M-PESA in the UK please ASAP

It costs US $15 to wire US $90 from the US to the UK and UK £12 to wire US $105 from the UK to the US. This is blatant extortion and what's more the aggravation involved in a) trying to receive the money (apparently the Western Union agents between Waterloo and Camberwell Green are only interested in sending money given they told me the network was down on the afternoon of 21 May, despite subsequent evidence to the contrary) and b) sending the money belongs to a bygone era.

If Kenyans can send and receive money via their mobile phones, then surely we should be able to do international transfers from the UK (this notwithstanding), especially since Vodafone partnered with Safaricom to set up mpesa initially.

Starting out young

I was trying to chat to my friend online when I noticed something weird about her status - it was full of consonants, sometimes in duplicate or triplicate and I thought to myself, it looks as if her account has been hacked. It transpired that her daughter had amended her status by "messing about" with her mother's phone. Under interrogation, her daughter simply beamed an angelic smile - she'll be 4 later on this year.

Well, the soon to be 4 year old has been trumped by a soon to be one year old whose delight on receiving her first laptop is all too apparent - she hits it repeatedly and found a novel way to use the mouse, by placing it against her ear.

Talkin' bout a revolution

Can you think back to a time BEFORE sliced bread? Nope, neither can I and yet it wasn't all that long ago that we ate bread by tearing off hunks. Then, a light bulb went off in someone's head and sliced bread was the result. The concept of slicing bread was so ingeniously simple I'm sure the originator must have had a Eureka moment similar to Archimedes in his bath tub or to Isaac Newton when the apple fell on his head.

I'm back, he's back!

With his latest defeat of the Fed at the Madrid Masters Open, Rafael Nadal has become the first and youngest tennis player to amass 18 Masters' title. Yesterday's win saw him overtake the Fed and Andre Agassi who have 17.
His problems in the last year have been well documented and I suspect his personal problems affected him more than his physical ones.
I fully expect him to reclaim the Coupe de Mousequetaire at Roland Garros in a few weeks time.

Vamos Rafa!!

Yes they did!

The audacity of hope is a beautiful sight to behold

Financial socialism is unAmerican

were the words of a Republican House of Representative as he and several other Congressman initially rejected the $700 billion bailout. In the wake of this and this, it would indicate that socialism is well and truly flourishing in the so called Land of the Free.

As the gloves are well and truly off

isn't it about time the spotlight was turned on the Republican VP nominee's flirtation with a party advocating independence for Alaska? Also, what about her propensity for letting home come to work?! And as if Kenya was not getting enough airtime in the impending US election, it would appear that a Kenyan "witch-hunter " is the Republican VP nominee's spiritual adviser. The icing on the cake is the fact that she was found guilty of having abused her power as Governor of Alaska - being a bullshitter extraordinaire, she spun the verdict.

Morphing into a pitbull with lipstick her personal attacks on the Democrat Presidential nominee are tantamount to incitement or what a fellow Republican deemed, "deliberately feeding the most unhinged elements of our society the red meat of hate". Isn't it about time this pitbull was muzzled?!

Plus ça change

, a leopard can't change its spots, a lipstick on a pig is still a pig and it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks. I am referring to this. Seasoned Zimbabwe watchers greeted news of the agreement cautiously and with good reason because it appears that Mugabe is going back on his pledge to make it work. His lack of enthusiasm for the deal was evidenced by him swanning off to New York for the better part of 2 weeks with several key issues outstanding. Contrast Mugabe's stance with that of Tsvangirai and it's patently obvious who has the welfare of the Zimbabwean people at heart.

There's a lot to be said for Mbeki's so called "quiet diplomacy" when it came to Zimbabwe, but at least Mbeki plays by the rules and by tendering his resignation at the behest of his party he exhibited statesmanship. Mugabe was reputed to have been furious at Mbeki's ouster especially since Mbeki's softly, softly approach did not go down well with other members in the South African government. Indeed, a further delay in getting the current impasse resolved may hinge on whether Mbeki will continue in his role as mediator. Mugabe will want to maintain the status quo because a new negotiator may not be as accommodating