Joke Silva on Marriage - The Man can be Vulnerable too

Over the next few weeks as December wedding season progresses, I'll be running a series first featured on Genevieve Magazine about three friends, three weddings and three marriages of 20+ years. I'll start off with Joke Silva, that doyen of the Nigerian movie industry, and her husband, actor, Olu Jacobs.

The Proposal: Olu and I dated for a couple of years before we got married. I remember he proposed when we went for dinner and a Greek meal was served. I think he got the people in the restaurant involved in the whole arrangement; oh…it was just so romantic! He was living in England at the time though, so that was their custom and he was used to it.

The first years of the relationship: When I first met Olu, he was this dashing guy. He was just such incredible fun! We got along very well. I didn’t even know his age; I thought maybe he was in his late twenties, early thirties. I screamed when I found out his age. He was 39 and I was 20! Well, eventually it was my mum who gave me the go ahead because she saw how serious I was with him and hadn’t seen me that serious with anyone. My dad was worried about the age difference but my mum was able to make him see reasons. She also had the background of her mum being much younger than her dad and didn’t really see a problem with it. She felt it was something I could handle.

Date Night Movie Review - Silver Linings Playbook

Myne and I were reviewing the movies that we'd watched since the start of 2012, and we realised that there weren't that many comedies in the list. There's a reason - we like comedies where the humour is sharp, intelligent and natural, but unfortunately, there haven't been that many of those kinds of comedies.

So when I heard that one; Silver Linings Playbook had received rave reviews at the Toronto International Film Festival, and two, it was a comedy, I immediately put it on my must-watch list, and when it came out, we went to watch it.

It turns out that there was a difference between what I expected and what I got. I had been expecting a more hilarious movie - maybe like a comedy of errors. But it turned out more to be a moving drama with many humorous moments, which was a difference that I didn't mind.

Top 10 Sexiest Nigerian Bachelors by Emeh Achanga

OK, I didn’t say eligible, I said sexy. This list is a compilation gathered from people’s opinion poll, twitter,facebook, and blogs. My sexiest bachelors are handsome , appealing, friendly, generous ,rich and of course, sexy. You might not agree with this list but If you look closely, you will realize that they are sexy indeed. These are men who are in relationships, single or snatchable. lol. So ladies, fasten your seatbelt, put on some heels, throw on that sexy LBD, as we enter the race of SEXIEST NIGERIAN BACHELORS.

10: UTI NWACHUKWU

20 Children Dead in Connecticut School Shooting

You think you've seen the worst that can happen, and then a day like this comes and breaks your heart all over again. Just last week in our backyard (Portland in neighboring state, Oregon), a gunman killed two people and then himself at a shopping mall. Today, the violence is targeted at children, while they were in school, and all these just a few weeks, days to Christmas. What is really going on?

NEWTOWN, Connecticut (Reuters) - A heavily armed gunman opened fire at a Connecticut elementary school on Friday, killing 26 people including 20 children in the latest in a series of shooting rampages across the United States this year, U.S. media reported.

The gunman was dead inside Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, state police Lieutenant Paul Vance told a news conference.

Vance said there were 28 deaths in Connecticut - 20 children and seven adults from the school and another person connected to the suspect at a house in Newtown. The total included the shooter, who media said was a 24-year-old man. The New York Times reported that the gunman killed himself at the scene.

50 Ways to Love and to Romance your Partner

The top "how to" search in the United States is How to Love and, according to the recently released Google Zeitgeist, the top search is the same for Nigeria too, where the #2 is "How to Romance". Below is a list of 50 practical and inexpensive ways to show love to the one you're with, and be romantic.

Romance Meets Life - L is for Love

1. Write "I love you" in the steam on the bathroom mirror after he takes a shower.

2. Offer a back massage with some good smelling lotion.

3. Write a poem. Then use Google Translator to translate a poem into either French or Italian. Then handwrite it out with the translation on the back side. Or better yet, greet your partner at night and read it to them with passion and then hand them the translation.

4. While in public, declare "I love you, Matilda!" (not Matilda, but your partner's name.)

5. Make a CD with a few songs that are meaningful to your relationship.

Romance Meets Life - How to Show Nigerian Love

Prank Call Gone Wrong: DJs Respond to Nurse's Death

It was a shock to hear last week that one of the nurses who answered the phone when two Australian DJs made a prank call was dead, and had committed suicide. The DJs, pretending to be the Queen and Prince Charles called the private hospital where Kate Middleton was admitted for morning sickness to get some laughs for their readers. No one could have foreseen it would end this way.

From what I can tell from news reports, the nurse who killed herself, Jacintha Saldanha, was the receptionist who picked the call, and then actually transferred them to someone on the ward. I listened to the call myself and she did not say more than a couple of sentences. I found it difficult to make the stretch from the prank call to the apparent suicide for a wife and mother of two teenagers.

To be honest though, I don't know her, and I don't know what she may have been going through even before the prank call, maybe the prank and the backlash she expected from family, friends, her employers and the general public became too much, the final straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. As might be expected, Mel Greig and Michael Christian, the two Australian DJs behind the hoax, are totally broken up as seen in a recent interview.

Permission from my Mother by Nena Ndioma

Few African mothers (bless their hearts) will ever encourage their daughter’s divorce. Mine is no different.

I’ve never had a particularly easy relationship with my mother. Now that I look back, I can see that this partly stems from the fact that while I’m a ‘born’ communicator, my mother’s communication style is pretty indirect, and therefore difficult to decipher. Understandably, our communication styles clashed too often for us to get along terribly well while I was growing up. With the passage of time, we’ve gotten better at communicating – or, rather, at accepting that we communicate differently, and at (sort of) trying to meet each other half-way.

I broke the news of my divorce plans to my mother gently, but clearly and directly. I broke the news over a period of weeks, repeating the same message several times to give her time to absorb and make peace with it. Each time, in her characteristic communication style, she shrugged it off like an uncomfortable shawl, nervously laughed a little as if to help take away the sting of the unpalatable message, assured me breezily that the marital situation would get better … and then changed the subject.

My Unrelaxed Hair Journey So Far

From the early days of the Big Chop when I wrote this first post about my haircut back in April of last year.

I had a hair accident in March after I removed some weaves, and this led to the worst hair tangling known to man. The only solution? Cut it all off. Well, I'm comforted knowing my hair grows quickly. With time I'll share more with you guys about the hair journey.

Crazy for Cowboy by Roxy Boroughs

Synopsis/Blurb: She’s through with cowboys. But this one’s the ‘reel’ deal.

Equine veterinarian, Emily Grant, has had her share of cowboys, and they always break her heart. After vowing to give them up forever, Brandon Hollister strides into her life.

He’s a different kind of cowboy, one that works on the silver screen. But is he just playing the part when it comes to love? Or can this sexy hunk get past a case of mistaken identity to become the man to win Emily’s heart.

Dear Myne - How can I get my Husband to love Kissing?

Please how can i get my husband to love kissing and engage in it. I love kissing and its one thing that turns me on for love making. I practically compels him to kiss me every time and we only manage to lip-lock for about 30 secs or less. We've talked about it several times through the years( been married for 11+ yrs) and no improvement. No amount of touching lubricates me like kissing.

Once in a while he succumbs, and it brings me on and we have a very good love making. Can i really do anything about it or is it absolutely an african thing of our men not liking kissing? Am talking about kissing in the privacy of our room. Thanks