This was not the first time I had been to Brussels, I had spent a couple of days back in around 2004, not long before my brother married his now wife Marieke. Going back to Brussels more than a decade later is long enough to make me excited enough to want to return again.

They are still happily married and living in Sydney, I remember this time well as I was happily hanging in Zurich and returned for their wedding – just don’t ask me the date or the year. Owing to circumstances, I never returned to Zurich at that time and haven’t been back since, it was, I guess, a pivotal point in my life. As I recall, Brussels wasn’t the cleanest city in Europe, in fact, I found it pretty run down. Yes, Brussels has plenty to off the weekender in terms of sightseeing, there was plenty to do.

Now, close to eighteen years later, I’m seeing more of the same. Yes, Manekin Piss is still a drawcard, Grand-Place de Bruxelles is magnificent as is wandering the streets looking at bars, restaurants, waffle sellers and chocolate shops. I have to ask myself, do you revisit a city you have been to before or an entirely new city. For me, revisiting Brussels was great because we used this city as a central location for visiting other cities in Belgium.

We had our arrival day, that was a bus from Luxembourg City that took over three hours with a midday departure. After finding accommodation, that left the late afternoon and evening to look around the city. We then spent the next day walking around checking the sights of Brussels. Then a day in Ghent, the next in Antwerp, the following day in Bruges and the final day in Liege. Belgium has a great train network with the major cities easily accessible from a base in Brussels.

Well, we came full circle, we began this trip in Frankfurt and we ended in Frankfurt four weeks later. Plenty changed, we arrived at the start of September and the weather was still warm, our final day was warm in Stuttgart in the morning and cool to cold in Frankfurt. I wanted to get back to the mall where the pop-up bars created such a great vibe on a warm Friday evening but to our disappointment, the bars were all packed up and gone except for one food vendor who was yet to pack up.

I think Frankfurt is a city I could live in, it is large enough without being too big. I liked the vibe of the city, this is interesting as I was never especially interested in visiting Frankfurt. I had been only the once before where I landed and immediately caught the train for Basel and onto Zurich. I had also transited through the airport on a number of occasions without leaving the airport so I couldn\’t say I have ever visited this city. Now, I will fly into Frankfurt in the future and begin European trips from this important transport hub, already looking forward to my next visit.

So a job came up as a Hydraulic Trainer in Kazakhstan, the remuneration wasn’t as good as I expected but I decided to give it a go anyway. The problem is the job was advertised through a recruitment firm and they have been less than professional. I had seen the position advertised about six months ago so I had some apprehension, why did the last person only last such a short amount of time? Was the incumbent not up to the job? Possibly, but as this was a worldwide search then one would expect a professional selection and recruitment process.

Kazakhstan is a miserably cold country, possibly the conditions were too harsh for the incumbent, there may have been management issues or even performance problems, the facilities were not up to scratch or no resources existed. I firmly believe that from uncertainty comes opportunity so the more disorganised and under-performing the facility is, the greater chance to turn it around. There is also a worldwide search going on for a Training Manager, this may have something to do with retention. I would be looking forward to such an opportunity – always up to the challenge.

The Oris site tells us that the Oris Divers Sixty-Five shares the retro looks of the 1960s original and enhanced with 21st century watchmaking techniques. 1960s inspired timepieces are currently very popular, especially rugged series divers watches, but I wonder is this is just a fad like over-sized watches.

Unfortunately for me, I incorrectly thought there are no Oris dealers in Perth so I had to check out their timepieces when I am overseas. This wasn’t an issue for me as I’m able to check out their watches without the pressure to purchase. For some unexplained reason, I fell less stress browsing overseas than I do in Australia despite receiving no sales staff pressure despite making the bulk of my purchases in Australia. I then found Hardy Brothers Jewellers in King Street and JR Duty Free at the international airport are dealers.

The 01 733 7707 4064-07 4 20 18 reference is the 40 mm stainless steel case housing the 733 self-winding automatic movement with bi-directional red Oris rotor, a 36 mm case is available too for smaller wrists. The Oris Divers Sixty-Five is fitted with the Sellita SW200-1 base movement with 4 Hz frequency at 28,800 BPH. This is a workhorse movement that is gaining a strong reputation although some watchmakers would argue the finish isn’t as great as the ETA 2824-2, if you have a display case-back then the movement finish is usually pretty good.

The 26 jewel movement holds a 38 hour power reserve displaying three hands and the date window at the 6 o’clock position. Unlike the Aquis Date, the Oris Divers Sixty-Five isn’t fitted with a display case-back to showcase the movement. The band may be either a black rubber, three link stainless steel, leather or textile; I think my preference would be a NATO strap although I have seen a number of rubber bands on the Oris looking pretty special.

I cannot understand why anyone would want a leather strap on a dive watch, I am a diver and I take my watch diving with me not leaving it in the hotel room or in my dry bag on the boat running the risk of being stolen. The Oris Divers Sixty-Five is a nice style watch drawing on the watchmaking history to offer a fairly versatile timepiece meeting their customer’s needs. I am pretty sure this is their timepiece in most demand, this is based on online comments and conversations with retailers.

So with China devastating Australian exports with 200% tariffs, Penfolds needs to expand their export markets beyond China. Penfolds, along with other winemakers need to diversify markets out of China and into the glasses of reliable partners.

The Chinese market accounts for 30% of earnings; however, Penfolds will be able to reallocate supply to emerging markets. Whilst the tariffs are set until March 2021, they may be extended to August depending on Chinese indecision and the willingness to punish Australian exporters. This really gives Penfolds the opportunity to explore new and unsatisfied markets, one has to ask, is China really a trusted partner? If Treasury Wines is able to divest out of the unreliable Chinese market, why would they return when they could suffer the same issues again?

This is a shame, we don’t have an issue with the Chinese consumer, it is the Chinese leadership, or lack of leadership that is the problem. When Penfolds develops new markets, they have the opportunity to step away from the Chinese market and just concentrate on these new consumers. They have the ability to tell China, thanks but no thanks and supply diversified luxury markets with willing consumers. This is a polite fuck you to the CCP, why should a company like Penfolds deal with such an untrustworthy market? Sure, the Chinese market is lucrative, but Treasury Wines, the owner of the Penfolds brand requires honest conditions to operate.

It’s a long flight from Dubai to Perth, 10 hours flying time is not time well spent, it is neither entertaining or exciting, it is a means to an end and that’s it. I don’t understand while people love flying, of course, you should make it as enjoyable as possible – especially true for long-haul flights. I tend to watch movies as I don’t sleep well, I prefer to indulge in some red wine a well to deal with the boredom.

Actually, I prefer train journeys as I find the trip more exciting and even the high speed express train pulls into stations every now and again. Still, there is an entertainment system and I have my tablet to tap away on. What I have learned about Emirates is their service has dropped, actually, dropped quite significantly. Still, if you had never flown with the airline before you would think everything was just fine. That was before coronavirus grounded aircraft around the world, I would like to see what their service level is now.

What amazed me was they finished the alcohol service early, you ask for a glass of wine and you are told no. Of course they will sell you alcohol on an international flight but I was going for that, we were not drinking excessively. In fact, we didn’t have any drinks after our dinner, it was pretty much a dry flight – I think I will be looking for new flight options in the future. Emirates keeps a pretty tight leash on drinks these days, we are not talking about everyone rolling around the aisles drunk, just a drink wit h your meal and one afterwards.

I have found out that an MBA qualification delivered by a business school without a strong and active alumni really isn’t worth the enrollment fees. This is a major cost, the industry partnerships with the institution are essential to success after the MBA certificate is awarded.

When you enrol in a second or third tier business school you really need to undertake a cost/value analysis. As strong alumni tends to be associated with the top business schools across the world. Business schools such as Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Columbia or Chicago Booth in the US or Insead, IE Business School, ISLE or Said in Europe all attract strong candidates and have strong and active alumni networks.

Recruitment from these schools is strong, recruiters will actually approach these business schools seeking talent. An active alumni is important, there is a sense of shared ownership and the connections to business is invaluable. Finally, the business school I undertook my MBA got an online alumni up and running but it didn’t help me when I graduated as it wasn’t up and running then. This is unfortunate as Torrens University is a new university but since it is part of the Laureate Network, they should have already invested in such resources.

The two year degree in the US includes internships where candidates work on projects, I guess according to their majors. This employer network is certainly a recruiting tool for both candidates and firms seeking top talent, this is certainly a strong selling point to attract the best candidates. Universities are really de facto recruitment firms in many respects, internal networking within the MBA group should lead to potential entrepreneurial ideas, potential recruitment and investment. The best business schools have the most strong and active alumni and the second and third tier business schools should emulate these networks.

Business education was once a vocational education domain, so what changed? An MBA was once an entrepreneurial degree for professionals, this changed from the initial syllabus. Whilst MBA curriculum from the leading business schools is still focused on entrepreneurial activity, the trend is moving towards a more general management degree.

An MBA is a degree in general management; sure, specialist degrees exist in areas such as finance, operations management, human resources management, marketing, international business, accounting, supply chain management, media and communications, information systems and strategy. The real purpose of the MBA degree is a broad knowledge of management and administrative processes, this offers an individual a broad knowledge base to draw from.

But the base MBA degree targets a more generalised educational outcome with the ability to undertake a major specialisation. Based on discussions, a number of business schools no longer offer specialisations as they were not popular courses. The specialisation majors such as marketing, finance or supply chain management are aligned to specialist business schools. Speaking to recruiting officers, the trend has returned to a more generalist MBAs as graduates are seeking a well-rounded education.

I first learnt the value of collaborating with Google Docs during postgraduate study when undertaking group assignments. This was the program of choice, as well all had gmail accounts with the learning institute, it was simple enough to utilise these tools to advantage.

We were able to share and edit documents live, you could also see the edits and who entered what section of text. It was great to watch some working live on the collaborative document while you watched, you could actually see them writing the text. We decided on an individual text colour so it was easy to identify each individual author although the program indicated each individual. There is plenty to like about using Google Docs as a learning tool, naturally, you have to be careful with anything deemed confidential on an online platform.

I prefer to work live using coloured text so that I know when each section is completed, when I have finished them I change to standard black text. Whilst I used this program for study, I am aware of the applications for virtual teams to work on documents, spreadsheets and presentations. A program such as Google Docs has the ability to wrestle the monopoly away from Microsoft Office. Now we have greater choices and competitive forces will allow us to move away from Microsoft programs.

In Western Australia we never had a first wave of Covid-19, thus far, there has been no second wave. This makes sense since we really can’t have a second wave if we never had a first wave. The state government acted decisively based on medical advice, the first move was to close the border between the states. Then they created internal intra-state borders preventing movement of people around the state to limit transmission of the virus.

This wasn’t necessary as we really had no community transmission. Indigenous communities were off limits and locked down. This was really required as these indigenous communities are more susceptible to the virus according to expert medical opinion. As with the rest of Australia, the state government set up quarantine for returning international travellers, this has pretty much stopped Covid-19 all together. We don’t wear masks, we haven’t been locked down like the other states or parts of the world – life goes on as normal.

Our life went on pretty much as before, initially businesses were shut down around the nation and the job-keeper program kept the money rolling in for those affected. For those of us who kept working, we had the option from working from home if we were employed in office roles. Essential workers kept going to their workplaces, they followed social distancing and retail or customer service staff had perspex barriers erected. There was hand sanitiser everywhere and you were expected to use it.

That being said, our life in Western Australia went on pretty much as normal, there was no international travel but apart from that, Covid-19 pretty much never affected me. Even interstate travel was out for the majority of us – it was required. Sure, we couldn’t head down the pub, sporting events or a concert for a while but that wasn’t a high price to pay considering what was at stake. People knew what had to be done and just got on with it and we lived in a little bubble free from Covid-19.