Of fun and Compe

While Koinange street was fighting it out with luthuli avenue for the red light status, another part of town was slowly but surely edging Kimathi street out as the entertainment zone. Kimathi street is or has been the street of night life. but mainly for young people. starting all the way from Zeeps near hilton, the street is replete with clubs and night restaurants all the way to Kosewe at the end. at night the nation center area is normally abuzz with music and young people looking for fun. am sure the taxi operators in this area do a roaring business especially from Wednesday. But Westlands is slowly catching up or is it taking over as the 'joint'. the other day a casual tour revealed that the place comes truly alive at night. its a 24 hour center with night clubs all over the place and even a 24 hour supermarket to complete the treat. Westlands in fact has something for everyone. from high class eateries such as gaucho to quick bites for the not so loaded like Kenchic.

another thing that will have something for everyone will be the safcom allocation. rumor has it that the allocation will be as low as 30%. meaning that all that money will either go back to the banks or hopefully go to the market. optimists will hold that the money will be used to buy safaricom in the secondary market. these optimists join the other IPO investors at putting safaricom value at a whopping 800 billion shillins or just the same size as the NSE. If all that money is to be absorbed, then the price of safaricom shares according to them should be 20 bob. That would mean that the girl who borrowed money from me would live her dream.

the pessimists however say that the loans will have to be paid. for that matter all refunds will go back to where they came from. the secondary market will not be able to sustain the pressure and the mobile giant will hover around 5 bob for years just like mumias did at one time and even KQ. you will remember that these pessimists also predicted that the NSE would collapse if safaricom, then being offered at 30 billion were to be floated in the NSE alone. they held that the offer should be cross listed in London to make sure it succeeded. may be they were just being paranoid.

Paranoia is a good thing. that i think is what is called experience. the experienced never sit on their laurels and assume that everything will go well. its paranoia that makes one succeed. when you lose all fear you lose self defense as well. you then expose yourself just like the best football team in the world (at least in sheer skillful play) Arsenal, lost the infamous or famous unbeaten run and also the 6 point lead to finish 3rd and also get knocked out of the champions league. Their local equals Gor Mahia (nostalgia nostalgia) have over the years suffered for that reason alone. loss of fear! loss of pride

talking of pride, we go back to safaricom. did you know that the mobile giant has just launched their 3rd world first. It should make you proud to be Kenyan. if you didnt know the first was Mpesa, first in the world, then prepaid blackberry service (note not postpaid) and now mobile DsTv. (am not sure this is a world fist too) but it sure is a continental first. I wonder how the product will do. though me thinks that its currently 'The Story'. In kenya, you have to have 'The story'to make you stand out. it used to be mobile phones, then it was DsTV itself, them hummer, then blackberry but now any Wakesho, Wekesa and Waita have those so what do you have? Mobile TV!