Red Letter Days in Beijing
Beijing seems almost ablaze at the moment with red and gold everywhere. The City is gearing up for the Spring Festival with Chinese New Year itself falling on Monday 23rd January. The colours symbolise...
View ArticleA (TV Test) Card from Beijing
Travel - we are regularly reminded - broadens the mind. Other parts may also be broadened. Notwithstanding the generosity of one's hosts a business trip abroad involves a certain amount of time in the...
View ArticleChina - their city slickers may shape our future
Interest in China among media and commentators accelerates rather than abating. There are those held in awe by the economic 'miracle' and others emphatic that the whole thing teters on the verge of...
View ArticleCan you sell your mother's apple pie to China ?
"It's none of your bloody business!" No - not you - didn't mean to offend. Just feeing mildly irritated by the tone of the new Start up Britain campaign. The strap line that runs 'There's a business in...
View ArticleSeparated at birth - the Chinese Communist Party and H M Treasury ?
Lord Adonis speaking at this week's debate on the Elected Mayor issue at the University of Birmingham made much of evidence from across the rest of the world of the vital significance of mayoral...
View ArticleGlobalisations unexpected consequences - how about Beijing on Shannon ?
Reports back from Cannes reveal that England's cities mademuch of the need to boost global reach in their MIPIM pitches. Birmingham launched a strategy for securing investment from the unimaginably...
View ArticleOf pasties, petrol, Budgets . . . and bees
So, lets just check that I've got this right, can we ? The main outcome of the Budget is that retired people have had their pasty allowance reduced but to get ahead of the consequences of this change...
View ArticleIndia's demographic dividend - and how it might pay off for UK plc
Nothing certain, they say - except death and taxes. If the future were more clear we would plan and prepare better wouldn't we ? Well here's a racing certainty UK plc should be considering.
View ArticleChina - less of an enigma than you might think.
China. A puzzle wrapped in an enigma surrounded by mystery ? ( As someone said once of something else.) Actually one of the changing realities is that more and more Chinese are travelling here so the...
View ArticleBe your own boss - the great white lie ?
Google, if you will, 'the three biggest lies' and the web will provide you with a range of well worn untruths - several of which are more than a bit coarse to be honest. Recent experience prompts me to...
View ArticleTesting times - both here and in China
With proposals leaked and then confirmed about possible changes to the English schools examinations, its worth noting that aspects of the current system are actually held in high regard in some...
View ArticleUK makers - march in lockstep with India ?
Business leaders the world over tend - in their public utterances at least - to be a fairly bullish crowd. Optimism is taken for granted . The glass is always at least half full - and is there is any...
View ArticleMulling things over with George Osborne
I have been mulling a little over the last week or so (I think it was the rain brought it on to be honest so this recent bright spell might just dispel it). One of my recurring mulls has centred on the...
View ArticleThe Olympics - inspiring business ? Well, up to a point ...
So there I am ploughing a watery furrow back and forth across the local pool. To be fair to myself this isn't the events of the last week or so knee-jerking the potato from his couch. Not at all. In...
View ArticleChina - in a brazen quest for economic gold
A week or so ago I spent some a small amount of time with two groups of sports administrators and coaches from China in the UK for the Olympics but spending spend a little time away from London to get...
View ArticleGlobalisation - happening at a mall or apartment block near you - now !
Globalisation. Now there's a word to conjure with. But how to come to terms with it, eh ? Do you know the TV programme ' The World's Strongest Man' ? Time was when great swathes of early evening BBC...
View ArticleJiàoyù, jiàoyù, jiàoyù*
Flicking though the TV channels the other evening in search of something suitably engrossing to detain me, I paused long enough to hear a snatch of an interview with Eddie Braben who wrote for...
View ArticleSpherical Objects
Business. Basically its juggling with three balls . So forget the MBA's, the seminars and the shelves of advice sitting in bookshops. And focus your mind on just the three balls- get work, do work, get...
View ArticleTime travel is food for thought in China
Current cinema box office smash hit 'Looper' has made a mark in a number of ways. Casting a sideways light on one of China's greatest social challenges probably wasn't one its makers anticipated.
View ArticleMuch ado in Beijing - and not a little in Washington
The next week sees a conjunction of events that have the once in a lifetime aura of an appearance by Halley's Comet. With the US Presidential election and Chinese National Congress the world's two...
View Article
