What I thought was normal is BYO in restaurants, that is bring your own drinks to the restaurant. When I have had European, Canadian and American friends over, I grab a bottle of wine to take to a restaurant – they were in disbelief. 

I had never thought much about it until I saw their reactions and realised this is not the norm overseas. The advantage is you have the ability to choose a bottle of wine you have in your cellar for the specific evening such as an aged cabernet sauvignon or shiraz. 
Western Australia has strict liquor laws, a business has to apply to the government for a licence to serve alcohol, these licences are expensive and normally not granted to all but the largest restaurants. 

Even licensed restaurants allow BYO although they may charge corkage, that is a fee per bottle to open the said bottle, some restaurants charge per person for corkage but this can be open to negotiation. I have never returned to restaurants that have charged corkage per person after discussion have failed – even if they were a non drinking patron. A restaurateur has to ask themselves, what is this customer worth to me? For $1.50 per person, is this worth damaging a relationship that will result in no repeat business? I think not.

It’s unbelievable, I was employed in a government department and I, along with some notable others worked long and hard to create a positive workplace culture. It took just one promotion and some empire building to destroy all the work we had done.

Now we have a fragmented workplace full of mistrust and backstabbing, the empire builder sought to push his own agenda at the expense of everyone in the workplace. This will all change, the corruption enquiry brought the less than ethical practices to a head. A new manager has been appointed, the former manager will be moved sideways without any further thought of promotion. What I love the most is the sulky actions of those involved, the changes that have been made and the reasons why. They might have escaped the corruption enquiry but the damming investigation took them down, their time is up and change is coming.

The western media has picked up the current events in the Philippines, the extra-judicial killings orchestrated by former Davao mayor and now president Rodrigo Duterte are a major issue.

So before I am inundated by hate mail from Filipinos; we all know Duterte has an approval rate around or above 90%, we know he is supported internally. I am against drugs, I am against organised crime and I am against corruption. What I am also against is extra-judicial killings, it’s really murder and I’m against lawlessness.

On one hand, the president campaigns against corruption and then hands what is widely regarded as one of the most corrupt organisations in the country the ability to conduct operations with impunity. This photograph brought it home to me, the human element of organised crime, the targeting of the most vulnerable group in the Philippines – the poor and uneducated.

To get away with murder, all you have to do is accuse a person of drug addiction, gun them down and put a cardboard sign alongside their lifeless body accusing them of being a pusher. I love all the comments from ultra-nationalistic netizens paid by the government to flood social media. Filipinos telling everyone to shut it, zip it or they are just ignorant. Government orchestrated murder is still murder. So why do I have an interest in this?

Well, I have a number of friends living in the Philippines, will the lawlessness continue? Once the president tires of the so-called war on drugs, who next is on the hit list? His business competitors maybe? President Duterte is an unabashed admirer of former president Ferdinand Marcos, he released his body from the mausoleum to be buried in the heroes cemetery – you have to be joking.

In 2003, the Philippine government demanded the return of $683 million USD  from a Swiss bank account that was actually granted by a Swiss court. Now all they have to do is recover the rest of the $10 billion USD plundered from this poverty stricken country by the Marcos regime – these are not good signs.

I was able to purchase through my wine dealer three cartons of 2006 Evans & Tate Margaret River chardonnay after the shipment that was destined for export fell through. Instead of the standard screw top, these export bottles came complete with corks for the United States market.

Naturally they were trying to move their inventory quickly and the price reflected this. I also purchased a carton for my brother and a carton for my father, they fortunately knocked their consignment off pretty quick. Ok, so I have cheap chardy, so what? The tasting notes indicated a bright pale straw colour with notes of cashew, yeast lees and unripe pineapple and nectarines, a crisp acid backbone and unripe nectarine linger in the aftertaste. It was a pretty good drop, I was more than happy with my purchase.

My only concern was that the cellaring potential extended to 2009, on the eve of 2016, I still had a few bottles left and my concern was this chardy may have gone past their prime. Yep, the chardy was still drinking well in December 2015 when I finally knocked off the last of my bottles. This was an excellent drop for a hot summer Sunday afternoon.

I’m just not getting it, I have kids dressed up in ghoulish costumes banging on my front door asking for “trick or treat” celebrating some American tradition I know nothing about apart from seeing it on television. Now I have no issues with Americans although I do have issues celebrating American traditions and forgetting our own history.

At dusk on the 31st of October 1917, the 4th Light Horse Brigade of the Australian Imperial Force charged the Turkish defenses at Beersheba in a decisive battle. These guys were mounted infantry and not cavalry; they would ride their horses to the battle, dismount and fight as standard infantry. The battle had raged all day and a decision was made around 5pm to stage a cavalry charge as the wells were still in Turkish hands.

So with their bayonets in hand as they didn’t have swords; their rifles were strung across their back, they charged the Turkish trenches under heavy fire and actually took the town. Now we blindly follow some American tradition wrapped in commercialism handing out lollies and scary stories. I could think of nothing more scary of charging dug in Turkish defensive positions on horseback with only a bayonet in my hand. How quickly we forget the real sacrifices made 90 years ago to embrace foreign traditions at the expense of our own history – unreal.

I read about initial public offerings, share buybacks, share splits and rights issues; I see these are financial instruments designed for sophisticated investors and I ask myself, what exactly is a sophisticated investor?

For me, I would suggest trading ordinary shares on a regular basis, trading exchange traded options, warrants, futures and foreign exchange would tend to indicate sophisticated investor behaviour. This would include margin trading utilising leveraged strategies to supercharge profits, naturally the downside of supercharged profits could be supercharged losses should you misread the market.

Ok, so I need to do some more searching for a definition and the corporations act provided me with some answers. To be classified as a sophisticated investor you must acquire a certificate from a qualified accountant stating that you have net assets of $2.5 million AUD. That and/or that your gross income for the past two financial years has been at least $250,000 annually. Oh wow, that is a pretty exclusive club, you would be considered wealthy by most criteria.

Now, this certificate must have been obtained within six months of accepting any wholesale offer to acquire any form of securities. This means this class of investor that can be offered securities without the usual product disclosure requirements that apply to everyday mum and dad investors.

I have to ask, but why? This means you lose all the protections offered to standard investors and you have the ability to lose big with no recourse. What it also means is you have access to products offered by institutions that do not wish to offer products to the general public without having to meet normal market product disclosure requirements.

These days, I prefer to remain a fairly unsophisticated investor as opposed to my former activities as a trader where I would buy and sell ordinary shares on borrowed funds. Because of studies and other commitments, I don’t have the opportunity to engage in through market research to justify the risk of margin trading. So remaining as an investor utilising equity instead of debt financing is a far more cautious strategy for me now. I am looking forward to early retirement when I have the time to pursue such activities.

The Singapore Sling is my favourite gin-based cocktail after the basic gin & tonic which I really refer to as a mixed drink. I prefer this long drink to be served in a highball glass as opposed to the cocktail glass as it is sometimes done. According to legend, the Singapore Sling was first mixed around about 1915 by a Hainanese bartender working at the Long Bar in Raffles Hotel in Singapore named Ngiam Tong Boon.

What I have noticed is the Singapore Sling mixed throughout South East Asia is remarkably different from the Singapore Sling mixed at the Long Bar. I have to ask myself, why not? This pre-mixed cocktail served at the Raffles Hotel costs a bomb, I nearly passed out when given the bill for two pre-mixed drinks. That’s right, they don’t even mix it for you, it is poured straight from a container so it lacks the romantic notion of a bartender mixed drink.

I went searching for a definitive recipe for the Singapore Sling, to the best of my knowledge this is the Raffles mix. In our home mix we generally leave out the Benedictine liqueur and unfortunately we do not count out the 6 drops of Angostura bitters, especially as the night wears on.

60 ml – a double shot of gin
30 ml – a single shot of cherry brandy
15 ml – a half shot of Cointreau liqueur
15 ml – a half shot of Benedictine liqueur
250 ml – 1 cup of pineapple juice
1 tablespoon of fresh lime juice
6 drops of Angostura bitters
Crushed ice cubes

I have had the opportunity to try these smartwatches on at a promotional show when I was in Manila. The TAG Heuer is an android operating system that sets the face of the watch with a Carrera dial – ok, that’s good.

TAG Heuer is a luxury goods manufacturer, you know you are paying a premium for quality Swiss engineered products and if you are good with that – no issues. The question then is, does the Connected smartwatch meet the criteria for luxury goods? Watch guys, or watch snobs love mechanical movements, they love old style, intricate, hand produced machinery – that is a mechanical movement. 

But this is when it gets tricky, the android operating system is open source software and isn’t exclusive to TAG Heuer. When you purchase a TAG Heuer timepiece, you are paying for a pretty intricate movement and TAG Heuer has a distinct style. I have heard these are great a $300 smartwatch for six times the price.

So what you have here is a bunch of electronics replacing an intricate movement, an open source software program available to anybody, a body and band with the TAG Heuer marketing department and their reputation for quality and style, so maybe it is just me – I just didn’t get it. I see where TAG Heuer is going, they are looking to break into the smart watch market with a high value reputation

A recent Facebook post by a former high school friend was less than confronting, she was informed by an emergency doctor that she is dying and needs to give up smoking. She also added on her post, it’s hard. What I was unable to determine from her post was, is being confronted with death hard or giving up smoking is hard?

She is about 45 years old and from my estimates smoking from about 15 years of age; so she has been smoking for around 30 years. Is she really finding it difficult giving up a 30 year habit or the threat of premature death brought about by 30 years of smoking difficult? She is weak willed, anyone who meets her quickly works that out, she brings her problems on herself. 

We all stack on the kgs as we age due to metabolic factors, you can exercise for a lesser effect in your fourties as opposed to your thirties and twenties. At some stage, you need to take your health seriously as you don’t bounce back as you did in your early twenties. I really hope she does give up smoking and gives herself the best chance at a long life, I fear the damage has already been done. 

What I do know is she has never exercised a day in her life, she always ate poorly and was extremely lazy. As far as I can tell, she was always grossly overweight; she has been obese all her adult life. This lifestyle coupled with smoking doesn’t promote a long life so whilst it may appear I am somewhat belligerent with her medical issues, this isn’t the case. However, I do ask myself, what did she think was going to happen?

We are constantly lectured on climate change brought about by global warming. As a population, we are constantly berated about the effects of carbon on the atmosphere due to the burning of fossil fuels, yet we destroy the greatest carbon absorbing resource on earth with hardly a mention. 

We want to implement carbon trading, carbon taxes and other similar blunt instruments yet discount the impact of deforestation and the ability of trees to absorb the very carbon we are more than happy to tax. Are we going about this the wrong way?