Miles Owego
Miles graduated from Durham four years ago and has just had his first child with his Danish wife. He is a city lawyer and he doesn't know that he doesn't really know why he's a lawyer. He would like to blame it on his archetypally pushy Nigerian mother but growing up his mother was rarely around to push him and so he had a reasonably relaxed upbringing. He still managed to work like a paranoid monk through his entire education. His wife knows that deep down inside he doesn't even like working and knows that the only time she has seen him totally at peace is when he is watering her flowers. She has suggested cultivating his own area of the garden to him but every time she does this he gives her the same rhetoric, that a garden is for a woman to decorate and for a man to read The Economist in. This really pisses her off. He's started reading the economist to their eight-week year old son, Elijah. Miles' father was in fact a bit of a hippy and would play the guitar, and his trumpet and read lots of books to Miles, namely Beatrix Potter. Miles half pretends this didn't really happen to him as a child so as to prevent any accusations of being a hippy. This only goes to anger his wife further when he insists on reading heavyweight political commentary and current affairs to their child over normal children's books. Miles has a secret, he once bought a lottery ticket! As an avid Thatcherite, not to mention a rational human being he believes that earning money (i.e not winning/inheriting/finding/being given money) is one of the most beautiful acts a human being can perform and of course is fully aware of the silly odds on winning the lottery. Even still, and this is something he has now blocked from his memory, he did in fact enjoy the thrill of partaking in the lottery. He is a massive hypochondriac. Miles has a full medical twice a year and this is the only instance of him being selfish and not putting his family first. He thinks that his greatest fear is being a failure and not living up to his family's needs and expectations but with a first in Politics, a CPE and three very successful years at the law-firm, it looks like there is very little chance of that happening any time soon. Although he doesn't know it yet his greatest fear is not living a very long life. He is very scared of death and whenever the topic comes up - say when people casually mention what they want to do before they die - he tries to divert the topic and peppers the conversation with bad jokes and nervous laughter. Although he has a sense of humor, he isn't a particularly funny guy. The only instances he makes jokes in are around his family and they usually fall flat. When they do get a laugh it is usually out of pity. Miles knows deep down that he isn't funny but he does a good job of suppressing this knowledge. Whilst Miles' family are all keen church goers, he is an Atheist but when asked to go into detail about his reasons or discuss religion in any way he always manages to weave in political reasons as to why he doesn't like religion and not why there isn't a god. As a joke, for a Christmas present his nephew Emile (who is the son of Miles' very different and Jovial younger brother) pretended not to know that Miles is an Atheist and got him a twelve hour dvd box set of live recordings from an Evangelical Christian speaker "The High Exalted Pastor Pete". Knowing full well that Miles would be far too polite about not liking it, Emile suggested that Miles watch all of it on Christmas day. Emile then told his parents that this year he'd like to stay at his uncle's for the night just to see Miles torture himself and sit through all twelve hours of the dvd so as not to arouse any suspicion that he wasn't satisfied with his gift. Although Miles is a good, nice and polite individual, he's not that nice and the following Christmas he thought he'd get back at Emile by knitting him a wooly christmas jumper. The joke still remains on Miles as Emile really likes it and wears it all year round, plus Miles did put a stupid amount of effort into brushing up on his knitting skills (his dad taught him when he was younger) as well as money on some quite nice wool from Liberty's. Miles doesn't daydream that often. Whenever he does he feels very guilty. He does not believe in coincidences and never wishes anyone good luck; "luck is like a group of carol singers; not really seen these days and only appreciated by the type of people who don't know anything about the stock market." Miles adores going on holiday and is a completely different person when on one. The only time his wife has seen him drunk was in Barabdos last year when the family were entertaining a cool sociable American family at the Villa they were staying in. Miles must've felt under pressure to entertain and for the latter part of the evening couldn't stop grinning and shouting "this is such good wine!" Miles has a bit of a thing for Americans and America and a smile comes to his face whenever the country is mentioned. He spent a lot of time there on his gap year both in Washington D.C and Long Island. He is scarily blasé about the slave trade. It is because of comments like these that his father (and most of his family) jokes with him and calls him a coconut; black on the outside, white on the inside. Miles' father inherited a lot of money from his grandfather (a nigerian politician). Miles' father has worked two jobs his entire life, both have been for Miles' grandfather. Miles' father is blissfully unaware of the strong possibility that Miles' grandfather was not "the only honorable soul, amidst the corrupt ocean of Nigerian politics". Anyone who knows anything about Nigeria's political history, the rest of Mile's extended family or Miles' Grandfather's amazing ability to divert dinner table attention away from his work feels that Miles' grandrather had a fair few skeletons in his closet. This is partly why Miles has such an aversion to fun and letting his hair down as he (somewhat irrationally) associates fun with being blissfully ignorant of the fact that the rest of the world is suffering torture and pain. Miles' dream is to own a medium sized island, he can't be arsed to get a large island and anyway that would be excessive. One of the few funny things he talks about is his wacky plan for his island. His unquenchable passion for money, politics, power and money all culminates into him getting very enthusiastic about his island and his only creative moments since nursery school have been him working out what he's going to have on his island namely; a yo sushi type conveyer-belt throughout house, garden and surrounding land, a replica Palace of Westminster with Wonka style chocolate river as the thames, for his child; teletubby land exactly as it was on telly, for his wife a large garden (with Alan Titchmarsh living at the bottom of it), a helipad that has his face in place of the H and a large underground humidor with an intricate sysetm of tubes that feed into the branches of a small orchard of fake trees creating the illusion of Cuban cigars growing from the trees' branches. He feels that most people don't like him, he tells himself that he doesn't care and in part this is true because he knows that he is a good person and that if people can't see that then screw them. There is still a fairly large portion of him though that wishes he was liked more. Ironically Miles is liked by most people and one of people's main qualms about him from others is regarding his paranoia. At school he wasn't bullied, partly because not a lot of people knew who he was. He didn't stick out like a dork. His claim to fame is that at school, he appeared in the cover photo of the school prospectus. This was an especially big deal as he was the first black kid to ever appear on the cover. Some of the white stuffy parents were clearly unsettled by it and Miles' father wrote a song about the whole affair and emailed it to all the parents he suspected had a problem with the photo. Miles' dream is to go into politics and become Lord Chief Justice. This is partly because he sees it as just the right kind of power; old school power with many fingers in many pies, but also because he figures it is the most powerful job in Britain that demands one to wear a wig in the job. Wearing a wig is a must for him (and partly the reason why he wanted to be a barrister) because he is very insecure about his lack of hair. Miles gives to a number of charities; save the children, freedom from torture and follicle aid (a charity that helps fight baldness). He still doesn't give to tramps and is very stingy when it comes to christmas presents as he believes that none of his family need/deserve presents. He feels the same about receiving presents too and every Christmas his wife gets him something he doesn't want. There is a cupboard in his bedroom full of very nice hardly opened things such as a motorized tie rack, an ipad and a home gym as well as trivial tat like a self stirring mug and a billy bass singing fish. His wife is slowly and subtly coaxing him into having christmas at their place one year, mostly by asking the rest of Miles' family to do a shoddy job on the all the things Miles likes about Christmas so that he'll feel that if he wants a good christmas he'll have to do it himself. You see for all Miles' aversion to presents he adores Christmas and it is probably the time of year where he feels the most powerful and is most relaxed. It is also when most of his jokes are actually laughed at. Miles' family will always remember Christmas 2009 when his wife bought him an iphone. It has been the only extravagant gift (in fact the only gift full stop) he has accepted since his childhood on the grounds that it is an indispensable tool and a work of art. It is also of such a significance because since he got it he has become a lot cooler and a little more relaxed. His family think that it's because apple suddenly made being an organized businessman look edgy and sexy; all of a sudden everywhere all the suits were looking like this and were proud of it. Every now and again Miles' wife jokes about his hilarious hypocrisy with regard to his iphone/attitude to presents and Miles gives an arrogant, long winded and silly explanation as to why this iphone is an exception to the no presents rule. Very quickly Miles' wife reminds herself what good the iphone has done her husband and shuts her trap before Miles' realizes she's right and gets rid of the iphone and stops being cool.
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