Finland has long sold itself as Europe’s model of preparedness. This is the country of bomb shelters beneath apartment blocks, emergency grain stashes and a reserve army so large that officials from bigger European capitals mention it with a hint of envy. Since joining Nato, Finland’s reputation as the alliance’s northern sentinel has only grown. So, when Ukrainian drones recently flew into Finnish airspace undetected, before crashing on their way to strike Russia, there was cause for some alarm. 
 
The practical question is obvious enough. How does an aircraft linked to an active war pass through the skies of one of Europe’s most militarised border states without interception? But the resulting political query makes matters more uncomfortable still: why are the authorities so unsure of themselves?

Early official statements were muddled and public communication was patchy at best. The Helsingin Sanomat newspaper accidentally referred to the drones as being Russian (having mistakenly relied on AI tools in the newsgathering). Then came the prime minister’s remark that the failures were “alarming”, a striking admission in a country where governments usually prize calm competency above all else. Finns are accustomed to hearing that their institutions are prepared – learning that those bodies were caught by surprise does not sit well.

The temptation will be to treat this as a Finnish embarrassment. It is, however, more usefully read as a European one. For all the talk of rearmament since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, much of Europe’s defence thinking remains rooted in older assumptions about how war begins and what readiness looks like. Ministers still like to announce purchases of fighter jets, artillery systems and missile batteries. These are visible, expensive symbols of seriousness. But they are designed largely for conventional threats. The battlefield in Ukraine has made one point repeatedly. Expensive platforms do not automatically protect against cheap, improvised or technologically modest threats. Equipment built to track bombers and puncture armour-plated vehicles might still struggle with a low-flying drone assembled for a fraction of the price of the missile sent to destroy it.
 
Finland is not alone in this. It has simply become the first European state to confront the gap so publicly. The more interesting failing might lie not in radar coverage but in the state’s response. In Finland, national resilience is often discussed in physical terms: bunkers, stockpiles, conscripts, ammunition depots. Yet resilience also depends on something less tangible, namely, public and professional confidence – or, knowing what to do when the pressure is on. When official messaging turns hesitant or contradictory during a live security incident, that confidence weakens. In a crisis, competence must be visible.
 
None of this means that Finland’s preparedness has been exposed as a fiction. Far from it. Finland remains one of the few European countries to have taken territorial defence seriously throughout the post-Cold War decades, maintaining mandatory conscription for men, regularly mobilising reservists for refresher exercises and fortifying its long eastern frontier, even while much of Europe downsized. Its armed forces are credible, its strategic culture is mature and its political class generally grasps that geography still matters. Most of Europe would be wiser if it thought a little more like Finland. But even serious countries can prepare for the wrong version of the next war.
 
The real lesson here is not that Finland has failed. It is that preparedness cannot be treated as a finished project. The institutions that made Finland resilient in the 20th century will not, by themselves, guarantee security in the 21st. Europe now needs to think harder about drone defence, low-altitude surveillance, civil-military co-ordination and the bureaucratic agility required to respond to events faster than official processes.
 
Finland’s reputation as the prepper of Europe remains deserved. Yet reputations are useful only if they survive contact with reality. If even the Finns can be wrong-footed by a handful of drones, then the rest of Europe needs to ask itself what vulnerabilities of its own remain hidden. 

Warm spring light spills across a dark-wood counter, fresh terrazzo floor and rows of tables studded with comfy cow-horn dining chairs. Laughter ricochets off tall walls as glasses of pale rosé glint in the sun from the generous full-height window. We’re at the pre-opening of Café Jikoni, tucked under a concrete pleat of the skirt-like O’Donnell + Tuomey-designed V&A East Museum in Stratford. 

The restaurant is buzzing with press, friends, family and the plates of soon-to-be-sampled delights being whisked to waiting diners. There is the whiff of warming baharat from the lamb sausage roll, a toasted sandwich with Goan aubergine achaar (pickle) and gooey cheddar, and rigatoni with lentils and anchovies. It’s a new site and a fresh challenge for the team behind Marylebone’s beloved Jikoni restaurant on Blandford Street – but one that the team appears to be handling with relish.

“What has been interesting for us is how you bring true hospitality to a public institution and make it feel fresh,” says chef Ravinder Bhogal, sitting beside co-founder and partner Nadeem Nanjuwany. “That’s something I feel really proud of. Everything, from our bread and pickles to dessert, is made in house from scratch.” 

Bhogal’s South Asian, Kenyan, Persian and British influences combine at Café Jikoni, resisting swift classification in ever more cunning and comforting ways. The menu touts curries and baked potatoes, buddha bowls and iced buns. But all made better – flecked, freckled and fizzing with unexpected spices, unfamiliar additions or unlikely ingredients. It’s culinary alchemy of the highest order. The inventiveness of the original restaurant is here in abundance, albeit in a subtly more museum-manageable format with plenty of sandwiches (hot or cold), nibbles for kids and takeaway packaging (if you prefer).  

As we talk, museum director Gus Casely-Hayford arrives, beaming and congratulating Bhogal and Nanjuwany on a seamless first service. “I could write an essay in praise of Gus – he’s a rare breed,” says Bhogal with obvious affection. “His vision for this place is to make a public institution feel like it belongs to the public.” It wasn’t just Casely-Hayford who the pair needed buy-in from – part of the consultation involved the V&A Youth Collective, a group of local 18- to 24-year-olds. “That was the most terrifying pitch; they are the toughest critics,” says Bhogal. The upshot was everything from greater sensitivity around price points to conversations around representation. “Stratford has a very young population, so it was really wonderful to sit down with them and ask them about what matters.”

On a practical note, and for the brand, there were hurdles, from engineering space for the extractor fan to making a window to give the chefs some natural light. But what’s it like taking a West End favourite to the East Bank of Stratford? How do you scale a bijou and beautiful restaurant to the appetites and obligations of a public museum? And what if people don’t already know Jikoni? “We might not explain anything [about ourselves] if the person is coming in just to experience the museum,” says Nanjuwany. “They might just want a nice coffee.” 

Bhogal agrees. “Our coffee is so thought about,” she says. “It comes from Uganda and there’s complete traceability [in collaboration with Workshop Coffee]. Whether we’re explaining it or not, someone will feel that they’ll taste it in the quality. So, it’s all those little touches.” It’s a refreshing thought. Not all restaurants need concepts. It’s the food, not the philosophy, that most people end up chewing over anyway. 

Hospitality is more about intention than simple brand building, how things are done rather than needing to interrupt people mid sip to explain the concept. The ethos here is in everything – but blissfully, it’s not forced down your throat along with the miso-cream banana bread.

As the plates are cleared, talk turns to business. Both Nanjuwany and Bhogal are optimistic about keeping their company culture intact while hiring more staff and reacting to the subtle differences between a sit-down dinner service and a café set-up. The entrepreneurs seem to adore a new challenge. Nanjuwany has worked in design, agriculture and orchard-fresh apple juice, while Bhogal is, among other things, a writer, journalist and broadcaster. Both believe that their endeavour can do good as well as being good.

“When you have a business that’s growing, [it’s important] to be able to point or spend in a really positive way: from incredible farmers who are really looking after the land to women’s co-operatives who make our tablecloth or healthcare for our team,” says Bhogal. “Or the fact that we only use wind and solar energy,” says Nanjuwany. “We’re calling that restorative hospitality,” he adds. “This idea that you can use purchasing [to do good]. We feel that we’re just completing that model because now even our rent goes towards a public good.”

Replete, impressed and feeling inspired by the ambition of the project (and the yuzu kick of the strawberry iced bun), Monocle asks about the area. “Whether you’re in Stratford or Marylebone, the purpose of a restaurant is to restore,” says Bhogal. Coffee cups clink as the sun catches the London Stadium outside, visible like a halo beyond a landscaped garden amid the fast-changing former Olympic site from 2012. “[That means] restoring each other, our team, our guests, our neighbourhood, the wider community,” she says. “And hopefully the wider world around us.” It’s a big responsibility for a humble museum café. But you sense that Bhogal and Nanjuwany aren’t a pair to bite off more than they can chew. 
jikonilondon.com

Few maisons move as fluidly between watchmaking and jewellery as Piaget. Under CEO Benjamin Comar that duality is not a balancing act but a defining principle. “From the beginning, Piaget approached the watch as a piece of jewellery,” Comar tells Monocle. “It was always about design, about gold, about how the object sits on the body.” That philosophy crystallised in the late 1960s, when the house introduced bold cuffs and pendant watches – what Comar calls “a jewellery way of wearing time.” Today that spirit remains intact. “There has always been this culture of jewellery watches and watches within a jewellery expression.”

It’s a timely position. As the market rediscovers a taste for expressive, design-led pieces, Piaget’s archives feel less like history and more like a blueprint. But Comar is careful to stress that revival doesn’t mean nostalgia. “We don’t present things in a backward-looking way. We reinterpret them with modern people, modern styling,” he says. “The aim is not to look back but to make them relevant now.”

That relevance lies, in part, in Piaget’s particular brand of boldness – an interplay of elegance and eccentricity. Cocktail rings return alongside sculptural watches; hard-stone dials feel both retro and quietly radical. “There’s always a little extravagance,” says Comar. “But it must remain refined.”

Craftsmanship, however, is where Piaget continues to distinguish itself in an increasingly crowded field. The maison’s expertise in ultra-thin movements allows for unusually expressive dials, particularly in hard stone. “Our dials are about 0.4mm thick,” he says. “You have to find the right part of the stone, cut it, polish it, without breaking it. It’s extremely delicate work.”

The result is more poetry than technical showmanship. “When you look into these stones, there is depth,” he says. “You can look at them like a night sky. There is emotion in them.” In a market increasingly shaped by technology, this tactility matters. “We need one foot in the past and one in the future,” adds Comar. “Craft reassures us.”

That sense of permanence also underpins Piaget’s response to a more uncertain global climate. While some might frame fine watchmaking as a safe haven, Comar prefers a quieter formulation. “Our role is to create objects that last,” he says. “Pieces [that] you can wear for 20 or 30 years and then pass on.” He talks of the Polo 79, a watch that Piaget revived in 2024. “That is what we are proud of. Not something opportunistic but something enduring.”

It’s a philosophy that finds a natural stage at Watches and Wonders, where Piaget presents its latest collections each spring. For Comar, the fair remains as vital as ever. “It’s a moment of encounter,” he says. “People thought digital might replace it but it hasn’t. You need to see the pieces, to feel them on the skin.”

Beyond the spectacle it is also a space for exchange between collectors, partners and critics alike. “You have compliments but also criticism,” he says. “That’s important. It’s a real conversation.” As audiences broaden and more clients attend in person, that conversation is only deepening. But Comar resists over-segmentation in a market often driven by novelty, it’s not about chasing time but designing to outlast it. “We try to show as much as possible to everyone,” he says. “People are mature, they know what they like.”

As the fragile US-Iran ceasefire seems to falter, Monocle Radio is broadcasting live from the UAE this week. In the latest episode of The Globalist, Monocle’s editorial director, Tyler Brûlé, and editor in chief, Andrew Tuck, speak to Mohamed Khalifa al-Mubarak, the chairman of Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism. Behind the scenes, the tall, trainer-wearing chairman stands against an 18-metre-long reproduction of a 4,000-year-old sailing boat inside Abu Dhabi’s vast, sand-toned Zayed National Museum. It’s the kind of setting that lends itself to big ideas and Al-Mubarak doesn’t shy away from them. “Since the first ballistic missile, we haven’t stopped,” he says. “We haven’t had a day off.”

For Al-Mubarak, engaging with culture is a way to deal with the conflict. “Culture is the light at the end of the tunnel,” he says. In a region where war is often framed in terms of territory, trade routes or geopolitics, Abu Dhabi is making the argument that culture is as crucial as ports or pipelines. 

The Zayed National Museum isn’t a space designed purely for tourists or soft-power optics. School groups move through its galleries and families linger over artefacts that tell stories of hardship, trade and survival. “Our forefathers were here when oil wasn’t discovered, when they were battling left and right,” says Al-Mubarak. The museum is a space for memory and, importantly, continuity. In times of instability, that matters.

In a country where most residents are expats, culture is also being used to redraw the boundaries of belonging. “When we say that 200 nationalities are local, we really mean it,” says Al-Mubarak. Museums, festivals and public spaces are shared ground, places where identity is less fixed and more negotiated. This has implications beyond the UAE. Across the Middle East, culture has often been caught in the crossfire, literally and figuratively. Here, it is being positioned as a stabiliser – something that can hold a diverse population together, even as external pressures mount.

For Al-Mubarak, culture is also a long-term asset. “These institutions are not for the next five years,” he says. “They’re for the next 100 years.” The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi remains under construction, acquisition committees are still meeting and investments continue, even as uncertainty caused by the war lingers. 

This is where sceptics – particularly in the Western media – might raise an eyebrow. Can cultural ambition transcend geopolitical volatility? Al-Mubarak’s response is characteristically unbothered, borrowing from LL Cool J. “Don’t call it a comeback – I’ve been here for years,” he says. There’s a degree of bravado to this statement but the UAE has a track record to back it up. The country has weathered economic downturns, a global pandemic and regional conflict, each time recalibrating, rather than retreating. 

As Monocle Radio broadcasts from across the country this week, that recalibration will be visible everywhere – and I know because I live here. Hotels are busier, exhibitions and events are returning and conversations are less focused on whether the conflict will stop and more on how it will evolve. 

None of this is to suggest that culture can resolve conflict. It cannot. But what Abu Dhabi is showing is that culture can shape how a society endures it. In a week where anything could still happen, that feels like something worth paying attention to.

On Sunday night, with most of the votes counted, it became clear that Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, had suffered a crushing electoral defeat. Péter Magyar, his victorious challenger, stepped onto a stage by the Danube in Budapest and told a sea of cheering supporters, “Together we liberated Hungary.” Celebration continued deep into the night, the air reverberating with the sound of motorists honking their horns. For long stretches, it was almost impossible to cross the river, with bridges and public transport clogged with crowds of young people, many of whom had voted for the first time. Across the city, bars stayed open late. Music played from open windows and parties spilled out onto the street.

Such was the outpouring of relief after 16 years of rule by Orbán and his Fidesz party. During that time, corruption became endemic, healthcare and education frayed and the economy stalled, paralysed by a system that rewards cronyism. All the while, Orbán constructed what he described as an “illiberal” state, with a tamed media and judiciary, a fixation on “traditional” values and a foreign policy friendly to Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the European far-right.

Magyar now promises to reverse this and return Hungary to the European fold as a reliable partner. Indeed, his rise began with Europe, when his party, Tisza, contested the European Parliament elections in June 2024. Speaking to me after a rally in western Hungary at the time, Magyar said, “I want to change Hungary completely. The Hungarian people are tired of the lies, corruption and propaganda.”

The 45-year-old Magyar was born into a family of lawyers and reportedly kept a photo of Orbán in his room as a boy. He earned a law degree at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University near Budapest before becoming a diplomat in Brussels and part of the establishment.

He came to prominence in February 2024 when a corruption scandal involving the granting of a pardon to a sexual abuser brought down two Fidesz figures: one was Hungary’s then-president, Katalin Novák, and the other was Magyar’s ex-wife, former justice minister Judit Varga. Until then a staunch ally of Orbán, Magyar turned against him.

Tisza went on to win almost 30 per cent of the vote in the EU elections – impressive, though everyone suspected that this was only a rehearsal for a far larger prize, which Magyar has now claimed. His victory was the result of relentless campaigning, during which he criss-crossed the country many times over, delivering as many as seven speeches in a single day. As one Tisza voter told me during the celebrations on Sunday, “Everyone saw this, so we hoped and believed.”

Even amid the jubilation, however, there was some scepticism. Many voters see parallels with the past and are suspicious of Magyar’s populist-lite style and his Fidesz origins. In his victory speech, he promised to rid the country of corrupt officials. But an uncomfortable question hangs in the air: now that Tisza has secured a two-thirds supermajority in parliament, giving it sweeping powers, will Magyar go after Orbán himself?

As the transition begins, he faces a difficult task – perhaps harder than winning the election. During his years in power, Orbán built a system that penetrated Hungary so deeply that it’s hard to see beyond it. As another former Fidesz insider once told me, “There’s no playbook for getting out of Orbán’s playbook.” So, as the emotions settle, what’s next for Hungary?

Alexei Korolyov is Monocle’s Vienna correspondent, reporting from Budapest. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

As Monocle Radio begins a week of live broadcasting from the UAE, the country’s minister of state at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Noura bint Mohammed Al Kaabi, joins us from the Zayed National Museum. The Middle East is just six weeks into a regional conflict that continues to test the Emirates’ security, infrastructure and diplomatic posture. For now, a fragile ceasefire holds, though the outlook remains uncertain following the failure of weekend talks in Islamabad to produce a permanent deal.

The pace of developments has been swift, with mounting pressure on key trade routes and renewed focus on the stability of the Strait of Hormuz. Questions have emerged over how Gulf states will position themselves as alliances shift and the limits of ceasefire diplomacy become clearer.

Against this backdrop, Al Kaabi sets out the UAE’s position: resilience at home, continuity in the face of disruption and a more assertive call for accountability as the next phase of negotiations begins to take shape.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

You’ve described the past weeks as ‘unsettling’. How would you characterise where the UAE stands now?
We are living in very difficult times. For more than 40 days, the UAE has been under attack, with more than 3,000 missiles targeted at the country. Yet today, it stands in a position of resilience and strength.

Being here at the Zayed National Museum is symbolic. This institution represents an idea – and that idea is what is being attacked. This is not simply about geography. The UAE has not been part of this war, yet it has been targeted. The words that define this moment are resilience and continuity.

After the failed talks in Islamabad, were you surprised that no agreement was reached?
For us, a ceasefire is not the end – it is only the beginning. The UAE has been clear: we need accountability. We need these hostilities to stop.

The Strait of Hormuz must remain an open, international waterway. It cannot be held hostage by any country. The global economy depends on it, from trade and energy to food security and the environment. Our position is focused and consistent: accountability, stability and ensuring that the systems underpinning global commerce remain protected.

With talk of potential blockades and shifting alliances, what is the UAE’s immediate priority?
Our priority is to defend our sovereignty – our land and our people. But we are also looking ahead. If this continues, we must ask: can we rely on existing routes? Should we develop alternatives?

This moment is a test. And how a country responds to such a test defines it. In the UAE, life continues. Schools operate, businesses function and society adapts. There is continuity, even under pressure.

At the same time, we are reassessing our relationships and our long-term strategy in a rapidly changing geopolitical environment.

Do you expect the UAE and the wider Gulf to align more closely with the US or diversify partnerships further?
The UAE has always been a country that builds relationships. We are open, outward-looking and home to people from across the world. Our partnerships with the US span sectors such as AI, education and culture. At the same time, we are deepening ties with countries such as China across trade, technology and research.

Going forward, relationships will continue but with greater clarity. Safety comes first. We must be honest about threats and about the ideologies that have destabilised the region for decades. The key question is whether we allow the next generation to inherit the same cycles of conflict or whether we break them.

The UAE’s response has been widely noted for its communication and co-ordination. What has been key?
We have invested in communication capabilities for years. During the coronavirus pandemic, we prioritised transparency – and that approach continues today.

What matters is consistency and clarity. Communication happens at multiple levels, from leadership to experts to the wider community. Leadership has been visible, present and engaged, whether visiting hospitals or speaking directly to people.

We also consider the human side: how people feel, how they experience alerts, how they process uncertainty. Because when this ends – and we hope it ends soon – we will need to support our communities in adjusting to a new reality.

What might that ‘new reality’ look like for the UAE?
The UAE has always been about people. Its strength lies in the diversity of those who call it home.

What we have seen during this crisis is solidarity. Despite everything, people have chosen to stay. That belief in the system is fundamental.

There is often a perception that life here is transactional or temporary. But what we have witnessed proves otherwise. There is a deeper connection; a shared sense of belonging As our leadership has said: everyone in the UAE is an Emirati. In a polarised world, that is something we must protect. 

Listen to more from our coverage in the UAE on the Globalist.

Since being back in London, I’ve retained a Turkish compulsion. Every time that I see someone at work, a street cleaner, say, or a shop worker, I feel the urge – no, the need – to say “kolay gelsin”. In Turkey you say it to anyone who is exerting themselves – it literally means “may it come easy”. You say it down the phone to your bank’s call-centre worker when you finally get past the on-hold music and to the man on the street struggling home with his shopping. You can say it ironically if someone is facing a long weekend with the in-laws. You can even use it at the migration office, where the bureaucrat and I say it to one another as we pick through a problem in my Turkish paperwork.

These four syllables smooth the rough edges between urban tribes and social classes in Istanbul, creating frictionless moments of civility in the big city. Kolay gelsin is an acknowledgement that you both see and appreciate the effort that someone else is putting in. It is a social leveller, its grammar unafflicted by the Turkish formal and informal registers. It’s the kind of phrase that punches holes in the walls that we build up around ourselves in a megacity of strangers. In fact, Turkish is rich in them: there is also geçmiş olsun (may it be behind you), applicable to illness or any kind of misfortune. And as a nation of gourmands, Turkey also has its version of bon appétit: afiyet olsun, which is printed on napkins or menus, and even uttered when someone is just taking a sip of water.

English-language cities need an equivalent of kolay gelsin. London is a place that enjoys stout, single-syllable pleasantries – please, thanks, cheers – and while any of those could be used in similar situations, none capture the broad spectrum of its sentiment. “May it come easy” doesn’t have the succinct ring or charm of the original. Earlier this week I inadvertently let out a kolay gelsin when I passed one of the builders who has been shovelling skips full of earth out of the garden next door.

“Huh?” 
 
“May it come easy,” I said.

He stared back. “Right. OK.”

In that moment he might have wanted to use one of the snippier Turkish replies: kolaysa sen yap – meaning “if it’s easy, you do it”. And I wouldn’t have blamed him – “may it come easy” sounds imperious, even mocking to Anglo ears.

What we need is a phrase that will slip naturally into our street-speech, a phrase that both acknowledges the toil of the recipient and bestows the giver with the glow of having contributed positively to city life. “Good job” sounds a little patronising. “I hope it’s not too difficult” feels like a curse.

Perhaps the answer is simply to import kolay gelsin unaltered, in the way that English is so good at. Kismet is Turkishism fully absorbed into London English. It is one of the more pronounceable Turkish phrases, short in length and sweet sounding yet its force is far stronger than its literal meaning. Within the English language it can take on new regional accents and nuances, and perhaps even one day be accepted into the Oxford English Dictionary (given that the 2025 Oxford Word of the Year was “rage bait”, a little civility wouldn’t go amiss). And for Turkey, what better soft-power tool? President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan presents the tough face of his country, while the tourism board promotes the clichés. But if Turkey wants to endear itself, this might be the key. 

Happy Monday – kolay gelsin!

Hannah Lucinda Smith is Monocle’s Istanbul correspondent. For more from Lucinda Smith, read: 

– Coasters be damned – a well-worn table is the heart of a home

– Turkic states are investing in soft power but it’s Ankara that seeks to steal the show

– Street food is still a defining force in the culinary scene of Istanbul

It’s a dazzling morning when Monocle steps onto the quay at the Gold Coast Yacht and Country Club. Situated along Tuen Mun coast, the marina feels oceans away from the city’s frenzied urban pulse. The calming presence of the surrounding mountains and gentle waters set the tone as Lawrence Chow, our pilot for the day, makes the final adjustments to his Jeanneau Velasco 37F boat.

He’s the chairman of the Hong Kong Boating Industry Association and will be taking us on a voyage from the northwestern coast through to Victoria Harbour before casting anchor in the seaside town of Sai Kung. There’s no better guide to show us the sites that will set the course for Hong Kong’s ambitions to be Asia’s own yacht club. “I’ve been in dialogue with the government about growing the yacht economy for many years, and there’s recently been a big shift,” Chow says, as we set sail.

In his September 2025 policy address, Hong Kong’s chief executive, John Lee, announced plans to develop the city into a luxury destination, including 600 new berths at the former Lamma Quarry, the Aberdeen Typhoon Shelter and a waterfront project near Hung Hom station. He also pledged to ease visiting-yacht requirements, opening the way for cross-border travel with China, with the hopes of establishing a “Greater Bay” boating culture with the Wanshan and Chuanshan archipelagos.

A successful yacht industry, according to a recent Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong report, could pump HKD4.5bn (€494m) into the city’s economy annually, from yacht-related services to boat sales. This rising tide should also lift adjacent industries, such as hospitality, luxury retail and wellness. Buoyed by nine private marinas and yacht clubs, Hong Kong already boasts a large fleet of more than 12,300 pleasure boats, yet there are fewer than 5,000 private and public moorings. Many of the private marinas and yacht clubs were built in the 1980s and 1990s; now, decades later, the government is ready to take to the water once again.

Our first stop is Ma Wan, a historic fishing village that has long caught Chow’s eye. Perched between Lantau Island and Tsing Yi village, the island houses a year-old arts and cultural complex, a heritage centre featuring archaeological finds and nature trails. “This is a photogenic island with plenty of things to see but there is currently no infrastructure to get people onto land,” says Chow, as our boat bobs close to shore. He’s referring to the lack of pontoons and trained staff that would allow boaters to encounter the island up-close. While there are currently no concrete plans to develop an anchorage here, Chow – an architect-turned-consultant on marina construction at Marine Asia – remains hopeful. To him, Ma Wan represents one of many untapped spots dotted around Hong Kong.

A glitzier experience awaits at the iconic Victoria Harbour. Flanked by skyscrapers and scenic promenades, the area’s magnetic energy explains the Hong Kong government’s decision to turn nearby Hung Hom station into a waterfront landmark, complete with a marina and entertainment complex. “In future, boaters can easily hop off, catch a concert, shop and dine, all within a few hours,” says Chow.

The landscape gets more rugged as we wind around Clear Water Bay towards Sai Kung. Dramatic cliffs, deep-sea caves and pristine beaches come into view, set against the mountains. For a split-second, it feels as if we are in the Scottish Highlands but with infinitely better weather. “When the tide is low, people will jump off their yachts to kayak or wade in the wild waters,” he says. “Yachting encompasses a whole range of water sports.” It’s clear that Hong Kong’s yachting industry deserves its place in the sun.

1.   
It had been bubbling and gurgling for a while but I ignored it, made the best of an increasingly unmanageable situation and pushed it to the side. Something to be dealt with another day, I told myself. On my return from Bangkok I was confronted with the issue again and I was about to tackle it head-on but time wasn’t on my side, so I declared that today would be the day that I got back in control and dealt with a problem that had been slowing me down most mornings when I happened to be in Zürich. Yes, you guessed it dear reader, the sock drawers needed a brutal edit. 

In the run-up to the start of this operation, it was decided that the campaign would be somewhat surgical in nature and would take up two working days – with a little left over for lunch, shopping, a lake dip, column writing and Monocle on Sunday. The key targets were small mountains of magazines and newspapers, shoes for various activities, knitwear, undies, the drawers with rogue receipts and business cards and the multiple cupboards and cabinets of potions, lotions, tonics and tinctures. It’s now the end of the day on Saturday and I’m feeling quite good about things. The main bedroom is looking sharp but the guest bedroom is still a staging area and copies of favourite titles, such as Manera, Salon, Premium, Popeye and Brutus, need to be gathered up and put in order. Also, the CDs need a place to be played (I bought a stack of Taiwanese and Japanese jazz at Eslite in Taipei a few weeks ago) but there’s one cable missing from the Denon sound system that I have yet to pick up, so that will need to wait until the next domestic day arrives later in the month. 

There’s an overwhelming amount of print everywhere you look. There are so many magazines that have had a quick flip and demand more time, cookbooks that need to be splattered with hot olive oil in the kitchen and perhaps a decade’s worth of fiction fit for the sunlounger. I have tried a level of triage by airlifting some intriguing cases to colleagues who might be more in need of story ideas or interesting binding techniques for future volumes. Speaking of future volumes, wait till you see the May issue, which just hit my table (and is soon to hit newsstands, our online store and subscribers’ doorsteps). Keep an eye out for our new handbook on Thailand too. Tasty!

2.   
Just as the “my son/daughter is looking for a summer internship in media and do you have a position for them?” season has started, so too has the arrival of browsers coming into our shops for something to buy their grandson or goddaughter for graduation. What better way to arm a future generation of entrepreneurs and diplomats than to buy them a print and digital subscription to Monocle? The best bit about signing them up is that rather than trying to hook up with a future partner via an app, they can simply look for other like-minded potential partners who also happen to be carrying a Monocle tote. It’s almost as good as a perfectly engineered arranged marriage.

3.   
You have to go way, way back in the Monocle Radio archive to find editions of The Globalist anchored by Tyler Brûlé and Andrew Tuck. The very good news is that from Monday morning we’ll save you the trouble as Mr Tuck and I will be your hosts for a week of The Globalist from the Gulf. We’ll be serving up the usual mix of global news, business and culture but Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and Dubai will be the backdrop as we get a measure of what’s happening across the region. Tune in live from 10.00 GST, 08.00 CET or 07.00 in the UK. Of course, you can always catch the podcast if you’re not up bright and early. Wishing you a good week.

Enjoying life in ‘The Faster Lane’? Click here to browse all of Tyler’s past columns.

Nothing in Australia is quite like anything anywhere else. The trees are different shapes, the flowers are different colours and the animals are just weird. It should not be astonishing, then, that Australia’s scents are no less idiosyncratic, but it’s perhaps surprising that so few perfumers have sought to capitalise on them. 

This thought occurred to Dimitri Weber, a Franco-Belgian perfumer, a decade ago. He had worked at several of the great European houses, such as Yves Saint Laurent, Gucci and Cartier, before launching Goldfield & Banks in 2016. The aim? To establish a distinctively Australian luxury perfume house with scents that boast inspiration and ingredients from across the Australian continent. Its perfume, Southern Bloom, for example, is drawn from Bruny Island – almost as far south as Australia goes: it boasts boronia, ylang-ylang and coconut, among other essences, and like many Goldfield & Banks scents it goes heavy on the Australian sandalwood.

As Goldfield & Banks marks its 10th anniversary, Dimitri Weber reflects on the journey so far with Monocle’s Andrew Mueller on The Entrepreneurs.

Is it strange that Australia isn’t more thought of as a perfume hotbed?
It has an untapped flora that has been explored in skincare but never in perfumery. We have amazing ingredients that have never been used in perfumery before. [And yet] Australia is one of the world’s biggest exporters of sandalwood. The sandalwood you find today in all the fragrances in all the department stores in the world: I would say, 90 per cent comes from Australia. We have some of the biggest lavender fields on the planet, too. It’s a really rich botanical culture in Australia, and my role with Goldfield & Banks is to share this beauty with the world.

How did you end up in Australia – and did it strike you instantly that it was under-utilised in this respect?
I worked in the fragrance industry [in Europe] for more than 30 years, and one of the brands that I was working with, which was a very high-end luxury jewellery brand, sent me to Australia to host a PR event. I was always intrigued by the ingredients coming from Australia. We have one ingredient, a beautiful, tiny, little flower called boronia that we find in Tasmania. It was used for the very first time in 1964 in a Dior fragrance.

Where do you even start launching a perfume house?
I had experience in retail, education, marketing, PR and even product development. So this allowed me to take a chance on creating my own fragrance brand. I didn’t really want [to] in the beginning. It was a risk. I just took €20,000 and opened this tiny little business, and today we still [haven’t gone to the] bank for anything. I’m very proud of having achieved that. With such a small amount of money, you can achieve beautiful things. It’s passion that drove me to create my own brand: my passion for Australia and [my passion] to show the world that perfume doesn’t necessarily have to be French. It can also be Australian. 

We apply the French expertise – we manufacture in France because you can’t have luxury without manufacturing in France, especially fragrances. But [we showcase] all these beautiful ingredients; that’s what I wanted.

How tough was it, especially early on? Did people understand what you were trying to do?
I did my market research for about a year before taking the step and creating this brand. The consumer was definitely ready for it. Australians were keen and happy that finally someone would create a beautiful, luxury fragrance house. Australian fashion houses were booming – Zimmermann, for example. Aesop is an Australian brand, too. And I knew there was a gap with fragrances. The international retailers such as] Harrods and Barneys believed in the brand straight away but the local retailers in Australia were a little bit sceptical.

Where did that scepticism come from?
They had this idea of luxury perfume being only French and a bit Italian, a bit London. But it takes education. It takes time. I remember people looking at me like I was an alien – like, ‘What’s this guy doing? What does he want with his perfume? What is he going to achieve with this?’ But I knew I was going to make it. I didn’t hesitate. 

How important was the name – it alludes to the 19th-century goldrushes and Joseph Banks, the botanist who sailed with Captain Cook?
The ‘Goldfield’ is for sandalwood. The tree grows only on fields of gold, because you need gold in the soil in order for the tree to grow. Australia is about the land and the earth, and so I wanted to have something very earthy in the name of my fragrance house. And then Joseph Banks. . . I just feel like a new version of Joseph Banks. He came back to Europe with more than 33,000 pieces of plants and pots and shrubs and showcased to Europeans all the beauty of the Pacific region. And now I’m doing the same with my little oils.

How much physical exploration of Australia is involved?
For the first five or six years, I travelled a lot in the country – I still do to look for new ingredients. But we have the privilege today that a lot of suppliers come to us and say, ‘We’ve got this incredible flower. Can you do something with it?’

Do you feel like you’re selling Australia, as well as the scents?
Even if you’re attracted by a campaign or by a bottle or by storytelling, if the fragrance doesn’t suit you, it doesn’t suit you. But as an Australian brand we work really hard on this beautiful story and expressing that in beautiful campaigns. Not many people travel to Australia because it’s so far away. So the least I can do is to work hard on the assets with photographers, with production houses, creating films to really give our audience a sample of what Australia is really like. That’s very important because with a French perfume house you can take the train and go to Paris – everybody knows the Eiffel Tower – but there is still a mystery around Australia. People come to me and say [that] they will probably never go to Australia because it’s so far away, but thanks to our fragrances they can imagine how beautiful the country is. That, to me, is the best compliment you can get.