Serendipity 💜🇰🇪

Mama Champagne. Lawyer. Mother. Grandma. Widow. Foodie. Pearls. Carpe Diem KE🇰🇪💜

[Serendipity 💜🇰🇪 @MammaChampagne]

To retirement 🥂
Thank you @zakheem_rajan 🙏

[Zakheem Rajan - The Paparazzi @zakheem_rajan]

Dear Chief Magistrate Lucy Ambasi,
As you retire, I wish you all the very best. You served as a compassionate Judicial Officer - donating a personal laptop to Busia Women Prison to support virtual hearings at the height of COVID-19. A legacy of service beyond the bench. 🙏🏽

[Christine Lagarde @Lagarde]

Just to avoid any social media chatter: the plasters on my face are due to a small surgery earlier in the week.

Follow doctor’s orders and get your skin checked regularly!

[Finance Historian @BoardLotSultan]

"These Kenyans were STEALING American identities, applying for student loans, then sending that money back to KENYA"

🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

[The Farmercist @CalebKaruga]

CAUTION ⚠️
I admit that I don’t know much about Chili farming, having failed spectacularly after leasing six acres in Sagana with friends where we got conned by the seed supplier.

The current craze around Chili farming is concerning because the issue of a reliable market keeps cropping up (pardon the pun) every time.

Seedling & seed sellers are the ones making the most money from newbie Chili farmers…
Approach with caution. Stay guided.

[Serendipity 💜🇰🇪 @MammaChampagne]

Cruise ship retirement cancelled.

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

Picture selling your house to live on a cruise ship for the next 15 years. Two years in, the ship docks in Cambodia and the company tells everyone to get off.

That just happened to about 200 people. And at today's fuel prices, the $120,000 they paid for a cabin covers as little as 15 months of fuel.

The ship is the Villa Vie Odyssey. It was built in 1993, sat in storage through Covid, and a Florida startup bought it for about $13 million. Their pitch was simple. You buy your cabin up front, starting around $120,000, you pay a monthly fee starting at $1,750 a person, and the ship sails around the world nonstop for 15 years.

The trouble started way before anything went wrong. The company says fuel was running about $1,800 per cabin per month before this year. So someone living alone in a cheap cabin was paying less each month than it cost just to fuel the average cabin, and that's before you feed anybody, pay 156 crew, or fix anything on a 33-year-old ship.

Then the Iran war kicked off in February and fuel went through the roof. In parts of Asia the company says it's now $6,000 to $8,000 per cabin per month.

And it gets worse, because a ship burns about the same fuel whether it's packed or half empty. The Odyssey can hold 650 passengers. It pulled into Cambodia with 203 on board, so the fuel for all those empty cabins was getting covered by the people who actually showed up.

If you were on the ship, you could probably feel it coming. One resident told the AP they'd been hit up for fuel money every two to four weeks. When a company that sold you a fixed price starts passing the hat that often, it's usually running out of road.

Now the company says it'll spend 60 days working on a "restructuring and recapitalization." If you paid six figures up front for years of service that just stopped, that phrase should worry you, because people who prepaid usually end up near the back of the line behind the lenders.

Most of these folks were promised 15 years on that ship, and they got a little over two.

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

Picture selling your house to live on a cruise ship for the next 15 years. Two years in, the ship docks in Cambodia and the company tells everyone to get off.

That just happened to about 200 people. And at today's fuel prices, the $120,000 they paid for a cabin covers as little as 15 months of fuel.

The ship is the Villa Vie Odyssey. It was built in 1993, sat in storage through Covid, and a Florida startup bought it for about $13 million. Their pitch was simple. You buy your cabin up front, starting around $120,000, you pay a monthly fee starting at $1,750 a person, and the ship sails around the world nonstop for 15 years.

The trouble started way before anything went wrong. The company says fuel was running about $1,800 per cabin per month before this year. So someone living alone in a cheap cabin was paying less each month than it cost just to fuel the average cabin, and that's before you feed anybody, pay 156 crew, or fix anything on a 33-year-old ship.

Then the Iran war kicked off in February and fuel went through the roof. In parts of Asia the company says it's now $6,000 to $8,000 per cabin per month.

And it gets worse, because a ship burns about the same fuel whether it's packed or half empty. The Odyssey can hold 650 passengers. It pulled into Cambodia with 203 on board, so the fuel for all those empty cabins was getting covered by the people who actually showed up.

If you were on the ship, you could probably feel it coming. One resident told the AP they'd been hit up for fuel money every two to four weeks. When a company that sold you a fixed price starts passing the hat that often, it's usually running out of road.

Now the company says it'll spend 60 days working on a "restructuring and recapitalization." If you paid six figures up front for years of service that just stopped, that phrase should worry you, because people who prepaid usually end up near the back of the line behind the lenders.

Most of these folks were promised 15 years on that ship, and they got a little over two.

[Christine Lagarde @Lagarde]

I have just informed my colleagues that I will step down as @ECB President on 7 February 2027.

It has been a source of great pride to serve this institution.

I thank all of those who have supported me on this journey over the past seven years.

[✈ Bubbly @ChampagneKe]

Also managed to finish this which I started after the #NanyukiBookFestival. I kinda preferred the book over the movie. It had more detail especially the ending and the date of the Dr. Definitely worth the read #ChampagneInABook

[✈ Bubbly @ChampagneKe]

Sat down and decided I would finish this book by @Mukami_writes today! Loved it. So glad I got to read her debut novel and I honestly CANT WAIT to read more of her work! #ReadKenyanAuthors #ChampagneInABook

[Charles Onyango-Obbo @cobbo3]

Succession jitters send Uganda’s elite house-hunting in neighbouring Nairobi.
https://t.co/DdsVvCTE06

[Citizen TV Kenya @citizentvkenya]

Yvonne Okwara Signs Off
#CitizenExplainer @YvonneOkwara

[Ngao Wilson @_ngaowilson]

BIG!

The High Court sitting in Milimani has agreed with us and quashed the Kenyan government’s directive to indefinitely suspend the registration of refugees of Ethiopia and Eritrean origin.

BIG win for International and refugee law!

[CooperBaggs 💰🍞 @edgaralandough]

Your parents won’t be here to watch you grow old. Your partner never knew the little child you once were. And your children may never truly realize how young you were when you raised them.

You are the only person who will witness every version of yourself, from the beginning until the very end. The child you once were, the person you are today, and the person you are still becoming.

So, be gentle with yourself. Take care of yourself.

[Polymarket @Polymarket]

BREAKING: Netanyahu's request to extend voting hours is officially rejected by Israeli election commission.

[Admyral47 @admyral47]

The Court has today convicted a driver and his tout for the murder of a passenger.The deceased was thrown out of the moving matatu by the tout after a fare dispute. This should serve a lesson to rogue matatu crew.

[GINA DIN @gina_din]

Watch Obama work a crowd. He knows when to make people laugh, when to pause and when to deliver the line that matters. He understands something every communicator should study: people must feel heard before they are ready to listen. That is the real power of his oratory. He knows his audience.#beyondtheballot

[Moe @moneyacademyKE]

The High Court has ruled that personal branding of projects funded by public resources violates the Constitution.

The court has ordered the removal of politicians’ names and personal branding from publicly funded projects

[Polymarket @Polymarket]

BREAKING: Flávio Bolsonaro has reportedly fled the country and is heading to the United States after losing Sunday's election to Lula.

[BRICS News @BRICSinfo]

JUST IN: 🇧🇷🇺🇸 Brazil's Flávio Bolsonaro reportedly flees to the US after losing the presidential election to Lula da Silva.

[Serendipity 💜🇰🇪 @MammaChampagne]

@mainat @dodmichaela No discrimination noted; great server dedicated to your table.

[Serendipity 💜🇰🇪 @MammaChampagne]

@Tokyo restaurant in Lavi, I had the most delicious sizzling shrimp in tepenyaki sauce and steamed rice ending the meal with macha cake.
Generous portions and it was sumptuous and well priced.
Great service too.