OMG 60+Php na lang ang palitan nang GBP!

Eeeccckkk

Baka mamulubi kami pag-uwi namin sa April.

Tumataginting na: OH NO!

Lahat siguro nang OFW dito sa UK yan ang daing last week.

As early as September, almost everyone was pointing it out but Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling were having none of it. Ba’h recession! No one was admitting it. Well not until October when they said it’s “likely” to happen. Gees you think?

November the news topics were no longer inflation but a “more worrying” deflation (one newscaster said).

December, I don’t know if there was anything news worthy for me. Job losses were mounting, banks were closing and governments around Europe were forking our billions of EURO into ailing financial establishments. Well, I guess in December the tone of “we should have joined the EURO” was more audible.

Now in January, Gordon Brown’s finally admitted he failed to foresee the economic failure.

I’m not going to castigate Brown. It’s not his fault. It’s a collective problem, nationwide and on a global-level. To be honest about it, I didn’t understand how we can be affected by the US subprime problems. I just learnt that the UK’s number 1 moneymaking machine is the financial services and our number 1 client is the US. It’s not the only cause but that’s the main problem. The secondary problem is at least the US still has production, the UK? Well. even the English football clubs are owned by foreigners.

Our financial statements probably reflects the country’s economic state, both in the red. But that doesn’t mean we should just give up and wait for the axe to fall.

We fight. We think positive and know this will blow over and we’ll be fine.

It’s not the end of the world. I don’t understand why the media and some politicians (for want of airtime?) keeps playing up the drama and insists on beating people down.

A minister said she sees some green shoots of recovery. And they say she’s out of touch or mildy out of her mind when another bad news was reported in the market. Then they proceeded to dig into her personal life, and how she apparently mistreats her underlings.

Then very recently another person made the same ‘mistake’ for saying he sees a “light at the end of the tunnel” and again he’s supposedly out of touch because it was just published we hit the record high in unemployment.

What do these people want? Will it better for the government, or anyone for that matter, to say “that’s it, we’re done for”?

It’s such a defeatist attitude. I was going to write: “I expected better from the English”, but it should be: I expected better from this powerful nation.

Friday evening I picked up the London Lite, my fave free paper.

One of the “smaller” items inside screamed “FIrst genetically modified baby to be born”. Wow. Man has gone so far. We landed on the moon, we developed and used nuclear bombs, battled HIV… now we’re still playing god.

Most parents will do anything for their children. We all have the tendency to give our children the chances and opportunities we never had. We want the best life possible for them. We pray when they are sick, we plead to the Almighty not to let our children be sick “again”.

I pray my son doesn’t develop asthma, which runs in my family. I pray that he doesn’t develop allergic rhinitis, which I battle with every year.

I know these pale in comparison to the big ‘C’ and yes I would pray he doesn’t get that as well.

But would I go as far as requesting his genes modified like a lab rat? Perhaps because I don’t have to, I can say “No”.

Goodluck to the family, but I do hope this “power” is not misused. Frankly, I am hoping they don’t do it again. It feels so wrong.

News here.

I was fighting back tears on the Tube yesterday morning as I read about Baby P’s months of torture at the hands of his mum, her boyfriend and even their lodger(!). It was unbearable and I find it hard to believe that anyone can be so cruel to a helpless child.

The articles say that baby P was always smiling. In his young mind, he probably thought pain and neglect is the norm.

Of course politicians are quick to react, dailies printing headline news, people demanding justice. But the as the Telegraph said this is not the first time it’s happened and it’s almost laughable it happened twice in the Haringey borough yet no one wants to take responsibility. The head of the child services even points a finger at the last doctor to see baby P before his death…

So many people failed him. His mum. His dad who takes care of him every few days. His neighbours. The government officials paid for by our taxes to protect him.

I cried to hubby last night, I couldn’t put into words why. Hormonal siguro ‘ko. To sleep better I prayed for his soul. But the nagging feeling returned this morning and I just had to hug pogiBoy before I left the house.

Apparently not.

At lunch, my colleague mentioned how one woman got on her bus on the way to work and started talking about the Obama’s election. A conversation started right there and then between complete strangers up until my officemate got off.

On the way home, a black woman got on my carrriage and just announced cheerfully “I am so happy”. Some people smiled back, one Asian guy asked why. She talked about the historic moment in the US and how this change should trigger not just political or economic change but individual change. Like saying “hi” and “smiling” at strangers, being courteous and generous. She said there’s no reason why the world cannot fight poverty if everyone just pitched in. Of course she says all these in kilometric sentences. But you get the drift.

At near 9pm, not everyone’s in the mood to chat so most of her lament fell on deaf ears. To which she asked to no one “Why is it that when someone acts like I did just now, being friendly and all, people thinks you’re crazy?” I said to her the only statement I blurted the entire trip “it’s not the norm”.

But she got it right. Wouldn’t it be great if Obama’s election triggers something even more meaningful for the entire world? Camaraderie and hope.

I don’t know how long the feeling of euphoria will last. I don’t know if Obama is aware of his election’s effect not just on the political scene. I don’t know if he’s really aware his success is a beacon not only for blacks but for everyone.

All eyes are on him and everyone will be watching, I hope he doesn’t disappoint.

——

As an aside all the UK dailies today published “souvenir” editions on the election. Election paraphernalia are selling fast on eBay. What does that tell you?

This morning I woke up early to catch the news, and there it was – Obama won!

I didn’t think he would, but I hoped. I’m not an American, I’m not a fan but his win means a lot to me. Parang message of hope. Sabi nang asawa ko yung campaign daw ni Obama parang campaign ni Erap. Read first before you balk at the thought.

The American people was sick of Bush and the current state of affairs in their economy. They wanted change and probably even if it was Clinton on the Democrat bill, they would still have gone for her. With Obama you get the sense of Robin Hood coming to protect the poor and uphold social justice. E di ba ganun din ang ticket ni Erap?

Anyway, for me his win made “race equality” really tangible. I found it hilarious and refreshing to see videos of his extended family in Kenya celebrating. An American president’s election being celebrated in Africa and even here in London.

I’m not black but I feel like celebrating. Nakikisakay.

Imagine in the last stretch of this decade we have a Scottish UK Prime Minister, a young black guy F1 champion, and now a black American President.

I’m happy that we now have very visible examples to our kids. You can do anything, be anything no matter where you came from, as long as you “want it bad enough”.

It’s a big task for Obama and may God guide him.

Gordon Brown, the British PM, is under fire again. He should have realised this from the start, anything to do with genetic manipulation will be highly controversial & should be delicately handled. Instead the initial reaction from his camp was to disallow ministerial vote on the embryonic treatment which entails a hybrid human and animal embryo.

I have not been following the news lately so I’m not sure whether Brown’s controlled the threatened revolt.

But I have been asking myself, why is the thought of a possible cure to a lot of suffering people very abhorrent to me? When the first cloned sheep hit the news, I was disgusted and I feared the wrath of God will fall upon us. I have tried to reason with myself. I know the benefits of this scientific investigation. I pitied Christopher Reeves and sympathised with his campaign but I know deep inside I will never support it.

I feel horrible because on my own, I am condemning the afflicted to death and pain. And the thing all these are only in my head!

I carry so much guilt and my entire being seemed to recoil at the chance that I am trying to convince myself to side with the pro’s.

It has to do with my Catholic upbringing. It is ingrained in my being that anything that resembles an attempt to copy what should be a God-only privilege, is evil.

The media treatment and the doomsday type of films that ever dealt with cloning didn’t help either.

So today, although I understand the aim is good, I will say NO to cloning and fusing an animal gene with that of a human’s. For me, it’s taboo.

oohh but “taboo” is so naughty :-P

It was never going to be easy for Gordon Brown, for starters he’s Scottish. Okay maybe that one’s just my opinion, but we all know he’s going to live under Tony Blair’s shadow for a long time to come. In fact, according to news during his first few weeks in office his rating was lower than David Cameron*, the pompous elite Conservative Party’s Shadow to Brown, which encouraged the Tory to challenge him to a General Election (kind of a snap election). Obviously, Brown didn’t bite, which some will see as weakness. Don’t be fooled though, it’s not like there’s any real alternative.

Unfortunately for him, his first few months in office and his government’s immediately rocked by the Northern Rock saga.

Brown’s team decided to loan money to the sick bank and it caused uproar. Up to now they’re still trying to save it. I will not pretend to follow the current events in the UK (or anywhere else), so I do wonder why the UK government’s bothering to save this institution. I mean, shouldn’t they sort out the pensions crisis before saving some private organisation?

(more…

… and my heart is set on this!

It’s been difficult to keep the secret. I’ve been wanting to post about the big leap for days but I managed to still my fingers. Hubby has been encouraging me to buy my domain name. He shared my excitement. In fact, eversince I registered KWK.com he checked its progress constantly.

Well now, it’s up and running and all my blogspot posts & comments are here. There’s work to be done to clean up and re-shuffle a few things. I need to add my widgets, create my blogroll, etc. etc.

If not for my beautiful and gracious hostess’ help, this move would have been such a headache. Beng was kind enough to accommodate my requests and even made me my tailor-made banner! Thanks madam!

Some of you might have noticed already but I took a leaf off BatJay’s KT and thus the title “Kwentong Walang Kwenta“. I’m not as funny, as witty nor as pogi, but I do hope to stay a while.

Tuloy po kayo, wag nang mahihiya.

If you live in the UK or if you live to watch the goings-on in the money market, then you’re familiar with the problems reported with the financial giant Northern Rock. If not, then here’s the gist: Eventhough the Rock’s market is the UK, it was affected by the growing mortgage problems in the USA. Major lenders turned it down for a fund injection. BUT the Bank of England loaned them an undisclosed sum to tide them over (an unprecedented move). AND the Chancellor spoke to say that there’s no need to panic as they guarantee that the savings accounts are not affected by the problem at all.

Anyway, as expected the savings account holders were queueing around the UK, cashing in. The shares of Northern Rock continue to plummet. And a colleague and myself have been speculating whether we ought to buy some of those as a likely buyout can trigger an upsurge. Anyway I can go on & on about boring details & market news but that’s not what my post is about.

My corner of the office faces a Northern Rock branch. The morning of the news about their problems, I noticed a man taking pictures across the street. I didn’t think anything of it, our office is next to the gherkin so I assumed it was just another tourist. Then before I lunched I looked out again & I saw two photographes in the same spot as the first. Ah! So I whipped out my Nokia & took their pictures.

the photographers… I wonder how much they earn…

That was Friday. Then this morning, I saw a queue of mostly OAPs were already there! The queue would have grown longer had the branch remained shut for a while longer. By around lunchtime we saw staff giving away FREE coffee! I wanted to sprint & stand at the end of the queue for a while, freebies make me do strange things. The branch also put a burly doorman in front of the queue and a blonde woman just inside the main door.

the queue at around 730am

…and around 10am

I wonder what sight awaits me tomorrow?