What's Not Happening During the Russian World Cup

The loss of the pre-eminent position of Uruguay as a football powerhouse. At two World Cups for a population of 3.5m it has won almost 24 times more of these tournaments per capita than Brazil. Italy, its closest rival which won the trophy four times but which didn't qualify for Russia 2018, has 0.066 cup per million inhabitants. That's 8.6 times less than the homeland of Luis Suarez. The Mannschaft is in third place with four victories but would not have overtaken the Italians even if they had not crashed out of the group stage and gone all the way to get the prize from Vlamidir Putin on July 15. Blame it on its population which is more than a third larger.

This doesn't mean that there can't be any movement in the rankings. Indeed six of the countries who are in the knockout stage and have not won the World Cup yet have populations of less than 12m. That's small enough for any of them to take Italy's spot. Plus two of these countries, Croatia and Sweden, are the teams which have impressed the most so far. A sixth title for the Selecao – the favourite at the bookies – will not improve their fifth position. They will just get a bit closer to Argentina which they might meet in the semis.

As for Uruguay should it grab its third title it will increase its cup to population ratio to almost the level it was when it shocked Brazil in the Maracana in 1950. Finally it's been eight years since a new country last added its name to the select list of World Cup winners – the newest member of the eight-nation club joined twelve years after the seventh. That's not exactly the longest we've had to wait to see this group grow. 

Sithanen-like Budget Provides Plenty of Fuel for Fresh Voter Outrage

There's a couple of good things in the budget like the probationary driving licence and larger fines to roll back the sloppiness that had put us on a trajectory of record road fatalities – though it's better that the fines are a share of income to remove the regressiveness – but there's also plenty of stuff that's simply not acceptable. Seriously the Lepep government now plans to sell our citizenship to attract more non-productive FDI which has been defacing Mauritius for more than a decade? 

Government needs cash for sure. But that is easy to obtain. It can add a few brackets at the top of the tax structure and things will start improving as public finances will regain a firmer footing and government won't have to spend that much time getting creative about budgetary numbers. It is also ridiculous to increase the custom duty on sugar more than five times to try to shelter that dead industry and at the same time make it easier for our greatest asset, our people, to see their human capital under-utilised or worse totally go to waste by 'opening-up' our labour markets in the most irresponsible manner.

Nice try fooling the middle-class people with the small tax break. But they know very well that they have already paid for it with abusive petrol and electricity prices for so many years. They can also compute our GDP growth in USD to refine their estimate of the bean-counting that has been going on and pause to think which pressing problems have been solved during the past three and a half years. They will surely realise that Ramgoolam, a neoliberal just like XLD and Berenger, would not have done any better. And remember that they will be voting soon.

SEG Found to Have At Least Two More Giant Flaws

SEG stands for the Sithanen Electoral Galimatia and the first giant flaw is that government formation could take a lot more time after the polls reveal their secrets. How much more time? Well you can look at some of the recent experiences of countries where the electoral setup is either a proportional representation (PR) system or a mixture of PR and First Past The Post (FPTP). This is summarised in the table below. So including a dose of PR might leave us without a new government for as long as six months. This compares pretty unfavourably to the seven days it took us here in 2014.

And there is worse. If no government is able to emerge from a general election for a given period of time we may need to vote again as it's going to happen in Italy soon. Plus I believe the cost of a general election is in the neighbourhood of Rs300m. The cost is even greater for sticking with a caretaker government in the meantime as it would not feel it has popular support to carry out important work. Mauritius cannot afford so much uncertainty. That's for sure. God bless our FPTP system.

What about at least another giant flaw? Stay tuned.

Dis Top Zur Pu Prezant Bidze

No. 10. Uvertir kup di mond

No. 9. Dimans Pak

No 8. Maha Sivaratri

No. 7. La Nwel

No. 6. Fet de mor

No. 5. Divali

No 4. Zur kot ena deliz

No 3. Le 31 Desam

No 2. Zur kot ena siklonn klas kat

Ek pli top zur pu prezant bidze se

No 1. Le 12 Mars

No Shakira Song For The Russian World Cup

It's instead going to be Nicky Jam with Will Smith and Era Istrefi. A bit sad about that? No problem. Here are the three contributions of the Colombian mega star which you massively enjoyed: Germany 2006; South Africa 2010 and Brazil 2014.

The other good news is that she has recovered from a vascular lesion and is now making good on her promise to enjoy every single night. Hmm, this reminds me of something I heard a while ago.

No Better Day To Ban Plastic Bottles

We know drinking from them is no good for our health. Or for mother earth. A cheaper and healthier alternative is to use old glass bottles at home to store boiled water. It tastes better too. You can even label it with your name. That's a much better decision as a citizen of a country of 1.3 million people and about nine amputations every week than to have a personalised can of soda. You can also buy a container and carry water with you when you go play.

Little things like this will make us more respectful of the environment and make spaceship Earth last a lot longer. Unless you are in a hurry to go live indoors on Mars forever. Like an idiot.

Why Did Zidane Leave Real?

Kind of surprising to see him go as all we heard him say on the topic of quitting after winning the Champions League (CL) was that he didn't think CR7 would leave Madrid. Now that Zinedine has left one might recall that Bale said he needs to play every week. We might add the two facts together and think he was shown the door because the owners of the club probably value Bale and Ronaldo more than the manager. But there are reports that Christiano is devasted by the decision of his coach. But it's true that devastations come in all kinds of stripes.

For sure winning three CL in a row had never been done before but Real grabbed only one La Liga title in the last four seasons – the other three went to its arch-rival, the Barça. And they finished third in the last season. Plus they did look quite vulnerable against Juventus and not very impressive in the final before Mo was brought down. These big clubs don't tolerate dips in performance for too long.