If it is bent, it can't be a banana
And so 2003 has come to an end, and we have heard the stories of, mostly, the men who continued to shape world events: US President George Bush and Britain�s Prime Minister Tony Blair with their "war against terror" and the invasion of Iraq.
Then there was former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein being captured in a disgraceful situation. Osama bin Laden, the West�s Enemy Number One, on the other hand continued to remain elusive.
And Michael Schumacher rewriting the Formula 1 racing history books with a record-shattering sixth championship; and Armstrong who equaled Miguel Indurane�s fifth win in the cycling tours. And, of course, South Africa�s grand old statesman Nelson Mandela continued to spin his magic. You heard these and many more.
Yet, the stories that could one day shape this world aren�t those of the men and women trying to change it. No. They might turn out to be the stories of the men and women who are intent on changing only themselves. Listen to this.
For many years, there has been cosmetic surgery to make, mainly women, look beautiful, younger or slimmer. Then breast implants became all the rage.
In 2003, toe surgery, to help women get the perfect pair of feet that fit into high-end designer shoes became big, with demand for it rising sharply.
Toe surgery was spurred by catchy television adverts featuring gorgeous actresses in small pretty shoes. The procedure is not cheap.
In Washington, according to The Independent, a top clinic charges $2,500 to shorten a toe and $500 for a collagen injection into the ball of the foot to restore padding lost from years of wearing high heels so that they might continue being slipped into stylish shoes.
The paper reports a remarkable piece of intelligence. That a survey in 1991 revealed already by then that up to 90 per cent of women regularly wear shoes between one to two sizes too narrow for them. About 80 per cent of all foot surgery is performed on women - primarily because they feel their shoes are too tight!
But nothing had prepared me for related news from China. This time about "leg-lengthening". China, where most people would be considered short in countries like the US, is a terribly height conscious nation.
The Guardian reports that the procedure involves breaking both legs and having them stretched on a rack. A doctor saws through the flesh and bone below the knee and inserts giant steel spins. These are then connected by eight screws punched horizontally through the ankle and calf to a steel cage surrounding each leg.
Once the bones begin to heal, each day the "patient" turns the screws a little, and streches his (or her) limbs more and more until he has grown to the desired height. It is 18 months of agony and pain. But well worth it. Some patients get to be five inches taller!
The parents of Kong Jing-wen chipped in �5,700 to help with her operation. They are happy for her, saying the height gain is doing wonders for her confidence.
Like thousands of other young Chinese women, a much taller and healed Jing-wen is looking forward to a promotion or a good job, many new friends and admirers, and a good husband.
For the record, the leg-lengthening technique was developed in Russia for people with stunted growth (a couple of them being senior Communist Party officials, of course).
In other developments, The Sunday Observer told us that battered British men have taken far more concrete action than their Kenyan counterparts who are only beginning to come out and disclose that their wives beat them up.
The first safe house for battered men is to open some time in the New Year in south-west England. It will shelter men and their children who have been physically or emotionally abused by female partners. The men are, well, acting like men. They are opening the shelters in secret. This is a war; you don�t disclose your base camp to the enemy.
And, of course, there is still no agreement among men about tactics. How can you, when you have men like Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in your camp?
Italy holds the presidency of the EU, so when the Europeans got deadlocked in their mid-December constitutional talks about the shape of the Union, Berlusconi sought to break the ice. "Let�s talk about football or women," he offered in the hope that on those two issues, Europeans tend to agree.
Wrong. Instead he got handbagged. The seven female foreign ministers and one female head of state (President Halonen of Finland) were, according to the Times of London, "not impressed" and it was not a matter on which he should have expected support from the boys. He got none.
In many parts of the world, transgressions are not just shrugged away like that. Ask the Pakistani man, Mohammed Sajid.
Agreed, Sajid committed a horrible crime - he threw acid in the face of his former fiancee, Rabia Bibi, blinding her, after her parents broke off the engagement.
A court in Islamabad found Sajid guilty and sentenced him to be blinded by acid too.
The revolting thing about this whole case is that acid attacks on women as a form of revenge are common in Pakistan. A few such attacks have been reported in countries like Kenya and Uganda. The difference in Pakistan, according to a story in The Times, is that they don�t just happen in jealous fits. Women have been victims of acid attacks for failing to bear children and, you won�t believe this one, cooking badly.
Let�s bid the year farewell with a bizarrely European affair that has put an end to any hope that in the years ahead, East African bananas will rule Western supermarket shelves.
In Britain, the House of Lords has ordered groceries across the country to obey all EU horticultural rules passed over the last 30 years. So there will be no more curved cucumbers, for example. And, most striking, no "bendy" bananas. You and I know that of it isn�t bent, it ain�t no banana.
The EU rule on bananas specifies what the correct length and width of the fruit should be, and bans "abnormal curvature".
The Times reports that the rule was made, according to an EU official at the time, to prevent bendy bananas from being mistaken for a "bicycle wheel".
Comments\Views about this article
Mr Onyango-Obbo is Nation Media Group�s managing editor for convergence and syndication.
Yahoo! Messenger - Communicate instantly..."Ping" your friends today! Download Messenger Now
