DMARGE

This story was purely on my own whim. Not paid. I took a Wise card and a NAB Visa debit card to Bali for ten days to see which one cost me less. The results were a little shocking. I assumed the difference would be the exchange rate. It wasn’t. The rates were the same. Out by a cent or two on a coffee, nothing more. The difference showed up two days later, when the NAB fees started appearing in the app. A gelato at Ettore in Pererenan. Fifty thousand rupiah, about four dollars. NAB converted it at $3.97.

This story was purely on my own whim. Not paid. I took a Wise card and a NAB Visa debit card to Bali for ten days to see which one cost me less. The results were a little shocking. I assumed the difference would be the exchange rate. It wasn’t. The rates were the same. Out by a cent or two on a coffee, nothing more. The difference showed up two days later, when the NAB fees started appearing in the app. A gelato at Ettore in Pererenan. Fifty thousand rupiah, about four dollars. NAB converted it at $3.97.

IM Motors has handed the keys to Jimmy Choo. The Shanghai brand has named the shoemaker bespoke design master of its L6 electric sedan, which gets you a faceted crystal badge, crystal camera covers, mother-of-pearl inlay work and a cabin trimmed in Haute Couture Blue pearlescent leather, the blue being a nod to the satin heels Choo made for Diana, Princess of Wales. First batch is capped at 1,000 cars and it is China only. We get the L6 here as the MG IM5. My first instinct was to bin it.

This feature was sponsored by Nike We were down in Bondi early this morning, which isn’t unusual for the DMARGE team, except we weren’t there for the water. Nike had the new Mind 001 colourway out on show ahead of tomorrow’s drop, and the entire idea behind it is a shoe you’re not supposed to play sport in. It’s a $150 mule built for the hour before the whistle rather than the ninety minutes after. Curated news for men, delivered to your inbox.

I have a dog, a couple of boards and a permanent low-grade resentment about the fact that this country decided, somewhere around 2014, that the only acceptable shape for a family car was a two-tonne SUV with a nose like a filing cabinet. So when Mercedes-Benz rolls out a facelifted C-Class and puts the wagon in the studio shot, standing there in Sky Grey looking like it knows exactly what it’s doing, I take it personally. Because it is genuinely lovely. And because we’re probably not getting it.

The first time I came to Canggu, there were two gyms. Not two good ones. Just two. Dua. Canggu barely existed in the form people now book flights for. There was no supplement shop on every corner, no Openhouse, no recovery menu, and the idea of a fitness venue you might spend an entire day inside would have sounded like a joke. There are now more than fifteen across Canggu, Pererenan and Seseh, and most opened in the last three years. The number is not the story.

Cupra Australia has opened orders on two special versions of the Terramar VZ, and one of them is capped at 10 cars for the entire country. The Tribe Edition Green gets an exclusive Manganese Matte green finish, sulfur green highlights through the 20-inch alloys and a build number small enough that most people will never see one in traffic. The black car is the one most buyers will actually get.

A new study has put hard numbers on the most reliable argument in any car park, and Mercedes drivers have come out of it badly. Research by global car rental comparison site DiscoverCars.com found that 25 per cent of Mercedes were parked incorrectly, the highest rate of any brand observed. Citroen came second on 24.4 per cent, which quietly ruins the theory that this is purely a luxury car problem.

Qantas has launched its biggest domestic sale of the year, with more than two million discounted Economy and Business seats across 101 routes and 60 destinations. It went live at 12.01am AEST this morning and closes at 11.59pm AEST on Tuesday 25 August, unless the seats go first. Economy starts at $99 one way.

Drake owns something in the region of 140 watches, and a serious chunk of them wear a crown. Most of those you could theoretically buy tomorrow if you had the money and the relationship. This one you could not. He posted a carousel showing a Cosmograph Daytona described as a 1 of 1, built for Drake, running a graduated blue sapphire setting and nicknamed the “Ice Gradient”. Flip it over and the caseback is engraved with the words “Freeze The World”. If that phrase rings a bell, it should.