1st July Newsletter. SIN POM
I'm writing from the clubhouse of the Royal Port Moresby Golf Club, sipping on a PNG No.1 hot milk tea, under the loud whirr of ceiling fans, looking over lush rolling hills from the comfort of a shaded verandah.
Prime Minister James Marape's house is at the top of a hill just across the entrance to the club. Several times a week his entourage rolls over for a quick round. I enjoy sitting here to write, read and work, while my colleague navigates the course, collecting precious political, social and economic perspectives.
This week I've been in Singapore and POM (Port Moresby's airport code, and nickname). I Flew TPE-SIN on an Eva B777-300 (good flight, but spotted a roach in the cabin), SIN-BNE on an SQ A350-900 (my favorite plane, but it's so quiet that I struggled to sleep because of the noisy cabin crew in the galley), QF B737-800 BNE-POM (all good, though my check-in luggage arrived a day late). My schedule over the next few days is up in the air. I'm hoping to be able to somehow swing by SYD to see my friend K who has been fighting an epic medical battle for the past 7 months.
'Increasingly Fragile.' That's the situation here. Seemingly: perpetually, increasingly, fragile. Obviously, that continues until the fall-apart moment. Not there yet... and predicting when seems to be a futile exercise. Perhaps it's because to survive here, regardless of whether you're a politician, consular staff, investor, aid-provider or auditor, requires a metamorphosis to entrepreneur. But the thing with entrepreneurs, besides the grit, is the bounding optimism. And in hot sweaty tropics, the optimism seems to be on steroids, thanks to pheromones and golf socials that often slip into three days of perfect-sunset, happy existentialism.
One proposal: that all investors from OECD countries with over $50m in annual revenue publish monthly public accounts in a common format and with 10 years of history showing how much they've paid that month in taxes, royalties, donations, payments to state-owned companies and payments to companies controlled by politically exposed persons. The more opaque this disclosure is, the more all of the above payments are better described as legal facilitation fees.
I have a new goal, which is to be able to run a half-marathon in under 2 hours by this October, and by then to consistently run a 10K at under 50 minutes. In 2023 I became a bit over-obsessed with zone-2 training. It was great for the heart rate, but I became very slow, running at around a 7 min/km pace. I'm now using the Nike Run Club app, which relies on interval training and fantastic coaching audio tracks to help improve speed and endurance. I'm four weeks into a 14 week program. I've brought my 10k pace to sub 6 min/km and I think I'll be able to get to my target by October 6, the day I'll be helping Klaus in the Kenting half Iron-Man triathlon. I'll be doing the swim (2 km) and run (21km), with Klaus doing the bike (90km). If I can do the swim + run in under 2 hours and 40 minutes, I'll accept his invitation to pay for the event. If I'm slower than this, I pay.
Another recent goal has been to finally start sleeping at least 7 hours a night. Last month I went for my annual full health-check. It went well, but my blood pressure was on the high end of normal, and I'm wondering if contributing factors could be my long-standing lack of sleep, and age. My average daily sleep for as long I've been tracking it (about 6 years), and probably for the last 25 years, has been under 6 hours per night. This week, with the travel and dinners, hasn't been great at 6 hours and 16 minutes, though the last month has been good. My year-to-date stat has just inched over the 6 hour mark at 6 hours and 6 minutes. I've given myself a restriction, which is: no coffee unless my daily, weekly and monthly sleep is >7 hours/night. I am seriously really missing my oat milk flat-white.
Speaking of habits, I have a mini daily habit that I've been doing for about 7 months now. It takes me less than 5 minutes and I do it every day, usually in the morning before showering. This is it: 90 second plank > 30 push-ups > 90 second plank > 30-push ups. All with no breaks. This is where I'm at with this habit: the second set is still sloppy. I can complete the second plank, but form doesn't look too good and I sometimes cheat by pushing my butt up to form an arc. And I have not yet been able to do a clean second set of push-ups. Work in progress...
I recently finished listening to the book Fluent Forever, by Gabriel Wyner. I wish I'd read it a long time ago. After almost 30 years of neglect, my Chinese improved after moving to Taipei in February 2020, but not enough. My accent and my tones are terrible. My kids hate hearing me speak. This book made me reflect on my bad pronunciation and my hypocritical disregard to improve it. Hypocritical, because I remember how much I disliked hearing my father's gringo accent in Spanish, and how annoyed I'd get that my mother never made an effort to speak understandable English (she got seriously offended about 20 years ago when I hired her an English accent teacher). Fluent Forever makes the strong case that learning correct accent and intonation is a critical first step. The book's premise seems to be 'fake it before you make it.' You first fake the fluency by sounding really &^%$ genuine, and by focusing on learning the most frequently-used words and phrases. I'm convinced.
Here's a log of other recent things I've read or heard:
Black Wave by Kim Ghattas (8.5/10)
Abejas Grises por Andrei Kurkok (7/10)
Chip War by Charles Miller (7.5/10)
Glucose Revolution (audio book) by Jessie Inchauspe (8/10)
Prairie Lotus by Linda Sue Park (7.5/10)
Smoke & Ashes by Amitav Ghosh (8.5/10)
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (8.5/10)
Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie (8/10)
Fluent Forever (audio book) by Gabriel Wyner (8.5/10)
Thief of Always by by Clive Barker (8/10)
excerpts from Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon (6.5/10)
Interview of the Gottman Doctors on Diary of a CEO Podcast (9/10)
Interview of Jonathan Haidt re Anxious Generation on Rich Roll Podcast (8.5/10)
Finally, a thought I had on one of my recent runs: "Culture" is a polite word for "Tribe"
It's always great to hear from you, my friend. I hope you've been well.
I'm really pleased to now have serious pressure to write more frequently. My eldest daughter has started her own substack. Here's to the weekly substack...
Finally, a picture of the penalty categories at the Royal Port Moresby Golf Club…
Best wishes,
S