I became acquainted with Grant Burge through their Benchmark Shiraz, I started drinking on Friday nights when I was out in Manila. The prices were pretty steep; however, when I frequented certain high range restaurants – Benchmark shiraz was my first choice. So I saw their tawny on the shelf, it was worth a look so I handed over my Visa card hoping to not be disappointed. How it worked out – I was disappointed. It is a Barossa Valley wine, normally a favourite area for me so that adds to my disappointment.

I looked up the website, this tawny is a blend of grenache and mataro with some shiraz. Matured in older bariques and hogsheads, I really don’t think the old wood and six years imparted much wood flavours. Whilst the use of the solero process is well represented, the average age of the fortified wine I normally drink is generally much older, it shows.

Will extra age improve this tawny? I really don’t think so, the style is just too light. This tawny lacks the legs, I really don’t like the style. I think we are seeing too much grenache and not enough shiraz. Mataro is sometimes known as mourvèdre as is a major variety in the Rhône region of France but I really think this tawny falls short.

I wanted to get back on my mountain bike, I missed biking through the bush but there was one little issue, my broken arm had not yet healed.

I can’t admit to being a huge gym attendee but I felt my chest getting soft, my right shoulder had lost all muscle mass and my biceps felt weak. My upper back hadn’t been worked for weeks and weeks, I feel terrible. So I decided to get fit by cycling but where I was living and working, riding on smooth roads offered limited opportunities. Since this was a mountain bike, my best option was to start riding bust tracks again.

However, I could not fall off, not even at slow speed. I can honestly say I cannot recall being so nervous during an activity. Every time the rear wheel slipped or skidded, a rock kicked out, a pedal strike occurred or the front wheel hit a ditch my heart rate soared. Needless to say, I rode conservatively taking every precaution and over analysing every possible risk that would make a safety representative proud. This was a Sunday morning and under no circumstances did I want to re-fracture my arm before my Wednesday flight.

In my view, Bob Hawke was one of the better Prime Ministers Australia has produced. Hawke, better known as Hawkie had levels of personal popularity around 75% in 1984, still pretty much unheard of since.

Hawke came across at a bit of a larrikin, he was really an academic though attending the University of Western Australia (UWA) before heading to Oxford University in the United Kingdom as a Rhodes Scholar. Hawke was awarded a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws from UWA and then Arts in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford. Apparently, he found he was pretty much covering the same material so switched to a Bachelor of Letters course.

Hawke presented his thesis on wage fixing in Australia, he later used that experience to formulate the Accord between unions and the government to fix wages and prices. Possibly one of his greatest achievements was downing a yard glass of beer in 11 seconds to claim the world record. Hawke claims this achievement is possibly the most important act that contributed to his politician success. During his years at the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) Hawke was a divisive leader, once he became Prime Minister he changed his style and morphed into a great collaborative leader.

Hawke became a master of consensus bringing individuals into the conversation, he listened to people and sought their counsel. Hawke had charisma, he also had a high level of arrogance believing he was the only one who could deliver electoral success. Hawke was rolled by Treasurer Paul Keating on his second attempt during December 1991 and Hawke’s nine years as Prime Minister with Australia in the deepest recession it had ever faced. I believe much of this falls on Paul Keating, he was Treasurer and he pursued the interest rate rises.

Hawke came to power in 1983 during the 1982/83 recession that coincided with a severe drought; ironically, the rains came shortly after Hawke came to power. Sure, there is some luck involved, Malcolm Fraser had a good run and should have been more reformist after Whitlam. The Hawke government introduced financial reforms from floating the dollar, dismantling the tariff system, privatising state sector industries, ending subdisation of loss-making industries and deregulation of the financial system. I think the Hawke government was a pretty decent government and is viewed in a positive light by most Australians.

When I take a break in Singapore, I used to always stay at the hostels on Bencoolen Street. Whilst I have graduated from hostels to 3-star hotels for short breaks, I now stay just down the road at Little India. The area is vibrant, there are people milling and wandering around and the food is excellent. Not only is the Indian cuisine undoubtedly of high quality, the food is outrageously great value. I love sitting in a small local roadside restaurant where I am the only non-Indian in the establishment.

I am not treated as some kind of outsider or to be taken advantage, at times I have been given the bill and it is too cheap, I point out that I also drank 2 cans of Coca-Cola and need to be added to the bill. The cashier nods knowingly and informs me that the drinks have been added to the bill – amazing. In these small places, I was somewhat concerned with the open bill as I didn’t really know if I was being overcharged or going to get stood over for an outrageous bill, no need to fear here – these guys are honest.

We were finishing our dive on the top of the reef, just off-gassing after a 30+ dive to a cavern on a vertical wall at Mactan Island near Cebu. I was a 3 metre depth with one minute of decompression remaining when a shadow appeared overhead prompting me to spin around. At such a shallow depth, this would be known to the skipper it is idiotic to run over divers in the water.

But it gets better, I hear a splash and the anchor is dropped and passes within 5 feet of me. I had to swim so the anchor rope misses me as the anchor is skimming across the bottom. Upon surfacing I decided to take a photograph of the banca so everyone could see the fuckwits who endanger diver safety. The boat John Owen blatantly runs over divers, the water is clear and shallow so a skipper worth his salt can easily view the divers in the water.

The skipper of this boat should have the nous to view the bubbles, we were on open circuit and at 3 meters, the bubbles of two divers are easily identified. We are dealing with arrogance and a lack of ability – that is given. So we have two options, the skipper and boatman knew we were in the water and chose to deliberately run over us or he didn’t know and was clearly clueless. Either way, the skipper and boatman are clearly incompetent and need to be shamed.

I’m receiving feedback on Observations in an Undemocratic World and whilst it isn’t always positive, if you don’t reflect on the negative feedback and strive to improve then maybe you should disable the comments function. Naturally, everybody enjoys positive comments and this can be a motivation but on the flip side, you can’t let negative comments get you down. This blog is an opinion piece, it is my opinions and they might not necessarily be correct.

Unlike an academic paper, I don’t support opinions with direct referencing as it becomes a little heavy to read. On the upside, there is no need to publish a reference list, bibliography or even the people I have spoken to. I constantly read the comments sections of major newspapers online, in this information age we have the ability to immediately receive news stories. This also creates the conditions for misinformation to be posted and reposted – pretty soon it is self-perpetuating.

Although, I am no longer reading comments sections as they are dominated by trolls and keyboard warriors who are unaccountable to anyone. I did like to try to grasp the general community feeling until I worked out these forums are dominated by a very load minority who don’t reflect community feeling at all. Once upon a time, you had to go to the library to read outdated newspapers from around the world, now I have newsfeeds set up with live news headlines fed into my social media.

Likewise, I am not a journalist so I am not required to follow journalistic codes of conduct although I respect the better journalists. That being said, whilst my opinions are my own, I attempt to provide accurate analysis at all times. As such, I believe a journalist should report the facts and all too often a news service falls under either a left-wing or right-wing viewpoint. A balanced news service with fair reporting is my preference with specific columnists providing opinions.

I really don’t get it, why do people go out in public wearing their pyjamas? This seems to be the new norm in Perth these days, whilst mostly women, I have seen men getting around in public in their pyjamas too.

On a Sunday afternoon at 1 pm, why do I see people down the shopping centre dressed in sleepwear? The first time I saw this I thought someone had lost a bet, then on multiple occasions I experienced these sights. This is a very unusual attitude among young people, they get up late and don’t even make the effort to throw a set of clothes on.

I see children at the local shopping centre early in the evening, for me this makes sense as the parents have got the kids ready for bed and then needed to duck down the shops to purchase missing ingredients for dinner – all easily explained. People can’t even be bothered to throw a set of clothes on to go outside – oh, come on.

I would like to tell you I am a star mountain bike rider, this would be a dirty horrible lie though. Can I ride? Well, yeah, to a degree, although I am 50 years old weighing 92 kg, I work out in the gym, run when possible and keep myself as fit as I can for my age. So when I was riding flat out down a very steep hill with the pedals over-running, I could not go any faster. We were on a 47 km ride in each direction and we had just logged over 72 km at the last rest stop so I was feeling fatigued.

I was riding on the edge, too loose for the conditions, jet-lagged and fatigued, this was telling. Don’t let that detract from my decision-making, I was travelling downhill as fast as the bike would move, my weight distribution was correct and I was not using the brakes. So as I crossed up the handlebars after hitting the hole and flew through the air I already knew this was not going to end well. The point of impact hurt, I just lay there for about ten seconds without moving so I could determine the extent of my injuries.

I tried to roll over, that was a bad idea as I rolled on the arm I landed on, that hurt a little. Ok, roll over in the other direction and as I slowly rose to my feet I knew my arm was hanging down. No problems, it was an impact so I expected it to be sore. It may have been dislocated, I accepted that, they may have to pop it back in. The x-rays told a different story though, I had to fly down to Johannesburg for some surgery. That involved a pin in my arm, some stabilisation and I was ready to return to work.

Sure, a year on and my arm still feels pain. I had limited movement so my rehab was pretty intense. Some of the exercises came from the hospital physio, some were my own but I knew I had to push on. I was warned if I couldn’t get movement they would put me back under and do it for me – that was pretty good motivation. I did my exercises daily, pushed through the pain and got my mobility back. I am back participating in sport, I ride my bike, run, sail and I am trying to get a decent weights program going.

I am a watch guy and I prefer solid old style watches, I also love the manufacturers who created the styles that we wear. Needless to say, I have a certain preference for Swiss watches although I appreciate manufacturers from a number of countries.

Sure, the Swiss make great timepieces but the Americans have Hamilton and Timex, the Germans have A. Lange & Söhne, Japan is the home of Seiko and Citizen, the Dutch now have TW Steel, Bremont is a British watch with an aviation focus and Australia is home to the Melbourne Watch Company.

 

Tissot is a watchmaker with plenty of heritage dating back to 1853, they are known as the entry-level Swiss watch, this is especially prevalent with their quartz watches. When you look at their automatic watches, the Powermatic 80 is based on the workhorse ETA movement with an 80 hour power reserve.

This is opposed to the standard 38 hour ETA power reserve. I have used David Jones, an Australian department store as a price comparison as they carry both brands. I looked at their online page that supports their bricks and mortar department store for pricing. As David Jones carry both brands they should utilise pretty much the same pricing structure as both watch brands are sold almost side by side in similar display cases utililising similar merchandising. 

For $325 you can be a proud owner of a Tissot Everytime watch, a minimalist style timepiece with leather strap from a leading Swiss, albeit an entry-level watch manufacturer. The Daniel Wellington Bristol priced at $329 is also a minimalist style watch on a leather strap. The Daniel Wellington Dapper is a similar style also sold at David Jones for $359 so you are pretty much comparing like-for-like priced goods. 

I’m not into fashion watches so I couldn’t see myself purchasing a Daniel Wellington, that being said I do respect their branding and marketing, they have really done well to target their market segment with the DW Moments initiative. Needless to say, Daniel Wellington markets well to a young cohort linking their product to travel experiences and adventure. This is a user driven promotion based around social media platforms. They are masters at marketing, that I must respect.

When it comes to Africa, the Chinese are disgraceful. This is based on my first hand experiences, the current Chinese influences in Africa are deplorable. The CCP and CCP controlled companies like to work with totalitarian regimes and dictatorships that share common interests of subjugation of their population – one party nations.

We all know the European history in Africa; it’s not great. It can’t be defended on so many levels, the Europeans exploited the wealth of Africa during the period of colonialism – we all know that. That being said, we now live in an enlightened world where racism no longer exists – ok, now I’m pushing it.

You shouldn’t work in Africa if you are racist, that goes without saying. That being said, the racism in Africa is astounding, coming from a Caucasian background, for me, this is embarrassing as I just don’t believe in this bullshit. From my work in the Democratic Republic of Congo, I am exposed to a large number of Congolese nationals with high-level skill-sets. As a trainer, I would love to take credit for this but it just isn’t true, these are long term employees of the company who have been trained on the job.

So when I see the Chinese influence in Africa, I cannot believe what I see. Sure, the Chinese see this as their time to exploit the wealth of Africa, this is the final untapped frontier. Africa is mostly undeveloped and there is opportunity, unfortunately the wealth of Africa isn’t shared around to the people. This is where we disagree, why not return a degree of wealth through employment, through training, through development and through development?