Happy Jamhuri, Xmas & New Year

'09 has just flown by. Or maybe too much fun has been had. Or maybe age is catching up.

Anyhouse,

enjoy your mbuzi, turkey (zzzzzz), or green chick peas (double zzzzzzz).

Raila gets saved for votes, also exploring changing name to Mohamed

Kweli the two principals have a lot in common. Including clowning. The thinking is that RAO will now be able to compete for any born-again votes that the born-again "wiper" may get in 2012.

Apparently you can now expect RAO to be beginning his speeches like this. "Before I got saved by the Lord Jesus, I took some underhand deals at the Energy ministry, exchanged my party for land in Kisumu, co-opted the corrupt into my orange party, infact I'd make a deal with the devil himself if he'd give me the presidency. Now I am making deals with Jesus. Soon I'll be doing some with Allah. Until I get the sit."

I understand the prophet (is his beard a wig?) who converted him also prophesied about him becoming president in '07. Lets hope he has better track record going forward.

Breaking news: kibz makes his 1st coherent speech

Who said the guy can't do comedy? Number two for the history books today.

If you want to help the Kenyan farmer stop buying maize from USA

LoL...m-o-1 has no shame, but he still makes sense.

The day the information age collided with the horse n carriage age

As soon as you opened the door in the morning and put your first foot on the snow, you knew it would be that kind of day. Fresh snow all the way to your ankles. And more still falling. Not your typical London day. It was obvious trains won't run- they usually breakdown due to silly excuses like wrong kind of sunshine, leaves on the track etc. So I walked (very gingerly) towards the bustop. Wapi? No buses. So I trudge to the train station with a slither of hope that err, they've changed the habits of a lifetime. Not today.

Getting back (I know how the NMG guys felt going up Kirinyaga) to the house, log in and none of the usual London transport websites are working. This in a country where broadband access is as cheap as chips (£7 per month for speeds of up to 8mb). Clearly because nobody could get to their offices, websites were not functioning. And neither for that matter were business continuity plans. Even Heathrow was shut... All because of 2 inches of snow.

At least my son got the benefit :-) he was jumping up and down and whooping...

Indispensability

Kimunya said he'd rather die than resign. then he promptly resigned...but lived

Dick Fuld turned down no less than 5 different offers for a stake or takeover of Lehman Brothers because his valuation was double or more that of those offering. He didn't believe what the prospective buyers said about his beloved Lehman's toxic balance sheet and also believed Hank Poulson.

Around 4/5/6 months traders on Wall Street and elsewhere were still paying out £10k+ in a restraunt, today many are having to take pay cuts or re-orientation courses.

Tupac used to swagger after surviving a pac-getting shooting and believed he'd live for ever. He died shortly, of the same.

The other day, the captain of the England Cricket (a glorified drunk's day in the park) team went to the Cricket Board and told them that he being the best batsman since sliced bread would step down as captain, if the board didn't fire England head coach who he reckoned was useless. The board thought about it and told him thus;

we agree the coach his rubbish, so we'll sack him

but we also think you are a rubbish captain, so you're fired. lol...

Its called the law of indespensability...and will catch up with Kenyan politicians

Merry Xmas

Enjoy your goat responsibly,,,

Monday shorts

So did Kenya reclaim Obama? Or did Obama reclaim Kenya? Its a bit of both. Mind you, afadhali Kenyans. The Irish are claiming him on the basis of his great*5 grandpa. We had a Kenyan party for Obama sponsored by the High Comm and Balala's ministry on Saturday. First mistake was to serve the generously supplied free Tusker Baridi and the like almost two before the meeting kicked off proper. Non one was listening by the time the speeches were being done. How is this for luck? US has Obama, UK has Dizzy (sorry Dizzle). Finally, guys are saying that Obama has been elected at just about the worst tine in US history so he can fail. Well, put it it this way, how many gave him a chance when he first stood or went one to one with Hilary and later with McCain?

Interesting piece in the context of politics. But also stock markets. How many of us stock market investors can genuinely confess to not knowing what is going in the market like 50% of the time. Because you see if we did know what was going on even 85% of the time, we'd all be billionaires like WB who does. By this I don't mean that we don't know our fundamentals but there is as I intimated in my simple equation the other day, a lot variables in the market and saying you know how all those players will react to situations or what their strategies are is like saying you know what everybody is thinking. Unlikely...

A cut in interest rates of 1.5% should be seeing many homeowners and prospective ones smiling. But no. While most banks have passed the cut onto any holders of their variable-rate mortgages, they have also withdrawn any BoE trackers thus closing off prospective house buyers. The rest are dragging their feet saying they can't make the margins even wihn Libor falling! Gova's work is really cut out.

Tiomin discovered tatinium in 1995 in Kwale, got a contract to mine it in 2002. Almost 7 years later it still can't get started. Ignoring the idiotic ways of the ex-president and Kibz, can't they just tell Tiomin its not going to happen because we really don't need the jobs. Don't forget there is a ready market for the product (hence the Chinese interest).

In the UK, they have News of the World a scandal-filled tabloid, but I reckon even it won't be able to pull a story like this (so humorously told despite the sad situations that we Kenyans get ourselves into to get makaratasi)... Wakenya aibu ndogo ndogo.

London underground: what joy...

After 4 or so yrs break, I am now commuting using the London underground aka the tube and I now realise what I've been missing. Not...

The tube carries 3million+ passengers a day and you feel like most of them are on your journey to and from work. So what joys have I been missing?

Inconsiderates:

• Morning blues: If somebody is going to throw themselves under a train, is it too much ask that they don't do it at 8 in the morning just as rush hour kicks in? Or even better, do what most do when they can't stomach going to work, just call in sick and stay at home...muppet.
• Water-phobia: Some passengers are principally opposed to washing themselves or brushing teeth. Very painful for fellow passengers.
• The plodders: Those that can't work at 50mph shouldn't bother with the tube. Take the bus to work.
• Potato syndrome: Canada a much younger nation than the "Great" Britain, has double decker trains. A good well planned idea for avoiding being packed into trains like potatoes in a sack. Unlikely to happen in London but badly needed otherwise the "oshiya" are the future.
• Free-riders: Its not funny or clever to bump and grind into your fellow passengers so as to avoid paying for a train ticket. The windy-buses is a better option.

Good part:

1. Keep fit regime: You walk up 100+ stairs in one journey. I've lost 5kgs already...

Monday Shorts

We can say whatever, but we Kenyans are very unique and alike. You go to visit a Kenyan family and if the majority of the guests are from one tribe and age, you'll pick up a new language. More enjoyably, you'll eat a traditional dish. You may catch a vcd you haven't seen before, but you'll surely get Koffi Olamide. And politics will dominate conversation as the evening goes on. Very good naturedly.
It therefore hurts when you witness the politicians attempts to keep us from forging ahead together. Some of the idiotic stuff from adults on this has been embarrassing. Charity Ngilu should know that you have to take responsibility for your actions no matter who you thought you were doing it for. As for that thug Ephraim, you should know that if I take your eye out because you took mine out, we'll both be blind and in the wrong. Hopefully all 10 will end up in the Hague or pariahs like Mugabe. In 2003, I remember saying to my cousin that ignoring the MoU was the stupidiest thing that Kibz ever did on many levels. I have a nasty feeling that ignoring the Wako report will mean payback later in a similar manner. Implementing it is the easier option...

The economic downturn has had its positives. Oil prices are slowly dipping below £1 per litre and hopefully grocery prices will follow downwards.
Interesting debate on pesticides. The EEC is proposing to ban a lot of pesticides which have been seen to cause cancer and infertility (note for you NEMA). The UK gova for some weird reason is supporting farmers who don't want the ban and have now started the familiar scary tactics (food prices will triple story)...
Barclays is willing to pay more to private investors than give in to gova?

Football

Argentina have confounded foe and friend alike by appointing the one and only Diego Armando Maradona as the manager of the football manager. A genius as a footballer (greatest ever in my humble opinion), Maradona has been a complete and utter nutcase off the football pitch going thru stuff that would take several legendary hellraisers to do. Cocaine bursts and bans; drug-induced heart attack; shooting at journalists and other more common shenanigans. In other words, not management material. But he is next to God, Mary mother of Jesus as far as Argentineans are concerned. The thinking is that he'll shield the team from vociferous media attacks normally mettled out when the team underperforms. My hope is he and Argentina make to the World Cup.

My local team seats on top of the English league. And for once we the fans are worried. We've gone 18yrs without winning the title so we can do without false dawns. I'll only mention those words if the great Liverpool football club is on the same station come next March...

How to do a resignation letter, or not as the case maybe...

Apparrently this guy's hedge fund made 870% return last year so maybe he can afford to offend a few peeps on his way out.

Harambee Star Coach

I know some (okay, most) of our politicians fear competence in another person, but why can't they for once be happy we have a good KENYAN coach and give Kimanzi the licence to try and take us to the World Cup? He talks sense and is clearly doing something well given he has gotten the Harambee Stars near to qualifying while still doing a day job at Mathare United. Think of the feelgood factor of

• Qualifying for first time and having a chance for most us to see the games down in South Africa.
• Having an indegenous Kenyan (rather than a foreign mercenary so beloved in other countries) take us there.

Monday Shorts

So was this last week's sharp policy the moment Gordon Brown halted his disappearing chance of winning the next General Election? Maybe, but unlikely. In the event that UK has a full blown recession next yr and house prices continue at this pace, he'll get the blame for getting us in this mess in the first place. The idea is good because it reassures taxpayers that their bucks won't just be given away for free to wheel-dealers with no scruples.

They say loose lips sink a ship. No soon as a US offical started ruling out adopting the UK policy than the US markets dived downwards before Poulson quickly reassured that this was not the case and they recovered.

So will MS fold given the Lehman-like pattern its followed this past week? No. US govt has now learned that Lehmans was a "tbtf" investment bank so it won't be allowing any others to fall.

Kudos to the BBC for doing a full week featuring the Maasai Mara. Lakini I wish it would also focus on other aspects of Kenya that are good.

Ati there are 44,000 evangilical churches in Kenya? And two applications for new ones per day. Is this what is known as prosperity gospel? Church and money. Infact, church and vices now seem to run together.

Kenyatta day is named thus because its supposed to remind of sacrifices made in the past in which case why not call it something relevant like Freedom Fighters day? Na m-o-i day? What is it all about? Ama Kenyans just love these days off? Wish we had half as many in the UK.



"Unataka soda ngapi?", this guy seems to be asking. I remember last yr, a KBVL truck overturned near Karatina, guys camped by the roadside overnight with cups getting sozzled.

You think we got it bad?

This lady might be the next Vice President of the US.

Shorts

Is the NSE driven by foreign investors? Apart from the bearish conditions due to inflation, NSE's falls and rise over the last week and this one would seem to suggest so. This might partly be due to effect on Diaspora. Either way, it remains a very bearish time at the bourse and the prospect of the Co-op IPO seems to portend more gloom. For me, bring the IPO so at least it can shine some light on the NSE (and hopefully we get full subscription for once).

In the UK, gova is now tightening the rules for Kenyans especially those of us who are underground by

• requiring everybody to turn up in person at the Home Office when their cases are due
• leaning on GoK to provide fingerprints yani, they can compare fingerprints-mbayaa especially for those who have taken ids in Kenya.

On one to one basis i.e. energising the masses; tv debates, McCain comes across as 2nd rate and a no-hoper. But the dude is a complete maverick with some good out-of-the-box ideas. Sarah Palin (although the effect has worn off sharpish-just watch this excerpt from CBS) was one. And so was his decision to cancel campaigning to help support the $zillion support for Goldman Sachs (sorry US economy). Again, that kind of backfired given he still turned up for the 1st debate on Friday.

Having tried the newish Google chrome, its disappointing on several levels. For a start, you can't blog on it! When you do a search, you get sent directly to msn live search! Both these two are its best selling products. And finally details keep missing off websites, which you only discover when you go onto Internet Explorer or Safari. Its fast though...

Used to think a lot of Vioja, until youtube came along and Kenyans discovered that they could post their videos on it. Now Vioja has been trying to scare youtube into successfully removing as many of the videos claiming copyright. A couple of those were videos I had uploaded with permission from somebody actually know personally. Saw I spoke to him later and he said he had never heard of Vioja! The pt about the majority of vids is that guys only upload them to give the artists worldwide publicity through a channel whose audience Vioja can only dream of. When are we going to stop this parochial and envy-based BS?

Euro 2008: Best Tournament in years

With better communications, its now possible to watch international tournament in South America And the Africa Cup of Nations. With that in mind, I've to say that this year's Euro 2008 really exceeded my expectations and was as close as I’ve to come watching practically every game in a tournament. Teams seemed to have the freedom to just enjoy playing without the pressure one sees infect players at the World Cup. This was especially surprising in the knock-out stages. Typically, teams would in the past score one goal and shut shop for the rest of the 90 minutes to protect that goal. Cue tedious back-passes etc. At Euro2008 each knock stage so 2 or more goals and event the Spain-Italy game still saw plenty of chances. 4 teams (Spain, Holland, Turkey, Russia) really played real football and percentage teams (Italy, Germany, Greece) i.e. teams that are built on defensive play, were either sent packing early or didn't compete against the real football teams.
I hope more international tournaments are played this way. I think its no coincident that no British team was at Euro 2008-international football requires a bit more guile than kicking the ball upfield and being able to run up and down the pitch.

The maple leaf country

To recharge my batteries, we trotted across the pond to the maple leaf country (Canada to you and me). The journey was actually 8 and half hours i.e. similar to what it take for the London-Nai run due to the 5 hour time-difference between. Incidentally, Maina Kiai landed on the plane behinds us and we also caught downtown. He is very pessimistic ("neither side is serious", "they are on ceasefire", "Raila is no longer interestred in the constitution review now he knows he is electable", "Kajwang is a..." (you get the drift). Mind you, pessimism is a requirement for the job he is/was doing. I also learned that Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. Lakini Toronto has more of the capital feel. So what were my likes and dislikes of the journey:

• The vastness of Canada. Ontario, one of its 13 provinces is twice the size of Kenya. It takes 4 hours by plane to cross Ontario.
• Ottawa is a beautiful place. You drive for 5 minutes and you come across forests. And there are lakes everywhere.
• Canadians are very courteous, although London is not a good basis for comparison
• The houses. They are huge (most have a basement with space for two or 3 bedrooms) and cheap.
• Meeting Kenyans in Canada. I don't think you ever get a feel for a place until you meet fellow wazalendo who let you in on the country. Many are doing fairly well too very well.
• The bilingual nature of the country. Everybody must learn French and English upto age of 16. Which means most speak two of the languages spoken in half the world.

Not soo impressive...

1. The size of the cars. Ok, they do get a bit of snow over there, but is the monster GMC Yukon necessary for the run to the drugmart? Most peeps look like midgets because the cars are so huge.
2. My bubble antenae was on the up. Everywhere you go, there are new houses being built or recently built. Who is going to live in them all?
3. Food is expensive, even more so than London
4. Petrol prices change on an almost daily basis. Curiously, most oil distributors tend to have exactly same price as their competitors. No wonder a price-fixing investigation has just been launched.
5. GST, PST and other point of sales taxes. Imagine you've noticed a ka-sharp suit going for around 130 Canadian dollars. You rush to the exchange bureau come back and they tell you that will be 145 dollars. Still an attractive price but very inconvenient.
6. Jet-lag, first time I've suffered from it and didn't enjoy it...
7. Twanging Kenyans. Assimilation is all well and good, but twanging mixed with schrubbing is disaster...

UK Life: Today

What differentiates us Kenyans from my current hosts? Basics. Please bear in mind that the UK doesn't have a written constitution. It's never had one. Yet by doing basic things correctly, they've run half the world at one time; still dominate the financial sector world-wide and are generally in the top 10 of every good measure. Basics are things like time (is the clock on your mobile or that expensive watch for decorative purposes?), courtesy (thank you, please) etc.

What info does the govt hold on you? Well, the other day I was applying for something and discovered that the UK govt not only knows who my mobile provider is, how many loans I do or don't have and when my parents got married!

Being a Kenyan who is still a Kenyan abroad presents a lot of problems.One feels the need to constantly be around Kenyans; you run after "Kenyan" events mainly held in dodgy hengs (I can only remember where I could take family friends for "nyamachom-Lincoln's); to visit Kenya often; to keep in touch with folks back home; read about Kenya; invest heavily in Kenya (often into bottomless pits courtesy of your relatives) et al. Some of this costs a lot. So what is a good solution? Marry a Kenyan...

The English are a strange lot in some ways. Unless you drink a lot and often, you may never really get to know either your work colleagues,neighbours and even (dare I say it) church colleagues. So how you to do you build the rapport so you can work/live effectively with them? Pray that you have/get a sense of humour. An English sense of humour...

The "mohican"-an ugly hairstyle the first time round is now back this time being the hairstyle of choice among the young black-men of UK. Class (or lack thereof) it seems has no color barriers.

A guranteed of making your sure your kid underperforms in the UK is to send them to a comprehensive school. The teachers will pick on them; indiscipline will give you nightmares and education is rudimentary.

Moving clocks

One of strangest practices that they have in the UK is one of a moving clock-literally. Clocks go forward or backwards every 6 months. An hour may not be much but imagine you had an interview on a Monday morning and you forget to adjust your alarm clock. Every time the clocks change, you can tell. Yesterday, clocks went forward (i.e. 6am became 7am), in readiness for the hit and miss summer time. Church was half-full in the morning, the church's crèche was not open because the guy who opens it forgot to put his clock forward; my mobile phone self-adjusted but our central heating came on an hour later. And most people looked tired because they had missed an hour of sleep. The office was virtually empty at 830 when it's normally at least half full. In 6 months time when the clocks go back (i.e. 6am becomes 5am), I expect the church to be overflowing, and somebody will get into the office an hour earlier than they should. Mad...

I know some of us whose heads are stuck in political sands won't be happy or are never happy unless their party/tribe is in power, but PLEASE, the level of ignorance being displayed about Mobitelea/Safaricom is astounding. Someone keeps on saying, "its better to keep quite and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt".

Ssem has done some good analysis on the IPO. You don't have to agree with him, but its informed analysis.