West Australian batsman followed former team mates Mike Hussey and Chris Rogers into the Australian team as a mature player lacking opportunity. There is vast experience and a strong desire driving Voges’ amazing returns in test cricket as an ultra reliable middle order batsman.

Making his first class debut for Western Australia in the 2002/03 season, Voges showed plenty of promise, he was appointed captain of the state side a decade later after former test player Marcus North resigned in 2012. He made his Australian One Day International debut in 2007 but with only 31 matches to his name, he hasn’t played a lot of ODI cricket.

Nonetheless, Voges has scored 870 runs at a reasonable 45.78 average. On a first class level, Voges has a wealth of experience with 179 matches and a handy average of 48.12 runs with stints in English county cricket, the Indian T20 IPL, the Caribbean Premier League and Perth Scorchers. I really thought the opportunity had past Voges by, I never expected him to get a stint at his age, he turned out to be the right guy at the right time.

Voges was called up for maiden Australian test duties against the West Indies for the touring test series on the 3rd of June 2015. Adam immediately fired posting his maiden test century on debut in Dominica becoming the oldest player to score a century on debut, he also picked up man of the match – a reasonable debut.

His batting return on his 14 test matches has yielded 1267 runs at a Bradman like average of 95.50 runs; Adam has a highest score of 269 not out with five centuries and three half centuries. What is truly amazing is his five centuries include two double centuries. At 36 years of age when most international players have already retired, the question is, how long can Adam Voges continue to play international test cricket for?

The Australian sharemarket is entering a bear market, they are now describing this period as the lost decade as the S&P200 index is in decline after peaking in early 2015. The residential property market around Australia has been pretty hot absorbing plenty of capital over that period; however, that market also is looking somewhat unstable.

The 2007 peak was under threat, yet based on the growth trend, the index needed to maintain current growth rates throughout 2016 to act as a base to exceed the 2007 high in 2017 – that isn’t going to happen now. The real question is, where will the index bottom out? My guess is the S&P200 will be around the 4000 point mark when it hits it’s bottom, the Australian financial year ends June 30 so we expect tax loss selling to drag the index down mid year – the second half of 2016 isn’t looking that good either.

Having made the early two and a half hour bus trip up from Iloilo City, I was ready for breakfast and to then set my equipment up for a couple of afternoon dives. I loved the hand built facilities, speaking to the resort manager who lives there with his family, I learned that he designed and built the whole resort himself.

The owner lives in Iloilo City and heads up to the resort for the weekends, this place is very much his personal weekend retreat. As I stayed at this resort during the week, I never met the owner in person but I am told by the resort manager this place is growing every year and expanding.

The kitchen is a provincial outside facility, you eat your meals under the cover of the awning and is especially brilliant in the afternoon as the sun sets over the water. As my stay was mid-week, I had the place to myself, this is pretty much standard in the Philippines in smaller dive resorts.

The locals come down to Antique to dive during the weekends and the facilities are very quiet during the week. I plan my Philippine dive holidays this way so I can avoid the crowds, The whole week, I dived only with the dive guide with an exception of one morning dive – not bad at all.

A bank security analyst had driven up from Iloilo City and had an afternoon appointment with the bank manager, he decided to have a dive before the meeting and I was pretty happy with that, I had someone else to chat to that morning apart from the divemaster. Who can complain about now diving in a group of two for the morning? At any rate, he would be gone in the afternoon and we would be back to our usual routine.

Some days the resort manager’s daughter would come for a ride out on the banca, she was super cute and very lively. I embarrassed myself by completely underestimating her age, I thought she was about six, I found out she was closer to eleven and I guess I didn’t make a friend there.

The meals were fantastic, the resort manager would come and he would ask me every day to agree on a menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The volume of food he and his wife cooked for me was embarrassing, there was no way I could eat this much food, it was not just the amount, the quality of these home cooked meals was exceptionally good – I loved eating here.

The construction of the resort was all his own work, he designed and hand built every building over the period of a decade. He was very proud of his work and I can see why, every opportunity he would show me something he had built and the way he constructed each building.

This was great as I was pretty interested how he went about building in the provinces with somewhat limited equipment and materials. What I do know is I will be returning to dive at The Dive House once again in the future.

Legendary currency speculator George Soros has raised the ire of the Chinese government citing the slowdown in Chinese economic activity and Yuan devaluation as the major factors in weighing down global markets. Soros is warning 2016 could be just as bad as 2008, a situation we never really recovered from.

According to Soros, the Chinese government is struggling to transition to a new growth model after spending up big on ghost cities and other building projects that are not currently adding to growth and GDP. It would now appear financiers on Wall Street and hedge fund managers are lining up to short sell the Chinese Yuan and one imagines the Hong Kong dollar as well, much to the chagrin to the Chinese government. So the question is, will Soros sell Chinese Yuan short to drive the price lower to reap a financial benefit?

The Make-a-Wish Foundation is a stunning organisation granting wishes for seriously sick children, I have supported them in the past and if they ever needed to highlight their great work, it was on display for all to see. One hopes this recent adventure with assistance from the New South Wales Police Service brings donations flooding in – I know I will be calling them up to get onboard again.

Sydney is gripped by fear as the evil Ultron and his henchmen have taken control of the city after kidnapping Make-a-Wish reporter Hope Joy. The New South Wales police commissioner has made a desperate plea for help sending out Polair to collect Domenic Pace, a seriously sick kid with cystic fibrosis to transform into a super hero, save Hope Joy and free Sydney from this terrible threat. Iron Boy needed full use of police resources including a police escort to the rigid hull inflatable boats to get to Clark island when Hope Joy was being held hostage before heading over to the Opera house to take on the ringleader himself.

The twin 2014 aircraft losses and subsequent loss of life tragically befallen on Malaysian Airlines and its passengers looked like it may bankrupt the airline. They have rebounded only to lurch to another disaster by not allowing checked-in baggage carried to Europe citing unseasonably strong headwinds on the routes.

Full fare airlines, already under increasing pressure from price conscious passengers patronising budget carriers are struggling. Malaysian Airlines was already a marginal business, this comes at the expense of a number of national airlines; this is a shame as I had always liked Malaysian Airlines service.

With passengers, corporate clients and staff abandoning the airline, where to from here? While Malaysian Airlines kept flying, it did so with empty planes for some time, no doubt they were carrying a fair amount of freight during that time to cover costs. Corporate level decision making, the failure to immediately fully inform the families of MH370 passengers what was happening and the fateful decision to allow the MH17 flight path over hostile territory when leading competitors had chosen alternate routes all points to systematic management failure.

What the management now can’t afford to do is allow empty aircraft to continuity take to the skies. They need to ditch uneconomical routes, scale back operations and concentrate only on profitable services, they need to contract and survive. Maybe it is time for the Malaysian government to liquidate their holdings forcing the airline into bankruptcy and allow budget airlines to fill the void. The other alternate is re-nationalise the airline – this is probably not the best option.

Perth is a hot city in summer; I like it, but plenty don’t – that’s unfortunate for them. Our recent run of hot weather has seen the issue discussed extensively but we all know February is the hottest month is the hottest month of the year – so why is this news? People were complaining about the heat on Sunday, I headed down to the Swan River for the afternoon with the gentle breeze coming off the water refreshing me, I spent the time with a book sitting on the grass in the shade; I brought my computer down to and worked on an educational paper.

The evening lows are pretty good too with mid 20s at night, but by the way the media is carrying on, it’s like we are the hottest place in the world. Perth is located on the south-west coast and usually protected from the extreme heat, the climate is Mediterranean with a fresh breeze usually floating across the Indian Ocean – this week it isn’t.

A series of high pressure systems are sitting in the Great Australian Bight forcing hot winds back over the west coast from the desert. The hot winds are cancelling out the sea breeze and temperatures are rising, I think about my friends in the northern hemisphere trapped in the the freezing conditions of ice and snow – give me the sun any day.

Chatting to well known dive author and Asia-Pacific technical diving pioneer Simon Pridmore about my first dives out of my open water course, I was surprised to find that my first two dives were to 22 metres. I had always remembered my first non-training dive lasted for a duration of 35 minutes and the second dive was 40 minutes. I was told during the course to breathe normally, I soon learned that was bad advice and I learned to skip breathe to increase my time under water.

Author of Scuba Confidential, Scuba Professional and co-author of the Diving and Snorkeling Guide to Bali, we were discussing training standards as I also thought the safety stops I did after these dives were decompression stops as I had never performed any safety stops on my training dives. This was poor practice, the instructor had the opportunity to instill in me an important safety aspect, fortunately, I picked this up later on, but it should have never happened this way.

Fortunately I was talked into undertaking an Advanced Open Water course directly after my entry-level course, I told my instructor I wanted to go out and gain some experience before undertaking a series of courses. I am glad I did as I had plenty to learn and I am a believer in experimental learning methodologies. I learned ascent rates, buoyancy control, dive computer use and finally stopped my carbon dioxide headaches after learning improved breathing techniques from fellow divers.

The Swan Bell Tower is now an iconic landmark on the Perth foreshore, once decried by the local newspaper, public opinion was shaped by newspaper editorial opinion based on political point scoring. Now enveloped in the Elizabeth Quay construction, the Bell Tower structure sits along side the artificial inlet of the development and will soon be dwarfed by the surrounding hi-rise structures that will line the inlet.

The Bell Tower is a stunning building, housing the Bells of St Martin in the Fields, donated by the City of London during Australia\’s bicentennial celebrations in 1988, the Bell Tower was a tourist attraction in its own right.

I am constantly told by supporters of the Australian Labor Party, the political party of trade unions that the Swan Bell Tower was a waste of taxpayer’s money. I always reply, at $5.5 million dollars, the Bell Tower was designed, built and opened on time and on budget and is still open. This is an unusual situation for a state government project, possibly because it may have been a non-union site with no strikes, work to rule, stoppages and union graft payments.

I always ask these same people what WA Inc cost Western Australia? $877 million of tax payer’s money was lost to money heaven. That could purchase a further 159 Bell Towers around the state, that is of course purely academic as WA Inc delivered absolutely no physical structures or outcomes. Just the Royal Commission inquiry into the workings WA Inc cost over 30 million dollars taking losses to over 900 million dollars. How many hospitals, schools and government programs could that finance?

Marissa Mayer was brought into Yahoo! to turn the fast failing internet business around; the monumental task requires Yahoo! to take on rivals Twitter, Google and Facebook to restore both market share and profitability.

Marissa, a former Google vice president defected to former rival Yahoo! after the business plunged to serious depths of despair; unfortunately, the business hasn’t performed since Mayer’s 2012 appointment. Yahoo! has three main divisions of search, mail and Tumblr and may soon be realigned into four divisions of news, sport, lifestyle and finance. Under Mayer, the business has engaged in high profile acquisitions that have failed to increase shareholder value.

The board is considering the sale of patents, real estate and a number of programs as earning decrease again. Jobs are at risk with 1600 or more employees shown the door with more probable job losses pending. The board is seeking strategic partnerships but one expects Amazon, Google, eBay, Facebook or Apple to launch a takeover and break the company up and sell the divisions individually in a move that might increase shareholder value.