“I believe in life long learning and I hope these stories may assist towards that goal.”

Tour de Tolerance 2023

September 26, 2023

After two years cycling in the Dolomites, I missed last years’ tour in the Pyrenees due to a bad fall in Goa. That had caused my family a lot of stress and me a lot of frustration of not being allowed to cycle by my doctor. The reason of my fall became never clear. I am still alive due to quick action by Sylvano, a friend of mine, as normally I always cycled into town on my own…

Vanilla JavaScript, extremely good reasons you should use this to create a lean web!

July 30, 2023

Let me start with a bold statement: knowing HTML and CSS helps write much better JavaScript! Why you may ask. Well, you need to grasp the whole medium to appreciate the best approach. The what, where, how, issues etc. Vanilla JavaScript may appear daunting but it is not. Instead it is faster, more secure, and more manageable. For the novices, JavaScript is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS.

Vanilla JavaScript, best practices

July 24, 2023

You start to work on a new project and you are happily coding away and seeing results until the number of functions, event listeners etc become too many and you have to clean up your own mess in a much more organized manner. You scratch yourself behind the ear and wonder why you did not do that right at the start… The problem is that you only realise certain shortcomings after having done a certain number of web pages.

Meat Loaf RIP

January 21, 2022

It happens more often that some well known musician passes away and with that part of your own happy childhood too. Today I was extra depressed as Meat Loaf has passed away. He was such a lovely singer and my thoughts are with his wife Deborah and his two daughters. In my humble opinion, to die aged 74 is far too early but then he did have a rough medical history with Asthma, accidentally falling off the stage etc.

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Tour de Tolerance 2021

September 19, 2021

Why do you show up even when it’s hard? That was the title of a recent Strava post trying to explain the atlete in you. Reflecting on challenging events is important to moving forward. On the border... A couple of weeks ago, I had again joined the Tour de Tolerance, a group of cyclists eager to climb mountains. The destination this year: the mighty Dolomites in Italy. As a kind of a prologue, five of us commenced in Innsbruck and cycled across the Brenner and the Jaufenpass to Bolzano (137km, 1964m).

The future is highly distributed

October 6, 2020

In any business environment these days you almost invariably have all your data in different systems. A single ERP may be the driving force behind your organisation but having a monolithic system also limits you. This is the reason I am very enthusiastic about Jamstack, a new standard architecture for the web. It relies on microservices, APIs to various sites to get the data from plain text files. So often you have data available but it is a pain to link it.

Tour de Tolerance 2020

September 8, 2020

I had heard of Madonna but never of Madonna del Ghisallo. The little chapel in her honour sits atop a steep hill (532m elevation, 10.6km, avg 5.2%, max 11%) that climbs up from the shores of Lake Como. It had been such a stopping point for cyclists that the local priest had proposed that Madonna del Ghisallo be declared the patroness of cyclists. In 1949 Pope Pius XII, formerly known as Signor Pacelli, himself an Italian and therefore no doubt a keen cyclist, confirmed this.

Crisis : Danger + Opportunity!

June 16, 2020

The Chinese word for crisis consists of two characters representing danger and opportunity respectively. Symbols of wisdom and extremely relevant with the current Covid-19 raging the world. On 1 January 2016, the 17 sustainability Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development officially came into force. I had seen these goals and frankly thought of them as somewhat idealistic. I was cynical as to how companies would be persuaded to adopt these goals.

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A solo cycle ride in Portugal

January 25, 2020

Like so often it seemed like a good idea at the time. I was more than fed up with cycling in the Dutch cold and grey wintry conditions and needed to de-stress from work related issues. My son Daniel was meant to join but he needed his time to study. Or so he said, perhaps suspect of my intentions. The completed route Browsing Skyscanner in my search for a last minute flight to the sun I found a good flight to Lisbon, Portugal.

Frontiers in Service 2019

July 18, 2019

A great academic conference In July 2019 I attended the Frontiers in Service conference at the National University of Singapore. At the time my role was Director Global Customer Services and I was keen to improve the quality delivered. There were several conferences but this one drew my interest as it was an academic conference and it would be attended by Ron Kaufman whose articles in the HBS Review and book UP Your Service!

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Support Net Neutrality

July 12, 2017

Internet neutrality is a big deal. It enables you, or anyone else, to complete at a true level playing field with large corporations. Support Net neutrality Early last year Mark Zuckerberg had pushed to break net neutrality in India. It failed! Read here more about Facebook’s biggest setback in the Guardian. Now the FCC has a plan to destroy net neutrality in the USA. It’s up to us to stop it.

World Boutique Hotel award

November 9, 2016

On behalf of Odyssey Tours I was pleased to collect the World Boutique Hotel award which this year was held at the Merchant Taylor’s Hall in London, November 9, 2016. Read more about it here. Yes! The first and probably not the last award It was an interesting night at a fascinating old building in Threadneedle St, Cornhill, which is in the heart of London. I had arrived on the Eurostar via Brussels so I did not have far to go.

India's GDP accelerates to 7.4% in Q2 FY16

December 5, 2015

The optimism regarding passage of Goods and Services Tax (GST) bill in the ongoing winter session of the Parliament has increased, after top leaders from ruling and major Opposition Party met on Friday evening for negotiations. Q2 – FY: 2016 real GDP number improves on deflationary trends The economic growth for Q2 – FY: 2016 came in better than Q1 and was broadly in line with expectations. The Gross Value added (GVA) (basic price) clocked 7.

Assocham sets up European headquarters in Amsterdam

December 2, 2015

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (known as Assocham India) has officially opened its first Dutch branch in Amsterdam. According to Vikas Chaturvedi, the founder of Assocham Netherlands, the launch of Assocham’s European base in Amsterdam “will give a substantial boost in business between India and Europe. This will further enhance the role of the Netherlands…

Cultural Differences

November 17, 2015

Cultural differences Geert Hofstede once said Cultural differences are a nuisance at best and often a disaster. Already an impressive 77% of the foreign companies are making a profit with a further 9% breaking even. The success lies in the ability to understand and adapt to the Indian work culture. Unfortunately Western entrepreneurs often display a misplaced arrogance. Their directness is uncomfortable in a culture where saying ‘no’ is impolite.

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Travel in style in India, relax in luxury in Goa

November 16, 2015

Goa’s Most Romantic Experience The Solita is our own classic luxury yacht, available for exclusive charter cruises. A completely different way of exploring Goa, the Solita will take you out to sea to spot dolphins and down Goa’s secret backwaters, past quaint villages. Available at a priority booking to guests at Summertime Villa, this is an experience not to be missed. Goa’s very first and till today, the most beautiful yacht for charter, the Solita is a 42-foot yacht in the classic Grand Banks style.

New bankruptcy bill to speed up shutdown of failed businesses

November 4, 2015

by Economic Times of India NEW DELHI: A government panel has sought the overhaul of the bankruptcy framework to allow the speedy winding up of failed businesses to protect shareholders and lenders, aiming to modernise an outdated system that drags out closure proceedings. It has recommended new institutions and structures for a fresh regime that will encourage entrepreneurship and foster a startup culture, among the stated objectives of the Narendra Modi administration.

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A pothole

September 29, 2015

“May I make a phone call first?” I asked the doctor as he had just explained that I would need surgery. I had participated in the “Kankavli magic”, a 200km Brevets Randonneurs Mondiaux (BRM) ride. The short rest at the 100km control point had done me good. I realised on my way back that I had a pleasant tail wind. No wonder I had been pushing hard thus far. I did over 30km per hour when I hit a deep pothole.

Modi must implement structural change to minimize corruption

July 14, 2015

by Trusted Sources Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke too soon when he claimed in May that there was “not one scandal” in his government “even after a year”, compared with his predecessor’s record when “every day was a new bad day”. As my colleague Amitabh Dubey writes from New Delhi: Corruption allegations have swamped Modi’s government shortly after that. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje were accused of secretly aiding Lalit Modi, a controversial businessman and founder of the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket franchise, who has moved to London to avoid questioning over alleged financial irregularities.

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Endurance

November 24, 2014

My 13 year old son Daniel called me from school this morning. “Papa, I don’t feel well. I have thrown up already twice.” To which I queried “You mean to say can you pick me up now?” In a muttered tone he confessed “I know you are tired…” probably expecting me to be still in bed. Yesterday I completed a 300km endurance cycle ride called Daryacho Gaaj – Sounds of the Sea.