It’s been 6 weeks…..

And what a 6 weeks it was!

First a return visit to family living in Majorca, part of the Belearic Islands group off the coast of Spain and part of Spain. Here there is in Palma the biggest city a major ‘super yachts’ port where the (very) rich and famous flaunt their wealth and where one of our family is Captain of one of these super yachts taking him all around the world at the whim of the boats owner, a wealthy Arab. The rest of Majorca relies on its sun-bathed beaches where young girls (and old women who should be more circumspect!) can frolic displaying as much flesh as possible, toplessness being ‘normal’ and bottoms revealing the most flesh possible. Regrettably we were the oldest people on the beach. Has something passed me by already? It sure is a shock to be the oldest every day, but a pleasure too!!

Next we flew to Moscow to join a river cruise to Saint Petersburg, truly the Venice of the North. There was 105 tourists on the boat from all over the world with excellent guides to assist, many of them highly qualified educationalists or English/Russian interpreters. To be a guide in Russia involves at least 1 year of study and passing an exam before you are let out to be a guide. Being an organised tour we were treated to seemingly privileged positions with early entry to various ‘must do’ sights such as the Kremlin in Moscow and The Hermitage in St. Petersburg plus on the river trip from Moscow to very interesting stopoff sites along the way which gave us a sense of both the major cities and the rural experiences. The overall striking thing I noticed was:- …… No graffiti and no trash anywhere!! Russians obviously take pride in their country and don’t mess it up like we do in the west. The Metro in Moscow fits into this category too. Although busy all the time with people movement, its clean no trash or rats running around like you experience in New York or London. Additionally it is picture perfect inside with many artistic features, motifs, sculptures and mosaics, all undamaged by idiot youth with a grudge and celebrating Russian art and culture. Russia is a tourist destiny right now with bus loads of tourists at all the major tourist sites, noticeably the Chinese and Scandinavians are there in force

Finally Croatia before heading back home. Croatia is an interesting country and a late comer to E U membership although like Britain not part of the Euro currency. However what was immediately noticeable was the graffiti and rubbish lying around. Clearly having been in a country with no graffiti or trash had spoiled us for ‘normal’ places. Croatia has a beautiful coast line with lots of offshore islands and great beaches and is really good to visit for that type of holiday so was very enjoyable. You can tell Coratia is a former communist country and is struggling to make economic progress with tourism its biggest industry by far.

So we’re back and hopefully able to post more interesting articles about the world of geopolitics and finance in a world increasingly extreme and volatile, the policies of just one country (USA) driving the world to the brink of disaster time and again. Regrettably there is no counter to Trumps volatile and unthinking outbursts in the West as the United Kingdom now has a similar buffoon in power over there. The West is truely run by idiots.