If you’ve ever sat at home, surrounded by mountainous piles of loose undocumented cash, and wondered when you’d next get the chance at an astoundingly rare and museum-level interesting watch from Rolex, then have I got an auction listing for you. Actually, two.
That’s right, over the course of the past couple of weeks, both Phillips and Christie’s have announced that their November auctions will feature something of a holy grail among Rolex collectors – Deep Sea Specials.
Investment Wine ranked 1st in luxury asset performance with 13% growth in year to June 30, 2021 in the Knight Frank Annual Wealth Report.
Wine is the most 'liquid' luxury investment: benefiting from well-established secondary market, with price transparency and efficient routes to market.
The average performance of the luxury assets in the period under review was 3% growth, as recorded by the Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index (KFLII). Investment wine achieved nearly five times this and returned considerably more than the next best performer, rare watches where value grew by an average 5%.
Fine wine is the most 'liquid' luxury investment, in that it benefits from a well-established secondary market, with price transparency and efficient routes to market. Valuations can be clearly explained due to role of Liv-ex and other platforms. Fine wine investment is not wholly reliant on auctions and private sales which can lead to price inflation in the 'heat of the moment'.
The safari vehicles are the work of Kenyan-Swedish startup Opibus, which offers electric conversion of popular off-road vehicles like the Toyota Land Cruiser and Land Rover Defender for game reserves.
These vehicles typically use diesel engines, which are loud and emit fumes that may irritate animals and scare them off before tourists can get a good view.
Since its establishment in 2017, Opibus has converted ten vehicles that are now used in Kenyan game reserves.
The company uses a standardised conversion system through which it replaces the combustion engine with an electric powertrain and lithium-ion battery, and removes the 5-speed gearbox.
The high and low-range 4-wheel drive and differential lock are retained, while a PMSM motor is attached to the transfer case.
It also fits the vehicle with a 7-inch infotainment system for monitoring range and other performance metrics.
Electric Land Cruisers at Emboo River camp in the Masaai Mara National Reserve.
The electric powertrain developed by Opibus specifically for off-road vehicles provides 120kW power with 600Nm motor torque.
It can reach speeds of up to 80km/h — more than enough for game drives.
Battery capacities are available in 38kWh or 58kWh, providing respective ranges of 90km or 140km on tar roads, or 65km and 100km off-road.
While this might seem like low numbers when compared to the likes of Tesla, it should be noted that a typical two or three-hour game drive rarely exceeds 100km.
The battery charges at 6.6kW, meaning a full charge takes between 5 to 7 hours.
Prices for converting an off-road vehicle start at $39,900 (R594,900), which also includes a 6.6kW AC charger.
In addition to running cleaner and quieter, Opibus claims conversion cuts the initial investment in an electric car in half and reduces the running cost associated with fuel-based vehicles over the long term.
"Without the dependency on fuel, our electric vehicles can either be charged by a solar system or directly from grid electricity, eliminating the need to transport fuel to your operation and reducing the cost per kilometre.
"The electric powertrain also needs far less servicing, lubrication or maintenance than a traditional combustion engine, ensuring uptime is maximised and cost kept to a minimum."
Opibus also develops solar-powered infrastructure and chargers that are deployed in camps to provide power that may be used to recharge the vehicles.
Although Opibus currently only offers its electric conversions in Kenya, it plans to increase its presence in Africa and worldwide over the next couple of years.
In response to a query from MyBroadband, an agent confirmed that South Africa was in its expansion plans.
However, there was currently no timeline for when this could happen.
The pre-order page states that it will be available in "Selected Countries" aside from Kenya from 2022.
Electric safari vehicles could be a boon to South Africa's wildlife tourism industry.
Many of the open-top safari vehicles used in the country's parks are modified Land Cruisers or Hilux bakkies, which also run on diesel or petrol.
Members of multiple forums of the country's biggest game reserve, the Kruger National Park, have complained about how the noise of cars that remain idling at sightings disrupts the game viewing experience.
The images below provide more details about the electric conversion system that Opibus uses for off-road vehicles.
Queen Marie-Antoinette’s Diamonds for Sale in Geneva
THE PROPERTY OF A EUROPEAN ROYAL FAMILY
Geneva - on 9 November 2021 Christie’s will proudly offer THE MARIE ANTOINETTE DIAMONDS as lot 1 of its live Magnificent Jewels Auction to be held at the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues. Presented in their current form, the 112 diamonds, originally belonging to Queen Marie-Antoinette of France (1755-1793), are set as a historic pair of bracelets (estimated $2,000,000-4,000,000).
Some Full Moons are known under pretty romantic names, such as "Strawberry Moon" or "Pink Moon", but some of them are much more strange. The thing is, the names traditionally come from Native American, Colonial American, and European cultures. The July Full Moon's name is associated with male deer, whose antlers are in full growing phase this month. In English, male deer and some other male horned animals are called bucks — this is why each Full Moon in July is called the Buck Moon.
It still sounds better than the Worm Moon, though. To see how much you know about the Full Moons, their names (and colors!), take our quiz. The Full Buck Moon will occur on July 24, 2021; shortly afterward, our natural satellite will meet Jupiter and Saturn. Today we'll tell you more about these spectacular events.
July Full Moon alternative names
Besides the Buck Moon, there are other names for the July Full Moon among different cultures. Thus, some refer to it as the Thunder Moon due to the summer storm season. From Old English, it's also known as the Hay Moon after the July hay harvest.
The Hungry Ghost Moon is a traditional Chinese name. People in China believe that around this time, spirits of hungry ghosts roam the Earth.
Here are some examples of the July Full Moon names among various cultures and regions:
Native Americans: Buck Moon
Celts: Moon of Claiming
Cherokee: Ripe Corn Moon
Choctaw: Crane Moon
Colonial Americans: Summer Moon
Wiccan: Mead Moon
Neo-Paganism: Rose Moon
Southern Hemisphere: Wolf Moon, Old Moon, Ice Moon
July Full Moon: when to see in 2021?
In 2021, the Full Buck Moon will take place on July 24, at 02:36 GMT. From July 23 to 24, our natural satellite will be best visible for much of the night, rising after sunset and setting shortly before sunrise. However, the Moon will appear "full" for several nights in a row, especially to the naked eye.
To check the Moon's phase and its path across the sky, use Star Walk 2. Open the app, tap the menu icon in the lower right corner and select the Sky Live section. Swipe the picture of the Moon to see how it's changing the phase over time.
August Full Moon: When is the next Full Moon?
The next Full Moon will occur on August 22, 2021. Most likely, you'll hear about this event under the name of the "Blue Moon". In short, Blue Moon is the second Full Moon in one calendar month or the third of four Full Moons in one season. The second case happens very rarely, and it's exactly the one that will occur in August 2021. We'll reveal more details closer to the date.
Moon and Gas Giants
These days, look for bright planets shining close to our natural satellite. Saturn will meet the Moon first — on July 24, at 16:38 GMT, both celestial objects will share the same right ascension. The Moon will be passing 3°48' to the south of the ringed planet at the closest approach. The Moon and Saturn will shine at a magnitude of -12.7 and 0.2, respectively; look for them in the constellation Capricornus.
Almost two days later, on July 26, at 01:21 GMT, the 96% illuminated Moon will pass 4°10' to the south of Jupiter that will have a magnitude of -2.8. You'll find the Moon and Jupiter in the constellation Aquarius.
Wishing you clear skies and happy observations!
The easiest way to find out when conjunctions are best visible in your location is to use Star Walk 2. Open the app, type the name of an object in the search field, choose a corresponding result. Then activate the Time Machine by long touching the clock icon in the upper right corner of your screen. Choose any time and date and see an object's position in the sky.
Don’t miss this excellent six part documentary series from the BBC.
An emotional history of the modern world by Adam Curtis.
We are living through strange days. Across Britain, Europe and America societies have become split and polarised. There is anger at the inequality and the ever growing corruption - and a widespread distrust of the elites. Into this has come the pandemic that has brutally dramatised those divisions. But despite the chaos, there is a paralysis - a sense that no one knows how to escape from this. Can’t Get You Out of My Head tells how we got to this place. And why both those in power - and we - find it so difficult to move on. At its heart is the strange story of what happened when people’s inner feelings got mixed up with power in the age of individualism. How the hopes and dreams and uncertainties inside people's minds met the decaying forces of old power in Britain, America, Russia and China. What resulted was a block not just in the society - but also inside our own heads - that stops us imagining anything else than this.
Yuval Noah Harari: Lessons from a year of Covid | Financial Times
2020 has shown that humanity is far from helpless.
Epidemics are no longer uncontrollable forces of nature. Science has turned them into a manageable challenge.
Covid also underlined "the power of information technology", as hundreds of millions of people shifted to an online world in a matter of weeks, notwithstanding all its deleterious effects on society.
Covid has also shown the incredible resiliency we have built into our Food Supply through the Automation of Agriculture. "Whilein 1349 an average farmhand reaped about 5 bushels per day, in 2014 a combine set a record by harvesting 30,000 bushels in a day.
Consequently Covid-19 had no significant impact on global production of staple crops such as wheat, maize and rice.
In turn, Covid showed global trade could go on functioning more or less smoothly because it involved very few humans.
A largely automated present-day container ship can carry more tons than the merchant fleet of an entire early modern kingdom. In 1582, the English merchant fleet had a total carrying capacity of 68,000 tons and required about 16,000 sailors. The container ship OOCL Hong Kong, christened in 2017, can carry some 200,000 tons while requiring a crew of only 22.
Why, then, has there been so much death and suffering? Because of bad political decisions, says Yuval Noah Harari in the Financial Times.
Yuval Noah Harari: Lessons from a year of Covid
In a year of scientific breakthroughs — and political failures — what can we learn for the future?
If a good school begets a good university, a great job, a suitable spouse, house and all the rest, then it’s never too early to start training.
Ever more parents, particularly those with money to spare, consider their children to be engaged in an academic arms race. Tutoring is a secret weapon.
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Tutoring has bullied its way into education systems all over the world with remarkable success over the past two decades. In Britain last year, more than a quarter of children in England and Wales aged 11-16 received some kind of private teaching outside school, according to the Sutton Trust, a social-mobility charity; in London that figure rose to over 40% of children. (Less than a fifth were doing so in 2005, the first year for which the charity collected such data.) British parents spend an estimated £2bn on private tuition each year, not including other extra-curricular activities such as sport or music lessons.
That picture is replicated across the world. A recent research paper points to a rise in the prevalence of “shadow education” throughout Europe. In Germany, Ireland, Italy and Spain at least 40% of school-age children have had private tutoring; in countries where there is a lack of faith in the state schooling system, such as Greece, that figure can rise to between 80% and 95% of all children.
Read the whole piece on The Economist's 1843 magazine here:
Education - First-class flights, chauffeurs and bribery: the secret life of a private tutor | 1843 magazine | The Economist
