Year in Review: The Moodie Blog
The Moodie Blogs of the Year
The Moodie Blog was launched in 2006, travel retail’s first Blog and since inception it has been one of our most popular features, writes Martin Moodie. In The Moodie Blog, now kindly sponsored by The House of Sōmrus, I like to get ‘up close and personal in travel retail’ as the tagline has it.
I try to bring a personal perspective – whether it be humorous, poignant or, if necessary, critical – to my experiences and those of others. Here, in no particular order, are some of my favourites – one for each month with a few Christmas extras thrown in – from a year where I seemed to spend more time on my road in various Interim Bureaux than I did home in Hong Kong.
In association with
“Second to the right, and straight on till morning.”
That, Peter had told Wendy, was the way to the Neverland; but even birds, carrying maps and consulting them at windy corners, could not have sighted it with these instructions. Peter, you see, just said anything that came into his head.
– From Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie
January
Why you should get on down to Harry’s place
Talk to anyone in the business who knows him (and that’s a lot of people) and you will never hear a bad word spoken of Harry Kartasis. And at a time when supply chain issues are such a challenge, he has become even more of a go to man.
Full story here.
Farväl to Yngve Bia, the man who created The Moodie Report
Not The Moodie Bia Report nor The Moodie Generation Report, note. Yngve was never one for the spotlight. I would be the frontman, he would be the not so mad (data) scientist.
Full story here.
February
Eating fush and chups and riding a giant canoe in the sky in Aotearoa
Fush? Let me explain. Foreigners like to mimic the way we Kiwis pronounce the letter ‘I’ as a ‘U’, so that to the non-Kiwi ear ‘Fish and Chips’ sounds like ‘Fush and Chups’.
Full story here.
March
Poignancy, reunions and celebration in the Philippines
Exquisite. As was the wine selection, all chosen by Chim – a wine aficionado – from his extensive home cellar. Not quite so extensive by the time we finished.
Full story here.
What price a smile?
There’s nothing luxury here but the young patients inside are about to receive, or have already received, a gift more priceless than any shopping emporium can offer. A smile.
Full story here.
April
How two chance meetings helped shape a unicorn – the Augustinus Bader story
“The fact I was ready to sleep under a bridge meant he probably thought there must be something behind this project because the guy was giving up the last thing he had.”
Full story here.
High times in Haikou
Talk about ‘The website that never sleeps’; this week it has never looked like getting a single wink.
Full story here.
May
Frontline excellence at Changi and Helsinki airports
As I went to set up my Interim Helsinki Bureau in the Finnair lounge I realised I had left my mouse (as in laptop accessory not rodent) on the plane. But help was close at hand.
Full story here.
June
How my encounter with Keanu Reeves passed by in a blur
And so my readers will just have to take my word for it and my colleague must stay with her husband. Yes, I did meet, chat and have my photo taken with Keanu Reeves. But like my life in general, the moment passed by in a blur.
Full story here.
July
How CDF created a new style of duty free gift-rapping
Hey presto, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, with the adept deployment of a strategically placed dot CDFG created Dottie as an emblem of its world-class shopping offer.
Full story here.
August
Meeting a guardian angel called Maki at Tokyo Station
For a moment prospects of recovering my laptop seemed between slim and none. And slim, like my train, had just left town.
Full story here.
September
Sunrise turns 24 years young; we reach a sprightly 21; and FAB rocks in Bangkok
I have known Sunrise Duty Free Founder and General Manager Fengyi Zhang for most of those 24 years and am always struck by her kindness and grace when we meet in China or at TFWA’s Cannes and Singapore shows.
Full story here.
October
Sömrus tells it straight up but a columnist ends up on the rocks
“This is why Americans think the economy is terrible,” wrote the irate critic on X (formerly Twitter) above a photo of a burger, fries and three sachets of ketchup (I know, I know, a journalist should never reveal his sauces).
Full story here.
November
Heading down Memory Lane with Proust in my slipstream
Proust’s work, ‘A la recherche du temps perdu’ (literally ‘In search of lost time’), was first translated into English as Remembrance of Things Past. Van Morrison inherited some literary tradition, did he not?
Full story here.
December
Up close with the Masters of Time and landing a big Hennessy scoop
Oh dear, I don’t think Bovet 1822 will be calling for my CV just yet…
Full story here.
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The Moodie Davitt eZine
Issue 330 | 22 December 2023
The Moodie Davitt eZine is published 14 times per year by The Moodie Davitt Report (Moodie International Ltd). © All material is copyright and cannot be reproduced without the permission of the Publisher. To find out more visit www.moodiedavittreport.com and to subscribe, please e-mail kristyn@moodiedavittreport.com