One of the pleasures of London is clubland, where I am fortunate to belong to through my long standing membership of the Royal Overseas League. Founded in 1910, the ROSL celebrated its 100th anniversary last year, and it has long been a stalwart for expatriates returning to the UK after postings abroad. In those days, being an expat meant a serious commitment – to the Far East, where I am (Beijing) would be a three month voyage just to arrive. Clubs such as ROSL, granted Royal Charter by King George V in 1916 and continued by every British Monarch since; provide a home from home in the center of London, ideal for when I do return back to Albion. While others may book the Hilton, or even the Ritz or Mandarin Oriental, ROSL is sited bang on St. James Park, and provides accommodation, an excellent bar, reading rooms, a library and two very good restaurants all for a fraction of the price of commercial establishments. Only open to members, I can relax away from the commercialization of staying in an hotel, and potter about as if in a very grand stately home of my own. It’s also within walking distance of Covent Garden, Piccadilly Circus, Harrods, the great museums of South Kensington  and Jermyn Street, home to tailors and hatters since the 1600’s. That’s all well and good while I live it up as a Lord, however the best kept secret of London club memberships are the reciprocal arrangements.

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As a boy, I spent a lot of time in London, my Father worked for the BBC, so the necessity of being close to central London and BBC House was paramount. One of the joys was spending weekends bicycling to Kew. These are Royal Gardens, famous for their botanical science and research and for housing the worlds largest greenhouses. The importance of the botanical gardens cannot in fact be underestimated – a Victorian ideal, some of the specimens brought back by Charles Darwin and Edgar Wallace on their respective adventures are still alive and well and growing in the various hothouses at Kew. It’s a remarkable testament to these early botanists and naturalists that their specimens survive and are still studied here.

However it was the Pagoda that always enthralled me. Years before I ever went to China (I’ve now lived in the country for over twenty years), the Pagoda seemed like an alien transplant from an almost imaginary Orient. The mysteries of Cathay stood there, almost timeless, in front of me, ever since I can remember. Whenever I am back to London, I always pay it a visit.

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It’s always a great pleasure to be in Paris, coming especially as I do with partially Gallic heritage. It’s an even greater privilege to take cocktails at the Paris Ritz Hotel . My good friend Colin Field, an Englishman in Paris, is the head barman at the Hotel, and is famous for having invented the most expensive cocktail in the world. He’s also acknowledged as one of the Greatest Barmen in the world (Forbes, amongst many others) so a trip to Paris is never really complete without paying him a visit. His recent book “Cocktails of the Ritz” also features an introduction by Kate Moss, such is his pulling power (I’m lucky if I get the Head of Shanghai Amcham for mine). The Ritz is also cool for another reason – it was liberated in World War Two from the occupying Germans by Ernest Hemingway. Working as a war journalist and attached to an American infantry division, they fought their way into central Paris and eventually to the Place De Vendome. One suspects the Germans may have fled by this time, but Hemingway piled into the hotel with his troops – the German High Command for France had been billeted in the hotel during the occupation – walked into the “Small” bar to the side of the entrance and announced to the somewhat nervous barman stood there "I’m Ernest Hemingway with the US Army and we are liberating this hotel! A round of dry martinis for all the men on me please!"

That small bar is now the Bar Hemingway, named in his honor, and features a collection of artifacts from the great writers day – including his portable typewriter and many photos. Colin has now embellished this with collections of his own – a keen huntsman, Colin’s trophy bags of various deer, wildebeeste and other such creatures stare down balefully at the drinkers beneath. However,  its his Ritz Sidecar that really takes the breath (and the credit card) away. It is the classic mix of Cointreau, brandy and lemon juice. However, Colin makes one with a rare 1830 reserve cognac, of which there are only a few bottles left worldwide. It’s uniqueness lies in the fact that the grapes from which it is made of were collected before the invasion of phylloxera, a pest that destroyed valuable varieties of grapes in France in 60’s before the last century. It’s also priced at USD1,400 a glass. I was allowed to cuddle the cognac bottle for a few seconds however.

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“It’s the only way to eat it” declared the antique dealer along Edinburgh’s Royal Mile as I toyed with a solid silver spoon from the reign of King George III (1760-1820). Porridge eating is always a matter of some debate, stood as I was both with this charming collector and the lady responsible for acquisitions on behalf of the Scottish National Museum. She piped up that a single spoon from King James 1 time had just been sold at auction for Thirty-Six Thousand Pounds (@USD58,000), and that she preferred her porridge with maple syrup. Antiques dealer replied he liked a dollop of honey, and that to add extra salt on it was anathema.  Having had my full of breakfast haggis, excellent sausages and some – yes – porridge – each morning at the Caledonian Hotel, I felt that the dish, often thought of as a humble, yet traditional winter staple, needed such accoutrements to truly appreciate its warming and filling, not to say delicious qualities. I’m a long way from being born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I had to have that to see if it was true. Here’s a photo of my breakfast table to prove it took its place.

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I’ve just spent a long weekend in Hong Kong; catching the St. Petersburg Philharmonic who have had a series of three concerts here. With a fully Russian program, taking in Prokofiev’s 1st Symphony, his third piano concerto and Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony on the first night, we were treated to close up views of the pianist Denis Matsuev from the fifth row. Matsuev is one of Russia’s most prominent young pianists and has rapidly been making a name for himself in the international concert arenas. He’s actually a chunky bloke – one wouldn’t want to get in a fight with him after too many vodkas, and unusually for a pianist he has fingers like sausages. However, that really enables him to attack the Steinway – never have I heard a piano assaulted in such a fashion – one wonders at the sheer strength of the instrument as Matsuev really gets the most out of it by hammering away at the keys. He’s also amazingly fast, and brings a lot of both technique and passion out of the instrument in the way only Russian pianists can. Conducted by long standing artistic director Yuri Temirkanov,; it was possible to make comparisons with Valery Gergiev, the enfant terrible conductor of the competing Mariinsky.

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Running around Asia – with regular trips to the US – can be a tiring occupation, not least as because both China and India have massive populations and can get very crowded. I’ve been lucky enough to visit Sri Lanka many times, and now that finally the civil war with the Tamil Tigers is over, improvements to infrastructure are now being made. It’s a huge island – and markedly different wherever you go. I have friends that live upcountry in Dambulla, about two hours drive north from Kandy, where they are building an estate, and wild elephants roam. I prefer however the relative calm of watching the oceans, and I prefer the south east of the island, as the coast swings back north away from the southern tip of Fort Galle. Galle is an imposing place, built by the Portugese 400 years ago, and remains very much a walled fortress. It’s home to the Sri Lankan cricket team, who often play test matches there, and is also home to an important annual Asian literary festival as well as one of my favorite sports, elephant polo where they now have an annual competition. Consequently there is a reasonable amount of culture around Galle, and a high standard of places to stay and things to see. Sri Lanka still maintains a great deal of that old British colonialism – the style and the sense of tropical grandeur, but now without the racist overtones that marred the days of the Raj.

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A while ago I had an unusual problem that got picked up extensively by the international media, and then circulated around many of the China blogs. Having been in China for many years, and as the head of my firm, I was one of the few foreign consultants with access to Government Ministers, and I was able to arrange, on annual basis, meetings with many senior officials. In fact, the summaries of these would then be published in an edition of my China Briefing magazine . It was a useful way to gain first hand knowledge of Government thinking, and I used to ask our clients and readers beforehand if they had questions to ask. Accordingly, it was a useful service. However, amongst competitors, or those not in the loop, jealousy can be the result, and there are people out there waiting for prominent consultants such as myself to make a slip. The vindictive find ridicule is easy to disperse.  

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It’s been a seriously hot summer in Asia, and time to leave the broiling streets of Beijing behind and look for pastures new. Although I’ve traveled extensively across Asia, I’ve never visited Indochina – that quaintly named section of South-East that was colonized by the French. Heading off to Vietnam, where my firm also has two offices I would visit for the first time – was the summer holiday for me for the year.

Flying into Hanoi, I was immediately struck by how much the administrative infrastructure was very similar to China’s – of course, another Communist country, and at first glance it seemed almost to be a Chinese Province. Driving downtown, one passes Chinese temples and Chinese stylized buildings aplenty. China’s cultural influence is strong here, and especially that of the Cantonese, who have been settling into Vietnam for centuries. Yet those first impressions are misleading – the French, as always, left a strong cultural marker here, and no more so than the cuisine, architecture, language, and a certain aspect of elegance and style that the Chinese just do not possess.

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I hit my 50th birthday in New York on 8th May, where a bunch of my friends all flew in to greet me and celebrate reaching half a century. This mainly involved hanging out at the legendary Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan, and drinking a case each of 1960 Chateau Margaux and Chateau Latour at USD1,000 a bottle.  The Rossini opera Armida was taken in at the Met, with Renee Fleming in fine voice, while we also caught Valery Gergiev conducting the New York Philharmonic with Stravinsky’s masterwork "The Rite Of Spring".

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One of the great added benefits of running around Asia from literally, top to bottom is the variety of places I get to visit in between and the good friends I’ve made over the years. En route to Hong Kong from Mumbai lies Sri Lanka, a beautiful island nation I often hang out at en route – my good friend Simon Lazenbatt lives there and its always a relaxing place to visit – usually cooler than Mumbai and with the benefit of great food, fantastic beaches and that important, yet homely, faded British colonial ambience. Via reciprocal membership of the Royal Overseas League I am able to stay at the Colombo Swimming Club, built in 1938 and still a local institution.

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