I'm ditching my Macbook Pro and iPad next year..

Microsoft unveiled their Surface tablet yesterday. It look delicious!  This is the first time in about 7 years that I've been definitely tempted by a Windows-run device.

I love my Apple devices for their functional simplicity, seamless integration and great design.  When I update my Contacts on one device, all 3 are updated either by direct connection or via iCloud.  I love my Macbook Pro because it just works.  Took me a while to warm up to the iPad but I'm getting there.  My wife grumbles about my iPhone and she's right, it's the real love of my life. Aside the obvious uses, it's my primary e-reader, sat-nav, iPod, expenses tracker, diary, dictionary, camera, etc.  It helps that I run my wireless network on the Apple Time Capsule, which quietly backs up everything each hour.

However, I have my frustrations.  My work requires mobility and I'd love to have full computing power on the go, in a convenient package.  So I'd ditch my laptop quicker than you could say "Jobs" if I could.  My ideal computing device would be the iPad with genuine Microsoft Office app and 1 or 2 USB ports to take an external hard drive or, at least, a flash drive.  It would help if Apple allowed the Flash player on their devices so that one could get full functionality from all websites.

I've been looking at Microsoft's Surface on the internet all morning and it seems to tick all my boxes.  It's built to work! It will run on Windows 8, have a full Microsoft Office suite designed for it, a USB port, 128GB hard disk space, what looks to be a great, full QWERTY keyboard and it's great to look at.  All this in an iPad-sized package.  Being Windows, there will probably be issues of reliability and many more viruses than an Apple user usually worries about but hey, welcome to proper mobility.  As usual, I'll let it come out, assess it practically for 6 months or more and then decide.  But I'm excited already.

Mopping up excess liquidity...

There's a report in the Graphic today that the Bank of Ghana has mopped up GHS1.2bn in excess liquidity.  Good luck to them, perhaps even well done.

1. However, my stupid mind just wonders why it's only every 4 years, in election years, that we have excess liquidity?  
2. Is it that the intervening years are so good that by the fourth year, Ghanaians have more cash than we know what to do with?
3. Seeing that excess liquidity could result from too much money in the pockets of people desperate to consume but could also be attributed to changes in production and investment decisions of businesses, should we always apply the mop? Especially as this has never arrested inflation and currency depreciation in the election years anyway?
4. If there really is excess liquidity but it's due to cautious production and investment decisions as businesses protect themselves against 'election risk', shouldn't the Govt and BoG focus on boosting business confidence rather than a "mop-up"?  If businesses are warehousing capital, whether in Ghana or offshore, does a "mop-up" by the BoG not make capital even more scarce and, consequently more expensive, with knock-on effects on inflation as still-operating businesses pass on the higher cost of funds to customers?
5. Should politicians begin to realise that the bedrock of every modern economy is business and household confidence?  The focus should perhaps be on "mopping up" anything that affects this confidence?

Should a person be congratulated when he's done the wrong thing well?

Hmm...sometimes...sometimes...

I'm going to mop up some Kofi Brokeman for lunch!

Wedding pictures

Hilarious!  Sorry for the poor picture quality though.

Theatre at SOS HGIC

The student cast taking a bow at the end of a truly excellent staging of Moliere's Tartuffe. Great performance. Happy to be here.

Hermann-Gmeiner Art Exhibition

I'm attending and art exhibition at the SOS HG International College. Some of the art works by the students are impressive!