Writing travel reviews – It’s nice to be nice

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Pantheon, Rome.

In early 2008, we were planning a European holiday, and I was trying to work out the best way to do it. We had a travel agent, but I wanted to do some research of my own. High on my list of priorities was my desire to follow a few stages of the Tour de France. Bluntly, I wanted to ‘Yell for Cadel’! We’d never had an Aussie winner, and I thought this was his year. It wasn’t, but he came close.

I was discussing our plans with friends, my bike riding buddy and his wife,  over dinner. They were much better travelled than we were, and I knew that my bike-riding buddy’s wife did all their travel planning and bookings herself. She pointed me towards TripAdvisor, which at the time I had never heard of.

That conversation changed my whole approach to travel. Continue reading →

Sport and Money – Is it like oil and water?

I am starting to wonder if money in sport is like oil and water; they just don’t mix.

I am a sports nut, but lately I’ve found myself losing some of that enthusiasm.

Over the last couple of weeks, I haven’t been checking the overnight EPL scores before getting out of bed. That might not sound significant, but for someone who’s followed Arsenal for years, it says something. One of the joys of retirement has been being able to watch a game at any time.

The Premier League trophy on display at the Emirates 😍🏆 🔴 @Arsenal

Source: Instagram

I’ve lost my enthusiasm for the EPL

In recent weeks, I haven’t had those disturbed nights watching Arsenal play in the early hours. It’s not because they are the Premier League Champions; it’s because I’ve lost some interest in the competition, largely because of the Manchester City situation.

For years, the 115 charges against City have been in the back of my mind, and sometimes front and centre. I like many have questioned their ownership and, more broadly, whether football clubs should have ownership closely aligned with nation states. I’ve even joked about Arsenal being owned by a plucky billionaire, as though that somehow makes things a little more acceptable.

But since the independent commission reached its judgement in the Manchester City case, I’ve felt deflated. I’ve still watched Arsenal’s games live when the timing has suited, given I live in Australia, or caught up on the replays. I haven’t bothered to watch other teams. Continue reading →

The Bathurst 1000: You can’t take the Blue Oval out of me

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Badge "Ford" Oval

Source- rarespares.net.au

As the laps ticked away toward 161 in yesterday’s Bathurst 1000, I felt confident Anton De Pasquale would claim his first Bathurst crown in a Chevrolet Camaro. There were some rumblings about fuel that the commentators picked up on, but the team engineer played it cool, and the radio comms broadcast on TV were initially quite low-key about fuel saving, though they ramped up as the laps ticked by. A safety car late in the race seemed to alleviate the concerns, or so it seemed. Then, with victory all but guaranteed, disaster struck. De Pasquale’s car ran out of fuel on the final lap, and Brodie Kostecki swept past in his Dick Johnson Ford Mustang to take one of Bathurst’s most unlikely wins.

I was euphoric.

It reminded me of something the late Geoff Polites, a previous head of Ford Australia, said many years ago. Those of us of a certain age were born with either a Blue Oval for Ford or a Lion for General Motors Holden metaphorically tattooed on our backsides.

For me, it was always the Blue Oval. Continue reading →

Australian Wine: The story is in the bottle

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A good bottle of Australian wine is about more than just what’s in the bottle. It’s about the people who made it, the vineyard itself, the wine region, often the family behind it, and often the stories we, as drinkers, bring to the wine. 

In a non-academic sense, this was the basis of my PhD, where I looked at what lay behind the wine, particularly the emotional connection that Australian wine families had with their land, their winery, and the wine they produced. I could bore you with a detailed academic explanation of socioemotional wealth, but instead here is a link to my PhD.

My research showed that for these families there was so much more to the wine than its economic value. There was a deep emotional connection to the land itself, a sense of place and so much more.  Often these family members reflected that their own family’s story was being told through the bottle. They saw the wine as a continuation of their own family story.

The story is in the bottle

A couple of anecdotes always spring to mind for me here.

One is of a family member who loved bringing out a bottle of the family wine at dinner. Their branch of the family was quite distant from the family members who ran the winery, but the wine was their connection to a family story that had a more than 100-year history.  Their story was in the bottle, as a member of the family working in the wine business said.

Another is a family member who works overseas and is delighted that the family’s wine is often used at Board Room events. That bottle of wine lets them enjoy the family’s story, even though they are thousands of kilometres from the winery. Continue reading →