Goodwood Festival of Speed

Been waiting for DY to get back from Goodwood so that he could file this guest post (unfortunately, no stories of run-ins with or even close-up shots of the prodigious Lewis Hamilton):


The highlight of the whole weekend was the demonstration run of this grand prix season's rookie sensation, the British driver Lewis Hamilton. The moment he returned to the pits, he was mobbed by adoring fans. Goodwood offers spectators a rare chance to be close to their favourite wheels and personalities.


The ultimate road car today is the 1 million euro, 1,000bhp, 241mph Bugatti Veyron. It was given a spectacular demonstration on the Goodwood hill climb course.

This one off Ferrari P3/4 was recently built for a New Yorker, it is
based on an Enzo, itself an ultra rare limited edition beast. It stunned
onlookers with its grace and pace at Goodwood.

Many exhibits were from Mercedes' own museum in Stuttgart, such as this
priceless 1954 Mercedes W196 grand prix car. Another amazing Mercedes
from the collection that was given hard exercise was the 1955 300SLR, it
was reunited with its original driver Sir Stirling Moss.

Goodwood was not just about cars, there were also a celebration of two wheelers too. This particular one, driven by an ace stunt man, became at times a one-wheeler!

We stayed at bed and breakfast 14 miles away. There is a Goodwood Park Hotel within the estate, its a health spa cum resort, but that is always booked out for this event. I think Lord March reserves it for his VIP guests. There is also Amberley Castle, a Relais & Châteaux hotel 8 miles away. It is essential to book accommodation at least a year in advance, and buy tickets 3 months in advance. The nearby town of Chichesterhas some good restaurants: Crouchers or the The Dining Room at Purchases.

Walking Tour Guide On Your Mobile Phone

It's always fun meeting other entrepreneurs; I just love listening to the how-it-all-started stories. Today I had lunch with Stefan White, one of the founders of Mobile Adventures that produces Walk The Talk mobile phone walking tour guides for Hong Kong and Macau. Last week, I had been searching for audio guide service providers for an upcoming project. I had loved the audio/video guide for Tate Modern's Gilbert & George exhibition, but that involved passing out handhelds. Then I remembered that the Matthew Barney exhibition at SF MoMA last summer had visitors dialing into the exhibition's audio guide with mobile phones. So I googled "museum audio guide provider" expecting to find a lot of overseas companies. But to my surprise, the first company to come up on the search was Hong Kong-based Mobile Adventures. And when I clicked in, I just knew I had heard of the company before. So I dashed off an email to the founders and after a few back-and-forth emails, SW, to my great relief, solved the mystery of how I had first heard of them last year. The connection was NL (we also found out we had a couple more tenuous links). I remember having thought it was a cool concept then, but hadn't really followed up by checking out the company's websites. But this time around, with a few clicks, I realized that Mobile Adventures would be able to deliver the solution that we were looking for. Now that the content-delivery system has been found, I just need to get cracking on the more time-consuming content creation side of things.

On another note, I ventured to Kowloon Bay to check out the newly-opened DIY shop B&Q (kind of the UK-equivalent of Home Depot) at the very new MegaBox shopping mall (the mall only just opened on 1 June, so a lot of shops still aren't ready yet). Not that I'm much of a DIY person (Ran into MP & CH though, who had spent nearly 4 hours there. And MP ended up buying a trunk-load full of things like power drills so that he could rehinge his doors!), but I found it fun walking around Megabox's three floors of home-improvement shops (aside from B&Q, there was also Australia's Spotlight among other smaller stores). MegaBox was quite clever to bring home improvement into a mainstream mall. Up to now, Hong Kong's fixer-uppers had to deal with the hassle and heat of walking shop-to-shop along Morrison Hill Road for lighting fixtures or Lockhart Road for everything else. Now, it's all to be found under one air-conditioned roof, even though it might be considered a bit out-of-the-way for some. But that's the definition of destination shopping. And there's the added attraction of MOS Burger!

Inspired by...

Thomas Heatherwick's ingenious designs:

Rolling Bridge by Heatherwick Studio. Photo courtesy: www.heatherwick.com

Was reluctantly getting ready to go for a run up Old Peak Road with BL to pay a visit to MP & CH yesterday, when I caught a glimpse of BBC's Imagination program on the 37-year-old, British designer and was absolutely captivated by the cleverness of his designs. Love his rolling bridge (pictured above). Nearly had a good enough excuse to get BL to abort run, until commercials kicked in.

Been looking for a coffee table, I wonder where I can buy his Plank:

Plank by Heatherwick Studio. Photo courtesy: www.heatherwick.com

Goodwill Buys

Instant Karma -- The Campaign to Save Darfur benefits Amnesty International's "Make Some Noise" project. Artists ranging from U2 ("Instant Karma") to Green Day ("Working Class Hero") to Black Eyed Peas ("Power to the People") to Snow Patrol ("Isolation") to Avril Lavigne ("Imagine") reinterpret songs from John Lennon's solo songbook.

Was going through julib.com newsletters and came across their write-up on Social Atelier's conscience-raising and fund-raising for Solar Cooker Project T-shirts. The line of T-shirts with direct messages addressing global warming, warm, body image, genocide, gay marriage, poverty and AIDS, will launch tomorrow (14 June) at Fred Segal in Los Angeles.

Crazy about...

...iPhone. I am wishing Christmas will come on 29 June and my brother will tell me that he can get me an iPhone. I know I'll have to buy into a 2-year AT&T subscription, but as long as I can swap the SIM card, it'll be worth it. I am sick to death of my ultra-basic Nokia phone (even though it's the only phone that never gets left behind in taxis, dropped in the loo, stolen or broken; people actually chase after me if I leave the phone behind!). Only 18 more days in the US. But here in Asia, we've still got months!!



And there's also the July 2007 Vanity Fair Africa Special Section guest edited by Bono. Download Youssou N'Dour's playlist through iTunes; all the proceeds to benefit The Global Fund.

Dreaming of...

the -stan countries along the ancient silk routes...mesmerizing photographs by Jehad Nga in the New York Times.

LOVEDAY

If ever a girl needed an excuse to go shopping in Cartier, here's the perfect one. Today is Cartier LOVEDAY and 20% of sales of their LOVECHARITY bracelet (and 10% of the rest of their LOVE line) will go to various charities around the world (in Hong Kong it's UNICEF, in the US it's the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity). The cord comes in dusty pink as well as a few other colours. It might make for a great Father's Day gift; maybe I can get BL to convert it to a more functional key chain or get two and convert to cuff links.

Evolution: The Handstand Challenge

"But now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever
So I think I'll be Six now for ever and ever."
- Now We Are Six, A.A. Milne

I was green with envy when DT said he had managed an unassisted headstand the other day: "First time since I was 6 or so...Felt like a kid". I've been wanting to do an unassisted inversion (headstand, tripod headstand, handstand, whatever...) since I started yoga, but just not there yet. After one class with Patrick where we were practising the different stages of a headstand, I actually had a dream where I kept trying, and repeatedly failing, to do a handstand. I woke up feeling like Sisyphus, except Sisyphus would actually get to roll his rock all the way up the hill before having it roll back down; I never managed a handstand, even in my dream (I don't even want to think about what Freud would have to say about all this!). It was such an annoying feeling, especially knowing that, even in my dream, the one thing that kept me from doing the handstand was fear -- visions of myself landing on my head and breaking my neck would race through my mind just as I'm about to kick my legs up. I'd love to have that fearlessness of a 6-year-old again.

So yesterday, to help me overcome my fear, I dragged LP, MP & PW to the Evolution: Asia Yoga Conference (none of us actually ever imagined ourselves attending a yoga conference!) to take the "Inversions Demystified" class taught by Jason Nemer and Jenny Sauer-Klein, founders of Acroyoga. When we arrived, we were all just a tad bit intimidated. Most of the people in the class seemed like such serious yogis, many having attended classes since the start of the conference on Friday. Even MP & PW, who could do handstands, were looking a bit weary.

In the end, I didn't quite manage to do a completely unassisted handstand. I used the wall to get my legs up, but there was a split-second when I managed to hold the handstand on my own and that already got me on a thrilling high. I never imagined myself attending a yoga conference full of serious yogis, but there we all were, having such fun. There was one particularly entertaining moment watching MP & PW execute an exercise with one of them in downward dog and the other attempting a handstand off the back of the one in downward dog (I leave it to the reader's imagination to work out the technicalities). LP, who was least enthusiastic to begin with, actually walked out of the 2-hour class saying we should attend next year's conference and sign up for more classes! I walked out of the class with the inspiring realisation that I wasn't going to break my neck doing a handstand. So I'll just keep trying. And one of these days, it will just happen and I might just be able to be 6 for ever and ever.

Hong Kong: Support a Better Central Waterfront!

A message from Designing Hong Kong:

If you care about a quality harbourfront for Hong Kong, please read on...

There have been many public forums and organisations to get community feedback on the new Central waterfront. The response from all these has been very clear. People want:

Less density
More greenery
More diversity
A boulevard instead of a six-lane highway running through the middle

These wishes will require changes to the current Outline Zoning Plan, but the Government refuses to countenance any changes. It is sticking to the current "big block" footprints and a "thundering thoroughfare" (the so-called "P2" passing right through the middle. This does not reflect public's wishes and will result in a sub-optimal harbourfront. Since this is the last reclamation on the Central harbourfront, it is the last chance for us to get it right and create something we can all love and be proud of.

Designing Hong Kong has now taken the initiative to make its own
application to the Town Planning Board to revise the existing Outline Zoning Plan to reflect what people want. THIS APPLICATION NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT.

To support this initiative, go to the link below, click "Express Support" and send the signed Support Form to the Town Planning Board.

Please take the time to do something for our future harbourfront. Please forward this message.

GO HERE: http://www.designinghongkong.com

Designing Hong Kong is an alliance of four individuals:
* Christine Loh, former Legislative Councilor and CEO of the non-profit think-tank Civic Exchange
* Peter H. Y Wong, Chartered Accountant, Past Chairman of the Business and Professionals Federation of Hong Kong, and member of the Greater Pearl River Delta Business Council and the Executive Committee of the Commission on Strategic Development
* Markus Shaw, Chairman of WWF Hong Kong and member of the Advisory Council on the Environment
* Paul Zimmerman, Executive Director of Jebsen Travel, Convenor of Designing Hong Kong Harbour District and Vice-Chairman of the Coalition on Sustainable Tourism.

Click here for the English press release.
Click here for the Chinese press release.

Interesting Poolside Read

Was going through the latest Skoll Foundation e-newsletter and came across this item from SustainAbility: "Raising Our Game: Can We Sustain Globalization? is a new report that looks out to 2027 to examine future scenarios for the world’s sustainable development, and to propose a new set of rules for business to rise to the unprecedented challenges ahead. The interplay of sustainable development and globalisation is defining the future and the stakes for the planet are rising. Raising Our Game: Can We Sustain Globalization? looks at the trade-offs involved in future choices over environmental and social value, and at the role still to be played by innovation, entrepreneurship and the emerging economies of the South. There will be winners and losers, but no more business as usual."