What a summer to be cooking, when the whole world seems to be cooking with the Paris Olympics as a handy fiddling distraction – cock-blocked glory, anyone? Just over the weekend, in addition to Hezbollah AND Hamas chiefs getting offed and the PM of Bangladesh resigning and running (at time of writing), cities and towns across the UK erupted in dis-informed discontent, apparently instigated by the far right. What a honeymoon for Labour.
Even if you ignore geopolitics for a minute (impossible) and focus on the markets, you’d have found little reprieve as Warren Buffett shored up his dry powder, the Bank of England cut their rates last Friday and today Monday, the equity markets faced a bloody, bloody nose – the Nikkei is down 13%, for a start. Keep your powder dry, friends.
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Not all pools are created the same. Should I blame bog-standard gym pools for my lacklustre paddling, or should I accept that I will never be any sort of water baby?
The Venetians are a crazy bunch. They basically looked at the equivalent of watery swamps, liberated a bunch of trees from Croatian forests, and staked that bitch. Watch this video to find out how.
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Rewilding can be controversial, not least because humans tend to see themselves at the centre of the planet’s ecosystem rather than just one (small-ish) part of it. What would happen if we humans decided to rewild ourselves by considering Earth as a caregiver?
Why Tigers Find Calvin Klein's Obsession for Men Cologne So Irresistible – Who did the research in the first place? Were house cats involved before big cats? So. Many. Questions.
Ponder
One’s empire is only as secure as one’s succession planning, which is why families since time immemorial have started something great only to see it crumble within three generations, as was the case for my mother’s paternal and maternal families. Fallen scions tend to go one of two ways; they either content themselves with drastically reduced lifestyles and seek security in professional employment, or they keep striving to restore lost glory. I haven’t decided which I am yet despite being born into the former. As Millennials in Asia prepare to take over sprawling family empires, succession planning is more of an existential concern than fodder for a TV show. I maintain a keen interest in the notions and industry of legacies and succession planning, partly due to my previous job in wealth management, and partly because the anthropological psychodrama of family dynamics hit so close to home.
Bloomberg TV (18:19) managed to secure an interview with Adani, dropping later this week, and I think it will be worth listening to how he intends to complete the process within 8 years.