We are viewing a nasty situation on our television screens, in our newspapers and every time we log onto social media. The war in Ukraine is just terrible viewing, what Russia is inflicting on Ukraine is just criminal, there is no justification for this level of violence, this is disgusting.

What is heartening is the Ukrainian use of drones to engage in surveillance of Russian military assets such as tanks and armoured personnel carriers. Prior to the invasion, a bunch of enthusiasts were off flying drones as a hobby and to photograph the area. Now, these very same people are flying drones and attacking Russian positions.

They can either be used as surveillance to identify troop or equipment positions and call in missile, tanks or aircraft attacks. They are now using the US switchblade kamikaze drone to attack tanks and vehicles. This is brilliant, we have a much smaller force engaging a numerically superior force with hit and run tactics that is causing mayhem.

The Russian soldiers don’t know where the next strike is coming from, they are just getting comfortable when a kamikaze drone pierces the armour of the turret and they are doomed. Likewise, they are in an armoured vehicle before they are hit and incinerated. With the war crimes the Russian army is committing, it is difficult to feel any sympathy for them, it is time to pay for their crimes.

We shouldn’t and can’t complain about the lack of wage growth in Australia when we as consumers do everything to undermine employment security.

We consumers create the market, companies such as Uber are evil, they cash in on an existing market where barriers to entry are high. Now drivers are exploited, they target the vulnerable who have little options in this low-cost model. If you purchase goods online then you are part of the problem, this creates online shops that do not employ retail staff. The often given excuse is bricks and mortar stores are a rip off, I believe in the online shopping model, if you can – buy locally.

I am a firm believer in developing a passive income, the majority of one’s earnings are derived through the sale of their labour through employment, especially in the early years before building new income streams.

This could also involve a business, a business is normally engaged in a transaction either goods or services. This could be a combination of the both, the business may design, manufacture and sell a product along with installation, on-going maintenance or repairs. Regardless of employment or business orientation, these goods and services possess a direct labour content. The development of a passive income is usually derived from investment such as share dividends, property ownership [rent], a financial product, interest from a term deposit, bonds or derivatives.

The passive portion involves not requiring a labour direct input after the initial purchase. Basically, one earns a return whilst they sleep or engage in fun activities. My preference is building a buffer during the early years and enjoying the income in the future. During their working life, the reinvest the income to compound their returns and can draw earnings down on this should they be out of work, injured or just seeking a break. Given enough time, this becomes their retirement income, now individuals are covered throughout their lives.

Ok, this is just not that simple. The World Trade Organization (WTO) was created on the 1st of January 1995 and headquartered in Geneva. China was admitted to the WTO in 2001 and has systematically abused its membership. Australia is taking China to the WTO over barley tariffs, wine tariffs and breaches of the free trade agreement. It will be easy to argue that China has abused contracts, agreements and trust. Yeah good, but China has a history of not following agreed upon rules or protocols.

But where does it go from here? What will the WTO do? Whilst the WTO will more than likely rule in Australia’s favour, what is the likely outcome? Just like the International Court of Arbitration ruling for the Spratly Islands, China will simply ignore. So what options does Australia have? Well, they could seize Chinese assets and redistribute the funds to affected parties as compensation. This would certainly get the attention of the CCP, they will quickly realise economic coercion is a fundamentally flawed premise.

What can they do then short of declare war? Firstly, mutually beneficial security alliances will prevent this. They can go back to the WTO and plead their case, but since the regime does not accept independent arbitration, this won’t work. The best option is tell them to stick it up their arse and fuck off but this doesn’t achieve anything. If they don’t accept the WTO decision, suspend their membership, take punitive action and seize any assets where the CCP has a financial interest.

Has the Swatch Group devalued the Longines heritage? I would tend to argue yes in some respects, but then, Longines sales within the Swatch Group are pretty decent, second behind Omega.

In good quality jewellers and dedicated watch retailers, you will always see Tissot and Longines along competitor TAG Heuer. Throw Rado into that group, this makes up the majority of their high-end products. It is much harder to find Hamilton and Mido in general retailers in Western Australia. As expected, Calvin Klein is found in lower-end retailers along with Pulsar, Citizen, Seiko and Lorus.

The Swatch Group has a number of brands within their brand group so there is competition for relevance. I am sure competition is fierce for advertising funding and Longines does well in this respect. Longines brands sit within the high-range group along with Union Glashütte and Rado. This group is well defined, as Glashütte based watchmaker Glashütte Original is a class above Union Glashütte.

This is a proper comparison, I feel more should be done to promote these two other brands with the high-range group. To be fair, Longines is by far the best promoted and recognised brand within the high-range grouping. The mid-range group is the domain of Tissot, Hamilton and Certina. I find it somewhat unusual that Calvin Klein, a fashion brand, sits alongside Mido with Balmain a relative unknown. Based on searches on the Balmain webpage, there are no retailers in Perth or Australia in general.

Longines heritage dates back to 1840, Tissot is not long after that at 1853, TAG Heuer is 1860 so they all fall within a fairly defined period. They all have created mechanical innovations so they are decent brands with well documented heritages. Omega [1848] is the brand of choice to take on the dominance of Rolex [1905] with Blancpain [1735] and Breguet [1775] positioned at a much higher level. Yes, whilst Longines has been devalued somewhat, they are positioned about right.

Japanese engineering is pretty decent these days; this wasn’t always the case, but with Japanese embracing the principles of total quality management, the outcome was pretty much inevitable.

Citizen is a well represented watchmaker with a strong coverage in multiple markets in a number of market segments manufacturing a quality product at a excellent price. I reckon they produce a decent product and just need a little better marketing. I purchased my Promaster in Changi Airport in 2001 when I was off on a contract to Ghana and wanted a fairly robust timepiece. Initially this wasn’t a dive watch for me as I was working in an engineering workshop, I just didn’t want to wreck my high quality timepiece. So this became a knock about watch, a daily beater as it is called in the watch community. It was my first automatic movement and I really liked  it. For a while, it was worn not only to work in an engineering workshop, it was my dive watch too and I still have it more than 20 years later.

I had been interested in pursuing an MBA for a while now when I came across an online course from the Madrid based IE Business School, so I duly gave their online course a go, it was more than just pretty good, it was excellent.

In 2016 I was in Madrid so I decided to drop in and view the school first hand and speak directly to an admissions officer. I firstly explored their full-time International MBA before heading to a different office to discuss the merits of the online MBA. Ok, so starting with the price for the part-time course, it was a whopping €55,000 for the 15 month duration course. The course required the first two weeks attendance on-campus for face-to-face classes before returning home to complete the remainder of the course online.

The online section via the Blackboard learning management system combined with weekly mandatory Adobe Connect video link sessions on Saturdays. The units are delivered on a sequential basis with only one unit delivered at a time, you place your sole concentration on that one unit – I liked that concept.

The full-time course is Monday to Friday on-campus in Madrid and priced exactly the same, the choice now is, work full-time and study part-time or no work for the next year and a quarter while managing a large student loan, living expenses combined with the cost of running my household in Australia.

I was interested in the part-time course right up to the point where I would be given no advanced standing credits for already completed units undertaken at university, their attitude is, you sign up to do our course, you do the whole of the course in its entirety. Unfortunately, despite clutching a hand full of brochures, I had already made up my mind before leaving the building.

During a covid lock-down, we used Microsoft Teams as collaboration software. However, there wasn’t much collaboration going on, but I kept the program open anyway. Interestingly, I was one of the first posts on the platform with actual work related discussion instead of timewasting chit chat.

Then the drop kicks got involved and it became a gossip platform. So I only posted one more work related comment where I notified one of the members I had uploaded the documents they were discussing.

Then one of the comments was “sarcasm is the lowest form of humour” and I have heard this often misquoted line by people who have absolutely no idea of its meaning – he wasn’t the brightest staff member.

This line by poet, playwright and comedian Oscar Wilde of “sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but the highest form of intelligence” requires further investigation. So, what is humour?

Slapstick: Falling over can be very funny, slamming into a lamp-post or falling into the water is just brilliant. Then there is The Three Stooges, I still never get sick of that.

Self depreciation: Making one’s self the butt of their jokes, self depreciation has been described as inward facing sarcasm not aimed at others.

Sarcasm: In essence, sarcasm uses words to say the opposite of what they actually want to say. This is a scathing insult to belittle a person, show disdain, irritation or just be irritating. Mark Twain was arguably the master of sarcasm.

Wit: A form of intelligent humour with the ability to say or write things that are considered clever.

Improvisation: This is comedy without a plan, the ability to reply with fast comebacks.

Surrealism: Illogical events that are weird and nonsensical situations that are just plain silly – cue Monty Python.

Play on words: The use of words and puns that have a double meaning that could be described as dad jokes.

Observational: The domain of the stand-up comedian, the ability to find humour in mundane activities with Dave Allen and Jerry Seinfield leading practitioners.

Topical: Based on current events, news and pop culture where an unusual spin is put on the situation.

Bodily: We all know toilet humour and fart jokes, as a college lecturer with classes of mostly young men, I have just about had enough of farting.

Dry: Deadpan or dry-wit humour is a deliberate display of emotional neutrality as a means of comedic neutrality. The delivery is blunt, laconic, ironic with subject matter that is not immediately obvious.

Dark: A style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo and described as morbid or gallows humour provoking discomfort or bemusement.

Crass: This form of humour is lacking in refinement or good taste that is smutty, lowbrow and is intellectually inferior.

I have never had a Breitling watch in my collection, whilst the Navitimer is the natural selection, does Breitling offer decent timepieces apart from the Navitimer and the Chronomat? I can’t say I am into smartwatches, I do research various smartwatch designs for interest only. The B55 Yachting reference EB5512221B1S1 is an example of what Breitling offers in the smartwatch range. At $9980, this is an expensive Regatta timer, so how well does it work? I have been unable to get my hands on one to take out on the boat to time our starts, so I don’t know for sure.

Instead, I use a Ronstan digital timer to countdown the start sequence, we use a five minute countdown timer, some races use a 10 minute start sequence and some short race series even require a three minute sequence. So the ability to easily reset the start timer sequence is necessary. Likewise, a synch function is absolutely paramount, you need to set the countdown function to the gun and if you are late, the four minute warning with a second gun and the raising of the blue peter allows the tactician to synch their timer.

This is a big watch, with a case diameter of 46 mm and thickness of 15 mm, even with 8” wrists, this is big. A water resistance of 100 metres, the 131 gram smartwatch is mounted on a blue rubber strap. Two pushers allow the timers to be set, there are two LCD screens on the dial with backlighting activated by the crown. I find this an interesting timepiece, it is well worth looking into and should at least be considered as a primary timepiece.

An interesting new dive for me at Subic Bay is the WWII DC3 military aircraft lost during WWII. When I say new, at the previous dive centre, this aircraft wreck was never dived so I only ever dived this wreck with the guys from Arizona Dive Centre.

The DC3 is inverted in 42 metres of water inside the bay, the boat crew use GPS to locate the aircraft with a shot line dropped to provide a descent and ascent reference. This is not a clear water dive, this adds to the mystery though as I do like a dive with limited visibility. Owing to the depth, I prefer to undertake decompression stop dives with a nitrox mix, the shop usually stipulates EAN26. Whilst I prefer a higher partial pressure of oxygen, I am diving with at least a guide on nitrox so we match gas so maintain our 1.4 partial pressure.

I have searched for the remains of those on board, I have been told there is a leg bone in the fuselage but I have never located it. I have however found the sake bottles in the main cargo area so there is no dispute this is a Japanese tabby. Whilst an aircraft wreck is small, you get the opportunity to concentrate on detail and you slowly move over the wreck and view it in detail. The undercarriage is visible, the tyre is still attached and the cockpit is intact. This is a pretty decent dive, only accessible since 2013 and I really like getting out there.