Jordan Belfort Interview to Sunday Times

For those that are big fan of the 2013 movie called "The Wolf of Wall Street" or those that work in the city, will no doubt have heard of the famous (former) stockbroker called Jordan Belfort.

Confirmation is that Belfort cheated investors out of $200m (£120m) as chairman of the now defunct broker Stratton Oakmont. Jailed in 2003 and ordered to pay investors back to the tune of $110m.

Key highlights from the interview which Jordan Belfort did with The Sunday Times on 1st June 2014 edition.

• Wealth portfolio is 30% in cash, and currently does not own a property
• Preference is investments in unlisted Business
• No wallet, but holds some cash. He uses a lot of Credit cards, but pays all off at the end of the month in order to avoid interest payments
• The only restriction he has imposed on himself is that he no longer can own a brokerage firm
• Previous weakness was hookers and drugs. Now it's travelling. 
• Property is good retirement but it should be part of a balanced portfolio
• Highest loss of $5m - $6m was from a investment in stores called Dollar Time. It failed due to bad leases, located in bad locations, had a crappy inventory, and suffered from bad management

You need to "respect it" was his response when the interviewer (Ali Hussain) asked what's the most important lesson you have learnt about money?

Kevin Hart Show in London Town

Through one of the Meetup group which am part of, was lucky enough to find out that kevin Hart's "Let Me Explain" film was going to be shown at the cinema, one and only show, after which he was going to come on stage for a Q&A session.

From what I could gather, he used the show to address some personal questions/rumours that was flying round at the time. Came out straight about his recent divorce, jokingly, but there was something serious about it. Good point he made was that he is very bad at lying. When he was caught cheating on the mother of his kids, he could have just sat down with her and for them to work things out, but one lie to another other meant the relationship was doomed for failure. In one of the youTube clips about the show, she stated there was nothing bitter about it, and they remain good friends.

Saw the show at the Cineworld 02 arena, in the Superscreen room. The screening was actually sold out. Show was slated to commence at 7:30pm, but think it actually only kicked off around 8:45pm, but again that's African time for you.

F**k yourself/that, N***a!, and go kill yourself were just some of the intense words used during the film. I sense some people would have taken offence to it, but at the same time I expect the offended people to already know what there were coming to see.

During the Q&A session, the way he answered questions and conducted himself shows that he is humble, gracious as a person (pointed out by one of the friend I went with) and damn right funny guy. In my view (and on rare occasions), he did not actually give a sensible answer to some questions.
A lot of the questions came in from the viewers via twitter #LetMeExplainUK and some came from the room.

Holi Festival Video

Happen to stumble upon this video today, and just could not resist keeping for future reference. Amazing work done by the filming crew

Lagos Population Growth Forecast

An article by The Economist titled "Huddled Masses" caught my attention on Google+, and here is a record of the comment I left on it. Couple of people did made the statement that solution is birth control. 

I for one think the population of Lagos state, Nigeria, will be 'already' more than that 11.7m forecast[but guess being called forecast means it's never expected to be accurate]. And good point by one of the contributors who highlighted that the pop growth in Lagos is [mostly] down to people coming to look for better chance of survival in a country that has little for it's people.


One of the major reason for creating Abuja (Capital of the Nigeria) was to ease the population in Lagos, but guess the hustling and bustling is something people are not willing to easily give up to migrate to Abuja. 


Those that think birth control is the solution to all problems, should please understand the main reason for the population growth(/concentration) before suggesting such ideas [though in some cases, they might be correct, but not all situation are the same]. Nationwide, Nigeria is a very big country, that I personally don't see as having population growth problem. We will no doubt require good visionaries with good urban planning knowledge. 


Once Nigeria stop having 'rulers' and start having 'leaders', those with vision, then we will have a better chance of growing. It will no doubt requiring creating industries in other states, with good transportation link into Lagos (The Financial centre), here am referring to something like Holland (Amsterdam to be specific). This remains a fantasy, but hopefully one day it will become a reality, one day. 


The various diversities (Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Chinese, British, Poor, Rich, crazy, community spirits, etc) are what makes Lagos a unique place.