This is a throwback holiday to Milan in Italy from quite a long time ago. Those were the days when I was still into shopping and fashion, I mean that's one of the big reasons for going to Milan, right? I remember I got off the plane in the morning, and after lunch jumped onto a shuttle bus to cross the border to a factory outlet in Switzerland for a spot of retail therapy. No time to waste on my long weekend here!!

A few weeks ago I did a post requesting inputs for a Hive PPP Index. The objective is to look at price parity for the same basket of goods consisting of 12 items, from different countries. I received 18 responses (including my own) from North and South America, Europe and Africa. Unfortunately I didn't get any input from Asia. I was hoping to get more data points, but 18 is a respectable number and I'm pleased with the spread of countries.

It's been a long long time since I watched a TV series that is so thought provoking and compelled me to write about it. In case you haven't heard about Adolescence produced by Netflix. I highly recommend it, it is worth 4 hours of your time. Before I watched it, I resisted googling because I knew once I started it would keep on coming up on my feed, and I didn't want anything to spoil my experience. That's just me, maybe you're different.

Despite not being an art lover or someone who knows how to appreciate art, I'm glad that my recent visit to the Van Gogh exhibition at the National Gallery in London wasn't a total waste. Previously all I knew about Van Gogh were a couple of his famous paintings such The Sunflower and The Starry Night, and that he suffered from mental illness and cut his own ear off. After the exhibition, I can't say I now know a lot more about this master, but I have learned a tiny little bit more about the last couple of years of his life.

It's time to get my hiking boots on for my first walk of 2025 to Pensford Viaduct. I have passed by many times on the bus and always wanted to see it. The 16 arch 300 meter long viaduct was built in 1874 and closed in 1968. Sadly it never made it to its 100th birthday in use. I'll tell you why later on.

Many years ago when I was studying economics at college, we were taught purchasing price parities PPP. In simple terms, this compares the price for the same basket of goods from different countries, and is often used in macro economics for policy making.