While the team the Kiwis have curiously dubbed the OlyWhites has made the front pages of the New Zealand media today, they’ll disappear just as soon as news breaks of what an All Black star had for breakfast.
Lifestyle
Cheered up by Writers’ Tears and a visit to the D’oC
We may have become the first people in the world to drink Writers’ Tears accompanied by peanut butter on snack biscuits. But no feast prepared for a King could match the magic, nor the moment, of this combination.
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Travel
A free man in Busan but staying away from trains
We’re all on a kind of Train to Busan. That foul spreading monster called COVID-19 is of course the zombies and we, as individuals, companies and societies are all doing our best to survive the menace.
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Travel
Maintaining caution in Korea, becoming dumb & dumber in the UK
I’ve had so many sticks poked up my nostrils in recent weeks I’m starting to feel like Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels) after getting his nose plugged by Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) to stop his snoring in that priceless scene from ‘Dumb & Dumber’.
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Events
A heavenly view in Ystradgynlais and a 365 view of TFWA
This is just about as quiet an interim bureau as I have ever inhabited during the past 19 years, especially as it is one of those rare places in the UK that has no wi-fi signal, perhaps a sign from someone on high telling me I need to slow down.
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Lifestyle
Treasuring but moving on from the past
Nostalgia is a seductive but sometimes dangerous emotion. We can bask in it but we must also move on from it.
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Lifestyle
Raising an 11th anniversary toast to climbing Mount Difficulty
Each year on 9 June I gladly open another bottle, remembering that each vintage marks another anniversary of having reached the peak of this most difficult mountain.
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Lifestyle
“Travel Retail Safe – I’ve been vaccinated”
As a confirmed trypanophobic (someone who fears needles), I have never looked forward to nor enjoyed an injection (yes, it’s true) so much in my life. Heck, I can’t wait to get back to the place 21 days hence.
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Lifestyle
Blooming and flying symbols of optimism
Just as the Bauhinia blakeana flowers in winter so, eventually, will our industry bloom out of darkness.
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Lifestyle
So we beat on, boats against the current
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” I often cite the words of Nick Carraway, the narrator in The Great Gatsby, but never have they seemed more apposite than they do at this point in mankind’s history.
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Events
Getting rid of the rat and riding with the Ox
“The ox, in Chinese culture, is a hardworking zodiac sign. It usually signifies movements so, hopefully, the world will be less static than last year and get moving again in the second half of the year.”
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Lifestyle
Move over Moxie and Martin, your body double is in town
Courtesy of Kelly and Kiehl’s, and with both Moxie and the real Martin now having a body double in place, I’ll surely scale what had seemed not just a hill but a whole mountain range.
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Lifestyle
Ringing the bells that still can ring as a third life chapter begins
Look hard and you will see a Cathay Pacific aircraft rising steeply from Hong Kong International Airport, every bit as beautiful as a bird in flight.