Pure Gold Jewellers

Pure Gold Jewellers was selected from the pool of large business brands as Dubai's best shopping experience by Dubai's Department of Economic Development, based on a number of criteria: the appearance of each store location from lighting to the music selection + cleanliness of the venue + the appearance as well as the warmth and friendliness of each staff employee + the intuitiveness of staff towards customer service. Congratulations!

Useful links:
www.pugold.com
www.dubaided.gov.ae

Knowledge Economic City

(via Wiki) Knowledge Economic City of Medina was launched by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin AbdulAziz in June 2006 and is the third of six economic cities announced by Amr al Dabbagh, Governor of the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority. The 25 billion Riyal (USD7 billion) project is located at Al-Madinah, the home of Muhammad and where Qur'an was compiled. The project has special significance for Muslims throughout the world because of its location. Knowledge Economic City is designed as a project to position Saudi Arabia and young Saudi Arabian entrepreneurs as internationally respected leaders in knowledge based industries and aims to attract and develop talent from around the world. It is intended to create opportunities on a global scale while providing investors and entrepreneurs with infrastructure, opportunity, a unique pool of talent and the potential for a healthy return on investment. Go to www.madinahkec.com for further information.

Art + The New Money

According to The Art Newspaper, the huge wealth from oil and mining in the Middle East and Russia is flowing into fine art, with a rush of new buyers entering a market that was already booming. Roman Abramovich, the Russian metals and minerals tycoon, was the buyer of two of the three most expensive paintings sold at Sotheby's big May sale in New York, paying $86m (£43m, €55m) for Francis Bacon's 'Triptych, 1976' and $34m for Lucian Freud's 'Benefits Supervisor Sleeping'. Sheikh Saud al-Thani, from the Qatari royal family, is building an art museum and the sheikh has emerged as one of the biggest collectors in the world. According to Art Market Report's Contemporary Art 100 index, the rise in the contemporary market has been especially strong, with prices up by 300 per cent in the past three years. I think the Russians will turn out to be the Japanese of the early 21st century. In the 1980s, Japanese property developers were famously among the biggest buyers, mopping up Impressionist works only to offload them at much lower prices just a few years later when the Japanese asset bubble burst. The art market has changed, thanks to globalization + the new money; amazingly there is still demand for the best works. Again, thanks to emerging economies of China, India, Russia, Mexico and Brazil.

Useful links:
www.theartnewspaper.com
www.arttactic.com
www.sothebys.com
www.christies.com
www.phillipsdepury.com
www.mutualart.com

The Art Of The Incredibles

The Art of The Incredibles by Mark Cotta Vaz is a beautiful companion to the film. The inspirational artwork is brilliant.

Random Thoughts

It’s important to hire people with diverse experiences and viewpoints, which you don’t necessarily get if you just hire straight -A Harvard MBA’s. Getting good grades and having courage are not the same thing. Being really smart and having good judgment are not the same thing. People – men or women – shouldn’t be winnowed out so early in life.

- Susan Byrne
Westwood Holdings

How true!

The Band Wagon Movie

The Band Wagon (1953) is a musical comedy film. It stars Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Oscar Levant, Nanette Fabray and Jack Buchanan. The film was written by Comden and Green and Alan Jay Lerner, directed by Vincente Minnelli, and produced by Arthur Freed. The film was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Costume Design, Color, Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay. In 1995, The Band Wagon was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being 'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant'.

One of the best MGM musicals. What a show! Definitely a must-see + a film to cherish forever.

Useful links:
www.imdb.com/title/tt0045537
www.loc.gov/film

Art Market Update

Souren Melikian has written an excellent article on the state of the art market @ http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/28/arts/melik28.php

Art lovers with millions to spare, do not despair in these lean times. Even when there is not much left to sift through, great works of art can still be found, if only because so few buyers have the eye needed to recognize them.

How true!

Good Guys And Bad Guys

Good Guys and Bad Guys: Behind the Scenes with the Saints and Scoundrels of American Business by Joe Nocera is great book, a collection of his best business writing over the last quarter-century. A must-read. I think he has a unique talent to paint the human drama behind the economic trends. He offers a fresh perspective on these characters.

Boryeong Mud Festival

(via Wiki) The Boryeong Mud Festival is an annual festival which takes place during the summer in Boryeong, South Korea. The first Mud Festival was staged in 1998 and, by 2006, the festival attracted 1.5 million visitors to Boryeong. The mud is dug up near Boryeong, trucked to the Daecheon beach area, and dumped at a 'Mud Experience Land'. The mud is considered rich in minerals and used to manufacture cosmetics. Most of the participants are foreign tourists, attracted by clever marketing by the town who discovered that it is more lucrative as a tourist attraction than using the muddy fields for agriculture. The economy generated from the festival supports the many hotels and restaurants along the waterway and several blocks inland.

Useful link:
www.mudfestival.or.kr

A must-visit.

Green Festivals

(via Guardian) Leo Hickman writes: A survey of 1,407 festival goers earlier this year by AGreenerFestival.com and Buckinghamshire New University found that 80% considered noise at festivals had an environmental impact, 82% thought waste had a negative impact, 56% thought festivals had a negative carbon footprint, 60% were worried about water, 53% were concerned with land damage and a whopping 84% thought travel and transport had a negative environmental impact.

Useful links:
www.agreenerfestival.com
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/ethicalliving/2008/06/heading_for_the_green_fields.html

Leo Hickman was spot on.

Fake Fabergé Easter Egg

Maev Kennedy writes about a Fabergé fans nightmare: The shatteringly bad news was that it was not the gem of a lifetime's collecting - a genuine Fabergé Easter egg, one of the jewelled toys of the Russian Imperial court and worth up to £10m - but a copy, worth at most £100,000, roughly twice its original price at auction.

Go to http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/news/story/0,,2288006,00.html for further information.

Diamond Rough Imitations

Jewelry Insurance Issues writes about new trends in prized uncut diamonds in jewelry + 4C's issues + the scams + other viewpoints @ http://jcrs.com/newsletters/2008/2008_05.htm

Useful link:
www.jcrs.com

Random Thoughts

Berkshire has a policy started in 1965, when I became involved, to acquire terrific companies run by terrific people. And then I don't have to do anything. But it's worked. We don't ever sell companies. A lot of private equity firms, they talk about buying something with an exit strategy. Well, we have an entrance strategy, but we have no exit strategy. The idea is to build and build and build, whether it's GEICO, whether it's Dairy Queen, whether it's, you name the company. We have 76 of them now. We trust our managers. They've earned that trust. They've delivered over the years, and we let them run their businesses. I take no credit for any of their successes, and I take no blame for any of their failures.

- Warren Buffett

Montreal Jazz Festival

The 29th annual festival, from June 26 - July 6, 2008, features 11 days of non-stop entertainment, from noon to midnight, right in the heart of downtown Montreal. It’s the summer celebration par excellence for people of all ages and origins, a cultural breath of fresh air, and a place for incredible musical discoveries with influence such as Jass, Blues, Latin-Jazz, Brazilian, Cuban, African, Reggae, Contemporary, Electronica ... It's the best in the world. You don't want to miss it!

Useful link:

www.montrealjazzfest.com

Spore Creature Creator

Electronic Arts has released the so-called Spore Creature Creator, which allows players to generate infinitely varied 3D critters and interact with them. It's fun.

Useful links:

www.ea.com

www.spore.com

Enhancing The Industry’s Capital Base

Chaim Even Zohar writes about the world's first listed polished diamond fund (approximately 60 percent of white diamonds + 40 percent of rare colored diamonds) + the impact + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp

Useful links:
www.diapasoncm.com
www.ubs.com

If the business is successful, expect to see more copycats.

WALL-E

WALL-E is a 2008 computer animated science fiction film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. WALL-E is an acronym for Waste Allocation Load Lifter-Earth Class. The film, which follows the romance between two robots in the future, is directed by Andrew Stanton, whose previous film, Finding Nemo, won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

Useful links:

http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/wall-e

www.pixar.com

The creators at Pixar are indeed masters of their craft. Not only are they masters of the technology, they are masters of telling a story. Get up from your chair and go see the movie.

Living Flowers

Living Flowers: Ikebana and Contemporary Art exhibition (June 15, 2008–September 7, 2008) at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) in Los Angeles, features arrangements from three Los Angeles ikebana schools with international cutting-edge works of art. A must-visit. The flower arrangements are beautiful.

Useful link:

www.janm.org

Gino Severini

Gino Severini was an Italian painter and a leading member of the Futurist movement. Throughout his career, Severini published important theoretical essays and books on art.

A sensational auction record was set when the stylized rendition of a dancer painted by the Italian Gino Severini in 1915 climbed to £15.04 million, making it the most expensive Futurist work ever auctioned. Sotheby's performance definitely illustrates the soaring vitality of the art market despite an ever darkening economic context.

Souren Melikian writes about Gino Severini's works @ http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/27/arts/melik27.php

Everything is in movement, everything rushes forward, everything is in constant swift change.
- Gino Severini

Useful link:
www.sothebys.com

India: The Emerging Giant

India: The Emerging Giant by Arvind Panagariya is an interesting book on India's economy and sheds light on one of the most successful experiments in economic development in modern history. Great read. India is not only the world's largest and fiercely independent democracy, but also an emerging economic giant. I think it is a definitive book on India.

India: The Emerging Giant provides a comprehensive and panoramic exposition of the twist and turns in India's economic policy over the last several decades. As Arvind Panagariya has so convincingly argued, open policies and rapid economic growth is the best antidote for poverty reduction. This scholarly yet readable book is the best riposte to those who have any doubts of the validity of Indian reforms. Nandan Nilekani, Co-Chairman, Infosys Technologies Limited

Useful link: http://www.columbia.edu/~ap2231