Chelsea and their Ilk have no Manners

I rarely blog about soccer, i have suppressed this urge successfully thus far. I am red from Manchester blogging from an uncomfortable environment in Nairobi where I watch less T.V and thus become dumber each day.

I appreciate and respect football clubs with a heritage, Arsenal, Liverpool, Newcastle; Man city sold their heritage to some Arabs for a pittance to some Arabs. Chelsea have no heritage they are in the process of buying some through a mad moneyed Russian. He makes certain fundamental mistakes. Heritage, class, and international mass following cannot be bought or borrowed, ask Arsenal, or ManU, or Liverpool they will affirm that statement. Football is a team game the manager is team to he should be the team leader to, not 50million El Lanina signing from Spain or a captain who always has his hands in a stolen cookie jar or Lamps
for that matter.

Passion and heritage are built over time, managers are not Gods and players’ semi-gods, Now Alex the Ferguson has lost his friend in the wine tasting business, all because Roman wants Success Pap, and ManU had to build a win team for 3 decades after e horrific Munich accident. Roman should close shop, leave football and let Carlo be. We could all do without pitiful JT whining, Drogba and his almost ludicrous dives and let Chelsea occupy its rightful league table standings, MEDIOCRE MID-TABLERY.

Samuel Wanjru; his women brought him down

I try as much as possible to avoid contemporary sensational news. Well i have tried to avoid this on but everyone has their breaking point and i have finally given in. I have been walking the streets with ears wide open eager to grasp gossip and about the deceased death. I might as well take this opportunity to claim my share of fame. I know his grandfather, very stupid of me.

Back to the issue of the day. The aforementioned venerable marathoner has left us to be with the Lord. What does not escape me is the parrarels that can be drawn between Wanjiru's predicament with that that befell former national Cricket team captain a certain Tom Odumbe. Odumbe was a prolific cricketer but his life came apart at the seams when Odumbe was hit with a very lengthy ban by the international cricket body for alleged match fixing. I remember the very conspicuous headlines in the dailies that captured the man's indignation; "My women brought me down". Apparently while Odumbe had the chance to redeem himself in the eyes of the world Wanjiru sadly does not have such a chance. His life reveolved around the axis that was the women in his life; his wife, his mother and others. The lack of an impressionable male figure in his life connived to ensure that he never had to establish as an astute character that was supposed to head a family, vast resources and thyself.

To fallen hero i have my hat off.

For the Churchill's with no show

Sitting through a round of drinks with elderly members of society can be quite unnerving as much as it can be mind racking, this especially so when your company at the beer table are people from the informal sector all people who deliberately kept themselves away from sources of information through-out their twilight years.
Am sitting with my dad at his favorite watering hole, which happens to be in Ngara, Desai road to be precise. It is dingy -big place where your barmaids name never goes beyond Wanjru, Nyambura or the occasional, upmarket souped-up barmaid names can be found at such a place. Can't blame the old man man though this place since has been an axis of his social-Ttusky life since when i was a single cell.

My old man's  friends are a comical lot though, a friend of his with his audacious love for Kenya, tells me that Kenya could be the fabled Palestine. He offers that for starters, Israeli Jews concern with Kenya is to close, see how they troop over here whenever we are in some sort of fix, he chips in between two sips of Tusker. I let that pass though he then continues to boastfully argue about his distinguished status in the air industry, my God he flies from Nairobi to Mombasa via plane for the price of a fowl, 900KSHs for a return ticket, now that is whopping cheap. The man, deserves it though,he is former flight controller, he flies to South Africa free of charge; his son is a pilot. He has established a winery; that captures my attention.

The bottom line though is this, this past generation, the baby boomers; they deserve more than they get, they deserve more than the morsels that the government thows their way. They need to stay alive, for the stories beside the fire place to remain alive albeit the fact that the fire place  has been replaced by the beer table. Not the measly 2000KSHs the government is throwing at them to cajole society to fall out of love with its history

Kenya BURNS IN SELF STOKED FIRE

Well I am a concerned Kenyan, for half a decade now my family has been making a living by being involved in the petroleum sector, now all that is in jeopardy, of course ours and most other Kenyans is a path trodden by many and dreaded by all. When government gets in between your bread and butter all you can expect is bitter and difficult swallowing.

For years now the petroleum industry in Kenya has been struggling under for reasons unbeknown to many; yet Kenya’s citizenry have apportioned blamed where it is not rightfully deserved. Most Kenyans have often blamed rogue Private Petroleum companies, yet in essence the party that deserves to swallow all the hogwash that is the Kenyan petroleum sector.

When Oil from the Arabian Gulf or from the Libyan Port of Misrata or from any other international oil market hits the Port of Mombasa then a plurality of forces connive to make  petrol, diesel and other petroleum products skyrocket irrationally. This in itself triggers a wave of inflation and hyper-inflation with ricochet effects being held in almost all industrial sectors within the economy.

Yet at the heart of this ominous economic problem lies' a debate that has been fundamental to market relations from classical era; to what extent should government meddle in enterprise. Kenya currently has a one international Sea-Port at Mombasa managed by a state corporation, the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA). This in itself has meant that infrastructure in handling of imported fuel has been incapacitated and has been running below capacity for a long time now. The irony is that the jetty used to offload imported fuel from international market has not been upgraded for decades now meaning that at any given time only one oil Ship can offload its cargo at a particular time, of course this is absurdity at its peak for Mombasa as a port serves a rich hinterland that is the East African Community plus Southern Sudan and Eastern DR. Congo. A cycle of inefficiency is then reinforced by the equally inefficient Kenya Petroleum Refineries LTD, that has no inkling about what operational efficiency or could be and the Kenya Pipeline Company another synonymously corrupt state corporation is entitled with the noble task of transporting important petroleum commodities to other parts of the country.

The paradox is that Kenyans do not realize an efficient petroleum sector will only be realized when the government relaxes its iron grip on the petroleum sector. Indeed Israeli advised Kenya to take the path taken by Israel, reminding Kenya’s unfeeling policy makers that the less government in any sector=efficiency.

Expeditious reforms are way overdue in Kenya’s petroleum sector and indeed fat sloths in the shape of bureaucrats could be replaced by fine minds in the shape of private entrepreneurs.

ALEX NJERU.

ndungualexx@gmail.com

hi this is kenya

hi this is Kenya, uncharacteristically though, just bogged up a wee bit. now sincerely speaking what ideological choices does a conscious young Kenyan like me have in the circus that is Kenya's politics.
   I mean being asked to choose, between Ruto and Uhuru or Raila for that matter is like being asked to distinguished between this zebra or that zebra in a big herd of Mara zebra. This Kenyans are really cut from the same clothe. They have nothing for us apart from empty chart and rhetoric.

to be contd..............