I love Hong Kong. I would wander around the island all day in a cosy nostalgic blur if I didn't have 8 Indonesian corporates to escort from one Grand Hyatt room to another or copious requests from demanding clients to deal with all hours of the day. But Hong Kong taxi drivers are a different thing altogether. Man alive are they rude. I can only recall two taxi journeys made on this trip. There were three, but the one back to the airport on Friday afternoon completely passed me by as I slouched in the back seat comotose. Otherwise it was a 100% hit rate of abuse. I made the mistake of taking the suicide seat on both occasions and caught the full frontal when on the first trip the driver inexplicably started yelling at me 100 yards before we reached our destination that we were nearly there and practically shoved me out of the car when we arrived. Then on my next ride I asked in my fluent Cantonese for a receipt before politely trying to ascertain whether there was a more accurate word to use than the restaurant bill I had probably demanded. Well the guy just flipped. Talk about a torrent of abuse. I was called everything under the sun as I scrambled out onto the street side and with the aid of that funny contraption that only HK taxis seem to have, the driver slammed the door shut behind me. My companions and I stood on the roadside in the drizzling rain in bemused silence when the door opened again and with a clatter a blue and yellow CLSA wooden sign post we had helped ourselves to from that evenings entertainment venue was hurled onto the road at our feet. Maybe it loses something in translation. It was all just a little surreal. I love Hong Kong.
I blew it though didn't I? I had been so self disciplined. I hope you got your email summaries from me written with the utmost professionalism at all hours of the day and night. But you have yet to hear about day 4, which already seems a lifetime ago. That is because Thursday evening was taken up by an early departure for Po Toi, followed by drinks in the Armani Bar, an altercation with a taxi driver and far too many hours in various bars. It’s pathetic really. And you may say that I have should have addressed Day 4 at the start of this week, but it has been a trying one involving a brief unscheduled and unwanted visit from Hen who was sent home from school for a couple of days. ‘Nuff said really. Admittedly the distracting boyfriend is, according to Hen, going to be an internationally renowned rock star in due course and so obviously is quite a catch, but at the moment I am trying to impress on her the need to focus a little more wholeheartedly on academic matters. By way of punishment for her untoward behaviour I took her on a 45 minute cross country run, set her to work shoveling copious amounts of horse manure off two large fields and made her write a 1,000 word essay entitled “In an Ideal World”. I can’t resist including one small extract…..which is a sentence at the end of a paragraph on animals which concluded “If you wanted an animal, they would not cost anything, and their poo would evaporate as soon as it comes out.”
So where were we….?
Sunday, 21 November 2010
24th August 2007
I’ve known most of you for a reasonably long time, but I’m not sure how many of you have children who are at GCSE or A level age. It could be quite a stressy period, unless, strange though it is to concede, you’ve got one like Hen. I was up in Norfolk for a couple of days holiday this week with two old family friends of ours. One of them had to drive their daughter 70 miles at the crack of dawn back down to Cambridge because she wanted to be with her school friends when she opened her GCSE results. The other’s daughter had her on-line password lined up and planned to log in on the dot at 10.00am to get her details. Finger nails chewed to the bone. Hen, it transpired had no intention of traipsing back to Rugby, nor had she come to Norfolk equipped with her log-in password or a telephone number to call. When asked how she was going to get her results ……“Why would I be in a rush to find out?” she asked. She is a frustrating child as you may have gathered, but once you get used to her….in the overall scheme of things, interestingly stress free. OK. Not too many A*’s here, but you gotta love it.
6th July, 2007
A number of less charitable and cynical souls have been leaving abusive messages alluding to my sporadic appearance in the office this week, but in fact I have been hard at work and last Friday seems about a year and half ago. During that time I have been to a performance of Dido and Aeneas at Rugby to witness Hen as a witch chasing boys about the stage with a couple of kippers in her hands. Doesn’t get much more classical than that. Wednesday was a busy day down in Wiltshire playing with shotguns and it was only a chance remark when I was down that explained why the stunningly witty joke I had been cracking - to the effect that whilst the Americans were eating turkeys we would be shooting clay pigeons - had drawn such blank stares. I’m told the 4th July is Independence Day not Thanksgiving….and I’m meant to have a global perspective! Worrying. Then Wimbledon yesterday and a life changing recommendation given to me by one of my guests to watch channel 295 on Sky. The “Horse and Country” channel. It’s fantastic. I was up till the early hours last night watching the poultry tent and egg judging at the Royal Show. The tennis was a bit of a wash out really. The incessant rain is now becoming boring. Even my 6 year old is somewhat disenchanted with this English summer. “I thought God told Noah he would stop the rain” she complained last night. This is the same child who greeted me earlier in the week with joy all over her face and the news that we were going to have a new addition to the family…. “and I’m hoping for a boy”. This was surprising for me and I hastened into the kitchen where I found Sophie with tears rolling down her cheeks. The smell of curry hung in the air and it transpired that Lottie, an inquisitive soul, had been watching the preparation of supper and asking what the various jars of spices and herbs were. After she pointed at one particular small jar Sophie told her it contained cumin seeds. “Human seeds???” said Lottie. No doubt storing all sorts of trouble for the future, Sophie simply stood there, watching in astonishment as Lottie gleefully gathered one up and rushed off to the garden to plant the younger brother she had always hoped for.
Thursday morning we had a breakfast video conference link up with the Leader of the Thai Democrat Party, Khun Abhisit Vejjajiva and Deputy Leader, Khun Korn Chatikavanij. Hopefully you saw the invitation to “Congee or Croissants with CLSA” ( catchy eh! ) I can’t tell you how complicated it was to get a supply of congee for Thursday morning, but with the help of my brilliant colleague, May Kwong, this was achieved. Pretty interesting. To my mind the key point is that these gentlemen were prepared to give us their time, but as you may be aware, I have been arguing that the market should perform well in the run up to elections and that beyond that, assuming a Democrat led coalition government, they will quickly work to restore foreign investor interest and confidence in Thailand. During the call Khun Abhisit pledged to straightaway remove the remaining capital controls imposed by the interim government, albeit he was a little more reticent on that old chestnut of foreign ownership limits. Suffice to say they will look at the Alien Business Law, but are more inclined to act to streamline the process by which foreign businesses can obtain licences to set up in Thailand. Significant investment in education and infrastructure will be a key priority of a Democrat led administration and we could expect interest rates to be cut significantly too. All in all it was an encouraging discussion although I also came away with the view that whilst the Democrats are probably still favourites to be the largest party after the next election it is not a given. They themselves target 150 seats as an “ambitious, but acheiveable” target. “So long as we get one more seat than the second largest party we’ll be happy”. Oh, and if you are Thai, the Democrats are in fund-raising mode and need your money……some things never change!
Thursday morning we had a breakfast video conference link up with the Leader of the Thai Democrat Party, Khun Abhisit Vejjajiva and Deputy Leader, Khun Korn Chatikavanij. Hopefully you saw the invitation to “Congee or Croissants with CLSA” ( catchy eh! ) I can’t tell you how complicated it was to get a supply of congee for Thursday morning, but with the help of my brilliant colleague, May Kwong, this was achieved. Pretty interesting. To my mind the key point is that these gentlemen were prepared to give us their time, but as you may be aware, I have been arguing that the market should perform well in the run up to elections and that beyond that, assuming a Democrat led coalition government, they will quickly work to restore foreign investor interest and confidence in Thailand. During the call Khun Abhisit pledged to straightaway remove the remaining capital controls imposed by the interim government, albeit he was a little more reticent on that old chestnut of foreign ownership limits. Suffice to say they will look at the Alien Business Law, but are more inclined to act to streamline the process by which foreign businesses can obtain licences to set up in Thailand. Significant investment in education and infrastructure will be a key priority of a Democrat led administration and we could expect interest rates to be cut significantly too. All in all it was an encouraging discussion although I also came away with the view that whilst the Democrats are probably still favourites to be the largest party after the next election it is not a given. They themselves target 150 seats as an “ambitious, but acheiveable” target. “So long as we get one more seat than the second largest party we’ll be happy”. Oh, and if you are Thai, the Democrats are in fund-raising mode and need your money……some things never change!
21st June, 2007
You may have wondered what Hen was up to these days. When she went back to school at the end of April I was anticipating a rich vein of stories. Oh, believe me, the stories have flowed, but alas none of them have been printable. Let’s just put it this way. If she had been working at CLSA she would have been the first to put her hand up when someone was needed for a day at the Races. The concept of a hard days work does not enter her head. On another matter, preoccupied by issues with Hen, you can imagine that Sophie was more than a little concerned when she was pulled aside by a very stern-looking Deputy Head at our son, Bob’s school earlier this week. “I’m afraid we’ve had some trouble with Bob this morning.” he began ominously. “He was discovered by the Big Tree…. ( a lovely old oak that is the focal point of the school )…..eating ants”. Confronted with this by us Bob subsequently protested that they are absolutely delicious, sweet and a little bit sour, and that he’s got nearly everyone at the school doing it now.
8th June, 2007
8th June 2007
I arrived in Thailand at the start of 1996 to take up my job with Jardine Fleming full of enthusiasm and optimistic that after two years of underperformance the market was set to rebound strongly as the current account deficit seemed to be diminishing and interest rates were falling. How wrong can you be? To be fair on myself within six weeks of arriving, with the market rallying strongly, I had visited a load of companies and realized it was all a mirage. There was just no meat to the place. Companies raised money left right and centre borrowing cheaply overseas, ploughing the funds into ill considered investments with little regard to what return might be achieved or they just put the money they had raised into high interest bearing Baht deposits in the certain knowledge that the Baht was only going to appreciate. From that point we went on the offensive and, fending off bomb threats from irate private investors objecting to our bearish story, we pounded the table urging investors to sell sell sell……though I certainly did not anticipate that by the time I left Bangkok in April 1998 the SET would have fallen 90% in US$ terms during my tenure. It was a terrific if not particularly profitable experience.
Chris Wood, in his latest Greed & Fear, which is attached below portrays an appropriately cynical assessment of Thailand’s prospects. Appropriate in the sense that Thailand is certainly not out of the woods given all that yet has to be done to progress towards a new constitution and fresh elections. Also in the sense that even beyond that there are some enormous problems that Thailand needs to address, not least – at the risk of sounding incredibly patronizing – the enormous gap between the haves and the have nots both in economic and educational terms, things that simply have not changed a jot since my time in Thailand. But here’s my view, purely from a stock market perspective. There is not going to be any significant violence. The new constitution will be passed. Elections will proceed by the end of the year and the Democrats will end up with the Premiership ( whilst Thaksin will have to content himself with Man City…what a joke ) and a majority of Cabinet positions. All this is going to be very positive for the stock market and after that there will be another kicker when the new Ministers get on with the job of sorting out Thailand’s problems. Back in 1996 within days of arriving in Thailand, my first job was to write a speech for the then Minister of Finance, Dr. Surakiat Sathirathai, that he was due to present to potential foreign investors. It almost defies belief actually, but it is true. I wish I had kept a copy. It must have been dreadful! Yet he presented it, virtually word for word. Although I havn’t investigated this I suspect that the very doctor is one of the 111 executive committee members that has been banned from politics for five years.
The next Thai Finance Minister, I wouldn’t mind betting, will be my old boss, Korn Chatikavanij and when he and his contemparies get their mandate they will not be coming to some naïve 33 year old foreigner to write their story. He is extremely articulate and able. I’m not saying they will succeed in turning Thailand into an economic power-house, but they will give it a go and if politics can matter some times in markets, then you should be in there for the ride. I would follow Chris Wood down to Thailand, but even though he may accuse me of succumbing to spin, I would slip more than the 1% he has into your Asian regional portfolios. Banks, property and exporters.
No Bits & Pieces this week. Damian is on holidays….some people….what a life eh. I suppose I need to concede that the absence of a Bhodi Tree uttering last Friday was because that whilst I was in the office in body, I wasn’t really in spirit, the effect of a stag-party for one of my colleagues the evening before which took its toll. After that admission I can surely be allowed a little bit of self praise. For a change, I have remembered in time to be armed with a present and a card, that next Monday is my 19th wedding anniversary. The present, if I can rely on you not to spill the beans, is a lovely flowery hand shovel which Sophie will be able to use to pick up our new puppy’s messes and the card I thought was particularly apt given our rapid descent into bankruptcy following our house purchase. A picture of a happy looking couple with the caption, “Darren had decided not to report his stolen credit card since the thief was spending considerably less on it than his wife did”.
I arrived in Thailand at the start of 1996 to take up my job with Jardine Fleming full of enthusiasm and optimistic that after two years of underperformance the market was set to rebound strongly as the current account deficit seemed to be diminishing and interest rates were falling. How wrong can you be? To be fair on myself within six weeks of arriving, with the market rallying strongly, I had visited a load of companies and realized it was all a mirage. There was just no meat to the place. Companies raised money left right and centre borrowing cheaply overseas, ploughing the funds into ill considered investments with little regard to what return might be achieved or they just put the money they had raised into high interest bearing Baht deposits in the certain knowledge that the Baht was only going to appreciate. From that point we went on the offensive and, fending off bomb threats from irate private investors objecting to our bearish story, we pounded the table urging investors to sell sell sell……though I certainly did not anticipate that by the time I left Bangkok in April 1998 the SET would have fallen 90% in US$ terms during my tenure. It was a terrific if not particularly profitable experience.
Chris Wood, in his latest Greed & Fear, which is attached below portrays an appropriately cynical assessment of Thailand’s prospects. Appropriate in the sense that Thailand is certainly not out of the woods given all that yet has to be done to progress towards a new constitution and fresh elections. Also in the sense that even beyond that there are some enormous problems that Thailand needs to address, not least – at the risk of sounding incredibly patronizing – the enormous gap between the haves and the have nots both in economic and educational terms, things that simply have not changed a jot since my time in Thailand. But here’s my view, purely from a stock market perspective. There is not going to be any significant violence. The new constitution will be passed. Elections will proceed by the end of the year and the Democrats will end up with the Premiership ( whilst Thaksin will have to content himself with Man City…what a joke ) and a majority of Cabinet positions. All this is going to be very positive for the stock market and after that there will be another kicker when the new Ministers get on with the job of sorting out Thailand’s problems. Back in 1996 within days of arriving in Thailand, my first job was to write a speech for the then Minister of Finance, Dr. Surakiat Sathirathai, that he was due to present to potential foreign investors. It almost defies belief actually, but it is true. I wish I had kept a copy. It must have been dreadful! Yet he presented it, virtually word for word. Although I havn’t investigated this I suspect that the very doctor is one of the 111 executive committee members that has been banned from politics for five years.
The next Thai Finance Minister, I wouldn’t mind betting, will be my old boss, Korn Chatikavanij and when he and his contemparies get their mandate they will not be coming to some naïve 33 year old foreigner to write their story. He is extremely articulate and able. I’m not saying they will succeed in turning Thailand into an economic power-house, but they will give it a go and if politics can matter some times in markets, then you should be in there for the ride. I would follow Chris Wood down to Thailand, but even though he may accuse me of succumbing to spin, I would slip more than the 1% he has into your Asian regional portfolios. Banks, property and exporters.
No Bits & Pieces this week. Damian is on holidays….some people….what a life eh. I suppose I need to concede that the absence of a Bhodi Tree uttering last Friday was because that whilst I was in the office in body, I wasn’t really in spirit, the effect of a stag-party for one of my colleagues the evening before which took its toll. After that admission I can surely be allowed a little bit of self praise. For a change, I have remembered in time to be armed with a present and a card, that next Monday is my 19th wedding anniversary. The present, if I can rely on you not to spill the beans, is a lovely flowery hand shovel which Sophie will be able to use to pick up our new puppy’s messes and the card I thought was particularly apt given our rapid descent into bankruptcy following our house purchase. A picture of a happy looking couple with the caption, “Darren had decided not to report his stolen credit card since the thief was spending considerably less on it than his wife did”.
25th May, 2007
One of the reasons I write about Hen so often is that for the last two or three years we havn't had chickens. Long suffering readers of my weekly will possibly recall this was a previously a recurring theme of mine. Well happy happy day….We are the owners of a new flock, inherited, along with a rather mangy looking cat, when we moved into our new house. Having your own hens, some of you may know is an emotional roller coaster. Mine would invariably be picked off by foxes, or go off the lay and have to be popped into a casserole dish. We had several cockerels whose role, in part, was to defend the hens in the event of an attack. One of them was called Travis. A fine, strutting specimen, as was the pop star he was named after, he was found one morning perched shakily in a tree, his entire clutch of hens having been decimated by a fox overnight. He was rechristened, “Chicken”. Anyway, my son Bob has embraced chicken ownership, not as a source of fairly asinine stories, but as a going commercial concern. Frankly though this has been one long source of angst. From the moment his revenue projections were blown to bits by the realization that eggs sold at £1 a dozen rather than per 6, to being told that he would have to pay for chicken food, that the family would be expecting to eat a good proportion of the eggs laid and that he would have to buy the hens….he has had a harsh introduction to capitalism. And to rub salt ( and pepper ) into the wounds, yesterday evening he arrived at our back door in tears and with egg yolk and shell dripping down his legs. He had put his precious collection of 3 eggs – the entire days lay – in his trouser pockets before running back to the house to flog them at the front gate. He’ll make a stock broker.
18th May 2007
I know this reflects very badly on me but there's a guy on my train who has been really irritating me for months now. Such a pain. He conducts loud and banal telephone conversations about work all the way from Kings Cross to Cambridge. But how sad is this? On Wednesday there was obviously a storm brewing at his office that was threatening his weekend. “Well I'm sorry, but it's my daughters wedding on Saturday and my wife will kill me if I am not around.” A man with priority problems I thought to myself. Then yesterday, two days before his daughter’s big day, I find myself sitting next to him once again and notice that he's engrossed with some sheets printed off a website. Expert over the shoulder reader that I am, I discover that he is reading examples of wedding speeches from a website called Hitched obviously in a frantic, last-minute source of inspiration. I’m not making this up….the attached link will take you to the very one, at least judging from the copious highlighting of passages that he was doing, that he is basing most of his speech on…..Lucky girl. What a Dad.
http://www.hitched.co.uk/speeches/examples/sp_example.asp?id=1741&num=3
http://www.hitched.co.uk/speeches/examples/sp_example.asp?id=1741&num=3
4th May 2007
4th May 2007
I am a very relaxed person today. This is despite the fact that I am sitting waiting for our lawyer to ring to tell me that we have completed on the purchase of our house and that I am now broke. Fact is I have rarely been more stressed than I was yesterday, ahead of a charity fund-raising “X-Factor” event at our children’s school last night. Nine year old son, Bob, had cast aside an invitation to sing “We’re all going on a summer holiday” with three other boys in the auditions, preferring instead to shoot for fame on his own with a rendition of the Kaiser Chief’s hit, “Saturday”. For those of you who don’t know the song I have pasted the words at the bottom of this email. It is fast and furious, moderately inappropriate and his plan was to do it with no backing music….just little old him with a kitchen whisk in his hand in place of a microphone. Horror of horrors he was selected for the finals and so faced the prospect of performing on stage in front of a crowd of 200 or so teachers, pupils and parents. He seemed fairly calm about things. When he told his mother, after his success in the auditions, to stop talking about it, she thought it was because he was sick with nervousness. “Oh no”, he said “I don’t want people to think I’m boasting.” It was Sophie and I who were the nervous wrecks imagining him freezing up as he realized what an horrific thing he had set himself. The confidence of youth. Mind you his equanimity was somewhat challenged after his ( occasionally faltering ) act, when “Sharon Osbourne”, asked to comment on his performance, described him as cute. With a look of thunder on his face, he left the stage at speed.
I am a very relaxed person today. This is despite the fact that I am sitting waiting for our lawyer to ring to tell me that we have completed on the purchase of our house and that I am now broke. Fact is I have rarely been more stressed than I was yesterday, ahead of a charity fund-raising “X-Factor” event at our children’s school last night. Nine year old son, Bob, had cast aside an invitation to sing “We’re all going on a summer holiday” with three other boys in the auditions, preferring instead to shoot for fame on his own with a rendition of the Kaiser Chief’s hit, “Saturday”. For those of you who don’t know the song I have pasted the words at the bottom of this email. It is fast and furious, moderately inappropriate and his plan was to do it with no backing music….just little old him with a kitchen whisk in his hand in place of a microphone. Horror of horrors he was selected for the finals and so faced the prospect of performing on stage in front of a crowd of 200 or so teachers, pupils and parents. He seemed fairly calm about things. When he told his mother, after his success in the auditions, to stop talking about it, she thought it was because he was sick with nervousness. “Oh no”, he said “I don’t want people to think I’m boasting.” It was Sophie and I who were the nervous wrecks imagining him freezing up as he realized what an horrific thing he had set himself. The confidence of youth. Mind you his equanimity was somewhat challenged after his ( occasionally faltering ) act, when “Sharon Osbourne”, asked to comment on his performance, described him as cute. With a look of thunder on his face, he left the stage at speed.
15th March 2007
15th March 2007
It has been a while since I last had much excitement on the train home. It used to be a regular source of mild entertainment, albeit not always for me. There was the time I was assaulted at Tottenham Hale for example. A distant memory. The impromptu wake with the beautiful girl and the bottle whisky on the midnight train to Cambridge was almost as long ago, but remains fresh in my mind! And whilst I am regularily sought out by drunk Scotsmen on the Underground even this hadn't happened for a while. It was back to normal service on Tuesday evening though. I should have been a bit more alert really. The can of Carlsberg Extra Strong that was kicked out of the carriage onto the platform as I waited to board the train was a slight giveaway and there was a distinct whiff of beer in the atmosphere. Nevertheless, in I went, the doors closed and the singing began. "Is this the way to Amarillo" warbled a bedraggled looking old man with a distinctly Scottish accent belying the floppy green hat with a shamrock on it that he was wearing. Inevitably he chose me - of all the people in the carriage - to ask to dance with him. I was very restrained and declined resolutely. This caused him to launch into a bizarre tirade against insider dealers and as I left him at Kings Cross he was yelling "There's only one Nick Leeson" at the top of his voice as if he knew about the part I played in Barings' downfall.
Brief Hen update. She excelled herself this week missing the first part of one of her GCSE exams ( appropriately enough, a drama practical ). I can’t bring myself to tell you what caused this fairly crucial slip up. Oh, all right…..polo practice.
It has been a while since I last had much excitement on the train home. It used to be a regular source of mild entertainment, albeit not always for me. There was the time I was assaulted at Tottenham Hale for example. A distant memory. The impromptu wake with the beautiful girl and the bottle whisky on the midnight train to Cambridge was almost as long ago, but remains fresh in my mind! And whilst I am regularily sought out by drunk Scotsmen on the Underground even this hadn't happened for a while. It was back to normal service on Tuesday evening though. I should have been a bit more alert really. The can of Carlsberg Extra Strong that was kicked out of the carriage onto the platform as I waited to board the train was a slight giveaway and there was a distinct whiff of beer in the atmosphere. Nevertheless, in I went, the doors closed and the singing began. "Is this the way to Amarillo" warbled a bedraggled looking old man with a distinctly Scottish accent belying the floppy green hat with a shamrock on it that he was wearing. Inevitably he chose me - of all the people in the carriage - to ask to dance with him. I was very restrained and declined resolutely. This caused him to launch into a bizarre tirade against insider dealers and as I left him at Kings Cross he was yelling "There's only one Nick Leeson" at the top of his voice as if he knew about the part I played in Barings' downfall.
Brief Hen update. She excelled herself this week missing the first part of one of her GCSE exams ( appropriately enough, a drama practical ). I can’t bring myself to tell you what caused this fairly crucial slip up. Oh, all right…..polo practice.
23rd February, 2007
23rd Feb 2007
Spent last week in Wengen, Switzerland. Even with limited snow it was not without its excitement. Do you know anyone who’s accident prone? I thought I was till this happened…..Felix, the 9 year old son of the friends we were skiing with, is a reasonably adventurous fellow. When he was 5 he was once found underneath his father’s Mercedes having got the jack out of the boot and used it to raise the car a foot and a half off the ground. Anyway, he survived that relatively unscathed even if the car didn’t, but attempting a 360 degree turn off a jump following my son and their instructor down a slope last week he pole-axed himself and had to be helicoptered off the mountain. He spent a night in Interlaken hospital, but happily was released the following afternoon having been found to have suffered “only” severe concussion. His father was given strict instructions by the doctor that there was to be no TV or computer use, absolutely no skiing and indeed no games of any sort for three weeks. Felix could remember nothing of the accident or, much to his regret, the helicopter trip. Quietly does it was the mantra. That evening we all wandered along to the Downhill Only Club where I collected my trophy for winning the Polytechnic Touring Cup giant slalom race ( thought I would slip that in….photos available at a price on request ), but it was a tedious affair really for two 9 year old boys and when my son Bob spotted that there was an ice-hockey game going on in the ice-rink just across the way they were given permission to go over and watch on the strict understanding, no running around….quietly quietly. Ten minutes later the door of the Downhill Only Club opened and in came Bob and Felix, the latter clutching his head and sobbing furiously. He’d been hit above the right eye, where an enormous throbbing bruise now stood, by a flying puck smacked with some force, presumably, by some brute of an ice-hockey player. How ridiculous is that? Felix, appropriately named, has used up quite a few of his nine lives.
Spent last week in Wengen, Switzerland. Even with limited snow it was not without its excitement. Do you know anyone who’s accident prone? I thought I was till this happened…..Felix, the 9 year old son of the friends we were skiing with, is a reasonably adventurous fellow. When he was 5 he was once found underneath his father’s Mercedes having got the jack out of the boot and used it to raise the car a foot and a half off the ground. Anyway, he survived that relatively unscathed even if the car didn’t, but attempting a 360 degree turn off a jump following my son and their instructor down a slope last week he pole-axed himself and had to be helicoptered off the mountain. He spent a night in Interlaken hospital, but happily was released the following afternoon having been found to have suffered “only” severe concussion. His father was given strict instructions by the doctor that there was to be no TV or computer use, absolutely no skiing and indeed no games of any sort for three weeks. Felix could remember nothing of the accident or, much to his regret, the helicopter trip. Quietly does it was the mantra. That evening we all wandered along to the Downhill Only Club where I collected my trophy for winning the Polytechnic Touring Cup giant slalom race ( thought I would slip that in….photos available at a price on request ), but it was a tedious affair really for two 9 year old boys and when my son Bob spotted that there was an ice-hockey game going on in the ice-rink just across the way they were given permission to go over and watch on the strict understanding, no running around….quietly quietly. Ten minutes later the door of the Downhill Only Club opened and in came Bob and Felix, the latter clutching his head and sobbing furiously. He’d been hit above the right eye, where an enormous throbbing bruise now stood, by a flying puck smacked with some force, presumably, by some brute of an ice-hockey player. How ridiculous is that? Felix, appropriately named, has used up quite a few of his nine lives.
9th February, 2007
Friday 9th February………rings a bell. Oh sugar…it’s Sophie’s birthday. Help! Actually it’s not as bad as it seems. I had remembered and bought what I think is a really lovely present. Boys, let me know if you need any ideas. Unfortunately what I had forgotten was to buy a something for each of the children to give their mother. Hen, I have no doubt, will have fabricated some rubbish in woodwork classes. Jimmy had bought something herself. She’s the second child and very conscientious. Bob is giving Mum a Mulberry key ring in the shape of a Daschund dog that I had bought as a little extra. But Lottie, our 6 year old, had failed to come up with anything, hopeless case that she is. No worries. Talk about using your initiative. Under a pile of Decanter magazines and dressage instruction booklets, I found a virtually untouched Dick Francis novel, the inside front cover of which is now scribbled on in Lottie’s fair hand and which may just fool the old dear.
2nd February 2007
2nd Feb 2007
You havn’t had an update on Hen for a few weeks. The truth is things havn’t been running entirely smoothly in the coop – Hen’s world. Don’t get me wrong. The long term plan which features a dashing Argentinian polo-player and a blissful life on an estancia is firmly in place, but her year didn’t get off to a great start when she forgot to take her uniform back to school and I sense it has been a struggle since then. I have just received an email from her (see below) having berated her for falling foul of the authorities yet again. She returned to her house 25 minutes after curfew her excuse apparently that she had been counseling (not consoling ) a boy who had just been “dumped” by his girl-friend. Punishment for this was being “gated”. Whilst everyone else is out enjoying the delights of Rugby town centre Henrietta has to stay in her house, time that should really be spent catching up on schoolwork or reading Jane Austen novels. “Gation” is not a term I have found in the OED, but I presume it is a word invented by Hen meaning “the state of being gated”.
(gation is not good for me... ive taken to tidying peoples wardrobes, talking to myself and sorting out peoples earrings!) xxxxxxxxxx
You havn’t had an update on Hen for a few weeks. The truth is things havn’t been running entirely smoothly in the coop – Hen’s world. Don’t get me wrong. The long term plan which features a dashing Argentinian polo-player and a blissful life on an estancia is firmly in place, but her year didn’t get off to a great start when she forgot to take her uniform back to school and I sense it has been a struggle since then. I have just received an email from her (see below) having berated her for falling foul of the authorities yet again. She returned to her house 25 minutes after curfew her excuse apparently that she had been counseling (not consoling ) a boy who had just been “dumped” by his girl-friend. Punishment for this was being “gated”. Whilst everyone else is out enjoying the delights of Rugby town centre Henrietta has to stay in her house, time that should really be spent catching up on schoolwork or reading Jane Austen novels. “Gation” is not a term I have found in the OED, but I presume it is a word invented by Hen meaning “the state of being gated”.
(gation is not good for me... ive taken to tidying peoples wardrobes, talking to myself and sorting out peoples earrings!) xxxxxxxxxx
26th January 2007
26th Jan 2007
Moving swiftly on, weekends don’t quite hold the appeal they used to for me. This no-alcohol thing is getting tiresome. However, looking on the bright side the Sandison family are delighted to have a new arrival – 19 in fact - which should ensure hours of entertainment. Such was the intense excitement surrounding this latest adventure that I was forced to chase the people who were delivering the little beauties to us….see their email response below. As I said to the kind person, Bob’s godfather, who gave him Antworks, a transparent box full of strange translucent blue gel into which the ants tunnel, what is this strange world into which we have entered? “Exceptionally high demand”??? For ants????
From: ants@breezily.co.uk [mailto:ants@breezily.co.uk]
Sent: 18 January 2007 19:05
To: David Sandison, CLSA
Subject: Re: 6BM841016C937982H
Thanks for your email.
We can confirm receipt of your order which is in processing.
As stated on the website orders may take up to 10 *working* days under normal circumstances.
However, there is exceptionally high demand at the moment which is causing delays in addition to the usual delivery time.
You should receive your ants within the next week when we are able to send you enough ants to ensure you receive a good sized batch (we always try to send as many ants as possible).
We apologise for any inconvenience this temporary unforeseeable exceptionally high demand may have caused and thank you for your understanding and patience.
Thanks,
The team at Breezily.co.uk
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
info@breezily.co.uk
http://antworks.breezily.co.uk/
P.S. The ants arrived in a test-tube through our letter box although, sad to say, 6 were DOA and one more died shortly afterwards when it got stuck trying to squeeze through a minute air hole in the Antworks box.
Moving swiftly on, weekends don’t quite hold the appeal they used to for me. This no-alcohol thing is getting tiresome. However, looking on the bright side the Sandison family are delighted to have a new arrival – 19 in fact - which should ensure hours of entertainment. Such was the intense excitement surrounding this latest adventure that I was forced to chase the people who were delivering the little beauties to us….see their email response below. As I said to the kind person, Bob’s godfather, who gave him Antworks, a transparent box full of strange translucent blue gel into which the ants tunnel, what is this strange world into which we have entered? “Exceptionally high demand”??? For ants????
From: ants@breezily.co.uk [mailto:ants@breezily.co.uk]
Sent: 18 January 2007 19:05
To: David Sandison, CLSA
Subject: Re: 6BM841016C937982H
Thanks for your email.
We can confirm receipt of your order which is in processing.
As stated on the website orders may take up to 10 *working* days under normal circumstances.
However, there is exceptionally high demand at the moment which is causing delays in addition to the usual delivery time.
You should receive your ants within the next week when we are able to send you enough ants to ensure you receive a good sized batch (we always try to send as many ants as possible).
We apologise for any inconvenience this temporary unforeseeable exceptionally high demand may have caused and thank you for your understanding and patience.
Thanks,
The team at Breezily.co.uk
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
info@breezily.co.uk
http://antworks.breezily.co.uk/
P.S. The ants arrived in a test-tube through our letter box although, sad to say, 6 were DOA and one more died shortly afterwards when it got stuck trying to squeeze through a minute air hole in the Antworks box.
5th January 2007
5th Jan 2007
Hope you all had a good Christmas and New Year. Ours was not without its trying moments. Surprisingly these were not especially provided by the dreaded Hen. I was in the office between Christmas and New Year, but you probably didn’t notice. It is fair to say that I was otherwise engaged, he writes with refreshing honesty. You may find it surprising to hear that the smash hit present that any Sandison child received this Christmas was a £3.50 twig pencil catapault that Father Christmas placed in 9 year old son Bob’s stocking. Nothing anyone else received came close to registering the excitement that this rather innocuous gift provided one small boy. Sad to say the pencil lasted a day and a half before he took it round to a friend’ house and their dog chewed it to bits. Complete disaster. Quietly confident that I knew where Father Christmas had sourced this instrument I promised a replacement, but unfortunately the place I had bought it from had run out. So, manning the desk in the office, I embarked on a frantic two day search on the net before stumbling on a site managed by the appropriately named Mr. Plant who works with wood and lives in Worcester. He listened to my sorry tale and joy of joys, the very next day a package arrived with an infinitely superior pencil catapult, inscribed with Bob’s name. This one survived two days before being lost on a beach in Norfolk. Children……aaaaagh. And I can’t even resort to drink.
Hope you all had a good Christmas and New Year. Ours was not without its trying moments. Surprisingly these were not especially provided by the dreaded Hen. I was in the office between Christmas and New Year, but you probably didn’t notice. It is fair to say that I was otherwise engaged, he writes with refreshing honesty. You may find it surprising to hear that the smash hit present that any Sandison child received this Christmas was a £3.50 twig pencil catapault that Father Christmas placed in 9 year old son Bob’s stocking. Nothing anyone else received came close to registering the excitement that this rather innocuous gift provided one small boy. Sad to say the pencil lasted a day and a half before he took it round to a friend’ house and their dog chewed it to bits. Complete disaster. Quietly confident that I knew where Father Christmas had sourced this instrument I promised a replacement, but unfortunately the place I had bought it from had run out. So, manning the desk in the office, I embarked on a frantic two day search on the net before stumbling on a site managed by the appropriately named Mr. Plant who works with wood and lives in Worcester. He listened to my sorry tale and joy of joys, the very next day a package arrived with an infinitely superior pencil catapult, inscribed with Bob’s name. This one survived two days before being lost on a beach in Norfolk. Children……aaaaagh. And I can’t even resort to drink.
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
21st December, 2006
Being the model professional I am slogging it out to the end of the year. I might allow myself one day off next week if weather permits hound exercising, but as I will have Bob and Lottie in the office tomorrow and we have our desk Christmas lunch today I thought I would drop you a quick email. Nothing much on the biz front but mainly because......
....some of you may be wondering, as we were for quite a while, how Hen was getting on in Argentina. As I wrote last Friday the wires from Buenos Aires had not exactly been buzzing with news ( old economy phraseology I know ). But then the email below arrived. (“Spell check Hen...OK??”) You may wonder why I include such things, which admittedly are rather personal, but, honestly, Hen’s fine with it ( believe it or not I omit the really juicy stuff ). I thought this one was pretty cool though. Enthusiasm is such a great thing don’t you think? And while she’s still not exactly shooting for the stars it beats her previous life plan which was for a career as a receptionist.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year when it comes.
From: Henrietta Sandison
Sent: 15 December 2006 23:45
To: David Sandison
Subject: RE: limewire
hey family!!!
finally ive got a moment to talk to yo all, as you have probably gathered my phone is not working im afraid...
i am having the time of my life it is the most amazinfg thing ever, the horses are great, the people are lovely, the atmosphere generally is great,
it is reallyhot and sunny, I LOVE IT!!! im getting a tan!! a bi burnt, but not too mch, and iam putting ALOT of suncream on .... i am very sorry but i dont want to come back!! i have my life planned out, i am going to come to argentina ... meet someone who is into polo, marry them, get a ranch and then voila ... its a plan!!!
thank you so much for letting me come, im having the best time in my life, i have matcstered hitting the ball really far even whilst going one hundered miles an hour and more
thank you thank you thank yu thankyou
lots of love xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x x x x
....some of you may be wondering, as we were for quite a while, how Hen was getting on in Argentina. As I wrote last Friday the wires from Buenos Aires had not exactly been buzzing with news ( old economy phraseology I know ). But then the email below arrived. (“Spell check Hen...OK??”) You may wonder why I include such things, which admittedly are rather personal, but, honestly, Hen’s fine with it ( believe it or not I omit the really juicy stuff ). I thought this one was pretty cool though. Enthusiasm is such a great thing don’t you think? And while she’s still not exactly shooting for the stars it beats her previous life plan which was for a career as a receptionist.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year when it comes.
From: Henrietta Sandison
Sent: 15 December 2006 23:45
To: David Sandison
Subject: RE: limewire
hey family!!!
finally ive got a moment to talk to yo all, as you have probably gathered my phone is not working im afraid...
i am having the time of my life it is the most amazinfg thing ever, the horses are great, the people are lovely, the atmosphere generally is great,
it is reallyhot and sunny, I LOVE IT!!! im getting a tan!! a bi burnt, but not too mch, and iam putting ALOT of suncream on .... i am very sorry but i dont want to come back!! i have my life planned out, i am going to come to argentina ... meet someone who is into polo, marry them, get a ranch and then voila ... its a plan!!!
thank you so much for letting me come, im having the best time in my life, i have matcstered hitting the ball really far even whilst going one hundered miles an hour and more
thank you thank you thank yu thankyou
lots of love xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x x x x
8th December, 2006
As a rule I avoid getting drawn into conversation with taxi drivers. But, a little like the Big Mac, occasionally you stumble into one only immediately to regret it. I was plunged into deep depression in the course of a short drive from Grosvenor Place to Leadenhall Street. My driver first yelled abuse at someone dilly dallying across a pedestrian crossing and then had a tilt at the monarchy as we passed Buckingham Palace. I put him right on that, but by this time we were on a slippery slope. A sorry life story poured forth involving, if memory serves me, ungrateful children, wackie backie, Ken Livingstone (of course), Christmas blues oh and gambling. I resisted telling him there was a possible explanation for the behaviour of his recalcitrant eldest daughter when he revealed that he had taken £1,800 out of her bank account and lost it all on the roulette table.
Talking of eldest daughters, guess who is off to Argentina on Monday morning. If it wasn’t for the fact that I am insanely jealous, it really doesn’t bear thinking about. Goodness only knows how this latest episode is going to develop. Hen is off on a school polo trip. In one of her occasional attempts to reassure me that a sense of responsibility had taken grip she rang me this morning with exciting news - as she described it - of her exam results. “I’ve done really well actually Daddy.” 27% in physics, 32% in biology and 24% in chemistry were mere blips. The big event was 73% in drama. Now, why doesn’t that surprise me one jot.
Talking of eldest daughters, guess who is off to Argentina on Monday morning. If it wasn’t for the fact that I am insanely jealous, it really doesn’t bear thinking about. Goodness only knows how this latest episode is going to develop. Hen is off on a school polo trip. In one of her occasional attempts to reassure me that a sense of responsibility had taken grip she rang me this morning with exciting news - as she described it - of her exam results. “I’ve done really well actually Daddy.” 27% in physics, 32% in biology and 24% in chemistry were mere blips. The big event was 73% in drama. Now, why doesn’t that surprise me one jot.
3rd November, 2006
If there is one week I look forward to getting behind me each year it is this one. Halloween. Yugh. Scooping out pumpkins is a disgusting task in itself, and one that is invariably ultimately futile and pointless as increasingly large chunks of both your fingers and the pumpkin shell are carved out in an effort to attain some form of symmetry. The resultant gaping holes of course mean that the candles you place inside it are extinguished by a howling gale seconds after you have eventually managed to get all three simultaneously lit. The only upside of this is that in theory fewer of the marauding hordes of grasping, sugar frenzied kids are attracted to your front door. But still they come and when your stache of Drumsticks and Black Jacks has been exhausted you spend the rest of the evening cowering at the back of the house in fear of rotten eggs and flour bombs - in the best case - being shoved through the letter box as reprisal for leaving said mob an apple or two instead of E numbers. Newnham in Cambridge is a pleasant enough little enclave for most of the year. On Halloween though it resembles a Parisian suburb. And talking of bonfires, the week's misery is not quite over. I have to spend the next two evenings shivering in the cold and listening to hundreds of people going "oooooh....aaaaaah".
20th October, 2006
I've got to tell you.....just occasionally it is a privilege serving you lot. I waffled on earlier in the week about China Mobile, our upgraded forecasts, target price and recommendation all of which I explained was based on extensive and, to use the most casually bandied about expression in the broking world, proprietorial research. And this is the response I get......
Hello. I’ve read the report and find myself sitting here staring into space mulling over the logistics of collecting US$31bn in revenue from people who pay in monthly cash instalments of US$8. OK, OK, a lot is prepaid, but even so, that’s one hell of a lot of tiny cash transactions. I also wonder about people spending 20% of their household income so they can bellow “Ni Hao, I’m in the field!” at each other. One fears the novelty might wear off after a while.
Isn't that just a fantastic email. It had me chuckling away for the rest of the day.
Half term is upon us and the Hen returned to the clutch yesterday. I bring this up because I thought you would want to hear about the state of her lugs. Do you know, I think the row of sparkling bling on her right ear looks rather good actually. As Sophie ( my wife ) was out yesteray evening at some PTA thing, I took Hen and a girl friend of hers to a Chinese restaurant in Cambridge last night for some of her favourite Peking Duck and am still puzzling about what to think about the fact that the Madame in charge felt she had to ask me whether that was my daughter? I was rather proud sitting there with Hen and Beebs, but should I have been? What a sad world. And talking about piercing and puzzling over things the attached paragraph from a splendid colleague who writes even more eccentric emails than I do wrote this yesterday......it might have been directed at me except that my single largest PA position, British Energy, almost literally blew up this week so there is no chance of Hen turning into a Trustafarian - even if she was stroppy which, happily, she's not!! Yet...I'm not counting my chickens.
#TRUSTAFARIAN SPECIAL: It's always struck me that real mark of a succesful man is to have utterly useless children. The indisputable confirmation that's one "made it" in this world is not an oversized house, exotic motor or smart friends but a spoilt, pierced and stroppy daughter and a disgruntled idle wastral of a son. In an attempt to expedite this high status achievemnt below is a list of possible micro cap investments (that I've recently blagged in my daily missives) that if bought for the benefit of one's offspring - over the long term might just do well enough to turn them into proper Trustafarians!
Hello. I’ve read the report and find myself sitting here staring into space mulling over the logistics of collecting US$31bn in revenue from people who pay in monthly cash instalments of US$8. OK, OK, a lot is prepaid, but even so, that’s one hell of a lot of tiny cash transactions. I also wonder about people spending 20% of their household income so they can bellow “Ni Hao, I’m in the field!” at each other. One fears the novelty might wear off after a while.
Isn't that just a fantastic email. It had me chuckling away for the rest of the day.
Half term is upon us and the Hen returned to the clutch yesterday. I bring this up because I thought you would want to hear about the state of her lugs. Do you know, I think the row of sparkling bling on her right ear looks rather good actually. As Sophie ( my wife ) was out yesteray evening at some PTA thing, I took Hen and a girl friend of hers to a Chinese restaurant in Cambridge last night for some of her favourite Peking Duck and am still puzzling about what to think about the fact that the Madame in charge felt she had to ask me whether that was my daughter? I was rather proud sitting there with Hen and Beebs, but should I have been? What a sad world. And talking about piercing and puzzling over things the attached paragraph from a splendid colleague who writes even more eccentric emails than I do wrote this yesterday......it might have been directed at me except that my single largest PA position, British Energy, almost literally blew up this week so there is no chance of Hen turning into a Trustafarian - even if she was stroppy which, happily, she's not!! Yet...I'm not counting my chickens.
#TRUSTAFARIAN SPECIAL: It's always struck me that real mark of a succesful man is to have utterly useless children. The indisputable confirmation that's one "made it" in this world is not an oversized house, exotic motor or smart friends but a spoilt, pierced and stroppy daughter and a disgruntled idle wastral of a son. In an attempt to expedite this high status achievemnt below is a list of possible micro cap investments (that I've recently blagged in my daily missives) that if bought for the benefit of one's offspring - over the long term might just do well enough to turn them into proper Trustafarians!
13th October, 2006
Last week I think I wrote that things had been rather quiet on the Hen front. Turns out it was the calm before the storm. A mid week phone call from her was a request for me to sanction her desire to have multiple holes pierced in one of her ears. You would have been proud of me, old stick in the mud that you probably think I am. I completely took the wind out of her sails by saying that, whilst rows of ear-rings don't do anything for me, if that's what she wanted to do that was fine.....but could she just wait a couple of weeks till half-term to think it over? If, then, she still wanted to do this gruesome thing we would wander in to the centre of Cambridge, where, surprisingly - given the rarified atmosphere of the place - this sort of urge is apparently catered for. She quietly acceded to this plan and, let me tell you, I put the phone down feeling pretty damn pleased with myself. Sophie it was who smelt the rat. It transpires the deed had already been done. Roll on half term and my little punk-rocker comes home.
Oh yes another thing....I called her late afternoon the other day and she answered from a bus telling me she had just been for a 5 hour walk in the Brecon Beacons. I asked her whether this was part of the Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award that she had signed up for. "No", she replied, "it was a DOE thing." It really is quite worrying. And apparently, during a map reading exercise on the top of some hill, the accompanying 6th Former advised Hen and her cronies to look for landmarks listed on the ordnance survey map to help them determine where they were. She insists it was a joke - though no-one, including any of her her fellow hikers, is that sure - but Hen came up with the brilliant suggestion of looking on the surrounding terrain for the brown lines.
Oh yes another thing....I called her late afternoon the other day and she answered from a bus telling me she had just been for a 5 hour walk in the Brecon Beacons. I asked her whether this was part of the Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award that she had signed up for. "No", she replied, "it was a DOE thing." It really is quite worrying. And apparently, during a map reading exercise on the top of some hill, the accompanying 6th Former advised Hen and her cronies to look for landmarks listed on the ordnance survey map to help them determine where they were. She insists it was a joke - though no-one, including any of her her fellow hikers, is that sure - but Hen came up with the brilliant suggestion of looking on the surrounding terrain for the brown lines.
6th October, 2006
If you don't read Martin Lukes in the FT on Thursday you really should. In this weeks' column he decides to email Richard Branson...great minds think alike... " I realise that obviously your diary is pretty charged, but I would be delighted if your office could contact my office to find a window for us to riff around a couple of mind bullets of mine re carbon footprints." Mr. Lukes apparently gets an immediate and positive reponse with an invitation from Branson to "dialogue". Hmmm. I don't think so.
Feeling a touch under the weather today. Something to do with several glasses of port and a fat cigar late last night. But no rest for the wicked. Off to a "Dress for a mid-life crisis" party tomorrow evening. My great plan was to wander in with a 20 year old stunner on my arm, but, strangely, Sophie vetoed the idea. Talking of 20 year olds, things on the Hen front have been pretty quiet this term. She claims to have had 12 credits and discovered a passion for art which is keeping her out of trouble. That said, she was back for her first leave-out last weekend and brought a friend with her. Lucky she did, because it took the friend to remind her, as they were returning to school on Sunday evening, that she had still not packed her school uniform. 12 credits or not, I must say, it is quite an acheivement to have survived the first three weeks living in other peoples clothes.
Feeling a touch under the weather today. Something to do with several glasses of port and a fat cigar late last night. But no rest for the wicked. Off to a "Dress for a mid-life crisis" party tomorrow evening. My great plan was to wander in with a 20 year old stunner on my arm, but, strangely, Sophie vetoed the idea. Talking of 20 year olds, things on the Hen front have been pretty quiet this term. She claims to have had 12 credits and discovered a passion for art which is keeping her out of trouble. That said, she was back for her first leave-out last weekend and brought a friend with her. Lucky she did, because it took the friend to remind her, as they were returning to school on Sunday evening, that she had still not packed her school uniform. 12 credits or not, I must say, it is quite an acheivement to have survived the first three weeks living in other peoples clothes.
29th September, 2006
Sorry, folks. I have been somewhat out of it recently. Well, by my own admission, certainly since the HK Forum. It takes it out of you. Even today I got an email from a client referring to the fact that I have pride of place on the front cover of our Forum summary report. Yup. Fair cop. There I am, engrossed in my Blackberry, during Alan Greenspans' speech. Honest guv, I was typing out everything he was saying.....for the record. Can be supplied on request, though bearing in mind I had only got to bed some two hours beforehand and it is therefore fair to presume that any words of wisdom that Mr. Greenspan had to profer, were hugely diluted by my efforts.
Otherwise, key issue this week has been the Labour Party conference. Tell me.....is this a speech or a disconnected stream of purility? Open this file and I guarantee you will be shocked. This is the PM making his last hurrah.
Normal service will resume next week, albeit that we have a slight compliance issue to overcome, which, at the moment, is likely to mean that I am unable to send you research reports. Don't worry......Hen's shenanigans are likely to be unaffected by the restrictions placed on us by the FSA.
Otherwise, key issue this week has been the Labour Party conference. Tell me.....is this a speech or a disconnected stream of purility? Open this file and I guarantee you will be shocked. This is the PM making his last hurrah.
Normal service will resume next week, albeit that we have a slight compliance issue to overcome, which, at the moment, is likely to mean that I am unable to send you research reports. Don't worry......Hen's shenanigans are likely to be unaffected by the restrictions placed on us by the FSA.
7th September, 2006
I am sure there will be a stream of interesting things arising from the Forum next week, but till then I thought it would suffice to tell you that Hen is back on track. We had been mildly encouraged during the holidays by signs that she was being a bit more organised and she spent the last two days of the holidays organising her room and preparing for her return to school. She flattered to deceive though. Sophie took her back to Rugby on Tuesday and told me it was just astonishing how many bags and suitcases she had. Noone else, it seemed to Sophie watching the flow of pupils and parents in the school car park, came anywhere close to having the amount of stuff Hen was offloading. This only made it harder to bear when Hen rang home that evening to inform us she had forgotten her school uniform. I mean, who forgets their school uniform?? It's ridiculous.
18th August, 2006
Phew. Friday. That's probably how the Chinese felt too as they slipped through a second rate hike. It remains to be seen how the Chinese markets react to this move, but when I was out in Shanghai back in May shortly after the first move, a local mutual fund manager there told me he thought a second interest rate rise would spell trouble for both the property and stock markets. There was some discussion here why the authorities choose to move in 27bps steps. No-one here knows so I'm on a mission for the rest of the afternoon! I;m thinking of Ne Win, who ran Burma so efficiently and re-issued his entire currency base in notes denominated in digits that added up to his lucky number 9, but I'm sure that with the PBOC there is a more rational reason.
After two weeks out of the office, most of the time spent crouched over a rock pool looking for crabs and lobsters, I admit that it has not been a complete breeze getting back to the 5.15am bike ride to the station nor getting my thoughts in order. However, the eclectic and eccentric nature of books read on the Cambridge - Kings Cross train line remains a constant source of interest. This morning my neighbour was reading a Complete Care book offering practical, accurate advice from the Expert ( a lady with the interesting name, Debbie Docummon ) on the subject of caring for one's pet rat. Whilst on the subject of books have I not found a cracker for those of you with 8+ year old sons/nephews and god-sons. I had intended an early night last night but was still cackling my way through it well past midnight. A mine of information, written with a wonderful turn of phrase, on subjects as varied as building tree houses, playing conkers, English literature and grammar, adventure stories, tying knots, sport and girls. This book is crucial. In broker speak it's a STRONG BUY.
Apart from being seemingly endless, it has also been an expensive few days. I caused some serious damage to the side of our car the other day in Elie, caving the front side in during what some might term, an unnecessary manouvere. I was trying to reverse out of a narrow parking lot without running over the most enormous dog-turd I had noticed in the middle of the road. And to rub salt into the wounds I didn't even manage to miss the dog mess which after 500 miles driving and several rain storms is still following me about.
Hen 's birthday, by the way, is tomorrow, but this will not change our lives a great deal I suspect. I think she has already done most of the things we told her she could do once she turned 14. She is wandering about London with a school friend today and I am "hoping" to meet up with her on the train back home this evening, a journey which doesn't really bear thinking about!
After two weeks out of the office, most of the time spent crouched over a rock pool looking for crabs and lobsters, I admit that it has not been a complete breeze getting back to the 5.15am bike ride to the station nor getting my thoughts in order. However, the eclectic and eccentric nature of books read on the Cambridge - Kings Cross train line remains a constant source of interest. This morning my neighbour was reading a Complete Care book offering practical, accurate advice from the Expert ( a lady with the interesting name, Debbie Docummon ) on the subject of caring for one's pet rat. Whilst on the subject of books have I not found a cracker for those of you with 8+ year old sons/nephews and god-sons. I had intended an early night last night but was still cackling my way through it well past midnight. A mine of information, written with a wonderful turn of phrase, on subjects as varied as building tree houses, playing conkers, English literature and grammar, adventure stories, tying knots, sport and girls. This book is crucial. In broker speak it's a STRONG BUY.
Apart from being seemingly endless, it has also been an expensive few days. I caused some serious damage to the side of our car the other day in Elie, caving the front side in during what some might term, an unnecessary manouvere. I was trying to reverse out of a narrow parking lot without running over the most enormous dog-turd I had noticed in the middle of the road. And to rub salt into the wounds I didn't even manage to miss the dog mess which after 500 miles driving and several rain storms is still following me about.
Hen 's birthday, by the way, is tomorrow, but this will not change our lives a great deal I suspect. I think she has already done most of the things we told her she could do once she turned 14. She is wandering about London with a school friend today and I am "hoping" to meet up with her on the train back home this evening, a journey which doesn't really bear thinking about!
28th July, 2006
You might be reassured to know that there are days when I sit down to scribble this twaddle and think, to use modern jargon, how ridiculous is this? But you have had a surfeit of value added from me recently and with reports streaming in all week concerning goings on at the Newmarket and Thurlow Pony Club this is too tempting though I may be about to hit an all time low. As you will have gleaned from some of my previous emails we have high hopes for Hen. This despite the fact that when asked some months back what she wanted to be when she left school she announced she wanted to be a receptionist, cocking her head onto her shoulder and looking critically, but admiringly at her finger nails. Back to Pony Club Camp....for a couple of years now there has been a really charming boy, also a member of the Newmarket and Thurlow, who we thought would be a suitable friend for Hen. He doesn't fall off his horse. He's sensible. And we like his parents. Hen though has never shown the slightest inclination to get to know him. That was until yesterday when Sophie went to help out in the early evening at camp and espied Hen, a group of girls and Harry coming out of a stable together. How do you feel when a plan comes together? It is a pleasing thing. But there's invariably a twist to the tale when it comes to Hen. A little while later they were all still together and Sophie was standing talking to one of Hen's friends, when she heard one of the girls, not Hen I am pleased to say, turn on Harry and snarl....."Why are you following us, you stalker?" So whilst hope is not completely lost, it's not looking good.
Talking ponies, when you are scanning your copy of this weeks edition of Country Life keep an eye out for a nice photograph, in The Dog of the Week section, of a good looking polo pony that I rode the other evening at the Cambridge University Polo Club. Fame indeed.
Off on holiday for the next two weeks. I am braced for a torrent of abuse from a number of you but before you lambast me can I just tell you that this will be the first two week holiday I have taken in nearly 5 years.....no need to worry about passports yet either. We are off to Scotland.
Talking ponies, when you are scanning your copy of this weeks edition of Country Life keep an eye out for a nice photograph, in The Dog of the Week section, of a good looking polo pony that I rode the other evening at the Cambridge University Polo Club. Fame indeed.
Off on holiday for the next two weeks. I am braced for a torrent of abuse from a number of you but before you lambast me can I just tell you that this will be the first two week holiday I have taken in nearly 5 years.....no need to worry about passports yet either. We are off to Scotland.
21st July, 2006
If you were Richard Branson how would you react to this email I sent the other day?....
Dear Sir Richard,
I have had an idea which I would really like you and your team to consider. It is on the subject of carbon emissions. Cutting to the chase I hope that you will consider helping to save the planet's rainforests.
I have calculated that during the course of an 8 hour flight to Antigua 45,000 acres of rainforest will have been destroyed. Neatly, I also estimate - using information found on various websites such as carbonneutral.com - that the sponsorship of 45,000 acres of rainforest would cost c.’1,250,000 and would offset the carbon emissions generated by 1 billion passenger miles flown ( about 40% of your fleet total ?? ). This seems a rather small amount of money addressing what is a terribly important issue.
The destruction of the rainforests is a significantly more important contributor to global CO2 emissions than the airline industry and furthermore its destruction is pretty much irreversible. However there is clearly a growing consumer focus here on the issue of carbon emission and airlines are going to be a focal point for attention. So, whilst I appreciate that my initiative may seem inconsistent with your business of attracting and growing air traffic, I think that by adopting this responsible stance you will win plaudits and market share and, perhaps, stem the tide of a growing number of people who opt not to fly because of the environmental considerations. In any case whilst it may be voluntary just now, I am certain that ultimately some form of carbon offsetting will become compulsory.
I believe you would get a fantastic public response if you were to take a proactive stance, beating the likes of BA who are presumably also grappling with how to address this issue, and announced that Virgin Atlantic was going to make a donation to save a large area of Virgin rainforest ( like it?! ) whilst you set up a programme which would allow your customers to make their own carbon offsets when they book flights contributing to the cost of conserving the rainforest on an ongoing basis. I appreciate that my suggestion is simplistic and there will be numerous issues to address, but I would love to see Virgin running with it and doing something to address this critical challenge.
In the meantime, on a completely separate note, some years ago I read on one of your inflight magazines that it was a goal of yours to play a round of golf on the Old Course at St. Andrews. You declined my offer of a game at the time, but I would really like to re-invite you particularly if you give this initiative some consideration! I'm a member of the Royal & Ancient and have a tee time on the Old Course at 9.00am on Wednesday 2nd August or 2.30pm on Thursday 3rd August. It would be my pleasure to have you as my guest on either or both of these times.
Yours faithfully,
David Sandison
Dear Sir Richard,
I have had an idea which I would really like you and your team to consider. It is on the subject of carbon emissions. Cutting to the chase I hope that you will consider helping to save the planet's rainforests.
I have calculated that during the course of an 8 hour flight to Antigua 45,000 acres of rainforest will have been destroyed. Neatly, I also estimate - using information found on various websites such as carbonneutral.com - that the sponsorship of 45,000 acres of rainforest would cost c.’1,250,000 and would offset the carbon emissions generated by 1 billion passenger miles flown ( about 40% of your fleet total ?? ). This seems a rather small amount of money addressing what is a terribly important issue.
The destruction of the rainforests is a significantly more important contributor to global CO2 emissions than the airline industry and furthermore its destruction is pretty much irreversible. However there is clearly a growing consumer focus here on the issue of carbon emission and airlines are going to be a focal point for attention. So, whilst I appreciate that my initiative may seem inconsistent with your business of attracting and growing air traffic, I think that by adopting this responsible stance you will win plaudits and market share and, perhaps, stem the tide of a growing number of people who opt not to fly because of the environmental considerations. In any case whilst it may be voluntary just now, I am certain that ultimately some form of carbon offsetting will become compulsory.
I believe you would get a fantastic public response if you were to take a proactive stance, beating the likes of BA who are presumably also grappling with how to address this issue, and announced that Virgin Atlantic was going to make a donation to save a large area of Virgin rainforest ( like it?! ) whilst you set up a programme which would allow your customers to make their own carbon offsets when they book flights contributing to the cost of conserving the rainforest on an ongoing basis. I appreciate that my suggestion is simplistic and there will be numerous issues to address, but I would love to see Virgin running with it and doing something to address this critical challenge.
In the meantime, on a completely separate note, some years ago I read on one of your inflight magazines that it was a goal of yours to play a round of golf on the Old Course at St. Andrews. You declined my offer of a game at the time, but I would really like to re-invite you particularly if you give this initiative some consideration! I'm a member of the Royal & Ancient and have a tee time on the Old Course at 9.00am on Wednesday 2nd August or 2.30pm on Thursday 3rd August. It would be my pleasure to have you as my guest on either or both of these times.
Yours faithfully,
David Sandison
7th July, 2006
I missed you last Friday but whilst I regret I have not had huge amounts of interesting research or stunning ideas for you I have been really quite busy. For one thing I bought a horse ( off which I have already fallen ). I will try to resist the urge to talk about him too often - for some people, I am told, find horses rather boring. Also, he is called Sean, which is a fine name if you have two legs, but hard to live with on four. If you aren't one of these people for whom horses hold little appeal do let me know and I'll send you a picture. Sad eh!
We have also had the much dreaded performance of Joseph and His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. If you recall Hen had secured the part of Potiphar's wife. "Come and lie with me love." Truth be told I was not hugely looking forward to this occasion. Her individual performance, albeit brief, lived up to my worst expectations. Lots of swivelling hips, fluttering eye-lids and pursing of lips. All this from a 13 year old, but it was actually fantastic. Her youngest sister, Lottie, was not so impressed. "I thought the Avocado was better" she said, puzzlingly. After some investigation by us, we discovered she was referring to Hen's previous role as Yum-yum in The Mikado.
Just to get away from rather sticky ground, combining two old themes of mine, poultry and the intellectual advantages of living in Cambridge, on the train home a couple of nights ago, I was sitting opposite a silver haired, emminent looking gentleman engrossed in a book. Eventually I managed to sneak a look at the front cover of what he was reading. See attached photograph......I have subsequently resisted the temptation of buying it on Amazon.
We have also had the much dreaded performance of Joseph and His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. If you recall Hen had secured the part of Potiphar's wife. "Come and lie with me love." Truth be told I was not hugely looking forward to this occasion. Her individual performance, albeit brief, lived up to my worst expectations. Lots of swivelling hips, fluttering eye-lids and pursing of lips. All this from a 13 year old, but it was actually fantastic. Her youngest sister, Lottie, was not so impressed. "I thought the Avocado was better" she said, puzzlingly. After some investigation by us, we discovered she was referring to Hen's previous role as Yum-yum in The Mikado.
Just to get away from rather sticky ground, combining two old themes of mine, poultry and the intellectual advantages of living in Cambridge, on the train home a couple of nights ago, I was sitting opposite a silver haired, emminent looking gentleman engrossed in a book. Eventually I managed to sneak a look at the front cover of what he was reading. See attached photograph......I have subsequently resisted the temptation of buying it on Amazon.
23rd June, 2006
I think I have added way too much value recently talking about markets - stocks and wine. By the way, Pontet Canet 2005 was released the other day at £475 per case. A touch rich for my liking, but it went in an instant and a second tranche has now been released at £525. Oh if broking stocks were as easy...and profitable.
So I thought I would end the week with a tale of Alphabetical Bullying. An interesting concept, which was articulated to me the other evening by my 5 year old daughter, Lottie. She bore the tell tale signs - a deep scratch on her cheek - of yet another grapple with one of our cats. You would think she would have learnt by now. She has been told off enough times for manhandling them by her parents as well as by the cats. But she was having none of it. "It happened at school. Charles attacked me in the playground." I thought I would play along with this charade and asked her why he had done this. "He doesn't like girls whose name starts with L" was her response. "He always attacks Lillie and Laetitia too". "Oh dear me", I said sympathetically, " I hope there aren't any other bullying boys at your school." "There are." she said. " Alexander......he doesn't like girls who begin with S". She followed this with the name of yet another thug who apparently targets J's. I asked her if any letter was safe. There was no stopping her. Quick as a flash she told me. "M. That's safe......Mary never gets beaten up." Too weird. The recent Inspectors Report made no mention of this at all.
Anyway enough of this rubbish other than to say please take a look at the gubbins below because there's a lot of interesting stuff there and also that I'm going to be pestering you to book a meeting with Russell Napier so ring me to preempt this if you want to!
Have a good weekend. I'm off to try and buy a horse. Must be completely mad. And English football fans amongst you....prepare for a disappointing Sunday afternoon.
So I thought I would end the week with a tale of Alphabetical Bullying. An interesting concept, which was articulated to me the other evening by my 5 year old daughter, Lottie. She bore the tell tale signs - a deep scratch on her cheek - of yet another grapple with one of our cats. You would think she would have learnt by now. She has been told off enough times for manhandling them by her parents as well as by the cats. But she was having none of it. "It happened at school. Charles attacked me in the playground." I thought I would play along with this charade and asked her why he had done this. "He doesn't like girls whose name starts with L" was her response. "He always attacks Lillie and Laetitia too". "Oh dear me", I said sympathetically, " I hope there aren't any other bullying boys at your school." "There are." she said. " Alexander......he doesn't like girls who begin with S". She followed this with the name of yet another thug who apparently targets J's. I asked her if any letter was safe. There was no stopping her. Quick as a flash she told me. "M. That's safe......Mary never gets beaten up." Too weird. The recent Inspectors Report made no mention of this at all.
Anyway enough of this rubbish other than to say please take a look at the gubbins below because there's a lot of interesting stuff there and also that I'm going to be pestering you to book a meeting with Russell Napier so ring me to preempt this if you want to!
Have a good weekend. I'm off to try and buy a horse. Must be completely mad. And English football fans amongst you....prepare for a disappointing Sunday afternoon.
9th June, 2006
I've mulled over this, but after a traumatic week or two in stock markets, I've decided that you will most probably be cheered up to hear the litany of woes that affected the Sandison family on their trip to Antigua last week. However, a warning to the few sensitive souls on this list....it is a sorry tale, not for faint hearts and you may find what I have to say upsetting.
Things did not get off to a great start when we discovered on checking in on Saturday morning for our BA flight from Gatwick that our 5 year old daughter, Lottie, was not going to be allowed to come with us. Her passport had expired two weeks earlier. Manfully, I took the blame, a strategy which did me no good whatsoever as I paid for this minor error repeatedly throughout the week once Sophie had rejoined us after depositing Lottie with my parents up in Fife. Oh cruel life. Remarkably things just went downhill from here. A green slime developed around the perimeter of the swimming pool, but only after all three children who did make it out to Antigua had gone down with severe ear infections necessitating various trips to St Johns and copious doses of antibiotics and ear drops. The house turned out not to have mains electricity. The irony, for someone who had covered his carbon emmissions for the flights out so conscientiously, was that we found ourselves living next to a smokey and noisy diesel generator that would not have looked out of place in a suburb of Chongqing. Nevertheless it failed to produce sufficient power to enable us to run the air-conditioners without blowing every fuse in the house. So we slept in 90oF temperatures with windows open open and mosquitos gnawing on every bit of our bodies. Enough already. There was so much more but I can't bear to relate it all.
There was one small moment of humour. Driving Henrietta to the doctor, trundling through the pictureseque village of All Saints, I slowed to negotiate one of the many and enormous holes in the road when a very hip Rastafarian guy peered in through the passenger window and mumbled something at us. I smiled cheerfully at him and responded, though I say it myself, at my casual and suave best " Yo thanks " leaving Hen howling with laughter. It transpired our Rasta friend had said "Lookin' good babe", and presumably he had not been directing his attentions at me.
In similar vein I thought I would attach one of my recent email dialogues with said Hen after I realised that the World Cup semi-final clashed with the performance of Joseph and his blah blah Dreamcoat - not that I think, or really care, for a moment that England will get past the quarterfinals.
From: David Sandison, CLSA [mailto:david.sandison@clsa.com]
Sent: Wed 07/06/2006 09:22
To: Henrietta Sandison
Subject: If England get through to the Semi-finals of the World Cup....
I'm not sure I'll be able to come and watch you in Joseph.......
oh dear daddy how sad you are!!!!!
Oh well......does my face look bovered? I don't imagine that many of you will be doing anything quite as esoteric as me this evening. Celebratory party at parents of a friend of daughter no. 2, Jimmy. The father, who is a Cambridge don at Trinity College, a mathematician and an acknowledged expert in the field of algebraic geometry, has just been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society, joining the likes of Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin. He has previously invited me as his guest at the Audit Dinner at Trinity and so far, I think, I have managed to successfully conceal from him the fact that I only scraped my Maths "O" Level at the third attempt. Attempting to deal with such guile, you lot have no chance.
Things did not get off to a great start when we discovered on checking in on Saturday morning for our BA flight from Gatwick that our 5 year old daughter, Lottie, was not going to be allowed to come with us. Her passport had expired two weeks earlier. Manfully, I took the blame, a strategy which did me no good whatsoever as I paid for this minor error repeatedly throughout the week once Sophie had rejoined us after depositing Lottie with my parents up in Fife. Oh cruel life. Remarkably things just went downhill from here. A green slime developed around the perimeter of the swimming pool, but only after all three children who did make it out to Antigua had gone down with severe ear infections necessitating various trips to St Johns and copious doses of antibiotics and ear drops. The house turned out not to have mains electricity. The irony, for someone who had covered his carbon emmissions for the flights out so conscientiously, was that we found ourselves living next to a smokey and noisy diesel generator that would not have looked out of place in a suburb of Chongqing. Nevertheless it failed to produce sufficient power to enable us to run the air-conditioners without blowing every fuse in the house. So we slept in 90oF temperatures with windows open open and mosquitos gnawing on every bit of our bodies. Enough already. There was so much more but I can't bear to relate it all.
There was one small moment of humour. Driving Henrietta to the doctor, trundling through the pictureseque village of All Saints, I slowed to negotiate one of the many and enormous holes in the road when a very hip Rastafarian guy peered in through the passenger window and mumbled something at us. I smiled cheerfully at him and responded, though I say it myself, at my casual and suave best " Yo thanks " leaving Hen howling with laughter. It transpired our Rasta friend had said "Lookin' good babe", and presumably he had not been directing his attentions at me.
In similar vein I thought I would attach one of my recent email dialogues with said Hen after I realised that the World Cup semi-final clashed with the performance of Joseph and his blah blah Dreamcoat - not that I think, or really care, for a moment that England will get past the quarterfinals.
From: David Sandison, CLSA [mailto:david.sandison@clsa.com]
Sent: Wed 07/06/2006 09:22
To: Henrietta Sandison
Subject: If England get through to the Semi-finals of the World Cup....
I'm not sure I'll be able to come and watch you in Joseph.......
oh dear daddy how sad you are!!!!!
Oh well......does my face look bovered? I don't imagine that many of you will be doing anything quite as esoteric as me this evening. Celebratory party at parents of a friend of daughter no. 2, Jimmy. The father, who is a Cambridge don at Trinity College, a mathematician and an acknowledged expert in the field of algebraic geometry, has just been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society, joining the likes of Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin. He has previously invited me as his guest at the Audit Dinner at Trinity and so far, I think, I have managed to successfully conceal from him the fact that I only scraped my Maths "O" Level at the third attempt. Attempting to deal with such guile, you lot have no chance.
26th May, 2006
The other day I decided to participate in the CLSA share scheme. As part of this scheme we can elect to take a loan out with HSBC to fund part of the investment. So I filled in the forms and sent it off to Ms. Cindy Chong at 1 Queens Road Central in Hong Kong with details of my pitifully low salary and personal assets. That said it was a shock to have my application rejected. It transpires that I am on the HSBC bad debtor list which is not a good place to be. Apparently I have an outstanding balance of HK$975.49 due on my HSBC credit card, which dates back to when I left Thailand - and closed my account - in March 1998. I have yet to discover how much I inadvertently left on my card, but I suspect it was something like HK$200. The power of compounding exorbitant interest rates. The old lady from the ship-wrecked ferry I told you about last week, who left HK$200 worth of fruit and veg on board, would be having a good laugh at my expense.
A formative bit of comedy for me was Tony Hancock's "The Blood Donor" and in particular the scene where he starts challenging his fellow donor on the subject of how much he has given to various charities. When I was at our China Forum last week I asked the question of one of our lunch time speakers, Tim Flannery, who had given a compelling presentation on the damage we are doing to our environment, how we could measure and address our impact on an individual basis. Well, this morning one of my colleagues gave me the answer. www.carbonneutral.com Take a look. And in the spirit of Tony Hancock, I can't resist telling you that 26 more trees should be sprouting in a forest in Devon giving Sophie and I a slightly clearer conscience, from a carbon footprint perspective at least, about flying to Antigua tomorrow. Ha ha. Hen is coming too, of course, and I am shortly off to Boots on a mission to buy her the "bronzing gel" she has put in a special request for. No carbon conscience there I can tell you.
A formative bit of comedy for me was Tony Hancock's "The Blood Donor" and in particular the scene where he starts challenging his fellow donor on the subject of how much he has given to various charities. When I was at our China Forum last week I asked the question of one of our lunch time speakers, Tim Flannery, who had given a compelling presentation on the damage we are doing to our environment, how we could measure and address our impact on an individual basis. Well, this morning one of my colleagues gave me the answer. www.carbonneutral.com Take a look. And in the spirit of Tony Hancock, I can't resist telling you that 26 more trees should be sprouting in a forest in Devon giving Sophie and I a slightly clearer conscience, from a carbon footprint perspective at least, about flying to Antigua tomorrow. Ha ha. Hen is coming too, of course, and I am shortly off to Boots on a mission to buy her the "bronzing gel" she has put in a special request for. No carbon conscience there I can tell you.
5th May, 2006
Buddha's birthday so seemed appropriate to drop you a line from under the tree. I have been terribly quiet this week. Sorry. Other than a missive on PetroChina I have been sitting on the sidelines with many Asian markets on holiday and in awe of the markets' insouciant reaction to the hike in Chinese interest rates and even more stunningly, the collapse in the US$. Why people think the Fed can do anything but hike rates in the light of 4.8% 1Q GDP growth, commodity prices going through the roof and the currency disappearing down the swanee I do not know. This party is coming to an end. You probably have it already but do take a look at Bits & Pieces this week which highlights repports by Chris Wood and Dr. Jim. And as for wage pressures in the US how about this from a contact of mine on the spot so too speak.....
Just walked past peninsular hotel on 5th.......doorman was squeezing blackheads using newly polished brass sign as "mirror". Is the labour mkt here too tight?!
I have to admit, my mind is more focussed on wine this afternoon than equities or currencies, having had a meeting with my wine merchant earlier today. The excitement on the 2005's not withstanding - the pick of the 2005's is Pontet-Canet by the way - wine is the outstanding long term investment opportunity. No capital gains tax and if it flops you can drink it. Amazing fact....Justerini & Brooks sells more wine by value into Singapore than it does in the USA. If you are a believer in China you've got to add wine to your portfolio. And beyond China, J&B are adding new markets in Asia by the day, the latest one being Vietnam. I've been meaning to write about one of the world's best performing stock markets for some time now. I can do no better than repeat something I wrote in late 2004 when I was meant to be talking about UK/European large caps.
19th May 2006
Just back from a visit to Asia where I attended our Taiwan and China Forums. It was my first visit to both Taipei and Shanghai since 1995. Whilst Taipei hadn’t noticeably changed save for the construction of the tallest building in the world, Shanghai, on the other hand, was a little different to when I had last left it. What had been a sea of paddy fields on the East side of the river is now a gawdy mass of skyscrapers ( which, some say, are now sinking ). Talking about going from the sublime to the ridiculous, I picked up a copy of the South China Morning Post during one of my transits through Hong Kong last week and feel like relaying two contrasting stories I noticed. Asia is a land of contradictions no question.
Front page news was the report of a ferry from Central to one of the outlying islands which had inexplicably taken a sharp turn to the right and ran aground onto rocks. Happily there were no fatalities, but there was an extensive interview with a 78 year old lady who had cut her chin in the crash. The report wrote that she had been on her way home after selling vegetables and fruit in Peel Street ( appropriately enough ) and that was she most concerned to retrieve her cart and goods which she had left on the boat. “The goods which are still on the ferry cost HK$200 (£15). Theyare my valuable possessions and I want them back” she said, bursting into tears. Poor thing.
One page on in the same edition was the "Quote of the Week" section with this:
“After two hours in the air, I felt really claustrophobic and had an anxiety attack....My driver in economy class told me the situation was even worse there, with at least two people lying down in the walkway.” (Frequent flier Amisha Hira, describing a London bound Cathay Pacific flight that was forced to return to Hong Kong with a faulty air-conditioning valve. ) Oh dear me. How many of you thought, initially, she was talking about the pilot?
I am going to sit down and write some serious thoughts about my visits, but I only got in late yesterday afternoon so excuse me. Too late, I might add to get back in time for my Thursday evening polo session. Lots of toys were thrown out of the pram. There is not so much to choose between me and Amisha if the truth be told. Suffice to say that if you have the time to read the following attachment which is the latest InfoFax from Dr. Jim, I was the brave, albeit red-faced, lone soul, hand in the air waving the red warning flag.
It's all been happening whilst I was away. Hen has announced she has a boyfriend. Called Felix, for goodness sake. And she has won a part in the school production of Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. There was only one role for her really. She tells me she gave her backside a slap and looked alluringly at the selectors and that was it. Next thing, she was Potiphar's Wife. She tells me she has learnt her lines already, but as I recall all she has to say in the entire performance is "Come and lie with me love".
Just walked past peninsular hotel on 5th.......doorman was squeezing blackheads using newly polished brass sign as "mirror". Is the labour mkt here too tight?!
I have to admit, my mind is more focussed on wine this afternoon than equities or currencies, having had a meeting with my wine merchant earlier today. The excitement on the 2005's not withstanding - the pick of the 2005's is Pontet-Canet by the way - wine is the outstanding long term investment opportunity. No capital gains tax and if it flops you can drink it. Amazing fact....Justerini & Brooks sells more wine by value into Singapore than it does in the USA. If you are a believer in China you've got to add wine to your portfolio. And beyond China, J&B are adding new markets in Asia by the day, the latest one being Vietnam. I've been meaning to write about one of the world's best performing stock markets for some time now. I can do no better than repeat something I wrote in late 2004 when I was meant to be talking about UK/European large caps.
19th May 2006
Just back from a visit to Asia where I attended our Taiwan and China Forums. It was my first visit to both Taipei and Shanghai since 1995. Whilst Taipei hadn’t noticeably changed save for the construction of the tallest building in the world, Shanghai, on the other hand, was a little different to when I had last left it. What had been a sea of paddy fields on the East side of the river is now a gawdy mass of skyscrapers ( which, some say, are now sinking ). Talking about going from the sublime to the ridiculous, I picked up a copy of the South China Morning Post during one of my transits through Hong Kong last week and feel like relaying two contrasting stories I noticed. Asia is a land of contradictions no question.
Front page news was the report of a ferry from Central to one of the outlying islands which had inexplicably taken a sharp turn to the right and ran aground onto rocks. Happily there were no fatalities, but there was an extensive interview with a 78 year old lady who had cut her chin in the crash. The report wrote that she had been on her way home after selling vegetables and fruit in Peel Street ( appropriately enough ) and that was she most concerned to retrieve her cart and goods which she had left on the boat. “The goods which are still on the ferry cost HK$200 (£15). Theyare my valuable possessions and I want them back” she said, bursting into tears. Poor thing.
One page on in the same edition was the "Quote of the Week" section with this:
“After two hours in the air, I felt really claustrophobic and had an anxiety attack....My driver in economy class told me the situation was even worse there, with at least two people lying down in the walkway.” (Frequent flier Amisha Hira, describing a London bound Cathay Pacific flight that was forced to return to Hong Kong with a faulty air-conditioning valve. ) Oh dear me. How many of you thought, initially, she was talking about the pilot?
I am going to sit down and write some serious thoughts about my visits, but I only got in late yesterday afternoon so excuse me. Too late, I might add to get back in time for my Thursday evening polo session. Lots of toys were thrown out of the pram. There is not so much to choose between me and Amisha if the truth be told. Suffice to say that if you have the time to read the following attachment which is the latest InfoFax from Dr. Jim, I was the brave, albeit red-faced, lone soul, hand in the air waving the red warning flag.
It's all been happening whilst I was away. Hen has announced she has a boyfriend. Called Felix, for goodness sake. And she has won a part in the school production of Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. There was only one role for her really. She tells me she gave her backside a slap and looked alluringly at the selectors and that was it. Next thing, she was Potiphar's Wife. She tells me she has learnt her lines already, but as I recall all she has to say in the entire performance is "Come and lie with me love".
27th April, 2006
I have an important client engagement tomorrow on the coast of Norfolk so will be out of the office tomorrow. If you need anything in my absence please ring the desk on 020 7398 6487 and ask for Ping. I'll be using Titleist myself.
So a short week for me, but it has been a rather longer one for my 8 year old, Bob, who wandered into our bedroom at 6.30am on Sunday morning looking very smart and fully dressed in his school uniform ( his tie, if one is to be ultra critical could have been described as slightly askew ). Poor boy thought it was Monday and so convinced he was of this that, seeing me slumbering, mumbled to himself. "Hmmm. Must be a Bank Holiday", and shuffled back to bed. Talk about keen though. If I didn't have in Henrietta, an example at the other extreme, and if I could honestly say that Bob has ever managed to get himself readly like this on a weekday, I would be tempted to give myself a bit of a pat on the back.
So a short week for me, but it has been a rather longer one for my 8 year old, Bob, who wandered into our bedroom at 6.30am on Sunday morning looking very smart and fully dressed in his school uniform ( his tie, if one is to be ultra critical could have been described as slightly askew ). Poor boy thought it was Monday and so convinced he was of this that, seeing me slumbering, mumbled to himself. "Hmmm. Must be a Bank Holiday", and shuffled back to bed. Talk about keen though. If I didn't have in Henrietta, an example at the other extreme, and if I could honestly say that Bob has ever managed to get himself readly like this on a weekday, I would be tempted to give myself a bit of a pat on the back.
21st April, 2006
I was tasked at lunch today with the challenge of writing my Friday email on the topic of something that had changed. Having no better idea of my own, I thought I might aswell attempt to do just that. The fact is, though, so much remains the same. Sweetings has had the occasional lick of paint, I suspect, since my first visit in October 1987 when I had one of those life changing educational experiences - learning not to deal after a good lunch even if Tate & Lyle shares were 30% cheaper than I had paid for them the day before - but apart from that is pretty much as uncomfortable yet charming as it ever was. I told you about my visit to Hong Kong the other day. Nothing new there. I climbed up to the top of Mt. Davis in Pokfulam where we used to live and fine, I had to be wary of some folk who weren't there before, wielding air rifles and shooting each other with little white pellets, but from up there, looking down on the island, it seemed to me the essence of the place hasn't altered a jot. Hen doesn't change either. I was having a drink after work with some colleagues last night when my phone and Blackberry vibrated furiously together. Urgent message from Rugby. "Ring me. Some really really good news. And I have a favour to ask". The good news, it transpired was that she had come 3rd in a physics test - "3rd from the top Daddy, not the bottom" she added earnestly, if plaintively. My indulgence guaranteed by this crucial success story, I was then instructed to buy her the DVD of "Trading Places". Said DVD is winging its way there as I write -at least she has good taste.
So as I wandered back to the office, I was beginning to feel somewhat burdened by this task I had been set. That was until I drew level with Leadenhall Market, when the sound of a rock band blaring out hits from Fat Larry's Band together with the sight of St George's flags streaming from every window ledge left me cold. Too much to bear. I have been struggling anyway to cope with the closure of Luc's Brasserie. The butchers selling hare, partridge and phezzies have also pretty much disappeared. I used to love the City and Leadenhall Market in particular. I killed 20 nervous minutes walking around there before my first day at Barings in 1985. Now I think it's a complete dump.
St George flags are a pet hate of mine by the way ( along with Easter Eggs ). Expect to hear more on this subject in the run up to the World Cup.
So as I wandered back to the office, I was beginning to feel somewhat burdened by this task I had been set. That was until I drew level with Leadenhall Market, when the sound of a rock band blaring out hits from Fat Larry's Band together with the sight of St George's flags streaming from every window ledge left me cold. Too much to bear. I have been struggling anyway to cope with the closure of Luc's Brasserie. The butchers selling hare, partridge and phezzies have also pretty much disappeared. I used to love the City and Leadenhall Market in particular. I killed 20 nervous minutes walking around there before my first day at Barings in 1985. Now I think it's a complete dump.
St George flags are a pet hate of mine by the way ( along with Easter Eggs ). Expect to hear more on this subject in the run up to the World Cup.
7th April, 2006
I'm a little short of stories for you this Friday, but I wonder if you, like me, enjoy reminders of just how small the world is. We were meant to be away last weekend staying with friends in the West Country, but they obviously thought better of putting the six of us up and pulled a sickie at the last minute. So it was that we found ourselves instead at the Horseheath Point to Point just outside Cambridge. This is not exactly Aintree. Perhaps a crowd of just one thousand were there. Talking of Aintree though I might add that on a personal level I have a challenge every bit as daunting on Sunday when I am competing in a cross-country hunter trial, back at Horseheath....in the same class as peroxide Hen. This is a marvellous chance for me to give her some of her own medicine in the shape of massive humiliation. A high risk strategy though, because there is every possibility I will not get past the first fence. I'll let you know how it goes. I digress. The story I wanted to tell you was that there I was in a wind-swept field in Cambridgeshire, at a little local horse-race, when suddenly I saw, 20 yards to my right, the dashing 25 year old Argentinian who had guided us on our riding safari in the Maasai Mara a few weeks back. I've told you about him before. He's the one with the business card job-title "Exclusive Adrenaline Engineering". He lives in Kenya, but was in the UK for one day on his way from Nairobi to Buenos Aires and we bump into each other like that. Totally bizarre coincidence. I love that stuff.
Despite that excitement, I've felt somewhat subdued for most of this week though. Don't really know why, but my 11 year old daughter obviously caught my mood and conveyed her concerns to her mother. "Jimmy thinks you're being bullied at work", Sophie told me on Wednesday evening. Is that not the sweetest thing you've heard for a long time?!
Despite that excitement, I've felt somewhat subdued for most of this week though. Don't really know why, but my 11 year old daughter obviously caught my mood and conveyed her concerns to her mother. "Jimmy thinks you're being bullied at work", Sophie told me on Wednesday evening. Is that not the sweetest thing you've heard for a long time?!
31 March, 2006
Quite frankly I feel I have inundated you this week with value added commentary on Asian conglomerates, Japanese banks, Ibiden, Bangkok Bank and CLSA conferences so, as it's the 31st March, I thought a brief email on the subject of window dressing would suffice this afternoon.
I alluded to Hen's hair dyeing escapade the other day. She had already "shocked" us by appearing at half-term with an extra hole pierced into her left ear lobe. So I found her phone call informing us that she had changed her hair colour particularly annoying. Does she really have so little else to occupy her at school? Very satisfyingly though, her attempts to turn herself into a blonde backfired as, with all due respect to my red-headed clients and friends, the ’2.50 she spent on a packet of hair-colour in Boots reacted alarmingly, turning her previously perfectly satisfactory locks, to a very unflattering shade of ginger. It was a phyric victory I suppose because it took little persuasion on my wife's part to drag Hen away from her MSN account to a fashionable West End hairdresser yesterday. Jean-Pierre, for a no doubt princely sum, but one which Sophie has not yet revealed, restored her colour and self-esteem, which is good news I suppose - and she got dinner at Zuma to boot. OK...so I'm a soft touch. Nevertheless, as I relayed to my friend at lunch, I have the upper hand over my four children, albeit briefly, as their school reports arrived yesterday. We'll go through these this weekend I think or maybe I'll sit on them a few days longer and keep them squirming.
I alluded to Hen's hair dyeing escapade the other day. She had already "shocked" us by appearing at half-term with an extra hole pierced into her left ear lobe. So I found her phone call informing us that she had changed her hair colour particularly annoying. Does she really have so little else to occupy her at school? Very satisfyingly though, her attempts to turn herself into a blonde backfired as, with all due respect to my red-headed clients and friends, the ’2.50 she spent on a packet of hair-colour in Boots reacted alarmingly, turning her previously perfectly satisfactory locks, to a very unflattering shade of ginger. It was a phyric victory I suppose because it took little persuasion on my wife's part to drag Hen away from her MSN account to a fashionable West End hairdresser yesterday. Jean-Pierre, for a no doubt princely sum, but one which Sophie has not yet revealed, restored her colour and self-esteem, which is good news I suppose - and she got dinner at Zuma to boot. OK...so I'm a soft touch. Nevertheless, as I relayed to my friend at lunch, I have the upper hand over my four children, albeit briefly, as their school reports arrived yesterday. We'll go through these this weekend I think or maybe I'll sit on them a few days longer and keep them squirming.
23rd March, 2006
In today's Asia Morning Line - and please shout if you don't get this excellent daily summary of developments in Asia, but would like to - there was an interesting if slightly peripheral report by Niklas Olausson, our Hof R in Malaysia, who has just visited Sarawak. One of those nostalgic moments coming up I'm afraid, but it is 1994. I was invited by Asia Equity to go on a visit to Sarawak to see the site of the proposed Ekran sponsored Bakun Dam. The dam was to be situated on the Balui River in the most interior area of Sarawak in Borneo. The Balui cuts through the spiritual home of 10,000 indigenous peoples from 5 ethnic groups from 15 longhouse communities, one of which I was due to stay in for a couple of nights. It was a huge project and an environmental nightmare. It's due to be commissioned in 2009 apparently. But what a wheeze. Helicopters, river trips, longboats, jungle, cannibals. To this day I don't know how I got the trip sanctioned by Mr. Brennan, head of the office. Anyhow, as an intrepid Emerging Markets specialist at Barings off I went, leaving Sophie, 6 months pregnant with our second child, at home in Hong Kong. I flew down to Kuching on Friday evening and spent Saturday morning walking around town killing time before our helicopter flight that afternoon into the jungle. Alas, I returned to the hotel to find an urgent message to call Sophie. It transpired she was in a terrible state, suffering contractions supposedly and I was left in no doubt at all that my urgent return to HK was required. Talk about frustration. There was I in darkest Sarawak - I can tell you it didn't look much like the Sarawk depicted in Niklas's note attached below - just hours from one of the most exciting - if, admittedly, pointless - investment trips you can imagine and I have to scrap it. Amazingly, given my isolated state, it was just four hours after the phone conversation with Sophie that I rushed through the door of our flat to find her sitting in front of the television looking as right as rain, sipping a cup of tea and munching a Digestive biscuit. "Sorry," she said, in her defence, sheepishly. "I'm fine. It was a bad case of wind. I think I'd eaten too much chocolate."
Now, I'll put my hands up. I've got a Toyota Landcruiser. Hey...I've got a horse-box to tow about. But I think the Chancellor was feeble in his moves against gas-guzzlers. ’210 road tax is pathetic and a hopeless deterrent. The Chinese authorities have put him to shame every step of the way frankly. As I have mentioned previously they have got some proper long term pension planning in process and now the biggest ever face-lift to its consumption tax regime. The gaz-guzzlers note details some of the initiatives but China is focussing on more efficient use of resources with intent including taking action to discourage the use of disposable chopsticks.
Now, I'll put my hands up. I've got a Toyota Landcruiser. Hey...I've got a horse-box to tow about. But I think the Chancellor was feeble in his moves against gas-guzzlers. ’210 road tax is pathetic and a hopeless deterrent. The Chinese authorities have put him to shame every step of the way frankly. As I have mentioned previously they have got some proper long term pension planning in process and now the biggest ever face-lift to its consumption tax regime. The gaz-guzzlers note details some of the initiatives but China is focussing on more efficient use of resources with intent including taking action to discourage the use of disposable chopsticks.
10th March, 2006
Some of you, newer to this ridiculous email, may not have heard of Hen. She is 13 and my eldest daughter. She is also a nightmare, albeit priceless. Here is an email I received from her which followed on from a very scathing message I had sent berating her for getting detentions at school, missing singing lessons, dyeing her hair blonde and steadfastly refusing to send me a list of what her monthly allowance was being spent on. Water off a duck's back to her.
From: SandHE
Sent: 06 March 2006 15:52
To: David Sandison, CLSA
Subject: RE: Hiya Hen
dont worry daddyi understand!!!!! HERE ARE SOME PICCYS FROM THE BALL look how cool my dress is and also here is what i spent my money on
Cond*ms x50 - all my money spent
From: SandHE
Sent: 06 March 2006 15:52
To: David Sandison, CLSA
Subject: RE: Hiya Hen
dont worry daddyi understand!!!!! HERE ARE SOME PICCYS FROM THE BALL look how cool my dress is and also here is what i spent my money on
Cond*ms x50 - all my money spent
3rd March, 2006
I havn't regaled you with many stories recently. Well I suppose I havn't been here very much to do so, but I'm around for the foreseeable future and I thought I would tell you about my riding safari in Kenya I did last week. Our guide was an unbelievably good looking 25 year old Argentinian bloke whose business card describes his job title as "Exclusive Adrenaline Engineering". How sad to recall my excitement at replacing "Pan European Research Sales" with "Asian Equity Sales". Anyway, he wasn't joking. Though I doubt it was pre-arranged, within minutes of arriving at our first camp-site a 12 foot hippo charged one of our party with unfortunate consequences....for the hippo....sadly. Late night game drives, ele-baiting, bull buffalos, galloping alongside giraffes, wildebeast and zebra all got the juices running. But at the risk of blowing up your inbox with mega-bites (sic) I am attaching a photograph of a scene that says it all. OK, so I'm the cowardly one at the back of the group in a pink shirt ( appropriately ), but in my defence I had been given a 6 year old horse and this was only its second safari. Previously Dream Day had been a polo pony and I assume he didn't meet too many elephants, buffalo or even spring hares during the course of a couple of chukkas on the polo pitch. Frankly, I ended up doing rodeo-impressions whenever he saw an ant-hill, never mind a lion.
31st January, 2006
As I have already told you I am heading off to HK this evening and then will be in Tokyo next week for our Japan Forum. Well this is all presupposing that I don't succumb to a bad dose of deep vein thrombosis on the way over. I fell off a horse on Saturday, attempting a suicidally high hedge, got my foot trapped in the stirrup and have a twisted right ankle the size of a basketball. I attach a pdf which has a list of all the various themes, keynotes, specialist speakers as well as the company presentation schedule. Please take a look and let me know if there is anything you are specifically interested in. If there is I will try to make sure I attend these meetings in particular and get any feedback to you. Also any shopping you want?
So KHFC to you.....Devastating to tell, it appears that CLSA aren't doing their Fortune Teller report this year. Tragic. This single "research" product was one of the main reasons I joined. Anyway, in its place I have just come back from a lunch presentation we hosted at which Anatole Kaletsky presented his thoughts on the prospects for the global economy this year and I can tell you he thinks things are going to be fine. And there was I hoping for a property market melt down.
So KHFC to you.....Devastating to tell, it appears that CLSA aren't doing their Fortune Teller report this year. Tragic. This single "research" product was one of the main reasons I joined. Anyway, in its place I have just come back from a lunch presentation we hosted at which Anatole Kaletsky presented his thoughts on the prospects for the global economy this year and I can tell you he thinks things are going to be fine. And there was I hoping for a property market melt down.
27th January, 2006
One of these days your Friday afternoon entertainment will extend to more than a walk through my past. I'm off to Hong Kong on Tuesday next week and the week after that will be in Japan for our Forum. Kai Tak rules not withstanding this should provide a rich vein of useful and mildly entertaining insight. In the meantime, we have launched coverage on a pharmaceutical stock in Indonesia which prompted me to trawl through my old trip reports. Horrifically, it transpires that it is just over 14 years ago that I last made a research trip to Jakarta. If memory serves me I lost a day out of the schedule after a night at Java Jive with Johnny Mytton, and another afternoon, at a visit to one of Indocement's plants which was a euphemism for a round of golf at Jagawari. But, if you can be bothered to read the accompanying trip report, I am sure you will agree it was a worthwhile 6 days, not least because I identified Kalbe Farma as a compelling long term investment opportunity and also had the privilege of meeting the director of Pakuwon Jati, an ill-fated Surabaya based property company, with the wonderfully apt name, Mr. Richard Adisastra.
20th January, 2006
Grim and worried. I have to take an early bath today to get back to Cambridge in time for a 5pm appointment with a nurse who is going to give me copious injections to cover me for tetanus, yellow fever and I've forgotten what else. I don't think I've gone on enough about my mid-February holiday. Well I havn't had much time to really I suppose. Nothing like starting a new job with intent. 6 weeks into it and whoosh, I'm off on a riding holiday in Kenya. I was going to write the word "safari", but a newspaper article on Wednesday has put the dampeners on that so to speak. Apparently the Masai Mara is suffering its worst drought for years and the animals are leaving in droves so I suppose we may pass them on the road to Nairobi, but that will be about that.
13th January, 2006
Another apology....you would normally expect some stunningly witty and insightful story from me on a Friday afternoon. The sad thing is that this business of getting up at 5.15am and getting home, as I have done on the last couple of evenings, after 8pm is something that no doubt is what working for a living is all about. But it is a shock to the system for someone who has been relatively underemployed for a little while and particularly last month. So it was that I found myself tucked up in bed by 9.30pm last night. Feeble. And just to rub salt into the wounds, just as I was nodding off, some 45 minutes later, the phone rang. The dreaded Henrietta....remember her....just ringing up to find out whether I had sent her iPod charger yet and to ask me to find some clarinet music she had also forgotten to take back to school with her. Nothing changes in that regard. Younger brother Bob is exhibiting worrying signs too though. “Evie and I are going out” he told his mother. ” I asked her out and she said yes.” Slight pause. “Well, actually, that’s not exactly true. She asked me out and I said yes.” 8 years old.....I mean, really. Where have I gone wrong???
25th November, 2005
Phew. Roll on the weekend. I've got a birthday card by my desk that has the title "If you're not embarrassing your children you're obviously not enjoying yourself". You probably know enough about me by now to know that I'm past caring unduly about my own embarrassment hence I am able to attach the photograph below, but tomorrow I'm going head to head against two of my daughters in a hunter trial. Enjoyment?? I don't know. It's the first one I've ever done and I will probably end up spread-eagled on a fence.....but it's certainly going to embarrass them!
Oh one more thing. Given that it is the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar I thought I would tell you what Kings College School parent’s choir are working on for our next performance. It's a double header. Haydn's Nelson Mass and Karl Jenkins' The Armed Man. How deliciously ironic can you get?! Our Director of Music, who chose the pieces, insists however it was unintentional.
Oh one more thing. Given that it is the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar I thought I would tell you what Kings College School parent’s choir are working on for our next performance. It's a double header. Haydn's Nelson Mass and Karl Jenkins' The Armed Man. How deliciously ironic can you get?! Our Director of Music, who chose the pieces, insists however it was unintentional.
18th November, 2005
Last week's attempts both at investment insight and then in a subsequent message, humour, were treated with derision and contempt. "Stick to human observation" commented one caustic respondent. Well, I observed the human condition at close quarters last Saturday evening. I was on my way back from Rugby having taken Hen out for an early dinner. It had to be early because, despite the fact that my 8 year old son and I were going considerably out of our way to see her, she was insistent that she needed an hour and a half to prepare herself for a party that evening. Now why wasn't that a suprise?
Enchilladas and tortillas at a Mexican restaurant having been rapidly devoured Bob and I left Rugby and had just got onto the A14 when the rear left tyre of my environmentally unfriendly vehicle spectacularly blew out. Sheer, raw driving talent kept the car on a line Schumaker would have been proud of, but with no tyre all I could do was grind to halt, infuriatingly short of a lay-by. Half of my rather wide car was on a narrow grass verge, with traffic belting past on the dual carriage way missing us by just a couple of feet. Not wishing to be melodramatic about things, this was not a happy situation. We walked the 1/4 of a mile to the lay-by where there was an emergency phone and rang the police to explain our predicament, arranging also for the RAC to collect us on a low loader. Having been told by them that someone would be with us within 30 - 45 minutes, one hour later we were still crouched in a dark and freezing cold ditch surrounded by Coke cans, crisp packets and discarded number plates, only to be told that it would be at least another hour before their man would be with us. At this point I decided to defy the accident text book and risking both our lives and the car's rear axle, got back into the Toyota and scraped my way precariously up the road to the safety of the lay-by. Happily, once there, by the light of the passing vehicles, I was able to investigate the damage and concluded that it might be possible to change the tyre. So it was that two hours after the tyre blew out, the remains of which were strewn on the road beside my prostrate body as I inspected the underneath of the car, someone pulled off the road and drove up to a halt 5 yards behind us. Quel relief. The police and the RAC had failed us, but here was my good Samaritan. Bob and Den, my dog, peered amiably at our saviours from their position inside the car, whilst I was immediately grateful for the light their headlights shed on the proceedings. But my happiness was short-lived. The driver stayed in his or her seat which I thought was a bit odd and switched off the lights. Meantime, from the passenger side, someone got out of the car.......and proceeded to vomit energetically onto the pavement before returning to the car which then drove off into the night without so much as a by your leave. Human observation....? Life isn't always about bottles of malt whisky and pretty girls.
Enchilladas and tortillas at a Mexican restaurant having been rapidly devoured Bob and I left Rugby and had just got onto the A14 when the rear left tyre of my environmentally unfriendly vehicle spectacularly blew out. Sheer, raw driving talent kept the car on a line Schumaker would have been proud of, but with no tyre all I could do was grind to halt, infuriatingly short of a lay-by. Half of my rather wide car was on a narrow grass verge, with traffic belting past on the dual carriage way missing us by just a couple of feet. Not wishing to be melodramatic about things, this was not a happy situation. We walked the 1/4 of a mile to the lay-by where there was an emergency phone and rang the police to explain our predicament, arranging also for the RAC to collect us on a low loader. Having been told by them that someone would be with us within 30 - 45 minutes, one hour later we were still crouched in a dark and freezing cold ditch surrounded by Coke cans, crisp packets and discarded number plates, only to be told that it would be at least another hour before their man would be with us. At this point I decided to defy the accident text book and risking both our lives and the car's rear axle, got back into the Toyota and scraped my way precariously up the road to the safety of the lay-by. Happily, once there, by the light of the passing vehicles, I was able to investigate the damage and concluded that it might be possible to change the tyre. So it was that two hours after the tyre blew out, the remains of which were strewn on the road beside my prostrate body as I inspected the underneath of the car, someone pulled off the road and drove up to a halt 5 yards behind us. Quel relief. The police and the RAC had failed us, but here was my good Samaritan. Bob and Den, my dog, peered amiably at our saviours from their position inside the car, whilst I was immediately grateful for the light their headlights shed on the proceedings. But my happiness was short-lived. The driver stayed in his or her seat which I thought was a bit odd and switched off the lights. Meantime, from the passenger side, someone got out of the car.......and proceeded to vomit energetically onto the pavement before returning to the car which then drove off into the night without so much as a by your leave. Human observation....? Life isn't always about bottles of malt whisky and pretty girls.
4th November, 2005
The few remaining socialist clients of mine will, I hope, forgive me commenting that every now and again living in Blair's Britain has its redeeming moments. Watching Blunkett edging his way towards a second resignation this year was satisfying enough, but seeing the PM's total humiliation at the hands of Michael Howard, was utterly joyous. I was struck too by Blunkett's plea that "Having investments and holding shares in modern Britain is not a crime." Pretty much everything else is though. I'm off hound exercising tomorrow. What is this fixation with "modernising" Britain anyway? Even Cameron is slipping into the trap....or am I showing my age?
I slept badly last night woken early by the sound of a bird, breaking Cambridge's tranquillity, with a very persistent and distinctive call. A single ascending pee-eeep repeated every two seconds or so. Next thing I knew it was 1992 and I was at an OG Dinner in Government House in Hong Kong. Sir David ( now Lord ) Wilson, then the Governor, was an OG and had very kindly agreed to host us. Beautiful surroundings, black tie, countless servants running about.... it was all very smart and not a little daunting. I was happy, but a little surprised to find myself sitting next to David Scott, an interesting character, who was then Asian strategist for WI Carr. Surprised, because as much as I racked my brains, I could not remember anything about him at school. Not which house he had been in, whether we had played rugby together or been in the same orchestra. Eventually, at the risk of offending because he was clearly roughly the same ages as me, I asked him when he had left. "Och no" he said, " I didnae go to that dump. I was at Kelvinside Academy!" He had received an invitation though, from the organiser, who had assumed he was a different David Scott, a lawyer, who had indeed gone to Glenalmond, but he thought it would be a good crack so had accepted with alacrity. The bare-faced cheek of it eh?! Anyway, it turned out he was an ornithologist, as well as a strategist. I've lost contact with him, but if any of you has an interest in birds and could tell me what it was that kept me awake from 4.30am this morning I'd be very interested to hear from you.
I slept badly last night woken early by the sound of a bird, breaking Cambridge's tranquillity, with a very persistent and distinctive call. A single ascending pee-eeep repeated every two seconds or so. Next thing I knew it was 1992 and I was at an OG Dinner in Government House in Hong Kong. Sir David ( now Lord ) Wilson, then the Governor, was an OG and had very kindly agreed to host us. Beautiful surroundings, black tie, countless servants running about.... it was all very smart and not a little daunting. I was happy, but a little surprised to find myself sitting next to David Scott, an interesting character, who was then Asian strategist for WI Carr. Surprised, because as much as I racked my brains, I could not remember anything about him at school. Not which house he had been in, whether we had played rugby together or been in the same orchestra. Eventually, at the risk of offending because he was clearly roughly the same ages as me, I asked him when he had left. "Och no" he said, " I didnae go to that dump. I was at Kelvinside Academy!" He had received an invitation though, from the organiser, who had assumed he was a different David Scott, a lawyer, who had indeed gone to Glenalmond, but he thought it would be a good crack so had accepted with alacrity. The bare-faced cheek of it eh?! Anyway, it turned out he was an ornithologist, as well as a strategist. I've lost contact with him, but if any of you has an interest in birds and could tell me what it was that kept me awake from 4.30am this morning I'd be very interested to hear from you.
28th October, 2005
It's my 4 year old daughter's turn in the spotlight this afternoon. A conversation I had with her one evening earlier this week left me wondering what we've been doing to her.
“Can I have a story tonight, Daddy?”
" 'Fraid not Lottie, it's a bit late " (...regardless of which, I might have added, there's a good bottle of wine awaiting my attention....)
“I’ll pay you....." !!
“Can I have a story tonight, Daddy?”
" 'Fraid not Lottie, it's a bit late " (...regardless of which, I might have added, there's a good bottle of wine awaiting my attention....)
“I’ll pay you....." !!
30th September, 2005
Those few of you who anticipate this ridiculous offering might be interested to know why you were disappointed last Friday. This is principally the fault of a dangerous individual, a client of mine who works just down the road and who held a drinks party last Thursday evening. Uncharacteristically, I allowed myself to get led astray on the drink front, but eventually struggled onto the 11.15pm train to Cambridge, hating myself for having bought a Double Whopper with Cheese at Burger King. The remains of this having just been tucked tidily under the chair, a really rather beautiful girl came into the carriage and sat down across the aisle from me. As the train pulled out of the station she revealed a bottle of 10 year old Laphroig from her bag which, she explained, apologetically really, she had taken from the flat of a friend of hers who had been killed a fortnight earlier in a climbing accident. So we conducted a sort of wake I suppose. By the time we got to Royston - where essential rail works meant that we had to board a bus to complete the journey to Cambridge - more than half the bottle had been drunk and we had solved the Palestinian problem. Honestly. That was all there was to it. I cycled home and didn't wake up till mid-day.
9th September, 2005
I know I bang on a bit about Cambridge's rarified atmosphere, but whilst my opinion of this was tested last weekend, my 4 year old daughter is clearly unshaken in her view that this is a rather special place. A peaceful Sunday afternoon in Sedley Taylor Road was disrupted intermittently by the noise of a function being held at the Long Road Sixth Form College. Imagine if you will the somewhat distant and muffled sound of a low, male voice droning on unintelligibly through a loudspeaker. It annoyed the heck out of me, but not my daughter who, laid out on a sun-lounger, hands behind her head, peered at me from under her purple, sparkly sun-glasses and enquired matter of factly, " Daddy, is that God speaking?".
26th August 2005
The week has flown by and there are still goosepimples on Henrietta's arms from the Woman in Black play we saw last Friday. I confess I slept through the entire first half, but the second part was admittedly pretty chilling. She would possibly have coped better with the child-catcher scene from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang which, clearly, was the main reason she turned down that suggestion.
As it's August and I can't be bothered to bang on again about the oil price I have to tell you another story about another of my children. As I went upstairs last night I noticed a series of new books on the shelves of my 11 year old daughters bedroom. On closer inspection, the spines of various Jacqueline Wilson and Enid Blyton books had been covered with strips of coloured paper on which Jimmy ( the said 11 yr old daughter ) had handwritten new titles which included:
"100 things not to do with your body"
"A guide to plucking your eyebrows"
"All about plastic surgery"
What is going on in our household when I'm slogging away down here???
The first call today touches on fears of excessive competition in the UK life assurance market, specifically protection, before which I have to relate to you a story I heard on the radio this morning about a funeral someone had been at where the elderly widow asked a guest, well known for his singing ability, if he could perform and requested "Jingle Bells". The singer thought this was slightly odd, particularily so as it was mid-summer, but asked no questions and did as she had asked. Not surprisingly his enthusiastic rendition was met with some bemusement from the other guests, but also, sadly, with disappointment by the widow, who, it transpired, had confused Jingle Bells with the somewhat more appropriate and funereal song "When They Ring Those Golden Bells".
As it's August and I can't be bothered to bang on again about the oil price I have to tell you another story about another of my children. As I went upstairs last night I noticed a series of new books on the shelves of my 11 year old daughters bedroom. On closer inspection, the spines of various Jacqueline Wilson and Enid Blyton books had been covered with strips of coloured paper on which Jimmy ( the said 11 yr old daughter ) had handwritten new titles which included:
"100 things not to do with your body"
"A guide to plucking your eyebrows"
"All about plastic surgery"
What is going on in our household when I'm slogging away down here???
The first call today touches on fears of excessive competition in the UK life assurance market, specifically protection, before which I have to relate to you a story I heard on the radio this morning about a funeral someone had been at where the elderly widow asked a guest, well known for his singing ability, if he could perform and requested "Jingle Bells". The singer thought this was slightly odd, particularily so as it was mid-summer, but asked no questions and did as she had asked. Not surprisingly his enthusiastic rendition was met with some bemusement from the other guests, but also, sadly, with disappointment by the widow, who, it transpired, had confused Jingle Bells with the somewhat more appropriate and funereal song "When They Ring Those Golden Bells".
14th July, 2005
Missed out on last Thursday's trauma's here in London as I stayed at home owing to the fact that a stomach bug had wiped me out on Wednesday night. I can tell you, at least first thing on Thursday morning, I wasn't feeling lucky.
In pensive mode this week I hope you will forgive me for attaching this web-site link which will take you to a sermon I stumbled on given by the Chaplain at Rugby School to the school leavers. Given that I found my 13 year old daughter on MSN to her "boy-friend" at 1.30am last night and having just been warned by a friend of a practice known as "benching", apparently rife in Rock where we are off to on holiday next week, I thought it was rather an instructive speech for those with similar concerns about their adolescent offspring.
http://www.rugbyschool.net/sl/pastoral/leavers2005.htm
In pensive mode this week I hope you will forgive me for attaching this web-site link which will take you to a sermon I stumbled on given by the Chaplain at Rugby School to the school leavers. Given that I found my 13 year old daughter on MSN to her "boy-friend" at 1.30am last night and having just been warned by a friend of a practice known as "benching", apparently rife in Rock where we are off to on holiday next week, I thought it was rather an instructive speech for those with similar concerns about their adolescent offspring.
http://www.rugbyschool.net/sl/pastoral/leavers2005.htm
1st July, 2005
I write this in Edinburgh where we are on "swamp" or "womble" alert. It's all happening up here ahead of the G8 meeting. Apparently there is graffiti in St. Andrews Square - unheard of affrontery - and the great unwashed are rolling in. A torrential downpour yesterday evening would have been a cleansing moment though. I had better stop this rant before I land myself in the trouble I found myself at General Election time.
Talking of which what a wonderful story in the papers yesterday. The President of the Philippines has sent her husband, who has become something of an embarassment, out of the country for a protracted period. Will Tony have the sense to do something similar?? Final snippet. We were staying in someone's house last weekend at a wedding in which my two younger daughters were bridesmaids. The girls were sleeping in our room and I was aware of the 4 year old padding to the loo in the morning before returning to her camp bed and reading quietly for 20 minutes or so....at which point she tapped her elder sister who was stirring in her sleep, offering her book. "Jimmy, do you want to read this? It's got lots of pictures of naked boys and girls"!!! Shocked father grabs the book from her and discovers she has been ploughing through "The Art of Good Bonk*ing" full of quite explicit cartoons. She'll be up in Edinburgh sleeping on The Meadows the next time G8 is held up here, little swamp-rat that she is.
Talking of which what a wonderful story in the papers yesterday. The President of the Philippines has sent her husband, who has become something of an embarassment, out of the country for a protracted period. Will Tony have the sense to do something similar?? Final snippet. We were staying in someone's house last weekend at a wedding in which my two younger daughters were bridesmaids. The girls were sleeping in our room and I was aware of the 4 year old padding to the loo in the morning before returning to her camp bed and reading quietly for 20 minutes or so....at which point she tapped her elder sister who was stirring in her sleep, offering her book. "Jimmy, do you want to read this? It's got lots of pictures of naked boys and girls"!!! Shocked father grabs the book from her and discovers she has been ploughing through "The Art of Good Bonk*ing" full of quite explicit cartoons. She'll be up in Edinburgh sleeping on The Meadows the next time G8 is held up here, little swamp-rat that she is.
10th June, 2005
Last reference to Lord Rosebery, I promise. I meant to include it last Friday, but when it came to putting fingers to the keyboard, although I knew there was something I wanted to tell you, I couldn't for the life of me remember what it was. That evening I sneaked a few holes of golf in and walking down the 8th fairway, I found myself whistling a tune. Bingo...it came to me....there's a story in Rosebery's biography that when he was Foreign Secretary, overseeing Queen Victoria's global possessions, a junior colleague recalled that Rosebery would be found in his study, ploughing through the Red Boxes, humming "Rule Britannia" to himself. And there's me, a century later, doing the same, just before I snap hook a 3 iron into the bushes.
3rd June, 2005
Obviously I read stuff like Rosebery's biography for all sorts of pertinent historical insights....like this rather good one....
Staying in Epsom as a six year old (Sir John Colville recalls in his memoirs) he and a friend prowled over to the stables where in one loose box they found a lamb, which was lying prostrate on the straw and appeared to be ill. Little John Colville had heard that brandy could revive a sickly animal, so he crept into the house, found a bottle in the dining room, ran back to the stable and gave it to the lamb. The creature dropped dead instantly. "That evening Lord Rosebery sent for us. He stood in the library, a frightening figure in dark green glasses. He spoke to us in sorrow rather than in anger. " My children, " he said, " you little know what you have done to me." What we had done was to pour his last bottle of Napolean brandy down the throat of a lamb of such quality that it had been segregated from the herd. It had been confidently expected to win a Championship at the Royal Show.
Staying in Epsom as a six year old (Sir John Colville recalls in his memoirs) he and a friend prowled over to the stables where in one loose box they found a lamb, which was lying prostrate on the straw and appeared to be ill. Little John Colville had heard that brandy could revive a sickly animal, so he crept into the house, found a bottle in the dining room, ran back to the stable and gave it to the lamb. The creature dropped dead instantly. "That evening Lord Rosebery sent for us. He stood in the library, a frightening figure in dark green glasses. He spoke to us in sorrow rather than in anger. " My children, " he said, " you little know what you have done to me." What we had done was to pour his last bottle of Napolean brandy down the throat of a lamb of such quality that it had been segregated from the herd. It had been confidently expected to win a Championship at the Royal Show.
27th May, 2005
Bank Holiday weekend. Weather forecast wonderful ( in Cambridge anyway ). And how will we be spending it? Revising for school exams. The Circle of Life.
P.S. Talking about the Wheel coming full circle my latest book recommendation, especially for Scottish clients, is a biography: "Rosebery, Statesman in Turmoil" by Leo McKinstry. The last Liberal prime minister, when he came to power in 1892 he was one of the wealthiest people in Britain. Sad to say the magnificent family seat is now smack in the flight path to Edinburgh Airport. It's a fascinating book though. What makes it particularly pertinent is that the central themes of Rosebery's political life were, McKinstry writes, efficiency in the public sector, devolution in Scotland and England, and Britain's role within a wider federation ( albeit an Imperial rather than a European one). All issues which have come back to the centre of political debate. Quite apart from that Rosebery was a fascinating person, in part because his character was so full of contradictions. For example, he owned three Derby winners, but was considered an awful judge of horses ( unlike yours truly who picked three out of three winners at Newmarket last Saturday, albeit that my winnings were spent repairing a tooth cracked on a cherry stone on Sunday evening - easy come, easy go ). Furthermore he was deeply religious and Calvinistic, but loved scandalous gossip and collected pornography. Pervy Victorian.
I'm riveted and, besides, it makes me look brainy on the train to Cambridge.
P.S. Talking about the Wheel coming full circle my latest book recommendation, especially for Scottish clients, is a biography: "Rosebery, Statesman in Turmoil" by Leo McKinstry. The last Liberal prime minister, when he came to power in 1892 he was one of the wealthiest people in Britain. Sad to say the magnificent family seat is now smack in the flight path to Edinburgh Airport. It's a fascinating book though. What makes it particularly pertinent is that the central themes of Rosebery's political life were, McKinstry writes, efficiency in the public sector, devolution in Scotland and England, and Britain's role within a wider federation ( albeit an Imperial rather than a European one). All issues which have come back to the centre of political debate. Quite apart from that Rosebery was a fascinating person, in part because his character was so full of contradictions. For example, he owned three Derby winners, but was considered an awful judge of horses ( unlike yours truly who picked three out of three winners at Newmarket last Saturday, albeit that my winnings were spent repairing a tooth cracked on a cherry stone on Sunday evening - easy come, easy go ). Furthermore he was deeply religious and Calvinistic, but loved scandalous gossip and collected pornography. Pervy Victorian.
I'm riveted and, besides, it makes me look brainy on the train to Cambridge.
20th May, 2005
I was at a drinks party last night for the launch of a hedge fund set up by a former colleague. Boris Johnson MP was there and gave an impromptu and hilarious address on behalf of the guests. Classic quote ...."I am very confident that this wonderful team is going to be hugely successful. Indeed I venture to suggest what we have here is the leylandii of hedge funds." And whilst on the subject of politicians, George Galloway is a hideous man, but I have to confess to a sneaking admiration for his performance earlier in the week on Capital Hill.
The tooth fairy probably does not immediately spring to mind when thinking about lessons on price negotiating. But, in my view, Henrietta, our 12 year old, was sitting on a gold mine with a collection of 4 frighteningly large teeth extracted by the dentist earlier this week, as part of a long and painful orthodentic process on which we have embarked. She missed the opportunity though. To be honest, the tooth fairy forgot to visit at all on the first night and received an abrupt reminder from Hen the following day. But I was pleasantly surprised when she told me she was hoping for £5. Thus the lesson on bargaining. I couldn't resist telling her I thought she would have pitched for £10 at least and rubbed salt into the wounds by saying that as she'd hoped for £5, she'd get £2.50. Soft touch that I am - but they were very nasty looking teeth and it had been quite a traumatic process - the tooth fairy left her £10 which she was thrilled with. Or at least she was until her younger sister, completely oblivious to the careful educational process that had gone on, told her that she'd been done and should have got £20. "Well you certainly know how to blow my bubble" was Hen's disgruntled reaction to that.
The tooth fairy probably does not immediately spring to mind when thinking about lessons on price negotiating. But, in my view, Henrietta, our 12 year old, was sitting on a gold mine with a collection of 4 frighteningly large teeth extracted by the dentist earlier this week, as part of a long and painful orthodentic process on which we have embarked. She missed the opportunity though. To be honest, the tooth fairy forgot to visit at all on the first night and received an abrupt reminder from Hen the following day. But I was pleasantly surprised when she told me she was hoping for £5. Thus the lesson on bargaining. I couldn't resist telling her I thought she would have pitched for £10 at least and rubbed salt into the wounds by saying that as she'd hoped for £5, she'd get £2.50. Soft touch that I am - but they were very nasty looking teeth and it had been quite a traumatic process - the tooth fairy left her £10 which she was thrilled with. Or at least she was until her younger sister, completely oblivious to the careful educational process that had gone on, told her that she'd been done and should have got £20. "Well you certainly know how to blow my bubble" was Hen's disgruntled reaction to that.
6th May, 2005
As you know, I don't tend to mix politics into this email, but post election Friday it can't be resisted. One of the biggest wins for the Conservatives last night was Enfield Southgate where the ghastly, anti-hunting, schools minister, Stephen Twigg was ousted. Without wishing to be seen to be blowing my own trumpet I have tell you I played a small part in this upset.
Last Sunday I was down in Enfield tromping the streets canvassing on behalf of the Conservatives, but primarily I was there with a group of kindred spirits who share my detest for the anti-hunting bill trying to do our bit to get rid of prejudice. Ah you were wondering where this was leading. Anyhow I knew early on that Twigg's days were numbered. As I approached the very first house the door opened and out came a young woman. You will forgive me for sterotyping and I might even be asked to elaborate, but she looked like a quintessential Labour voter. She eyed me up and down and the next thing I heard was a shrill torrent of foul language. It was still only 9.30 in the morning and I wondered how I was going to cope with a whole day of abuse. Never mind I thought I'm a stockbroker. I can handle this. It was still a relief though, and an ironic one, when I realised what was actually upsetting her. "These ***ing foxes ", she screamed, staring at her dustbin which had been knocked over and the contents strewn all over her doorstep, "I ****ing hate them!!"
There and then I realised Enfield Southgate was going to be a walk in the park.
Last Sunday I was down in Enfield tromping the streets canvassing on behalf of the Conservatives, but primarily I was there with a group of kindred spirits who share my detest for the anti-hunting bill trying to do our bit to get rid of prejudice. Ah you were wondering where this was leading. Anyhow I knew early on that Twigg's days were numbered. As I approached the very first house the door opened and out came a young woman. You will forgive me for sterotyping and I might even be asked to elaborate, but she looked like a quintessential Labour voter. She eyed me up and down and the next thing I heard was a shrill torrent of foul language. It was still only 9.30 in the morning and I wondered how I was going to cope with a whole day of abuse. Never mind I thought I'm a stockbroker. I can handle this. It was still a relief though, and an ironic one, when I realised what was actually upsetting her. "These ***ing foxes ", she screamed, staring at her dustbin which had been knocked over and the contents strewn all over her doorstep, "I ****ing hate them!!"
There and then I realised Enfield Southgate was going to be a walk in the park.
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