Any other business

One of the oft-repeated excuses for high executive pay is the need to compete for top talent in an international market. A scan through a list of heads of FTSE 100 companies certainly shows just how many boards go abroad for their boss: 41 of the UK’s top 100 chief executives are foreigners, including three who are now naturalised Brits. They come from 14 different countries, from Mexico to the Ivory Coast and India. But a market ought to be a two-way exchange, and while we import senior managers from overseas, where are the British businessmen heading foreign public companies? There is a serious trade deficit in boardroom bosses.

Go East, young man: if I was 25 again, this is where I’d try my luck Hong Kong Not four hours since the plane touched down at Chek Lap Kok and I’m howling ‘My Way’ into a Wanchai karaoke machine to the discomfort of my Chinese friends, who all sing like Charles Aznavour. I’ll give some of the credit — for my energy level, not my singing — to Virgin Atlantic’s Upper Class ‘flatbed’, which is so comfortable that Sir Richard Branson is busy claiming patent rights so he can sue competitors who copy the design. But I’ll give most of the credit to Hong Kong itself: brash, noisy, diesel-fumed, neon-lit, money-crazy, and always energising.

Elliot Wilson says all the razzmatazz for the start of work on Crossrail highlights the construction industry’s urgent desire to soak up public funds before Tory cuts set in No major city anywhere has achieved as much as London has with such poor public transport at its disposal. Trams that break down; bendy buses that burst into flames; an underground rail network that overheats in the summer and taxes the patience and the wallets of millions of commuters all year round. The experience has been likened by London’s own mayor, Boris Johnson, to ‘sardine-tin travel’ — doing little for its citizens’ quality of life, or its reputation as the world’s leading centre for financial services, media and communications.

The eight feet of rain brought by Typhoon Morakot washed away a good proportion of President Ma Ying-jeou’s remaining popularity. Forecasters failed to predict the force of the August storm and evacuation measures were inadequate. More than 700 mountain villagers in southern Taiwan were buried alive by mudslides or swept away. Ma made penitential visits to comfort survivors but had to endure awkward moments as villagers harangued him in front of the television cameras. Another item on the charge sheet was his remark that the army’s prime role in future would be disaster relief — rather than putting up enough resistance to an attack from the mainland to allow the US time to kick in. The defence minister resigned in protest.

We’re all Shanghai gamblers now You might think yourself a fairly cautious investor. Maybe you dabble in a few shares and unit trusts, probably in major, well-established markets such as the US, Japan or Germany, as well as London. Emerging markets, and in particular the wild frontier that is China, you might reckon best left to professionals. And if you do occasionally take a few exotic punts, you’re very likely to restrict them to 10 per cent or so of your portfolio. But if you believe your exposure to the great Eastern dragon is modest or negligible, you’re wrong. It turns out that we’re all playing the Shanghai market now.

Should you ever buy any investment — a share, a commodity, an acre of land — when its price stands at an all-time high, having risen by half in less than a year? Or does that make you the ‘greater fool’, the greedy investor who buys into the top of the rally? In recent days, the price of the world’s oldest and most universally recognised store of value, gold, has surged to all-time highs above $1,050 an ounce. Have those of us who didn’t buy months ago just missed the bus, or is there further to go? The gold price has been through three distinct phases during the past couple of years, says Philip Klapwijk, chairman of GFMS, a London-based precious metals research house.