TIS NOT TOO LATE TO SEEK A NEWER WORLD

https://youtu.be/ptqoSZgh7q8

https://poems.poetrysociety.org.uk/poems/ulysses/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_(poem)

The two pieces in the poem that I especially appreciated:

"I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough

Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades

For ever and for ever when I move."

"We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

The first piece was used in Skyfall.

It's the story of Ulysses, retold by Tenysson.

Ulysses the adventurer, thirsty for experience and knowledge, is contrasted to his son, Telemachus, an excellent leader and king, bringing peace and stability to his people.

That's how I read the poem. Here is James Navé

giving the best reading I've found.

https://youtu.be/FknHtLjwLjY

James Navy reading the poem very nicely.

You don't have to understand all! to appreciate the rhythm and meter (there's no rhyme).

It is a poem written in what's called "blank verse", which is unrhymed iambic pentameter, and as near as you can get to natural speech.

Why write in iambic pentameter? It is the most popular structure for writing poetry. Created by Shakespeare to help his actors memorise their lines.

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THE SONNET

When writing a Shakespearean-style sonnet. ...This form of poetry is required to follow a specific format including length, rhythm, and rhyme scheme. To write a sonnet properly, follow this process (from "poetry for dummies"):

1. Select a subject to write your poem about (Shakespearean sonnets are traditionally grounded as love poems).
2. Write your lines in iambic pentameter (duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH.
3. Write in one of various standard rhyme schemes (Shakespearean, Petrarchan, or Spenserian).
4. Format the sonnet using 3 quatrains followed by 1 couplet.
5. Compose your sonnet as an argument that builds up as it moves from one metaphor to the next.
6. Ensure your poem is exactly 14 lines.

The Shakespearean rhyme scheme

If you’re writing the most familiar kind of sonnet, the Shakespearean, the rhyme scheme is as follows:

A
B
A
B

C
D
C
D

E
F
E
F

G
G

Every A rhymes with every A, every B rhymes with every B, and so forth. You’ll notice this type of sonnet consists of three quatrains (that is, four consecutive lines of verse that make up a stanza or division of lines in a poem) and one couplet (two consecutive rhyming lines of verse).

How a sonnet tells a story

Ah, but there’s more to a sonnet than just the structure of it. A sonnet is also an argument — it builds up a certain way. And how it builds up is related to its metaphors and how it moves from one metaphor to the next. In a Shakespearean sonnet, the argument builds up like this:

• First quatrain: An exposition of the main theme and main metaphor.

• Second quatrain: Theme and metaphor extended or complicated; often, some imaginative example is given.

• Third quatrain: Peripeteia (a twist or conflict), often introduced by a “but” (very often leading off the ninth line).

• Couplet: Summarizes and leaves the reader with a new, concluding image.

One of Shakespeare’s best-known sonnets, Sonnet 18, follows this pattern:

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest,
Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest.

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

The argument of Sonnet 18 goes like this:

• First quatrain: Shakespeare establishes the theme of comparing “thou” (or “you”) to a summer’s day, and why to do so is a bad idea. The metaphor is made by comparing his beloved to summer itself.

• Second quatrain: Shakespeare extends the theme, explaining why even the sun, supposed to be so great, gets obscured sometimes, and why everything that’s beautiful decays from beauty sooner or later. He has shifted the metaphor: In the first quatrain, it was “summer” in general, and now he’s comparing the sun and “every fair,” every beautiful thing, to his beloved.

• Third quatrain: Here the argument takes a big left turn with the familiar “But.” Shakespeare says that the main reason he won’t compare his beloved to summer is that summer dies — but she won’t. He refers to the first two quatrains — her “eternal summer” won’t fade, and she won’t “lose possession” of the “fair” (the beauty) she possesses. So, he keeps the metaphors going, but in a different direction.

  And for good measure, he throws in a negative version of all the sunshine in this poem — the “shade” of death, which, evidently, his beloved won’t have to worry about.

• Couplet: How is his beloved going to escape death? In Shakespeare’s poetry, which will keep her alive as long as people breathe or see. This bold statement gives closure to the whole argument — it’s a surprise.

And so far, Shakespeare’s sonnet has done what he promised it would! See how tightly this sonnet is written, how complex, yet well-organized it is? Now that you know how to write a sonnet, try writing one your own!

Poets are attracted by the grace, concentration, and, yes, the sheer difficulty of sonnets. You may never write another sonnet in your life, but this exercise is more than just busywork. It does all the following:

• Shows you how much you can pack into a short form.

• Gives you practice with rhyme, meter, structure, metaphor, and argument.

• Connects you with one of the oldest traditions in English poetry — one still vital today. 

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TU FAIS QUOI DANS LA VIE ?

Tu fais quoi dans la vie ? Je suis prof de l'être. Je corrige les maux et j'en saigne.

Moi ? oh dans la vie, je me promène, je m’éclate, j’apprends des choses, je lis, j’admire la nature, je communique avec des gens, je m’émerveille, je profite, JE VIS, quoi !

Et toi, qu’est-ce que tu aimes dans la vie ?

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WE ARE NOT NOW THAT STRENGTH

To hell with dignity, I'll quit when the job's done. I'm going to find whoever did this. Be careful what you wish for. 

I like you better without your beretta.

I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough

Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades

For ever and for ever when I move.

...and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are,
we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

https://youtu.be/ptqoSZgh7q8

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VIETNAM HAS SO FAR ESCAPED COVID SHOULD I INVEST?

The track n trace works well in Vietnam. A population of 97m, only 6,000 cases and 49 deaths.

With those small numbers, they can reach out to F3. That's contact-of three removes and takes you to 200,000 people to track and quarantine. This is manageable.

And it does loads of sequencing, so it can know the characteristics of emerging top-dog strains, much more than would be expected for a lower to middle income.

It has a 4,500km border with Laos, Cambodia and China, that it has plugged. And flights in, almost none. 

It was the first country to get a case outside China, last 20 Jan 2020. So what an achievement.

It switched from French to American English in 1975 after the war and ditched its trad alphabet for a 24 letter roman alphabet. This let it make use of computers early on and join the Internet when it started. I'm sure this is part of it.

Emerging Markets are risky at the moment, but Vietnam looks like a good placement.

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SHOULD I VISIT THE AIRPORT TO PREPARE MY FLIGHT DEPARTURE?

Point being to prepare and rehearse your departure in advance - make sure you have all the covid and other new rules right and know where to go.

The airline booths are half empty. It's hot-booths now, no flights for your airline today? Then no booth and no-one to ask.

Airports are half empty, if that. You can only walk one way round, of course, it's all social distancing. So walk backwards.

You risk being stopped by finger-twitching Security because you are not a passenger that day. But stay - you can talk your way out with reassuring chit-chat.

Try to get into the covid test centres. If travelling on day D, go to test centre D-2 or miss your flight. So arrange your test wellin advance and find out where the Centres are. Last minute at the airport will probably be an even bigger rip-off. Pay for all the tests - can be really a lot money - do you really need to go?

No-one at the info desk. No info desk. No-one to answer questions. Check gov websites for your countries of departure and arrival.

But you know what, sometimes you have to have a break from your uncaring care home.

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WHY COMMODITY PRICES ARE SURGING

You don't need to look far to see why commodity prices are surging and there’s the prospect of demand for some natural resources exceeding supplies for years to come. Some leading investment advisers now say that we’re in the early stages of another “super-cycle.”

Factors to consider:

Demand

1. Share price action 

From March 23 to May 10 this year, big run up. Biggest customer, China, responds with all manner of clever detailed actions to knock back price. Since demand is increasing as far as we can see into the future, this tamping can only be short term. Copper has doubled in last year, for example.

2. Covid bounce-back

3. Batteries and energy-transition metals

For storage especially Lithium, wind turbines, electric vehicles. Energy-transition metals, copper and platinum group metals for example are now a pinch point because limited new supply.

Green demand - copper.

4. Paris 2015

The data shows a looming mismatch between the world’s strengthened climate ambitions, US rejoining, and the availability of critical minerals that are essential to realising those ambitions.

Means political pressure. Decarbonization could cost more than is currently estimated and will be a structurally inflationary force for some time.

Is political pressure a good thing for investors?

5. Biden's billions

The Biden administration views covid as an opportunity to pour money into its favoured interests – voters, welfare, public services.
The recovery package it has already forced through Congress was for $1.9 trillion. It’s asking for $3-4 trillion more.

6. Much greater and relatively stable demand. Copper is the new oil, but no equivalent to shale. 20k tonne by 2025?

Supply

1. Miners not investing

Despite this boom, technology metals, such as cobalt, copper and lithium, are set for particularly large deficits.

Not investing because investors want dividends, not wasted investments as in last decade of boom pre 2012 which led to bust.

Capital spending this year is set to fall by 6% among major diversified mining companies and 10% among copper miners, according to analysts’ consensus. Mines typically take 10 to 15 years to develop.

2. Emerging imbalances

Between supply, stockpiles and demand have eventually this last year adjusted balances in favour of higher prices. Inventories are low. Covid has disrupted supply chains.

3. Resource quality

Is declining. Eg Chile copper 30pc grade contraction these last 15 years.

Profits

1.  Rolling in lolly  

$140 billion ebitda Rio BHP Glenmore cf 44b 2015.

2. Weakening dollar, in which contracts are written raises prices and profits.

Investor demand

1. Inflation

Commodities as hedge against inflation.  Risk-off now means commodities-on. Ie commodities decorrelate, like before 2008.

2. Long memories are wrong memories

The LME metals index, a gauge of metals trading in London, fell 50 per cent over the  five years post 2011 tank. The market capitalisation of London’s five largest listed mines fell 75 per cent.

But that was China coming out of max demand for industrialisation. Now, with the energy transition, demand will be worldwide. Investors had better think again.

3. Healthy balance sheets

Mining companies are also more disciplined and focused on shareholder returns than they were ten years ago. After a near-death experience in 2014, when the sector was left struggling to service debts piled up in the boom years, balance sheets are in much better shape.

4. Dividends and Valuations

Yields around 5% with excellent cover and rising revenues earnings and profits.

DCF on current Income projections make miners fairly valued. But analysts will revise these valuations when the factors listed above are seen in play, giving many years of double-digit TSR.

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THE TROUBLE WITH TAINTED MONEY

Is there tain't enough of it

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PRINCIPLES OF APPROPRIATENESS

Some Rules :

#1 The Principle of Value

Can buy at sales price less than intrinsic value.

Aim to sell at above intrinsic value.

IV for property = annual rent / yield (quick and dirty solution.)

Intrinsic value is equal to the present value of all its future incomes - dividends for a share, rents for a property.

#2 Principle of Conservation

Understand why things are as they are before making it better.

Eg, a wall might keep in central heating or keep out cooking smells

#3 Principle of Relative Spending

Spend commensurate with quality. Eg for property. For rung one property, rung 1 rehab. Rung 5 property, rung 5 rehab. Not rung 5 spending on rung 1 property. Not appropriate.

#4 PRINCIPLE OF THE NEGOCE

Any concession you need something in return.

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JULY 1ST WILL BE A FLOP

It is likely that few will attend the grand reopening party in Phuket on July 1st, in just a few weeks, bringing further humiliation to Thai authorities.

Covid related restrictions abound across the planet, meaning only those with a serious need visit other countries - businessmen, diplomats, perhaps those seeking cures.

So it is unrealistic to expect even an uptick in foreign tourism under current covid waves and defending restrictions. And domestic tourism is of little interest, even without covid - the numbers are potentially there, but not the money.

Tourism is (was) a fifth of the economy, seven million plus Thai people count on tourism for a living, making this industry of great importance especially to poorer Thai people. 

Dreams of replacing lost GDP and employment with the electric vehicle are absurd : at best, the e.v. will be concentrated in the Pathum Thani area, while tourism is nationwide.

What is to be done?

It is pointless trying to remove or refine restrictions for a July 1st 2021 opening. It discredited and humiliates Thailand. Despite ministers' words, there has been no marketing.

All effort should be bent on a reopening for high season 2022. Not wasted on a July 21 distraction.

The objectives are 90% of the entire population vaccinated, the existing tourism assets preserved and upgraded, a test-trace-treat project up and running, a public awareness program mask-space-hygiene, field hospitals.

To re-open tourism requires all local people vaccinated, a vaccine passport, deals with principal departure countries over health cover, a government-backed compensation scheme covering cancellations (the ex-national carrier is in bankruptcy), clarity and stability on testing (antigen preferable to pcr and timing),  internal travel restrictions.

Without this credible program of government actions, Thailand is likely to lose its tourist industry and - worse - the backing of international investors and its o

wn people.

The govt must focus on the medium term and put its hands in its pockets.

PS

Cheapest PCR tests

https://j.mp/3vX3AhW

Best travel insurance

https://www.which.co.uk/news/2021/05/coronavirus-what-it-means-for-your-travel-insurance/

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PUT TOURISM IN A COMA AND FOCUS ON THE VIRUS

https://thethaiger.com/hot-news/tourism/thailand-focuses-on-international-but-needs-domestic-tourism#comment-383625

The author has framed this piece round the idea that the govt (TAT) has focused on hopelessly trying to revive intl tourism in the midst of a pandemic, while - he argues - the focus should be on domestic.

It is just a story. 

What the author doesn't say is that the economy runs 20% on the foreign currency from intl tourism and you simply cannot replace that slug from within the domestic economy. Never mind that domestic tourism would only infect the whole country. 

If Thai strategists were to follow his advice, and succeed, what are his proposals for generating the other, say, 10%? The electric car?

It is true - and has been often remarked - that expecting intl tourism in the midst of this pandemic is a madness.

What could be done is to hibernate the industry (it is now in large part destroyed) by upgrading assets and retraining staff; and to focus on defeating the virus.

Had the govt spent a bit of its foreign reserves on improvements and vaccines, it would come out ready for a bumper high season 2021/2

The objective should be to hibernate the industry and race to defeat the virus, after which the industry can be re-animated.

Not waste resources trying to squeeze ordinary Thais, with low incomes and already high debts.

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