The Cocos Keeling Islands are an important defence asset for Australia’s strategic deterrence, positioned in the Indian Ocean, these islands provide a very important forward operating base for Australia and potentially our allies. Unlike Diego Garcia, Australia owns the islands outright, so there is no issue of having to hand the islands back. However, there is an indigenous population that needs to be considered.

With the British set to hand back Diago Garcia to Mauritius and then lease the islands back, there could be future issues with this base in the future. This Indian Ocean asset requires significant investment and construction, the base could potentially house radar infrastructure, missile defences, and fighter jets. Currently reconnaissance aircraft utilise the airstrip, there are issues where the runways and taxiways require strengthening and lengthening. Unlike Diego Garcia, I do not see B-52 strategic bombers stationed there. The Diego Garcia B-52 strategic bombers can be relocated to RAAF Tindal in the Northern Territory, they do not need to be sent back to the United States.

If Australia was to jointly operate the base with AUKUS partners the United Kingdom and the United States, then this could potentially replace some of the functions of Diego Garcia. I would not expect B-52 bombers operating from that airstrip, the airstrip is scheduled to be upgraded to handle P-8C Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft. Previously P-3 Orion aircraft could only operate from the airstrip, this was somewhat limiting. Fighter jets are unlikely to be stationed at the Cocos Keeling Islands right now to protect the western approaches to Western Australia and the significant infrastructure in the region, but remain an option with in-air refuelling capabilities.

The Royal Australian Navy also uses the base for some limited operations, the primary operator is the Royal Australian Air Force. There are approximately 600 residents on the island, people can also travel to the island for holidays, scuba diving and fishing is pretty good too. The fishing would be pretty decent as well, I have seen some dive and fishing tours advertised, demand is minimal right now. Visitors are capped at 144 people at any one time, there is not much tourism infrastructure or demand and I don’t know who is making tourism investment.

With an army presence, forward operating radar systems could track shipping through the important bottlenecks of the Straits of Malacca, Lombok Straight, and Suunda Straight. This would squeeze potential adversaries such as China from these important shipping routes. Anti-access area denial would be an important strategic outcome creating a blockade of Chinese shipping. With significant missile defences on the islands including anti-shipping, anti-aircraft, and long-range strike capabilities, the Cocos Keeling Islands have the potential to be a fortified island defence to rival Chinese offensive assets in the South China Sea.

So what is the difference between demanding respect and earning respect? Typically state government management hierarchy demands respect whilst undertaking every opportunity and avenue to undermine you. I have noted state government managers are poorly trained and racked by self-interest and destructive attitudes. We need to keep in mind, I have not specified what state government in what country I have based my opinion on.

The other option would be to engage in servant leadership that includes putting team members ahead of themselves, but we know they do not have those abilities. Instead of witnessing self-serving and self-indulgent behaviours leading to self-enrichment, we can actually see teamwork in action. That is the management creating structures to reward competency and work ethic, this is not a typical state government strategy.

Then I look at the servant leadership style of Haruka Nishimatsu, the former CEO of Japan Airlines. Nishimatsu was famous for his forsaking CEO perks by taking the bus to work, dining in the company cafeteria alongside employees, and even took a pay cut in hard times. Haruka Nishimatsu was well respected by staff, earning their admiration fostering a sense of commitment and unity. Nishimatsu was guided by humility and selflessness reducing the divide between management and staff, Nishimatsu cut down and buried the us v them attitude.

Even though I am in my mid 50s I am looking to retire in the next few years. I probably retire immediately and live partly off of my investments, but that places me in a precarious position, the dividends I receive could not be reinvested to grow my investment, whilst I could do this and live in South East Asia, South or Central America, or Eastern Europe, this is not my plan.

Should markets decline, I would have no options and trying to return to the workforce at 60 does not interest me. I would rather work the next four to five years, contribute to my retirement fund and also keep reinvesting my share investments. Once I turn 60, I can access my retirement fund that has been bolstered by another 5 years of contributions, and hopefully growth.

I keep fit by exercising, this is running and weight sessions so this keeps me relatively athletic for an old man. We all know the early years of retirement are the most productive so I want to enjoy those early years before a lifetime of hard work catches up with me. I want to be into my 70s before age and illness slow me down where I need to take it easy.

A number of years back I was getting an MRI and the technician asked me if I was a blue collar worker, played a lot of sport or did weights. I answered yes to all of her questions, she replied it figures as all of my joints are worn out and plenty of wear on my back and neck. I need to heed her observations and enjoy my older years.

At around 80 years of life expectancy, 40 is the midpoint, the first 10 years were spent as a child, the next 10 years as a teenager and hopefully matching that with 20 years of retirement. So that leaves me 40 years of living as a productive adult, that includes purchasing property, saving for retirement, building assets and there is the cost of living built into that. Of course I need to live and experience life during that time, I would be an idiot to forsake living my life too much.

I was working in an underground mine in the early 2000s, I don’t recall the actual year, I reckon around 2001 or 2002. We drove around underground in the Toyota Landcruiser ute with cassette tape deck playing, someone had taped a radio show and that is what we listened to. Naturally, the AM radio did not work underground, as we were deeper than 1 km below the surface, there was no reception as soon as we drove through the portal.

So this cassette tape was played on repeat throughout the shift, I got to know the songs pretty well on this magnetic tape pretty well, it was taped off the morning show, so it was like FM radio. The song that really stood out for me was Something in the air, I knew the song, but I didn’t really know the band Thunderclap Newman all that well. I later learned they were pretty much a one hit wonder, what a song to score that status with.

Regardless, it had that late 1960s and early 1970s vibe about it, this song pretty much sums up that period for me. Pete Townshend from The Who recruited Andy Thunderclap Newman, a jazz pianist who was a friend of Townshend, Jimmy McCulloch who later played with Wings, and Pete Townshend on bass guitar. Pete Townshend also produced the song, this was a band with three dissimilar members who came together as a project band and scored big.

So when I was able to view the video on YouTube, I loved it. The song improved as the fashion, the life, the style of London in the 1960s just came to life. The drummer Speedy Keen wrote Something in the air, the song transitioned from the hippie 60s to the political activism of the 1970s. The revolution was not about a violent uprising, liberation and the change that was coming.

The dissatisfaction, unrest and flower power movement during the Vietnam War era. There were race wars with the race riot in Brixton, and the civil rights movement in the United States provided plenty of upheaval. They were looking at social and cultural change in the 1970s, the attitude was changing, I never recalled the Vietnam protests as I was too young, I have read about and whilst I do not condone the methods, I appreciate the sediment.

If she wants to spend some time in a cheap mall in Bugis, I am pretty happy with that. I can stand outside the shop or stall tapping away on my screen whilst she is looking for trinkets for family and co-workers.

She had checked up the mall on a website, so I was happy to wander down and stroll around. I was bemused to finally learn that was the mall we have already been going to, just behind Bugis Junction. I had no idea this was the ABC Mall, better known as ABC Bargain Centre she was asking about.

I am standing out the front of the shop with a Korean guy, he is doing exactly the same as me, waiting patiently with phone in hand as his girl is inside browsing. He was just standing there for a while, then reached for his phone to entertain himself. He is playing music and watching a video whilst I am tapping away on my screen. I laughed when he yawned, he was bored so this was pretty funny. We are both from different countries, different backgrounds and cultures, but ultimately, we are both the same.

I have been highly critical of Peter Dutton in the 2025 election loss to Anthony Albanese and the near destruction of the Liberal Party. The devastation of the Liberal Party, losing 15 seats including Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s seat of Dickson.

The Liberal Party is the party of small business, now Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party is surging ahead in the RedBridge Group and Accent Research polls and are looking likely to become the official Opposition Party in the 2028 election. However, based on current polls, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party may well cause an upset if the current polls are replicated in the 2028 federal election. The rise of One Nation is of particular concern to me, Pauline Hanson has had some lousy ideas from “We are being swamped by Asians” to “Aboriginal claims” and now moving onto muslim rhetoric.

The Liberal Party is under pressure from two fronts, the Teals have already impacted the moderate inner city seats, that trend was already established prior to the 2025 election. Next, the Liberal Party has lost its conservative voters to the more aggressive One Nation policies. I was of the opinion that Sussan Ley was going to unite the party after the divisive Peter Dutton, but as it turns out, the vast majority of Liberal voters did not support her policies. To be fair to Sussan Ley, her agenda was largely derailed by the grandstanding David Littleproud. These divisive actions promoted instability, so between Dutton and Littleproud, the coalition between the Liberal Party and the National Party was so damaged that this opened the opportunity to take advantage of this disunity and fill the void.

With my father, we attended the 2023 West Australian Football League [WAFL] at Optus Oval. I am a Fremantle Football Club supporter and their alignment club in the WAFL competition qualified for the Grand Final. The team I supported as a child was East Fremantle, they qualified as well so it was a win/win day for me, no matter who won – I was going to be happy.

We decided to book a hospitality area that we do not normally attend, so this gave us a look into a different match day area. Ironically, this hospitality area is directly below our normal seats, so whilst the view of the ground did not change, we saw the hospitality area we normally miss. So we went to indulge in the game day food, it wasn’t that great to be honest, but the food and drinks package was reasonable for the price we paid.

When the game ended, I asked the security if they would open the doors to the ground at the lower viewing area to let us onto the ground. This is not too bad a request as they had let the crowd onto the ground for the premiership presentation. What made it difficult was our doors opened to the restricted media area and match day officials. However, as I had asked the security guard nicely, I had been treating him respectfully all afternoon, and we were neither threatening nor showing visible influence of alcohol, security was more than happy to let us through.

So as we were wandering around in the restricted area, the official holding the premiership cup was waiting patiently with the trophy in hand. I asked him nicely if my old man could hold the Dixon Cup before it was presented to the premiership captain of the East Fremantle Football Club, to my surprise, he was more than obliging. So I whipped my phone out and got a series of snaps of my old man holding up the Dixon Cup.

The Dixson Cup is the oldest premiership cup in Australian Rules history, inaugurated in 1885, the cup was created and promoted by Sir Hugh Robert Dixson. The cup was made in the United States to the specifications required by Dixson. The cup was to go to the first club to win the premiership three times. The first premiership was Rovers [now West Perth] in 1885, and Fremantle in 1886 with Unions [now East Perth] winning the Premiership in 1887, 1888, and 1889 and claiming the Dixson Cup.

The Dixson Cup was lost after Unions awarded the cup to the premiership captain Paddy Knox, in the 1960s the Dixson Cup was privately purchased at auction in the 1960s. When the whereabouts of the Dixson Cup became known to league officials in the 1980s, the Western Australian Football League [WAFL] first attempted legal action, this failed and after decades the Dixson Cup ended back at the WAFL where it is now presented to the premiership team as a perpetual trophy.

There is no mixing for me, I like Cointreau just as it is, I don’t even drink Cointreau on ice, instead keeping my bottle of Cointreau in the refrigerator. It is better to drink from a crystal whiskey tumbler, but these days I just sip from a crystal shot glass. My whiskey tumblers were all broken by people staying in my house in the trail of destruction that they usually leave behind.

So what I learned is when researching this post, Cointreau is a form of Triple Sec, so I need to ask, what is Triple Sec? Firstly, there is a liqueur named Triple Sec, it is an orange flavoured liqueur containing 20% – 40% alcohol by volume. Triple Sec is typically consumed in Margarita, Long Island Iced Tea, Sidecar, White Car, Mai Tai, and Cosmopolitan cocktails and is a form of orange liqueur that is perfect for blending in cocktails. Apparently, the term Triple Sec was removed from the bottle between the world wars to differentiate the liqueur.

So I needed to learn a little about Cointreau, they source sweet and bitter oranges. The bitter oranges are peeled and paired into single ribbons whilst the sweet oranges are quartered. The peels are sun dried for three to five days to achieve a moisture content of 11% to meet the balance of sweet and bitter orange flavour. From there, pure water, sugar and neutral alcohol are the only other ingredients in the natural liqueur that is my favourite liqueur.

The official state visit of US President Donald Trump to China had already raised concerns even before his flight touched down. The bilateral attack on Iran would feature high on Trump’s agenda. There are some tankers allowed transit through the Strait of Hormuz, a number bound for China.

The concern is the ad hoc and undisciplined approach of the Trump presidency including the late night and early morning tweets on his social media platform. What an administration requires is predictability and reliability, Trump offers neither. Nor is Trump playing three dimensional chess as his supporters claim, a staffer once famously leaked that they are flat out trying to stop him from eating the pieces. Given the recklessness shown in the Iranian attacks and the inability to foresee or plan for Iranian forces blocking the Strait of Hormuz, his judgement is seriously questioned.

So what are the concerns related to the China state visit? Firstly, there is the independence of Taiwan, given Trump’s predictability to listen to the last person he spoke to, President Xi will cherish the ability to talk directly to Trump. Given Trump’s child-like admiration of autocrats and authoritarians, Trump is likely to be persuaded by Xi Jinping if he appeals to Trump’s ego. Any mention of a change of long-term US policy will likely be seized upon by Chinese leadership, this will have significant impact on Taiwan’s independence and self defence.

Whilst Trump believes he is respected by world leaders, the exact opposite is true, these world leaders hold him in contempt. They know Trump is easily manipulated and changes his mind frequently, these leaders know he can be compromised and will attempt to gain favour with him based on his lack of direction and morals. Red carpet on arrival, lavish state dinners and meetings massaging his ego is likely to score concessions. They know Trump is a big talker on social media, once they get to him in a face-to-face setting, they know they can get results and concessions. They know a TACO backdown is easily negotiated, all they need to do is appeal to his enormous ego.

So Bruce wrote the song on the weekend, recorded the song on Monday at Stone Hill Studio, mixed on Tuesday and released on Wednesday. The song was released just four days after the murder of Alex Pretti by ICE agents in Minneapolis [24/1/26], before that, Renee Good was shot by ICE Agents in her vehicle [7/1/26].

This folk rock US President Donald Trump described Bruce Springsteen as “a bad, and very boring singer”, this is a standard Trump response. This is to call that person not smart, untalented, over-rated, or some basic schoolyard bullying name calling. In relative terms, Trump is describing himself, his fragile ego cannot accept any form of criticism, he sees his own intellectual shortcomings so he tries to project them on others.

Bruce Springsteen described the Trump Administration as corrupt, incompetent and treasonous during a Manchester show in 2025. Naturally, Trump had a public meltdown and in a post called the Boss writing “importantly, he’s not a talented guy — Just a pushy, obnoxious JERK, who fervently supported Crooked Joe Biden, a mentally incompetent FOOL. In Trump style [or lack thereof] added this dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker (his skin is all atrophied!) ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT until he gets back into the Country.” This is a pretty personal attack, especially for a guy still filling stadiums like he did in the 1970s and 1980s.

So how did this song go, 2.5 million views on YouTube on the day of release, holding the number one spot on iTunes in 19 countries including the United States, Australia, United Kingdom, Denmark, Germany, France, New Zealand, and Italy. A pretty decent song debut for an untalented guy who is apparently incompetent. Even better, Krisi Noem is gone, she got a starring mention in Bruce’s lyrics. Even more embarrassing to the Trump Administration, her husband is cross-dressing in Barbie clothes, another sex scandal for an Administration that appeals to right-wing Christian conservatives.