Flying currants in Kathmandu
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- Category: Around the world in 80 years
- Created on Wednesday, 03 August 2011 13:44
Flying currants in Kathmandu
I was once invited by UNCTAD/GATT to give a seminar in Kathmandu, capital of Nepal. It was in 1980 but it felt as if it was in 1580. It was the most primitive undeveloped country I had ever come across anywhere in the world, and I had spent time in the outlying parts of Libya, Thailand, Colombia and Ethiopia.My bet with John Lennon
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- Category: Around the world in 80 years
- Created on Wednesday, 29 June 2011 11:48
My bet with John Lennon
In the 1970s I had become freelance and had been commissioned to write a book called “Plan your export drive”. Always with an eye to promotion and marketing, I had included a chapter entitled “Business gifts and bribery”. I had learnt from many interviews with British exporters that when they were bidding for multi-million-pound contracts overseas, they were often up against competition from unscrupulous foreign suppliers who built a few million pounds extra into their prices to be used as promises of backhanders to people who could smooth approval of the contract.The case of the missing underpants – in Finnish Lapland
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- Category: Around the world in 80 years
- Created on Thursday, 27 January 2011 10:58
There were two memorable incidents in 1997. One was the appearance of the previously unknown heavenly traveller, now known as the Hale-Bopp Comet – and the other was the loss of my underpants in the north of Finland. And the two incidents are connected.
I led a group of ITCM readers on a trip to Rovaniemi, the capital of Finnish Lapland. We were hosted by the Finnish Convention Bureau and Finnair. The trip was packed with interest and excitement.
I led a group of ITCM readers on a trip to Rovaniemi, the capital of Finnish Lapland. We were hosted by the Finnish Convention Bureau and Finnair. The trip was packed with interest and excitement.
Read more: The case of the missing underpants – in Finnish Lapland
In two courts of the King of Thailand
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- Category: Around the world in 80 years
- Created on Monday, 17 January 2011 15:00
In two courts of the King of Thailand
With my second son Kai (second of six), I had a meeting in Bangkok in the early 1980s with a Professor Pavan at the city’s Agricultural University. Towards the end of the meeting, the Professor said that if I wanted to see what Thailand was doing to assist its northern tribes to switch from growing opium to a more acceptable crop, he would be in Chiang Mai in the North West that weekend and he could show us round his research centre.Monaco, motors and me
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- Category: Around the world in 80 years
- Created on Friday, 14 January 2011 12:44