This Week at the HomePage

Coffee Culture:

In 1675 the King of England closed coffeehouses because he said they:

1. Encouraged sloth
2. Were cesspools of disease
3. Sapped men of their sex drive
4. Housed gambling dens

Check back next week for the answer!

The answer to last week's question (below) is #2--New York--While early American coffeehouses never became the literary hotbeds their European counterparts were (primarily because there weren't many professional writers in the Colonies), playing host to trials was a unique feature of New York coffeehouses. General assembly and council meetings were also held at coffeehouses.

In which city were coffeehouses used for court trials in the early 1700s?

1. London
2. New York
3. Vienna
4. Paris

Animal Facts:

This is the most amazing and heart warming story I have seen in a long time!

NAIROBI ( AFP ) - A baby hippopotamus that survived the tsunami waves on the Kenyan coast has formed a strong bond with a giant male century-old tortoise in an animal facility in the port city of Mombassa, officials said The hippopotamus, nicknamed Owen and weighing about 300 kilograms (650 pounds), was swept down Sabaki River into the Indian Ocean, then forced back to shore when tsunami waves struck the Kenyan coast on December 26, before wildlife rangers rescued him.  

Check out the rest of the story!

Only in Africa!

Imagine this! These are the numbers Zimbabweans need to know in this time of hyper-inflation.

Today in Zimbabwe, To be as wealthy as Bill Gates, at the moment you only need  ZW$1,680,000,000,000,000,000 (One quintillion six hundred and eighty quadrillion) or US$56,000,000,000. (US$ Fifty six billion) --small change if you wish to read on!!

The Hungarian Pengo during and just after World War II had hexillions. It cannot be confirmed if notes followed inflation all the way, or if the currency was revalued by dropping 0's like Zimbabwe, but values at one point reached 22 digits, being the world record. Gono, the head of the Zimbabwean National Reserve hasn't even got close yet, even if they get back the three zero's they lost, their $10 million note would only be a $10 billion note. A whopping 15 zeros to go to hit the hexillion, and sixty zeros to go to the zillion. Will they get there? It is estimated there could not have even been a decillion in circulation when the Hungarians scrapped the currency.

To give you an idea of the magnitude of these numbers, in US$ terms :

• If you had one hexillion dollars and shared it equally with every living person on earth (6,6bn people), each person would get US$151.5 trillion. It seems it is not possible to find out how much US $ is in circulation but the figure is likely to be no more than one quadrillion.. (15 zeros's)
• One quadrillion dollars in the world shared out equally would give every living person US$151,500. This is currently ZW$ Z$4,545,000,000,000, each (4.5 trillion zim dollars), or the value of a three bedroom house in Harare.
• Even if every living Zimbabwean was given this amount, it only totals Z$16,685,500,000,000,000,000 (16,6 Quintillion), This total is still three zeros short of one hexillion, which couldn't even buy the poor Hungarian a loaf of bread. RBZ would have to print 1,668,550,000,000 x ZW$10,000,000 notes. This would be 3,3 billion "bricks" of ten million dollar notes. (2,400,000 tons of notes, 80,000 x 30 ton trucks of paper.
• Even with 80% unemployment the average Zimbabwean needs a minimum of US$20 per month to survive (based on a loaf of bread per day). With a population of 13 million, to achieve this, Gono needs to have two quadrillion dollars in circulation (298 million x 10 million dollar notes, 300 tons of paper). This would give each person 16 notes each and will only be enough to buy them a loaf of bread each day for a month. THEY STILL HAVE $200,000 NOTES IN CIRCULATION.

I'm curious to know how much Dr. Juma (below) now charges for his services!

Home | About Us | Coffee & Tea | Menus | Computers | Events & Headlines | Artwork | Links | Contact Us