With my recent luck, if I avoid COVID, I’ll get sunstroke instead.
Events
Recalling the past and looking to the future with Penfolds
This week we’re on location in Bordeaux, the heart of French wine country, with one of the great names in Australia wine. Australian wine, you say? In Bordeaux? Well yes. I had better explain, though full details will follow in several weeks once a news embargo is lifted. I’m here in the centre of Bordeaux,
Read More
Events
Show time… from a distance
It almost feels like déjà vu looking at my colleagues’ daily update from Florida with the usual show diet of exhibitor photos, workshop speeches and social gatherings. Almost. Some of the exhibitors are wearing masks, something we would have considered weird at the equivalent show in 2019.
Read More
People
How Martin’s Block thrived through a pandemic
The flourishing of Martin’s Block coincides pretty much entirely with the sustained period of the pandemic. A beautiful reminder of the halcyon days that preceded this descent into a world covered by a deep black cloud.
Read More
Lifestyle
The greening of Twickenham
I can think of no better way to kick off the week in which Irish people around the world celebrate St. Patrick’s Day (17 March) than with a stirring rugby victory over England in Twickenham. Being there in person on a lovely spring afternoon on Saturday made the moment all the more special. Along with
Read More
Miscellaneous
From pea soup fog to the bleakest darkness
We must not forget the critical point that, whether you agree with the approach or not, the government here is trying to preserve the health and lives of its people
Read More
Travel
The Year of the Caged Tiger
Two legends in their own fields. But not even Novak Djokovic nor Colm McLoughlin could have had any idea of how the next two years would pan out.
Read More
Travel
Only three more sleeps until Christmas
Who would have possibly believed back then that most of the photos of people working in the travel retail community less than two years later would show them in masks?
Read More
Quirky
Twinkle Twinkle Little Earth – a timely tune from Sestus Omicron 3
“The closing four pages are so cataclysmic and catastrophic as anything I’ve ever done—the harmony bites like nitric acid – the counterpoint grinds like the mills of God.”
Read More
Lifestyle
Irish swarms, Aussie blitzes, and Plague Island own goals
Photos of a maskless (and clueless) Boris Johnson in a hospital ward just add to a widespread external perception that the UK is what the New York Times famously dubbed ‘Plague Island’.
Read More
Lifestyle
Avoiding the maelstrom while learning to live with COVID
As I write, two members of my team are suffering from COVID, caught in the maelstrom of the pandemic as it rages once again through the UK, where some 9.3 million people have suffered from the disease and almost 142,000 people have died.
Read More
Events
How China Duty Free Group is leading the virtual-physical charge
I like that George Soros quote “When you’re a catalyst for change, you make enemies – and I’m proud of the ones I’ve got.”
Read More
Events
Tales of Shelleys, Sabrage and Sunilage from Hong Kong
Sabrage is a highly skilled technique for opening a Champagne bottle with a sabre. Sunilage, on the other hand is a highly dangerous technique best avoided as this photo, almost the last one of Antares Cheng taken alive, and which resulted in Dom and Perignon becoming separate brands, reveals.