The Management Mythbuster

Why is the weather so perfect in SoCal?

Finally a few days R&R in Southern California.  Been here three days and the sun hasn't stopped shining with the mercury seemingly stuck at 72F - its a tough life sometimes. 

Mission Beach north of San Diego full of the beautiful people.  I definitely spoiled the scene.  Here are some shots of me and my ladies enjoying the zoo, the beach and the Four Seasons at Avaria - the sign in the last pic gives a true CA health warning that is posted on the front door of the hotel!

 

Toilet training - Singapore style

Finally got some sleep over the weekend in Singapore, after six countries in six days.  Interesting place Singapore - its got the best air conditioning in Asia so it got my business.  Barely ventured out for two days - no need to - dining, movies, bars, hotels, shopping and mass transit all accessible without venturing outside. 

Hotel was "trackside" by the F1 circuit so I spent sometime imagining Lewis, Jensen and the boys screaming down Raffles Boulevard come September.  Politically Singapore is not really a democracy but it works very well.  They take great pride in their city, sometimes excessively so - I think littering is capital offense.  On this trip the guidance of the masses to be sensitive to their fellow citizens manifested itself for me with the sign below found in a restroom at the Marina Mall:

I was quite surprised there wasn't an offer of free lessons and unlimited "target practice" to improve your aim although I suspect that oversight will have been corrected on my next visit.

Oh, the joys of being a jet-setter!

Now on my fourth country in 24 hours and I'm knackered! Dinner in Hong Kong last night, two hours sleep in Singapore, lunch in Kuala Lumpur and hopefully a cold beer any minute now in Bangkok. Not very glamourous as I sweat my way round Asia!  

So what are the big issues here in Asia?  Well they are certainly more sanguine about the recession than us Europeans and Americans.  One example comes from today's edition of The Straits Times, one of the Singapore's leading newspapers.  The letters page was full of bile and venom -  but not about the recession, the credit crunch, British MP's ripping off the taxpayer and Sarah Palin's upcoming biography.  No the top two letters addressed the real issues of the day.  First we had a scathing attack on public servants under the headline, "Bus drivers should brake more gently"  and then we had a brutal discourse on modern youth under the headline "Library visits ruined by unruly students." 

Isn't it nice to see that some countries still focus on the real issues of the day?

Sign of the Danish Times

When you think of the Danes what comes to mind?  If you are American you may not not be sure what a Dane is, never mind where their country is on a map. For the rest of us, it is probably not a question we have ever pondered, but if you did witty, humourous, and amusing may not be the first words to come to mind.  Yet I am willing to offer up Denmark as the home to the wittiest shop signs in the world.  I don't know why but they love their puns in Copenhagen -- see for yourself...

 

Back in the USSR - part two

So here I am in Moscow, 32 years after my last visit. Needless to say much has changed - I am not fifteen anymore, my weight is slightly more than eleven stone and the USSR doesn't exist anymore.  So what of Russia today?  Based upon my extensive three days of research here are the findings:

- Russians have the dirtiest cars in the world.  It's early spring here, but the there is little snow left on the ground, so the cars are a little mucky, but no one seems to wash them.  One of my Russian contacts tells me that a car wash in Moscow costs about $25 so no wonder they don't bother.  Sounds like a market opportunity to me.  Although when I suggested this, my Russian friend said it would be difficult to undercut the market price once you have bribed local officials and paid off the mafia!

- It's very expensive here - a beer is $15

- The Metro is outstanding and one of the few cheap things here, a single ride is about 75 cents. It's clean, the corridors are well lit and the trains run frequently -- I have not had to wait more than a minute for a train. Some of the stations look more like museums than stations with ornate ceilings, chandeliers and sculptures.

- Red Square is stunning - St. Basil's cathedral is magnificent and its in much better shape than on my last visit in '77.  The Lenin Mausoleum still stands on the square by the Kremlin Wall and I am sure Valdimir Ilyich is still inside.  The Gum department store stands opposite the Kremlin.  This is where the biggest changes have occurred.  In '77 there was nothing for sale and inside it looked like a dilapidated market.  Now it is stocked with all the top brands and the the decor puts Harrods to shame.  At night, thousands of lights decorate the facade and it looks like Disneyland.

- Young Russian women dress very well - the skirts are short and the heels high, never-mind the ice on the footpath.

- The Lada, formerly the staple of the road over here, is disappearing -  if you can peer through the grime that covers every vehicle you find the same brands in any other country - Fiat, Ford, Renault, Citroen, Toyota and quite a few Jaguars and Range Rovers.

-  the food is interesting, some of my colleagues sampled Beaver for dinner and were paying the price the next day!  Yes there is a McDonald's right outside the Kremlin so the progress is not all good.

- the people are great - very friendly and not very Communist - they have high tech phones, iPods and aspire to better quality of life. Unfortunately the "crunch" is being felt here as well. Falling incomes and rising inflation have put a damper on the decade long boom.

All in all its been so cool to visit places I last saw when Brezhnev was Soviet leader and Elvis was still alive.

 

Berlin - 32 years on

In August 1977 I passed through Checkpoint Charlie from West to East Berlin.  Yesterday I did it again and it was a little smoother.  No wall, no Stasi, no guns. Then the wall was pervasive now only a little bit is left.  I leaned against it but it didn't give way. Here's the proof...

 

Cruising Croatian style

I like Zagreb!  Best of all I got to stay in probably the best hotel in town, the excellent Regent Esplanade - a real throwback to the grand railway hotels of Europe - it is right next to the railway station. Remember the train ride in Bond's From Russia With Love?  Well it was filmed outside my hotel room!

But unlike almost any other five-star hotel in the world, the Regent has FREE unlimited, wireless Internet throughout the property.  In my humble opinion that makes Croatia one of the most advanced nations in the world.  Further adding to its luster; on my two hour stroll around this small city this morning I encountered not a single McDonald's or Starbucks! Long may it stay that way. The closest I got to American cultural imperialism was the donut stand at the railway station - see below. But even that did not look much like a Krispy Kreme outlet.  I urge Croatians everywhere to resist the commercial tide but please do one thing for me - ban smoking in hotels and bars.  Despite years of second hand smoking in smoky English pubs I am a big clean air fan!

They have their priorities right "Down Under"

While America seeks deeper into recession and the seemingly endless Presidential campaign may actually conclude in a couple of weeks (hanging chads notwithstanding) with a historic result, the folks down in Oz just go about the business of life. The barbie’s are being fired up and the surfboards are out in force as summer hits the southern hemisphere. Don't have a car to get you and your board to the beach - no worries - just improvise as the guy below straps the board to his scooter, uses his wetsuit as his leathers and hangs ten...

Last night in Brisbane the street scene was relaxed; office workers heading home mingled with tourists and students to partake of a few stubbies to get the weekend started. There’s nothing better than sitting outside with cold pint watching the world go by. A bachelor party to my right, a hen party to my left – hopefully not the same couple; a few nervous first dates – all politeness and little conversation; a couple of affairs where a cold one was merely a precursor to furtive action later on. The talk was not of portfolio meltdown but of which beach to hit over the weekend. Make no mistake the dark clouds of economic privation are crowding the shores of Oz but to coin a phrase the general reaction is “No Worries, Mate.” Unlike the stressed out, over-leveraged folks back home who nightly tally their losses on Quicken, nothing much phases these guys. Australia personifies the work to live culture.  The closest to Aussie stess over the economy was some "graffiti" I spied on one of the beaches while exploring the glorious Noosa Heads about 70 miles north of Brisbane last weekend.  Amidst all the expressions of love laid out on the beach was the following:

Now if only we knew the answer.

The pictures tell the story...

I finally got to assemble the photographic evidence to support my earlier posts on Oktoberfest and french transportation.

First up the boys in lederhosen, proving that the English aren't the only ones to dress in strange attire.

Next come the parties going on inside the tents - note the modest sized beer glasses and much more attractive attire of the ladies...look at the guy in the blue shirt and leather braces on lower left raising his glass in a toast - I suspect its not his first of the day...

And now we cross the border into France courtesy of the "TGV"  - looks a bit cooler than the average Amtrak puffer!
Finally you have evidence of my hair-raising (if I had much left) ride to Charles De Gaulle Airport, here I am paying my 75 Euros for the privilege of being scared witless.

You don't find that back in Akron.

September in Munich - so it must be Oktoberfest!

Pure coincidence that I happened to arrive in Munich on the second day of Oktoberfest - honestly!  My journey involved a red eye from Newark to Frankfurt and then a three hour train ride to the Bavarian beer capital.  After being in Prague last week this is turning into pretty decent beer tour. 

This year is the 175th Oktoberfest and judging by the clothes most of the people were wearing not much has changed.  For the men its white shirts with a leather waistcoat and then a very fetching pair of leather or wool shorts (the famous lederhosen) and knee length socks - very fetching I must say; the ladies adopt the 19th century peasant girl look or is it the 19th century barmaid look -- lots of cleavage! 

I know you will find this hard to believe but I have just spent two hours walking around the site and have consumed precisely zero beers which made me feel a bit like a eunuch in a whorehouse.  Still the international cast of lederhosener's were more than making up for me.  The typical sight seemed to be a very ruddy faced gentleman being carefully guided by his good lady through the masses of about three steins too many.  The atmosphere inside many of the 14 beer tents (beer warehouses would be a better description - as each was about the size of the average Wal-Mart) was raucous as the well lubricated masses competed to see who could sing the most unintelligible anthems.

Proving that cultural pollution has even permeated the grandest of German traditions, the loudest tent was one where thousands were singing along with the band who were playing a dodgy cover version of Angels by England's very own Robbie Williams.  They knew all the words as well.  Well I think I will go and find a quiet little bar now and have a peaceful stein of my own rather than share my litre with 10,000 of my closest friends...