Loomnie

For those who are interested in knowing more about the economy (economics students included), this is a nice site you might want to bookmark. (http://whatiseconomy.com)

I was in Amsterdam over the weekend, and my friends persuaded me to see Wouter Hamel – not like I needed a lot of convincing though. I went with them to Paradiso to see the concert. Really nice stuff… tuneful, soulful and unassuming. I got home this evening, got on Youtube, and found that there was already a clip of part of the performance last night online. It is embedded below. Can you feel a bit of that stuff that can only be felt in a live concert?

If you ever have the time you can explore more from him at his website – www.wouterhamel.com

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.
By way of Planet Money.

BBC’s Forum – A World of Ideas

NPR’s Planet Money

I really, really love Ayemidun’s take on the arrested goat issue.

Dambisa Moyo says aid is a large part of the development problem. (Hat-tip to Jeremy).

Dealing with economic informality the Nigerian way.

They just love us don’t they? Now there are suggestions that we might be able to vote as from 2011.

Speak Igbo, live in America but not an American citizen? The U.S. Army wants you.

And some beauty from Esther’s blog.

I have been in London for a week now, busy working… at least most of the time. I got off the train at the Victoria station yesterday evening and decided to do something touristey. I started on Victoria street and walked towards the Westminster Abbey, then to the Palace of Westminster, took some picture of Big Ben, turned to the road where I could see the London Eye more clearly, took some pictures of it, then walked towards the Movieum, saw the notice that advertised a flight on the London Eye and thought, What the heck, let me do something cheesy touristey. I went in, got a ticket for the flight (still wondering why they call it a flight) and went up 135 metres above London. Granted, a night was not the best of times to do it, but if I didn’t do it then I had a feeling I would think too much about it and then not do it. Spur of the moment, you know. It was nice to be up the, mostly that is. There was a snogging French pair, a young and happy-looking American couple, an American lady, and me. I realised that being up 135 metres made me incredibly vulnerable…. what did I think?

When I got off I walked towards the Charing Cross station, and then crossed over to Trafalger square. I made a mental note to visit the National Gallery sometime later. At that point my friend called me to come over to Russel Square. I decided to walk it. I turned up from Trafalgar square towards Charring Cross Road, to Tottenham Court Road, and then I crossed to New Oxford Street. From there to the British Museum. Russel Square was not so far from the museum.

Some pictures are below, before someone says I am boring.

Big Ben at a little past 6 in the evening

Still Ben

In all its nightly glory

The London Eye

From up the eye

Higher up

Even higher up

A bit of the capsule that took us up

Someone should know that something is really wrong when a Cato Institute blogger quotes Naomi Klein, well sarcasm is not yet dead is what.

What do you need to solve America’s curent economic woes? Give two million Indians, Chinese and Koreans visas to the US and watch what they do.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the Managing Director of the Fund, says of an upcoming March conference on African economies in Dar-es-Salaam: Our shared objective is clear: to ensure that Africa not only weathers the immediate storm, but emerges from it stronger.

What happens when Mr Yar’adua sends Mr Babangida to represent himin Guinea?

What do erectile dysfunction and diabetes have in common?

A couple of weeks ago I discovered the National Public Radio’s This American Life podcast. Through that, I discovered the NPR’s pool of podcasts. I personally find the Jazz Profiles and Planet Money podcasts very nice. Of course, you can listen to them live if you live in the US. I find their model very interesting: many of the programmes are supported by listeners. The producers of those programmes make them and throw them out to the public, asking them for donations in order to continue running the programmes. I probably don’t need to add that if you want to have that kind of model you better have a damn good programme. Anybody thinks that could work in Nigeria?

Something related. A year after finishing at the university, a friend and I designed a TV programme that was modeled, loosely, after the BBC Worldservice‘s Outlook. I even had a meeting with the manager of a studio at Lekki, and we made out the budget for the pilot. We even made a list of potential sponsors, who would not place adverts but have their names mentioned as sponsors – something that I recently discovered that many NPR programmes do. We never started it, partly because I left for Uppsala for an MA. I should actually look for the synopsis, and probably post it on this blog. Maybe we could still work on it….

Naomi Klein on the similarities between 2002 Argentina and present day Iceland.
Akin on the Pfizer/Nigeria legal battle.
Was the recent Jos violence a religious violence? Check out this BBC podcast.
Who has the right to carry a Nigerian diplomatic passport? Next.
The world’s largest cybercafe? NigerianCuriosity

The advert:

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The deadline for applications is 27th February and the funding support pays UK/EU fees plus a research studentship stipend for 3 years (the 2009/10 stipend rate is £13,290).