For the first time, I met actress-Lydia Forson last night—-even though we used to be ‘good’ buddies who fell out over conflicting ideas and somehow managed to later find compromising grounds to restructure the friendship. Perhaps, if not because of our fallout, this should have been our 20th meeting…
Fred Nuamah is also in London (he came in from Cannes) and even though we stayed in the same hotel at Cannes, he just can’t seem to get enough of me so he kept bothering me to visit so that we can have our secret dish-Sea Food. Of course that is not true, he left his hard drive with me at Cannes and he needed it, so I had to drop it for him while he is out here.
With a lot of work to be done at my end, I thought it wise to pick Lydia Forson from her posh-Marylebone apartment and head over to Heathrow Airport’s Renaissance hotel, where ‘chicken’ Fred Nuamah has been staying. I wonder the sense in coming to London and staying so close to noisy Heathrow Airport for more than a day, as if you are waiting for an early morning connecting flight.
Driving into Central London no matter whatever time of the day is pretty annoying—and even though I intentionally scheduled to pick Lydia Forson at 9:30pm so I can beat the traffic, I was still a little late. The traffic never seems to die off…
And since Lydia Forson was bored of waiting, she recorded a silly video which she showed me when she jumped into the car. It was not that cold for a Londoner but for the Accra soul, her butt was literally freezing—worst, when we left Fred’s hotel at around 3am.
The about 30 minutes drive with Lydia Forson from Marylebone to catch up with Fred Nuamah was quite interesting as we continued certain conversations we had started in the past, mainly industry improvement conversations.
I brought the 68th Cannes Film Festival Short Films’ catalog which contains the over 2000 short films that made it to the festival this year to Lydia Forson—I just hope it helps her career and motivates her enough to pay a visit to the most prestigious film festival in the world.
For some reason, we did not talk about her alleged run away from the #DumsorMustStop Vigil. It must have escaped me but as usual, Lydia Forson also had her own opinion about GhanaCelebrities.Com. It was not any different from the many celebrities I meet—the blatant sharp arrow with which we carry our stories always bothers them. Since they are mostly at the receiving end of the sharp arrow, it makes sense that they have concerns and mostly wish we consider their positives as much as we highlight their follies…
In an utopia world, that makes sense but in the world of media, what makes the news is when something happens out of the ordinary. And since positives are what we daily expect, they mostly fall outside the news box. It’s the slaps and shocking secrets of celebrities which drive the vehicle of news.
But in all fairness, I sympathize with them and I understand their quest to have things softened—especially when we throw in those strong opinions and judgments. But as I always say, there is no point in having a blog if you cannot hold strong opinions about things and issues—and be good at articulating as well as defending them.
Soon, we got to Fred Nuamah’s hide out—and finding parking became a nightmare. I managed to find the hotel’s car park which ended by evening with a £9 bill for the 3 hours we caught up.
On our way to the hotel, my 3 calls to Fred Nuamah to tell him I was on my way with Lydia went unanswered. Knowing Fred, I was afraid we will get there to catch him up in his boxer short. Even though he was aware we were coming, I wanted to give him a heads-up.
We got to the hotel and I kindly requested the receptionist to ring Fred Nuamah, a friend who was staying around for me. The phone rang a few times and dude finally picked up; he was catching a nap.
Not close to what I was afraid of, we walked into to the room to find Kwaku Nuamah washing his face and mouth—pretty not what visitors should come and see. At least we didn’t walk in to see him throwing out a quick poo…
We settled in and poured out some juice with the conversation kick starting with some friendly ‘gossip’. What most of you may not know is that, there are a lot more I know, talk to the celebrities I meet about that do not find their way onto this blog. Certain personal details of some hovering scandals are kept as personal conversations with some of these celebrities. I don’t publish every destroying scandal—contrary to the popular misconception. But I remain the best at dishing out the scandals though…LOL
After almost an hour of industry non-reported gossip (with Lydia Forson and Fred Nuamah mostly trying to defend colleagues), we switched gears to look at Fred Nuamah’s annual Ghana Movie Awards—5 years in retrospective.
Lydia Forson seems to have had several past conversation with Fred in relation to the direction of Ghana Movie Awards—and for me, I am damn tired of telling Fred to fix some basic stuffs which taint the credibility of the award scheme. Nevertheless, the conversation was great and even though Fred Nuamah seemed to have bought into many of the suggestions—his constant attempts to defend the flaws made me think, a lot will not change…
Maybe, he will prove me wrong. I have known Fred for too long to know his problems but the fix, he has to find the ‘antidote’ himself.
Lydia Forson as an industry person has reasonable concerns with the selecting and awarding of some of the movies—I share the same opinion. Some movies should not even be nominated at all, yet, we see this same crop of movies scoring nominations each year…
The long night of conversation and catch-up ended with Fred Nuamah’s attempt to get Lydia Forson to cook some Jollof rice for him out here in London but Lydia didn’t seem interested in the cooking. She was more interested in shopping.
After talking for about 3 hours, we needed some food so on our way back, we kept praying to find a Burger King or McDonald’s somewhere—Lydia is a anti-KFC, and even though preference was not an option at that late night, she still wasn’t going to have KFC if we came across one.
Poor us, the two hungry late night chatters did not find any fast food joint on our way, so we decided to make it obvious by ‘keying’ into the Satnav; the nearest McDonald’s. One was within less than a mile away and when we finally found it, we quickly jumped out of the car—at this stage, I was already thinking about if I was going to have a big mac meal or not.
We got to the McDonald’s and it was CLOSED. It was not one of the many 24/7 joints. So we ended our night on hungry stomachs—Lydia said she has some rice in the freeze and she was going to ‘munch’ it. I drove off to catch my sleep with hunger…
It’s almost summer, I will try to find time to meet some of your favorite celebrities—and bring the outcome to you in photos, videos and words…
Now the Big Deal
My Good Observation: Lydia Forson had a normal make up—and she was intellectually stable with her arguments.
My Bad Observation: You are going to get cold in London at this time of the year if you wear a dress that shows your thighs without leggings and just a pair of sneakers—next time, dress for the weather.
***To the celebrities, any of you coming to London this summer should hit me up. But remember, the cost of lunch or dinner is on you. After all, you are the damn celebrity and not me***
Good read. The london weather can be tricky when you think it is warm it will become cold so may be that is why Lydia was cold.