The warmth and coolth of London to Cape Town

In recent months I've had multiple return trips between London and Cape Town, giving me the chance to compare the three mainline carriers servicing the route.  And a lucrative route it is too, with flights usually full. It may seem like hometown bias but South African Airways comes out tops, the other two being British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. At the end it all boils down to service and the SAA staff have worked it out. For one thing, they are genuinely hospitable, South African-style. I usually find the BA staff are rather cool, as if they're doing the job but would rather not be. It's efficient but not friendly or warm. They don't engage and hate criticism. As a customer you feel a bit lucky to be there. The Virgin staff are better - they are selected to meet the Virgin image of being sassy and in tune. They're energetic and the on-flight entertainment is outstanding. However, they take absolutely ages to bring the food. By the time you get to the main course, hours have passed and you'd like to be snoozing off, especially if you have work the next day. Don't dream of complaining, it doesn't go down well. SAA serve the food early and fast and they let you know that your needs are important. The QSL is from the old Virgin Radio in the UK, heard on 1215 AM in Johannesburg in 1993.

The power of cube not enough for some

Just back from another stint in beautiful Cape Town. Over the weekend the northwester arrived with perfect timing and Muizenberg Corner was on the button. On Saturday it was small but nicely shaped and on Sunday the swell really picked up - it was pumping. The power generated by a big wave is stunning. You can feel those extra cubic metres sweeping you up. I just couldn't stop and no need, I had nothing better to do. There was a little incident out back. I caught this ẁave and turned left - the next thing this dude crunched into me from my right. Clearly he thought I had dropped in and maybe I had. But when I took off I just didn't see him. Anyway there were stacks of waves and it really was unnecessary for him to make contact. We glared at each other and he shouted: 'What are you looking at me for, it was your fault!' So I suggested to him that he contact the Cape Town City council and request it to set aside a portion of the beach about 50 metres wide just for his own special self. This was a guy looking for a battle, not a surf. It all fizzled out and an hour later we were both still out there tearing it up. The QSL is from Radio 786, a religious broadcaster on FM in Cape Town. They kindly responded to my letter of reception which I posted from London although I heard them in Cape Town.

Luxembourg rocks, Juncker sulks

Little Luxembourg has a GDP of $55bn, which puts it between Oman and Belarus, in 69th place on the IMF list. But per capita it's by far number 1, ranking well ahead of oil-rich Qatar and Norway, by virtue of its small, one-half million population. The Luxembourg prime minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, who chairs the Eurogroup of finance ministers had a hissy-fit on Friday when his thunder was stolen by Maria Fekter, the Austrian finance minister. The group announced that the fiscal firewall for the Eurozone would be boosted to Euro 700bn by allowing the new ESM to run  in parallel with what's left of the EFSF. Juncker wanted to make the announcement but Fekter dropped in on him. This sent him fuming into the car park. The media jumped on this as usual as a sign of dysfunctionality. Indeed the scepticism in the UK about the Eurozone's turmoil is quite deafening, bordering on racism. To me it's actually been quite a surprise how well the Eurozone players have managed one of the most complex problems ever seen in global finance. No doubt Juncker will recover his poise. The QSL is from Radio-Tele-Luxembourg heard in Cape Town on AM in 1968. At the time this was the station that UK teenagers were listening to under the sheets at night because it was playing the great pop music of the day: music which the dinosaur BBC of the time refused to play. And down in distant South Africa we were listening to.

Basking in funny, arty Barca

We spent three days in Barcelona, staying in the main tourist area and seeing the sights. This city  grows on you. We saw it from two great vantage points: Montjuic, which houses the Joan Miro museum and commands a great view over the port; and Park Guell where Antonio Gaudi lived and worked for many years, which gives another view over the city centre. It is quite a coincidence that the English word gaudy is so similar to Gaudi's name. Gaudy is certainly a word that comes to mind when looking at the many works of this famous architect that dot the city. I say this not in a pejorative sense - Gaudy's work is stunning and fun. One can say the same about Miro's art which has a child-like and impish quality to it. Even some of Picasso's work in the Barcelona museum is outright funny, notably his series on Pigeons which made me laugh out loud. We travelled quite a bit in the efficient Metro system and I was surprised at how few signs there were of the unemployment shock that has engulfed Spain in recent years. Catalan unemployment is up at 20% but people seem to be getting by. In metro systems you spend a lot of time looking at people's shoes and there were very few that looked in bad disrepair. Actually my old sandals looked worse than most! The QSL is from Cadena SER Barcelona heard on AM 828 in Johannesburg in  1991.

Chill pills for London property

The home-buying system in England has to be among the stupidest in the world. You need chill pills to handle it. For a country with such a well-developed legal system it's a disgrace. So we are interested in this house. As we always do we make a point of meeting with the sellers to show them that we are serious. It's also a chance to get to know more about the property. London is not cheap. One measure is the ratio of London prices to the rest of south-east England (itself not cheap). This ratio is a couple of standard deviations high for the past 20 years. Anyway, the sellers like us and we put in an offer. They accept. But.... they too are buying and their seller is very uncommunicative. He will only take emails. So our deal just hangs. In the meantime another buyer could come along and outbid us and the same could happen with our sellers: another bid could come in for the house they want. There is no contract yet, it's all in the air. No one is legally bound. It's great for the solicitors and surveyors: they get involved and if the deal falls through, too bad, they get paid anyway. Infuriating. So we got out of town for the weekend and went to Brighton, staying in a beautiful flat close to the sea. Luckily there was no traffic pile-up on the highways so we whizzed through in 2 hours. The QSL is from Mid-Downs Hospital Radio in Haywards Heath  (just north of Brighton) using 1 watt, one of a bunch of low-powered AM stations heard in Kent over a decade ago. 

Kiribati has a sinking feeling

So you want do get away from it all and take up residence on a desert island? Sip sundowners and watch the palms swaying in the breeze? Forget about the Eurozone crisis, the US debt ceiling and Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz? After all, Paul Gaugin had a whale of a time out in Tahiti. Sounds good, only it's not as safe as you think. On Kiribati (the old Gilbert  Islands) in the Pacific they are negotiating with Fiji to buy land as their own set of atolls is threatened by rising sea levels. The island group with a population of 100,000 averages just 2 metres above sea level and storms are eroding the coastline. Fresh water supplies and crops are suffering from salination. The idyllic island aura was devastated by some of the bloodiest fighting in World War 2 when the Americans attacked Japanese positions on the Tarawa atoll. The QSL is from Radio Kiribati, Tarawa heard in Johannesburg in 1989. The frequency given on the card is 846 kHz medium wave, which would have been a prodigious feat over nearly 15000 km - virtually impossible unless you're near the coast. I actually heard it on 14918 kHz on shortwave. At the time it used to come in every morning around 0745 Joburg time, 10 hours behind Kiribati. So I used to listen in just before driving into work with the strange feeling of knowing that their day was already over.

Not all bad in Hyderabad

Massive amounts of band-aid applied to Greece have enabled investors to feel more positive about risk assets. But there is still a high degree of scepticism about Greece with many feeling that it will still ultimately leave the Eurozone and that the current bout of cocoon-wrapping and debt write-offs are merely preparing the way for an eventual Greek exit. I'm not so sure. If I know one thing it's that nothing stays the same. What you see now in economies is for sure not what you're going to see in three years time. This is especially true after a crisis. Greece may well surprise. In the meantime, emerging economies are easing up on monetary policy. Brazil has cut interest rates more than anyone expected. In China inflation has halved in the past few months so stand by for more easier policy this year. This is the old-fashioned way of applying monetary policy - when things are booming hike rates so when things are cooling you can run 'em down again. India is also jumping on the bandwagon, with the Reserve Bank of India dropping banks' cash reserve ratio again this week. India has missed the boat somewhat with its lack of follow-through on economic reform. Congress Party is gripped by policy paralysis. But India is capable of chugging along at a 6% pace, even if not at the the ballistic rate that seemed possible just a few years ago. Over the past decade emerging economies have doubled their share of global GDP and it's likely to continue to grow for the another generation. The QSL is a classic from All India Radio Hyderabad heard in London in 2002 and signed by the much-beloved AK Bhatnagar. Hyderabad was founded in 16th century, now a city with a population about the size of Chicago.