Facebook - New login system Phishing Scam

Just to warn anyone who may not have realised it, this is a Phishing Scam. Some details here and here.

If you hate what you do..

Suicide may not be the answer although, sadly, twenty four employees of France Telecom have killed themselves in the last 18 months. See the report here.

One employee stabbed himself in the middle of a meeting, but survived, another jumped out of the office window, very shocking and in France of all places, a country not known for a driving work ethic.

Raj and the local market

The story of Raj Rajaratnam's arrest was all over todays newspapers. Given the dearth of news that can be reported this story has provided much gristle to the media mill. Everyone, it seems, has an opinion to air or an axe to grind.

Nevertheless it was rather amusing to see the reaction of an official of the (local) SEC: "In the general sense of things we need to probe and find out whether any of the transactions Rajaratnam was involved were questionable, said an SEC official, who declined to be named. “There haven’t been any issues in the past (over his investments) but due to the new developments it is incumbent on our part to look at these issues afresh”. (from the Sunday Times).

Anyone who has any insight into the Colombo Stock Exchange will tell you that the local market runs on a healthy dose of price manipulation with more than a dash of insider trading thrown in. I believe the problems to be so rampant that investors here would be better served if these activities were decriminalised and the SEC disbanded with the resultant savings in costs passed on the investors in the form of lower transaction costs.

A body which allows the listing of Ponzi schemes on the market does not deserve to exist and apart from the persecution of innocents such as poor old Michael Mack who was hounded to his grave I have not seen a great deal of value added to investors.

Anyway, for the adventurous, tomorrow should be a good buying day.

Raj Rajaratnam, Founder of $3 Billion Galleon Group Hedge Fund, Arrested

It seems that Raj Rajaratnam, a large investor in the SL market has been arrested for insider dealing by the FBI. See this

This may be bad news for the local market if he has to liquidate his positions here.

9 financial signs of a cheating spouse

Saw an interesting looking article on the above topic here.

I don't think many of these are applicable to SL; for example "Income tax returns that reveal unexplained or previously unknown travel-related deductions" does not apply because there are no travel related deductions (and hardly any other deductions) that are allowed.

Credit cards are the main thing to watch for here. I was told by a bank employee that they have had several instances of trouble when verifying overseas usage on cards-the bank calls the contact number (which, unless the person has roaming, is a home number) to verify a transaction and it turns out that the spouse of the cardholder is not aware of the trip.

Credit card statements also leave a trail, as do phone bills and info on both is much sought after by jealous lovers trying to nail down an infidelity.

On maintaining a separate bank account- this I find surprising, I would expect most people to continue with their own individual bank accounts even after marriage, in addition to having a joint account. I know someone who closed everything and put all her money in a joint account and lost a packet when her husband left. Sharing is the key in marriage, but don't the individuals continue with at least a part of their former lives and their bank accounts? What is the usual practice with managing money post-marriage for couples here?

Random Questions

1. How much does cricket contribute to SL's GDP? There are tidy sums of money from television and advertising rights to player fees to ICC grants that flow in. Support services include coaching and supply of equipment. Its a fairly small but rapidly growing industry. Does anyone care to hazard a guess as to its size or the number it employs?

2. What is driving the demand in the local FMCG sector? Companies are experiencing double-digit volume growth, what drives this? Some people guess that it is a switch from imported products (due to the high duties), some of it is probably due to increased supply to the East. Today I heard a novel explanation: soldiers pay. The government pays the army quite well now and increasing amounts are being sent home to their families in the villages and this is causing a change in consumption patterns. Does anyone have any other explanation and/or harder data?

3. Are the leasing companies the next on the list of financial institutions in trouble? The finance companies, heavily involved in the property trade, have already had their little crisis. With yards full of repossessed vehicles and a collapsing vehicle market are they now tottering?



javascript:void(0)

What am I?

Four months

Four different choirs

Two churches of different denominations

Oh what a wandering minstrel, have I become.

A soldier of fortune, all for the price of a song.

Silly radio commercials

My mind is being assaulted by a number of very silly radio commercials:

1. The wheels of the bus go round and round (Arpico advertising some promotion)
2. 100 items lower than the lowest price (Keells claiming they have lower prices)
3. Dulux half a litre free with every four litres.
4. Airtel's long cock-and-bull story about a marriage proposal (international phone calls).

These tell me a few things:

1. Sheer desperation on the part of the companies, some gimmick, any gimmick to try and push sales. The reasoning seems to be: 'the war's over, lets tap the optimism and get the sales up'.
2. A complete lack of ideas as far the agencies responsible for the production of the ads. Reasoning on the lines of 'we need to get the ad done by xx, whats the first thing that comes to mind....'

Incidentally, all the above have to do with price. I keep telling marketing guys if cutting prices is the only way you can grow, then why do we need you???

TGIF.

Difficulties with foreign visas

Heard that some people have had difficulty obtaining visas, especially from the UK. I know the UK has been tightening up on visas since the markets crashed last year but some of the stories I have heard have been pretty bad; of students being asked to show Rs.8-9m in their own bank accounts (not their parent's accounts), of a senior businessman who has traveled extensively in Europe and the US being denied a business visa until intervention by another business associate.

Does anyone have any stories to share? My purpose is to understand the difficulties early before wasting money on visa application fees.

I can see clearly now....

The frames of my spectacles have needed replacement for some time, but I had not got around to doing it. I'd been thinking about it for more than six months, when finally catching a free long weekend, decided to go and check a frame out last Saturday.

My eye's are pretty bad and the trouble is that when I take my glasses off to try a new frame on, I can't see what it looks like in the mirror until my nose is almost jammed against the glass, which is why I always end up choosing some horrible frame so this time I took a friend along, to help me decide.

As a matter of routine, I got my eyes checked (on the little machine) as well and the guy in the shop said my eyesight had improved a lot. He double checked by getting me to read the letters off a card placed at a distance (the old fashioned way of testing eyesight) and it still showed a big improvement. He wanted me to get my blood sugar checked and I decided to go to a proper eye surgeon as well.

To cut the long story short, my eyes have improved by about 50% and when I put on my new glasses it was amazing. I could see so much detail, traffic lights, number plates, the speedometer on the dashboard even the gravel on the road - everything was pin-sharp. I could see faces the small photographs hanging on the wall without peering at it.

My eyesight has probably been changing for about a year at least, I don't know how I managed to get by thus far. I cursing and wondering if by wearing my high powered lenses I actually weakened the eye further.

The optometrist was amazed that I did not seem to have noticed much discomfort; there were the odd difficulties but I thought it was overwork, stress, etc.

Anyway, I shall be testing my eyes more regularly and with any luck can move to lower powered glasses in another year.



ps. My eye's used to be -6 and -5.5; now they are -3 and -3.5.

Iran to import petrol from Venezuela

Iran has just entered into an agreement to import petrol from, Venezuela.

This may surprise a few people but Iran's decrepit oil industry lacks refining capacity so they export crude oil and import refined fuel. Hang on a minute, is'nt Iran the country that is helping us to build a brand new refinery in Colombo??? Lets hope we don't end up with a another Mihin Air.

Anyway, Iran exports crude and imports refined oil, but why go halfway across the world to import petrol when there is plenty of it nearby? Presumably its a super deal, which probably means that the poor Venezuelan is about to subsidise Iran's oil bill, just so that it boosts their leader's ego and sphere of influence? Or perhaps its case of the two countries concerned being rather short of friends, which has driven them to each others arms? Hang, on, hang, these are our friends, right?

The dead music of living composers

Just returned from the SOSL Young Performers concert and the opening piece, something by a local girl aged 22, set off a train of thought. It was quite a pleasant little overture but nothing particularly memorable about it.

This is the fundamental issue that I have with modern Classical (or 'Serious') music: the lack of melody. Melody was abandoned as being unnecessary somewhere in the early twentieth century and was replaced by the modern "musical idea" which is (s far as I can tell) a random collection of notes. It is quite possible to construct symphonies, sonatas and even operas on the basis of these musical ideas and this is precisely what the successors to the classical tradition went on to do. Not surprisingly, the resultant 'music' is quite incomprehensible to the average listener. It is not listened to, although endured occasionally in concerts while waiting for other, more approachable pieces to be played.

We are now almost at the close of the opening decade of the twenty-first century and looking back to the last century, can we name the great composers of the previous century? A handful of names comes to mind : Prokofiev, Britten, Strauss, Rachmaninov and others of their age, almost none from the second half of the century.

What of Glass, Stockhausen, Antheil, McCabe or Lloyd? Most would hardly have heard of them, and those that do, would probably recall any encounter with their music with a shudder.

The criticism of the lack of melody is not new, Thomas Beecham regularly railed against it, famously noting that if an opera cannot be played by an organ grinder, it's not going to achieve immortality. He also suggested that composers should write tunes that chauffeurs and errand boys can whistle.

The musical establishment chose to ignore the advice and pursue its sterile experiments in music minus melody with the result that modern music has lost its audience completely. It survives as an academic exercise, with learned professors, fellow composers and other musicians weighing in on its merits and demerits while the public continues to clamour for the music of the Old Masters; the still-living music of long dead composers while conspicuously ignoring the dead music of their living peers.

Camerata Musica Performance, 25th July 2009

20/20 cricket

I have not watched a cricket match in ages but was forced to watch the final of the 20/20 cricket tournament last Sunday.

It made a pretty poor impression on me. For a start, the game is too short for any real buildup of excitement. A 45 or 50 over game is of decent enough size to allow for a certain amount of strategy. The original world cup matches were of 60 overs duration, which in my opinion were perfect for a championship tournament. Twenty overs is just too little. I have seen more excitement in 6 a side cricket than in the 20/20 matches, indeed six overs a side is a decent size (the Hong Kong sixes is packed with excitement)for a quick match; 20 over falls between two stools and is pretty lame.

Second, I did not see one single stroke of grace or beauty in the whole match (I started watching in the 12th or 13th over so not sure if anything decent was played before this). In fact the stroke making was positively ugly, a standard not even seen in beach cricket.

I have liked watching bits of the IPL because they have nice cheerleaders but this tournament lacked even this.

The Sri Lankan cricket team may not have performed very well but they must have earned a decent fee; the team must rank as one of the top performing export industries these days.

On a different note, I wonder how long the IPL will last. Vast sums of money have been expended on the tournament and much of it lost to the sponsors (owners), the only chance a sponsor has of recouping the loss is if the team wins, which means a majority of the sponsors will lose their money.

I think a sponsors will continue to back an expensive sports event as long as it has the requisite glamour and prestige, with the ICC trying to cash in on the craze with an annual 'world cup' (the normal cricket world cup takes place once in four years) I wonder if the attraction of the 20/20 will be diluted, thus killing it off.

Luxury must be sold on the basis of rarity, age and, if possible arcane or exotic rules. There is only one Wimbledon and one Ascot.

Mind game

A really big made guy in a gym once said something to me : lifting weights is a mind game. I never quite understood what he meant until now.

After a lousy routine about three weeks ago went on a light but focused routine two weeks back and concentrated on 'thinking' the weights up.

Last week it paid off 185 x 6 x 3 on the bench, with no support. Not a record by any means, but by my own abysmal standards, not bad. Yesterday, on a different schedule did 175x5x3 with relative ease.

The only issue is I need to keep my mind clear and not get engrossed in conversations or think of anything else. It takes a bit of effort to constantly keep in focus, I think it probably comes naturally to sportsmen after years of practice.

Something else my trainer said made me think: he said the concentration and the focus that one needs to put into competitive sport will increase the capacity to handle stress. That seems to be happening to me, has anyone else experienced this?

I've got a little list

The search is on for the list and it reminded me of these lines:

As some day it may happen that a victim must be found,
I've got a little list — I've got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed — who never would be missed!

And apologetic statesmen of a compromising kind,
Such as — What d'ye call him — Thing'em-bob, and likewise — Never-mind,
And 'St— 'st— 'st— and What's-his-name, and also You-know-who —
The task of filling up the blanks I'd rather leave to you.
But it really doesn't matter whom you put upon the list,
For they'd none of 'em be missed — they'd none of 'em be missed!

Chorus.
You may put 'em on the list — you may put 'em on the list;
And they'll none of 'em be missed — they'll none of 'em be missed!

Listen to the song here.

It is rather funny.

Beautifil lips

These pictures are sure worth more than a thousand words each, right?

Who needs Hollywood when we have Bollywood? I find the Bollywood films far better anyway. Hollywood has been reduced to imitating video games whose characters and plots (?) they frequently use.

Kama Sutra

Apparently, Maharishi Vatsyayan has stated in his magnum opus "Kamasutra" that ....Sex is:


"Duty", if done with your Wife;

"Art", if done with your Lover;

"Education", if done with a Virgin;

"Business Transaction", if done with a Prostitute;

"Social Work", if done with a Divorcee;

"Charity", if done with a Widow, and;

"Sacrifice", if done with your own Hand.

Thoughts on Iraq

One of the main reasons George W Bush invaded Iraq was to destroy Saddam Hussein's collection of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). I don't know whether the term was precisely defined but they include chemical, biological, nuclear weapons and the like.

It was all a big mistake and one that could have been easily avoided had GWB listened closely to one of his core support groups: the National Rifle Association(NRA).

Gun crime is a serious problem in America and the NRA has succeeded in blocking legislation to control guns on the argument that "guns don't kill, people do".

All Saddam had to do was contact the NRA and whisper listen, WMD don't kill, people do...

Jester goes to town in Tonga

Now a Court Jester (like myself) needs a Court to perform. There are not many monarchies around but it seems that one of my fellow traveler's found employment in the court of Tonga.

Tonga is a Pacific Island archipelago, which is just the sort of place where crazy things are bound to happen and where I would dearly love to retire. Sunshine, beaches, beautiful women and a happy-go-lucky island culture.

To return to the story, the King of Tonga hired a jester. The jester claimed to be the only one in full time employment jestering (or gesturing or is it gesticulating?) or whatever that jester's do.

The king then puts the jester in charge of a $26m trust fund. Good grief!

Kings are nutty, but why on earth does one hire a jester and put him in charge of a trust fund. Turns out the jester was a retired banker (?? bloody hell this was before the credit crunch. Now I guess it would not be so surprising, but tells you what sort of people bankers really are). I've always had a bit of a low opinion of bankers, to tell you the truth.

The jester's name was Bogdonoff, which is the most suspicious sounding name that I have come across, sounds a hell of a lot like Madoff. Investments were made through the jester's company company Wellness Technologies (!).

Anyway, the King accused the jester of mismanaging the trust, investing unwisely and taking inflated commissions. He also cheated King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV and his government out of the money the country made from selling citizenship to Hong Kong Chinese people ahead of the 1997 handover of the former British colony to Chinese rule.

Its gets even funnier. Some $20m of the fund's money allegedly evaporated after Mr Bogdonoff invested it in life assurance for the terminally ill.

Who in the name of hell sells life insurance to the terminally ill? Why do the insurance companies make you take a battery of tests before selling life insurance? Because they want you to LIVE, not die. They never make money if you die early and will never sell you a policy if you are likely to die soon. The deal with life insurance is that they pay your family money if you die accidentally, otherwise the insurance companies will be broke.

Anyway it all ended happily with the jester settling out of courts for $1m. Presumably he retired rich and happy.

Hmm.. Wonder when the next plane leaves for Tonga?

Full story here.