to quick questions from radio and TV reporters.

They're not obliged to stop and talk but as I understood it from my time at the World Cup in Germany in 2006, they are supposed to at least walk along the mixed zone channels to their team buses.

This was all implemented to avoid possible feeding frenzies around the dressing rooms or as the players headed for the buses.

The protocol has broken down in Ghana and reached its nadir when South Africa's players - the very same bunch who'll be hosting the World Cup in two years - avoided the zone altogether.


I tried to find the media liaison officer but he or she had left the stadium - probably with the fugitive South Africans.

A team no-show has happened now in Sekondi, Kumasi and Tamale.

Even I was looking forward to this morning's flight back to Accra.