And Kippers For Breakfast

This week I've been staying at a golf course resort. The course itself was designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr., whom many regard as the world's all-time best golf course architect.

I haven't played golf in recent years myself although at one time I was a good player. I was taught as a teenager by a knowledgeable old Scot and frankly I loved the game and eventually just couldn't abide the great swelling tide of new players who turned up around the late Eighties along with the Japanese money of that era and its interest in brightly-coloured criss-crossed plus-fours and all things Anglo-American.

But every cloud has a silver lining.

The money that swirls around the golfing world nowadays has meant that the hotels attached to most of the top-grade courses lack for nothing.

The standard of service, quality of food, solidity of everything you touched – were all reasons to be extremely cheerful, if not indeed quite joyous, given the miserable day and age in which we live right now. (It's just a stock photo of fruit on the right there - the fruit at the hotel was light years better. I'll take my own pics next time!)

And I take it kippers for breakfast is rather normal for golf resort hotels... It wouldn't be too normal in most Australian households in high summer though let me tell you!

When was the last time I observed as fine an array and selection of fruit, for example, at the breakfast bar? Nope. Can't think of an 'ever before.' And as a good friend of mine noted yesterday, if John says so then it must pretty damned good because he's seen it all before and been there when it was something special. I had to smile when I saw him raise his eyes at my explanation of the extraordinarily high quality of the food.

I guess there may also be some effect coming from the China market commodity boom going on in Australia – particularly in Western Australia - right now...

Frankly I like the prospects for investing in Australia again right now and I haven't felt that way for, what, um, maybe thirty years...?

Let me tell you this much about money: it's pretty dumb stuff. When it's really around in huge chunks it just goes everywhere and anything can make you a profit. It's around in Australia right now. And I don't think its going away any time soon either. People who know me know that in fact most of my money is in South Africa and London, but I still have a few things here in Australia that I never thought would do too much. Wrong!!!!! Just shows ya, don't it; eggs in different baskets and all that.

All the best,

Calvin J. Bear