The right kind of resilience: The Aberdeen Asset Management chief has an outsider’s determination

August 11, 2013 1:58 pm

The right kind of resilience

By David Oakley

Dressing down: Martin Gilbert was once accused by UK MPs of acting like a ‘sophisticated snake oil salesman’

Martin Gilbert nearly quit just over 10 years ago. Surrounded by government ministers, civil servants and journalists, he was publicly dressed down by one of Britain’s most senior politicians, accused of acting like a “sophisticated snake oil salesman” at a parliamentary hearing into one of the City of London’s biggest financial scandals. He remembers that summer day in 2002 as if it was yesterday, he says, a grim expression spreading across his face. “It was undoubtedly the most difficult moment for me,” he says. “There was nothing else ever that has rivalled it in any degree, and I hope nothing does in the future.” His career as head and co-founder of Aberdeen Asset Management looked like it was about to end in disgrace amid the ruins of the split capital investment trust (or split caps) scandal, when a number of the company’s investment trusts folded and wiped millions of pounds off its share price. Read more of this post

The US president is weaker than you think; Joseph Nye’s ranking of American leaders finds that a low-key approach is most successful

August 11, 2013 6:34 pm

The US president is weaker than you think

Review by Edward Luce

Joseph Nye’s ranking of American leaders finds that a low-key approach is most successful

Presidential Leadership and the Creation of the American Era, by Joseph Nye, Princeton RRP£19.95/$27.95

Having failed to convince the US of the need to prepare for war with Adolf Hitler’s Germany, Franklin Roosevelt quipped: “It is a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead – and to find no one there.” The US presidency sounds far more powerful than it usually is. Scholars, journalists and presidents routinely exaggerate its potency. In spite of his many wiles, FDR failed to cure America of its isolationism. It was Imperial Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 that eventually snapped it out of its reverie. Read more of this post

Averting a mid-life crisis

Averting a mid-life crisis

In two years’ time, Singapore will be 50 years old. We have progressed far as a country but we seem to be trapped in a mid-life crisis. I say this because, according to some surveys, Singaporeans are amongst the world’s wealthiest but are also the most pessimistic.

BY GOH CHOK TONG –

5 HOURS 36 MIN AGO

In two years’ time, Singapore will be 50 years old. We have progressed far as a country but we seem to be trapped in a mid-life crisis. I say this because, according to some surveys, Singaporeans are amongst the world’s wealthiest but are also the most pessimistic. We are now at an inflexion point of our development as a society. I dare say that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his Cabinet are having a tougher time governing Singapore than Mr Lee Kuan Yew and I had. And it is not going to get easier. Read more of this post

Norway PM turns secret cabbie in election drive

Norway PM turns secret cabbie in election drive

3:30pm EDT

OSLO (Reuters) – Norway’s prime minister worked secretly as a taxi driver in central Oslo for a day in June, leaving his passengers wondering whether their elected leader had quit the day job. Wearing a taxi driver’s uniform and sunglasses, Jens Stoltenberg drove passengers around the streets of the Norwegian capital for several hours, confirming his identity only after his passengers realized who he was. The stunt, dreamed up by an ad agency as part of Stoltenberg’s campaign for re-election, was filmed on hidden cameras. A video of the event was published on Sunday by daily newspaper VG and on the PM’s Facebook page. Stoltenberg told the newspaper he had wanted to hear people’s honest views on politics. “If there is one place where people say what they really mean about most things, it is in a taxi. Right from the gut,” he told VG. Read more of this post

Singapore’s cabby donates liver to stranger after reading Facebook appeal

Cabby donates liver to stranger after reading Facebook appeal

Sunday, August 11, 2013 – 09:10

Radha Basu, The Straits Times

Mr Tong Ming Ming, 34, was on a tea break during reservist training in early March when an SMS and a Facebook post by his secondary school friend Regina Lim caught his eye.

Transcript from RazorTV:

Liver donor, Mr Tong Ming Ming, 34:

I’m a taxi driver. I used to be a police officer for 10 years. I decided to drive a taxi because I needed the free time. I need to juggle between earning a decent income and also to do my volunteer work. So what I do, when I have the time, is to pick and send amputees to Tan Tock Seng Hospital. I would send and pick retirees to and from church, and I also organise meet-ups, as I mentor a group of boys who are ex-probationers. When I cover my (taxi) rental and my petrol, I would go and do my volunteer work. Read more of this post

Of changing seasons and challenges in life; The seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter also reflect the seasons of life

Updated: Sunday August 11, 2013 MYT 7:18:12 AM

Of changing seasons and challenges in life

BY SOO EWE JIN

The seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter also reflect the seasons of life.

I FIND it quite amusing when department stores here have spring or winter sales. Having just come back from Sydney where winter sales are common as the season comes to an end, I do wonder how we can relate to such seasonal sales when it is hot and wet the whole year through. But weather aside, all of us do go through the seasons of life. And I have been thinking much about this lately. I am reminded that I have passed the halftime stage of life. And as I head into the second half, it is important that I rejuvenate body, mind and soul to take on the challenges that will come my way. The seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter also reflect the seasons of life. Read more of this post

How the Great Depression Spawned Literary Masterworks

How the Great Depression Spawned Literary Masterworks

The Great Depression was one of the most desperate periods in U.S. history, and one of the most important in American literature.

When the stock market crashed in October 1929 and the hectic prosperity of the 1920s gave way to mass unemployment, the crisis energized American writers. After a decade in which the literary experiments of the Modernists — Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, T.S. Eliot — dominated the scene, a new wave of writers began to look to politics and economics for inspiration. At a time when the Communist Party was presenting itself as the strongest force for progress, these writers saw capitalist America as a dying society in need of revolutionary changes. Never before or since have so many of America’s best writers focused on the lives of the poor and the working class or written with such a furious sense of political engagement. In 2008, the U.S. suffered the most severe economic crisis since 1929. This was followed by a deep recession characterized by high unemployment, financial instability and government deadlock — an echo of the problems that plagued the country during the Depression, though in much less virulent form. Read more of this post

Inventor Greg Lambrecht uses the Coravin wine preservation device to serve rare, expensive Italian wines by the glass

Wine Loving Inventor Solves Red or White By Glass Battle

Inventor Greg Lambrecht, founder of medical device company Intrinsic Therapeutics, Inc., after showing off his Coravin wine preservation system at Del Posto. The restaurant’s wine director, Jeff Porter, has been using the device to serve rare, expensive Italian wines by the glass since last November. A cartridge of Argon gas, used to keep wine fresh within the Coravin wine preservation device. A hollow needle is pushed into the cork, then a button releases argon gas into the wine. Coravin of white Burgundy 2010 Alex Gambal Meursault Clos du Cromin. The Coravin is an ingenious wine preservation system that allows you to access wine without pulling the cork and keeps the wine inside the bottle fresh for years. Photographer: Elin McCoy/Bloomberg

Hankering for a taste of 1979 Il Colle Brunello di Montalcino with your dry-aged steak? At New York’s Del Posto restaurant, a three-ounce pour is $169, six ounces, $338. The by-the-glass list includes hard-to-obtain 2000 Giacomo Conterno Barolo Monfortino for $100 and $200, and last month, rare Italian stunner 2002 Masseto. All this is thanks to a new wine preservation device, the Coravin 1000. “It’s a wine populist’s dream, giving more people access to the world’s great wines,” says Del Posto wine director Jeff Porter. He’s been offering them “alla Coravin” since last November. The ingenious $299 device went on public sale two weeks ago. Though most new wine gadgets bring out my inner skeptic, this one will revolutionize how we drink wine at restaurants — and at home. One of my pet peeves has always been the boring selection of wines at most restaurants offered by the glass. Usually it includes only current vintages, yet they frequently taste dull, cooked and lifeless, signs they’re oxidized from being open too long. Once you pull a cork, contact with air causes the wine to start deteriorating. The Coravin prevents that by allowing you to access the wine without actually pulling the cork. Really. Read more of this post