Well, Hen’s return is nigh. Ash cloud permitting she should be back early next week. And not a moment too soon. She and her travelling companion will have been shacked up in Bangkok for the last 10 days of their “adventure”. The lack of imagination was driving me mad, but it transpired after a certain amount of probing on my part – silly me for not guessing – that they are bust so took the decision to essentially bunker down. The Sitdhi Guesthouse costs Bht 250 a night ( £2.60 each ) and, in her words, “I really only need one meal a day cos we’re not particularly active” so 20 baht for food at a street stall is their only other daily expense. If you had the inclination to click on the link I provided I imagine you too would have shuddered as I did, but, thinking about it, she’ll probably pine for the place when winter winds rattle the windows of her student house in Leeds. And I suppose it is another useful lesson in life. A very lovely friend caught up with Hen and took her out to no doubt a much needed lunch this week. He tells me that all is well and she has obviously had a fantastic experience. However, I’m still not convinced that her mind has been properly engaged on soaking up all that Asia has to offer and the following email, the latest contribution to the blog I ask her to write that but which I am beginning to realise I have been keeping for her, hasn’t done much to ease my suspicions.
yo dava, one last thing for today, i was given a book by another traveller the other day and it was fantastic, apparently there is a whole series and so i looked it up, is there any chance you could possibly get them for me as i am completely obsessed ( already read the one i have like 2wice)
the series is called the rutshire series and it is by Jilly Cooper the books in the series are:
1. Riders
2. Rivals
3. Polo
4. The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous
5. Appassionata
6. Score!
7. Pandora
8. Wicked!
9. Jump!
i have rivals (the second one)
waddaya think???
Obsessed with Jilly Cooper??! How frustrated, middle aged and middle class can you get?! And this from the girl who last year told me she wanted to be Amish and three weeks ago was a Rastafarian with a nose piercing?
P.S. My tip for the 2010 Bordeaux En Primeur offering.....? Clos des Quatre Vents.......I would slip some of this into your cellar. Buy two cases and you will undoubtedly drink one for free.
Saturday, 28 May 2011
Thursday, 26 May 2011
20th May, 2011
Interesting news flagged by a colleague that a Kindergarten in Hangzhou was running a kidnapping preventive drill with its students (aged b/w 3-4). The kids were taken to a park where they were let loose to run around and actors would come in and try to lure them away. Most of the 36 kids did well to fend off strangers offering toys and sweets by saying "I have them at home too". However, 10 of the 36 students failed miserably when they were offered the iPad! Weird weird weird.
Whilst on the subject of irresponsible parenting I think I mentioned the other day Bob’s plan for turning the £5 that he and each of his Year 8 leavers had been given by the school into £10. One of the boys handed in £42 which he had earned by selling sweets. Another bought some detergent and washing up liquid and cleaned cars. Well I am happy to report that Bob’s fiver went on Slim Shady in the 2.40pm at Newmarket a couple of Saturdays ago and returned £14.50.
I remember now, the other slightly disconcerting thing I wanted to get off my chest this week was when I got home last night Bob looked at me suspiciously and asked me if I had driven into Cambridge that morning. “Of course”, I replied. I banged on in my email last Friday about the tyranny of the commute so you can imagine I was probably a touch dismissive at his inane question. However I did manage to ask “Why?” “Oh”, came the response, “it was just that we saw a dead cat on the road on our way to school and thought you probably did it.” Great. Feel really good about that.
Whilst on the subject of irresponsible parenting I think I mentioned the other day Bob’s plan for turning the £5 that he and each of his Year 8 leavers had been given by the school into £10. One of the boys handed in £42 which he had earned by selling sweets. Another bought some detergent and washing up liquid and cleaned cars. Well I am happy to report that Bob’s fiver went on Slim Shady in the 2.40pm at Newmarket a couple of Saturdays ago and returned £14.50.
I remember now, the other slightly disconcerting thing I wanted to get off my chest this week was when I got home last night Bob looked at me suspiciously and asked me if I had driven into Cambridge that morning. “Of course”, I replied. I banged on in my email last Friday about the tyranny of the commute so you can imagine I was probably a touch dismissive at his inane question. However I did manage to ask “Why?” “Oh”, came the response, “it was just that we saw a dead cat on the road on our way to school and thought you probably did it.” Great. Feel really good about that.
13th May, 2011
Our focus has been on a pair of orphaned lambs which Sophie decided to adopt– as if we don’t have enough livestock around the place – under extreme pressure from Bob and Lottie. Before you think of doing something similar let me tell you there is no commercial logic. I have had to spend £110 on two 25 kg bags of powdered milk and a pair of bottles and rubber teats. Grudgingly I have to admit it has not actually been that much effort, and of course, they are extremely cute. Steady. However for Lottie’s benefit in particular I am taking care to repeatedly ram home the message that a lamb is for eating, not just for Easter. Bob, you will not be surprised to hear, has no inhabitations. He spends weekends guarding the pair armed with a bow and arrow and a catapault from any predatory fox that might care to wander by, but he insists that come the moment he is ready to dispatch the lambs and prepare them for the freezer himself. He is so not his fathers son, but it was with some amusement that I read an email sent me by one of your number in HK.
From: A Daily Mail reader
Date: Wed, 11 May 2011 19:08:18 +0800
To: Sandison David
Subject: MailOnline :: Skin a rabbit, deliver a lamb and dance the eightsome reel: What young people should know before they leave school
David - I saw this and thought of you ( and Bob). Best wishes from HK, Alex
Skin a rabbit, deliver a lamb and dance the eightsome reel: What young people should know before they leave school
Country Life magazine, the upper class 'bible', has come up with a list of 39 skills it believes the modern youth should have - including how to handle a shotgun.
Full Story:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1385783/What-young-people-know-leave-school.html
From: A Daily Mail reader
Date: Wed, 11 May 2011 19:08:18 +0800
To: Sandison David
Subject: MailOnline :: Skin a rabbit, deliver a lamb and dance the eightsome reel: What young people should know before they leave school
David - I saw this and thought of you ( and Bob). Best wishes from HK, Alex
Skin a rabbit, deliver a lamb and dance the eightsome reel: What young people should know before they leave school
Country Life magazine, the upper class 'bible', has come up with a list of 39 skills it believes the modern youth should have - including how to handle a shotgun.
Full Story:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1385783/What-young-people-know-leave-school.html
28th April, 2011
For my part I suppose I should elaborate on my reference to Bob killing two birds with one stone, made earlier this week. It was like this. We went to have lunch with my brother and his family the other day. Visits by his kin have not been without incident in the past. They have a troublesome relationship with their elderly neighbour who owns an adjoining field on which my father’s spaniel once dispatched one of her prize flock of chickens. I have to say I thought my father behaved admirably. He offered her a fiver and when that was cursorily refused, returned with a replacement hen. So it was with a sense of developing shock that we sat enjoying lunch last Sunday when we saw Bob jump over a fence into the lady’s field, disappear for a few seconds before reappearing from behind a hedge, on all fours, in full view of absolutely everyone, scuttling into the middle of the field where he pounced on an unsuspecting crow. The poor bird had a broken wing, he told us in explanation of his actions, but it had a more terminal injury after Bob’s administrations.
Well, I’m glad I got that off my chest. Otherwise it has been a bit of a dull old week. I was busy yesterday afternoon though. An email arrived from one of Hen’s University friends....
Hi Dave ( you what???????!!!)
Hen gave me your email addresses to keep you up to date with all the house stuff. I'm sorry i haven't been in contact sooner but i thought i lost the addresses (just had to rummage through my conversations with Hen over facebook!) The first house we found fell through unfortunately, but we have found another one in Burley, which is just on the edge of Hyde Park.
Etc etc. Long and short of it was within an hour of receiving this email I was £1,100 poorer for the part I was required to play in helping to secure the lease on a house for Hen and her fellow Leeds students which left me wondering whether I might be better off investing in a property UP there. So I registered on a website and this is the only thing that has come through so far.....
Nomura bonus season is upon us so I probably shouldn’t be too disparaging. David Moor Estate Agents may have the last laugh.
Well, I’m glad I got that off my chest. Otherwise it has been a bit of a dull old week. I was busy yesterday afternoon though. An email arrived from one of Hen’s University friends....
Hi Dave ( you what???????!!!)
Hen gave me your email addresses to keep you up to date with all the house stuff. I'm sorry i haven't been in contact sooner but i thought i lost the addresses (just had to rummage through my conversations with Hen over facebook!) The first house we found fell through unfortunately, but we have found another one in Burley, which is just on the edge of Hyde Park.
Etc etc. Long and short of it was within an hour of receiving this email I was £1,100 poorer for the part I was required to play in helping to secure the lease on a house for Hen and her fellow Leeds students which left me wondering whether I might be better off investing in a property UP there. So I registered on a website and this is the only thing that has come through so far.....
Nomura bonus season is upon us so I probably shouldn’t be too disparaging. David Moor Estate Agents may have the last laugh.
21st April, 2011
Like clockwork, an incessant flow of gossip from the East, but this week’s snippet from Hen may come as a bit of a surprise.....whilst she is not yet demonstrating any substantial improvement in her use of punctuation, I am at least beginning to feel this GAP year malarkey could be of some use. It seems it is not just about floating down the Mekong perched on the inner tube of a lorry tyre drinking Laotian cocktails.
*** Postcard from Cambodia
ive seen some pretty horrible things these last couple of days, when we were in sihanoukville there were all these little beach girls selling bracelets and stuff on the beach they cant have been older than eleven anyway, on the last night of new year they all came out and were wearing practically nothing and dancing with all the prostitutes and the people at the bar had apparently given them drinks and so they were all absolutely smashed, so i was trying to look after this one girl who was escpecially bad and sephy was looking after another, and apparently sephy said to her little girl when they walked past a fat western man who was with a cambodian prostitute, \dont you ever go home with a man like that its disgusting/ and the girl she said it to was just like /why? its what we do/ it was just awful.... after they had gone i went and yelled at the bar for selling drinks to underage girls.
the next two things were on the way to pnhom penh we passed a terrible motorbike accident which looked pretty fatal, and then today we went to the killing fields and S-21 which has been one of the most horrific experiences of my entire life, i have never seen anything so awful, on the floor on some of the cells was blood, and there were rows and rows of photographs of the people who were kept there, and because i am into my photography i cant help looking intently at pictures and the peoples eyes in the photos made me nearly burst into tears, you can see the panic, the despair, the fear that they have no idea what they have done, what is going to happen to them and it is all just falling out of their eyes.. it was truly the most horrific place i have ever been to. there were children kept there younger than lottie, they would kill babies by smashing their heads against trees.
i felt sick and very very close to tears.
very depressing!
But as one person grows up, is there any hope for her father? This arrived yesterday from my wife.......do any of you get treated like this??
I think we should fix a date for me to come to London and help you buy some new clothes. Your chinos are all frayed at the bottom, and really not smart enough to wear to work any more. You need a couple of new suits and a new dinner jacket (Simpsons?) Thursdays are good for me, or Tuesdays, let me know, LOL xxx
If you sense I am feeling overly aware of the aging process this week it may be because of an unfortunate incident at Liverpool Street station last night when I was challenged by a ticket inspector who suspected me of using someone else’s railcard pass ( see attached photo ). Idiot. What a blinking cheek eh???
*** Postcard from Cambodia
ive seen some pretty horrible things these last couple of days, when we were in sihanoukville there were all these little beach girls selling bracelets and stuff on the beach they cant have been older than eleven anyway, on the last night of new year they all came out and were wearing practically nothing and dancing with all the prostitutes and the people at the bar had apparently given them drinks and so they were all absolutely smashed, so i was trying to look after this one girl who was escpecially bad and sephy was looking after another, and apparently sephy said to her little girl when they walked past a fat western man who was with a cambodian prostitute, \dont you ever go home with a man like that its disgusting/ and the girl she said it to was just like /why? its what we do/ it was just awful.... after they had gone i went and yelled at the bar for selling drinks to underage girls.
the next two things were on the way to pnhom penh we passed a terrible motorbike accident which looked pretty fatal, and then today we went to the killing fields and S-21 which has been one of the most horrific experiences of my entire life, i have never seen anything so awful, on the floor on some of the cells was blood, and there were rows and rows of photographs of the people who were kept there, and because i am into my photography i cant help looking intently at pictures and the peoples eyes in the photos made me nearly burst into tears, you can see the panic, the despair, the fear that they have no idea what they have done, what is going to happen to them and it is all just falling out of their eyes.. it was truly the most horrific place i have ever been to. there were children kept there younger than lottie, they would kill babies by smashing their heads against trees.
i felt sick and very very close to tears.
very depressing!
But as one person grows up, is there any hope for her father? This arrived yesterday from my wife.......do any of you get treated like this??
I think we should fix a date for me to come to London and help you buy some new clothes. Your chinos are all frayed at the bottom, and really not smart enough to wear to work any more. You need a couple of new suits and a new dinner jacket (Simpsons?) Thursdays are good for me, or Tuesdays, let me know, LOL xxx
If you sense I am feeling overly aware of the aging process this week it may be because of an unfortunate incident at Liverpool Street station last night when I was challenged by a ticket inspector who suspected me of using someone else’s railcard pass ( see attached photo ). Idiot. What a blinking cheek eh???
15th April, 2011
I received an intriguing email from one of my Japanese colleagues this week who had been told that I used to be an English teacher, asking about the use of definite and indefinite articles. Think I helped but can’t be sure. It got me thinking about languages though and of course I had lots of opportunities last week in Val ( dig me ) to exercise my command of the French. Arriving a little late for our lunch booking at Eidelweiss restaurant I still don’t know why it caused such merriment amongst the rest of my party when I excused ourselves by saying:
Pardon me, je parle pas Franski tres bien.
Je suis desolee. Nous sommes retards.
What on earth is wrong with that?
Mobile phones. Bane of my blinking life. I havn’t ranted about them for a while but this has been a trying month on that front. I finally succumbed and dispensed with my beloved iPhone switching to a Blackberry which has been a joyous, if expensive, experience. My phone bill, with Hen in Cambodia only partially to blame, spiralled out of control (£448 this month....u wot?!) but this was nothing compared to the frustrations of Bob’s phone saga last week. He lost his phone on the slopes of Val D’Isere. I sent a text pleading anyone who found it to return it. Lo and behold, just five minutes later an awfully nice sounding boy – turned out to be reading history at Nottingham – rang me. Hallelulia. Phone found, but it turned out he was staying in Tignes and his Turkish girl friend had suffered a suspected broken leg so he couldn’t get it to us immediately. A fairly convoluted series of arrangements the following day, which included me side stepping half way up a mountain to get to the rendezvous in time, eventually led to the exchange take place just above the Tommeuses chair lift. £20 – from Bob’s savings– was handed over by way of a thank you and phone and owner were gleefully reunited. No doubt what would have followed would have been a flurry of expensive texts between him and current flame, but instead he whizzed away, in celebration, with me and the boy from Nottingham watching on in horror, over a jump and fell onto an icy piste, smashing both his brand new sunglasses and his phone. It’s enough to make you weep.
Desk move over the weekend. Absolutely hate these things not least because I am going to be sitting right outside the headmasters office.
Pardon me, je parle pas Franski tres bien.
Je suis desolee. Nous sommes retards.
What on earth is wrong with that?
Mobile phones. Bane of my blinking life. I havn’t ranted about them for a while but this has been a trying month on that front. I finally succumbed and dispensed with my beloved iPhone switching to a Blackberry which has been a joyous, if expensive, experience. My phone bill, with Hen in Cambodia only partially to blame, spiralled out of control (£448 this month....u wot?!) but this was nothing compared to the frustrations of Bob’s phone saga last week. He lost his phone on the slopes of Val D’Isere. I sent a text pleading anyone who found it to return it. Lo and behold, just five minutes later an awfully nice sounding boy – turned out to be reading history at Nottingham – rang me. Hallelulia. Phone found, but it turned out he was staying in Tignes and his Turkish girl friend had suffered a suspected broken leg so he couldn’t get it to us immediately. A fairly convoluted series of arrangements the following day, which included me side stepping half way up a mountain to get to the rendezvous in time, eventually led to the exchange take place just above the Tommeuses chair lift. £20 – from Bob’s savings– was handed over by way of a thank you and phone and owner were gleefully reunited. No doubt what would have followed would have been a flurry of expensive texts between him and current flame, but instead he whizzed away, in celebration, with me and the boy from Nottingham watching on in horror, over a jump and fell onto an icy piste, smashing both his brand new sunglasses and his phone. It’s enough to make you weep.
Desk move over the weekend. Absolutely hate these things not least because I am going to be sitting right outside the headmasters office.
1st April, 2011
Great excitement. I am off skiing tomorrow. Val D’Isere....never been there before so any restaurant recommendations welcomed. I asked one of my colleagues for useful tips and he has suggested a chairlift which it is possible to jump off as it crests a ridge. I didn’t think I was that difficult a person to work with. So I will be away next week and maybe longer! In my absence please contact Jina Kim if you need anything - jina.kim@nomura.com
The break couldn’t come quickly enough really. I think it must have been all the energy I expended looking after my ELO client in Mumbai. So knackered that for the first time for as long as I can remember I didn’t play an April Fool’s trick on anyone unless you can count late last night not putting requisite £1 coin under my youngest daughters pillow, but taking the tooth she had left there.
It appears that Hen is having some technical difficulties which are compromising her commitment to maintain her GAP blog discipline. This weeks log of what she has been up to was confined to a single text message:
I’VE GOT MY NOSE PIERCED IT LOOKS AWESOME! It doesn’t even leave a mark cos i looked at em’s and there is no mark and she’s had hers for ages! I’m so hardcore it didn’t even hurt! Wooo xxxx
Do Rastafarians have a big thing about nose piercing? I didn’t think so particularly, but if anyone can shed some light on this for me and what I should be braced for next I would be grateful. Anyway, she’s now in Cambodia so who knows really. Anything could happen, and usually does.
The break couldn’t come quickly enough really. I think it must have been all the energy I expended looking after my ELO client in Mumbai. So knackered that for the first time for as long as I can remember I didn’t play an April Fool’s trick on anyone unless you can count late last night not putting requisite £1 coin under my youngest daughters pillow, but taking the tooth she had left there.
It appears that Hen is having some technical difficulties which are compromising her commitment to maintain her GAP blog discipline. This weeks log of what she has been up to was confined to a single text message:
I’VE GOT MY NOSE PIERCED IT LOOKS AWESOME! It doesn’t even leave a mark cos i looked at em’s and there is no mark and she’s had hers for ages! I’m so hardcore it didn’t even hurt! Wooo xxxx
Do Rastafarians have a big thing about nose piercing? I didn’t think so particularly, but if anyone can shed some light on this for me and what I should be braced for next I would be grateful. Anyway, she’s now in Cambodia so who knows really. Anything could happen, and usually does.
25th March, 2011
The other day I was talking to a client of mine up in Scotland who was bemoaning the lack of talented undergraduates who could write and showed a broad interest in their surroundings. It so happened that I had just met such a person and was duly very pleased when they subsequently asked to meet him. It turns out that it was less to do with their confidence in me as a judge of character and more that they had “googled” him and discovered a blog he had maintained during his GAP year when he had ridden the breadth of China on a motorbike. It was a fascinating journal full of interesting, pertinent and critical observations about China and, furthermore, it was written in impressively good English! It rendered his solid, but stereotypical CV pretty much superfluous.
So, my parting words to Hen as she left last Saturday for Bangkok on her GAP year travels was that if she did nothing else she must try to keep a Blog and that it would be invaluable for her future employment prospects. She seems to have taken my urgings on board. Here is the first instalment:
23 March 2011 at 02:00
hey there family!, you alright?? im having such an amazing time! I AM SO GAP YEAR!!! ive got a dreadlock!!! it looks sick. i havent taken very many pics yet really but when i have i'll put them up for ya. ! the first night i got here we had to take sophie to the hospital it was mega lolz cos she only just bruised her ankle but she thought she had broken it. i also have so much stuffin my hair like feathers and braids and all kinds of rasta things cos that what i am.. so raasta. lol. there are sooooooo many lady boys and pros*itutes everywhere! omg last night we manged to pursuade sophie to get a moustache henna on her face!!! its going to be there for 3 weeks!!!!! lololllllll
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
My daughter’s employment’s prospects aside I am feeling quite good about myself today. I broke my target of 1 h2 20 mins for the Crick although that is no big deal really I suppose. Staged at Rugby School this is the oldest organised cross country race in the world and if I had achieved my time in the race in 1869 I would have been beaten by a 17 year old boy called Bulpett. In addition I met the President of China Life today, Mr Yang Chao. A charming gentleman. Chatting to him before a meeting with an absolutely enormous long only institutional client it just happened to slip out that that I was Scottish. My, was he not impressed. “Oh” he said, “I admire Scottish people. They are like people from Shandong. Straight shooters.” He then proceeded to conduct the meeting virtually entirely in Mandarin, but I knew better!
So, my parting words to Hen as she left last Saturday for Bangkok on her GAP year travels was that if she did nothing else she must try to keep a Blog and that it would be invaluable for her future employment prospects. She seems to have taken my urgings on board. Here is the first instalment:
23 March 2011 at 02:00
hey there family!, you alright?? im having such an amazing time! I AM SO GAP YEAR!!! ive got a dreadlock!!! it looks sick. i havent taken very many pics yet really but when i have i'll put them up for ya. ! the first night i got here we had to take sophie to the hospital it was mega lolz cos she only just bruised her ankle but she thought she had broken it. i also have so much stuffin my hair like feathers and braids and all kinds of rasta things cos that what i am.. so raasta. lol. there are sooooooo many lady boys and pros*itutes everywhere! omg last night we manged to pursuade sophie to get a moustache henna on her face!!! its going to be there for 3 weeks!!!!! lololllllll
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
My daughter’s employment’s prospects aside I am feeling quite good about myself today. I broke my target of 1 h2 20 mins for the Crick although that is no big deal really I suppose. Staged at Rugby School this is the oldest organised cross country race in the world and if I had achieved my time in the race in 1869 I would have been beaten by a 17 year old boy called Bulpett. In addition I met the President of China Life today, Mr Yang Chao. A charming gentleman. Chatting to him before a meeting with an absolutely enormous long only institutional client it just happened to slip out that that I was Scottish. My, was he not impressed. “Oh” he said, “I admire Scottish people. They are like people from Shandong. Straight shooters.” He then proceeded to conduct the meeting virtually entirely in Mandarin, but I knew better!
18th March, 2011
This time last year I reported that I was heading up to Rugby to run The Crick, the oldest cross country race in the world apparently. It was more of a struggle than I had expected. 10 miles across stiles, boggy fields, railway embankments and uphill and into the wind the whole way! I set myself a target time of 1hr 20mins to get round but, as with my various attempts to beat the then world record for the 800 metres set by Georgette Lenoir in the 1922 Paris Olympics, I failed. But as Clive Woodward says, “Better never stops......” and so I am going to give it another go on Sunday.
Talking about dodgy catch phrases, whilst I may be challenged if asked to dissect a balance sheet, I do have a keen eye for corporate mission statements. You see some clangers in Asia, but rarely have I been so surprised than by the one on a slightly gnarled poster in the reassuringly shabby reception room of Godrej Consumer Product’s office on my visit to India last week. We had driven to the north end of the Mumbai into a kind of green belt and down a drive which led to the Godrej Group’s site, a large plot which seemed more like a plantation than the headquarters of one of India’s leading corporations. Nevertheless, despite the almost rural setting, the motto “ Having a goat is a state of happiness” seemed a little out of place especially for a company whose primary business is in household and personal care products. On closer inspection it may have been that the word was actually goal, but by then I was in stitches. It was almost as amusing as the moment a little earlier when my “huge, Global, long only” client fell down a water drainage ditch as he got out of the car on arriving at Godrej distracted by a signboard that proclaimed there had been no accidents on site since 10th January 2008.
Talking about dodgy catch phrases, whilst I may be challenged if asked to dissect a balance sheet, I do have a keen eye for corporate mission statements. You see some clangers in Asia, but rarely have I been so surprised than by the one on a slightly gnarled poster in the reassuringly shabby reception room of Godrej Consumer Product’s office on my visit to India last week. We had driven to the north end of the Mumbai into a kind of green belt and down a drive which led to the Godrej Group’s site, a large plot which seemed more like a plantation than the headquarters of one of India’s leading corporations. Nevertheless, despite the almost rural setting, the motto “ Having a goat is a state of happiness” seemed a little out of place especially for a company whose primary business is in household and personal care products. On closer inspection it may have been that the word was actually goal, but by then I was in stitches. It was almost as amusing as the moment a little earlier when my “huge, Global, long only” client fell down a water drainage ditch as he got out of the car on arriving at Godrej distracted by a signboard that proclaimed there had been no accidents on site since 10th January 2008.
18th February, 2011
So my back held up quite well to the week away with my wife in Wengen, but I might add the horse is now up for sale. As reported a week or so ago it has bucked me off once too often. Wow....how about that for a couple of sentences that could be misconstrued. Anyway, I have to get a large monkey off my back too. I have long been rude and scathing about Swiss wine (“life’s too short to drink this cr*p”) but it is my new passion. Enjoyed some absolutely delicious bottles last week and am now an expert. It is however virtually impossible to get hold of it outside of Switzerland. Consequently, despite exorbitant expense courtesy of sterling’s disastrous performance relative to the Swiss Franc, I am going back later in the year to participate in the Jungfrau marathon. The graph below may look like one of my stock recommendations, but it is in fact the race route profile. This is real mid-life crisis stuff albeit that my birthday earlier this week – you forgot eh?.....thanks anyway – was still the right side of the significant figure. I think you might be hearing of my preparations for the marathon in due course.
Whilst on the subject of the Alps I wonder if you remember my email about our classy Christmas Party which was held at the Turf Club? It is fair to say, and excuse the pun, that things have gone downhill since then. We had an offsite on Wednesday afternoon at which we racked our brains as to how we could possibly serve you all better. Having failed, unsurprisingly, to come up with anything substantive, we followed it up with a team spirit building dinner at an Austrian restaurant called the Tiroler Hut, located down a cellar, appropriately enough, off Westbourne Grove. Website worth a quick look tiroler hut ..omg.....it was good fun, but classy??? Not really. Featuring large was a funny old buffer playing pieces from The Sound of Music on a combination of cow bells, a saxophone and a clarinet. As I said, I had a jolly evening sitting next to my fine colleague Sven Krueger from our Frankfurt office who, interestingly, had never heard of The Sound of Music never mind seen the film. Very strange indeed.
Whilst on the subject of the Alps I wonder if you remember my email about our classy Christmas Party which was held at the Turf Club? It is fair to say, and excuse the pun, that things have gone downhill since then. We had an offsite on Wednesday afternoon at which we racked our brains as to how we could possibly serve you all better. Having failed, unsurprisingly, to come up with anything substantive, we followed it up with a team spirit building dinner at an Austrian restaurant called the Tiroler Hut, located down a cellar, appropriately enough, off Westbourne Grove. Website worth a quick look tiroler hut ..omg.....it was good fun, but classy??? Not really. Featuring large was a funny old buffer playing pieces from The Sound of Music on a combination of cow bells, a saxophone and a clarinet. As I said, I had a jolly evening sitting next to my fine colleague Sven Krueger from our Frankfurt office who, interestingly, had never heard of The Sound of Music never mind seen the film. Very strange indeed.
4th February, 2011
I sense I have been brow beating myself recently, and generally speaking this week is no exception. I have been somewhat under the weather actually having allowed my macho streak to get the better of me last Sunday afternoon when, out for a gentle family ride, I attempted to follow my son Bob over a ridiculously high fence, utterly verboten by Mrs S, but which had been tempting us both for some weeks now. Bob sailed it. My stupid horse whacked into the top shattering the wooden railing and I went head over heels landing on my back and hitting my head. It was an ignominious moment as I trudged up the field, somewhat dazed ( but not badly enough to prevent me wondering whether I would be able to get away without Sophie finding out ) to meet Bob coming the other way to fix the fence armed with a large hammer and some extra long nails. And so it was that the mantle of “top dog” in the Sandison household changed hands. Ha ha.....that’s what Bob thinks at least.
Things are not all bad. I am heading off to Wengen on Sunday for a few days skiing with Sophie. Come to think of it, she has also had her nose put somewhat out of joint this week too. I got home last night to find her rather disgruntled following a phone call from Hen who had rung home at around 6pm and the following conversation between her and Sophie ensued.....recounted verbatim:
“ Hi Mumma, can I speak to Daddy please.”
“ Nope Hen he’s on his way home from work.”
“ Oh, ok, don’t worry, I’ll get him on his mobile.”
“ I wouldn’t Hen he doesn’t like getting calls on the train.”
“ Yeah, all right....I’ll ring him when he’s in the car. Right , see you.”
“ Hang on Hen, what do you want to talk to Daddy about?”
“ Oh, you can’t help me. I’m cooking myself supper and I need to know how to do spaghetti.”
Spaghetti......for goodness sake. But anyway, go me.....stick that in your pipe and smoke it Bob.
On the subject of culinary expertise and in the absence of research I thought I would pad this missive our with a recipe that might be useful for your Chinese New Year celebrations. Being a nostalgic sort I might add that is pretty much the recipe I used, aged 14, the first time ever I cooked supper at home, Lapin a la Moutarde, the lapin having been despatched with a .410 at the bottom of my parents garden in Kirriemuir.
2 small rabbits, skinned
600ml chicken stock
150ml white wine
150ml double cream
3 tbsp mustard
1 tbsp grain mustard
1 tbsp olive oil
1 carrot
1 onion
2 celery stalks
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp chopped parsley
Things are not all bad. I am heading off to Wengen on Sunday for a few days skiing with Sophie. Come to think of it, she has also had her nose put somewhat out of joint this week too. I got home last night to find her rather disgruntled following a phone call from Hen who had rung home at around 6pm and the following conversation between her and Sophie ensued.....recounted verbatim:
“ Hi Mumma, can I speak to Daddy please.”
“ Nope Hen he’s on his way home from work.”
“ Oh, ok, don’t worry, I’ll get him on his mobile.”
“ I wouldn’t Hen he doesn’t like getting calls on the train.”
“ Yeah, all right....I’ll ring him when he’s in the car. Right , see you.”
“ Hang on Hen, what do you want to talk to Daddy about?”
“ Oh, you can’t help me. I’m cooking myself supper and I need to know how to do spaghetti.”
Spaghetti......for goodness sake. But anyway, go me.....stick that in your pipe and smoke it Bob.
On the subject of culinary expertise and in the absence of research I thought I would pad this missive our with a recipe that might be useful for your Chinese New Year celebrations. Being a nostalgic sort I might add that is pretty much the recipe I used, aged 14, the first time ever I cooked supper at home, Lapin a la Moutarde, the lapin having been despatched with a .410 at the bottom of my parents garden in Kirriemuir.
2 small rabbits, skinned
600ml chicken stock
150ml white wine
150ml double cream
3 tbsp mustard
1 tbsp grain mustard
1 tbsp olive oil
1 carrot
1 onion
2 celery stalks
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp chopped parsley
28th January, 2011
You might have been wondering where the impetus for the new me in 2011 has come from. In part it was because I felt the stars were aligned as we approach the Year of the Rabbit. But there is also bit of a story here. In search of some sort of an explanation for Bob’s latest dire school report – though I should tell you that despite the knife incident and insisting to his prospective housemaster that the student riots were justified he has been offered a place at Rugby - I have been trawling through my own old reports to see what I was like at 13 years old. Alas in no sense did it make for encouraging reading. In my final term at Clifton Hall School in Edinburgh my headmaster, and I thought he quite liked me, wrote the following valedictory scrawl:
“We must acknowledge that David is essentially idle.”
What a damn cheek eh?! Well I’m showing him up this year anyway – except he’s dead. I’m sure you have noticed how busy and proactive I have been. I have even signed up for a internal Learning and Performance course on Business Writing. See email exchange below:
_____________________________________________
From: Smith, Catherine (HR/UK) On Behalf Of Learning and Performance
Sent: 27 January 2011 16:46
To: Sandison, David (EQ/UK)
Subject: RE: Business Writing
Hi David
I have reserved you a place on this course, could you please ask your line manager to confirm that they approve your attendance.
Many thanks
Catherine
_____________________________________________
From: Sandison, David (EQ/UK)
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2011 04:47 PM
To: Learning and Performance; Ingram, Bruce (EQ/UK)
Subject: RE: Business Writing
Bruce pls can u approve. Wanna lern how to writ proper.
_____________________________________________
Another little confession of shame at the end of this cleansing month with one eye on the worrying news concerning “Madiba” and the other on students rioting all over the world.....it struck me that the only time I took part in any form of political activism at Leicester University was when the Trendy Lefties proposed that the Student Union Bar, named after Daniel Lambert, who in his time was the heaviest recorded human and died in 1809 at the age of 39 weighing 52 stone, should be rechristened the Mandela Bar. I fought this tooth and nail...unsuccessfully I am now glad to say.
My spell on the wagon draws to a close, although I fear this weekend is going to be a tester. Truth be told I’m a little worried at how easy it has been.....there must be something wrong with me.
“We must acknowledge that David is essentially idle.”
What a damn cheek eh?! Well I’m showing him up this year anyway – except he’s dead. I’m sure you have noticed how busy and proactive I have been. I have even signed up for a internal Learning and Performance course on Business Writing. See email exchange below:
_____________________________________________
From: Smith, Catherine (HR/UK) On Behalf Of Learning and Performance
Sent: 27 January 2011 16:46
To: Sandison, David (EQ/UK)
Subject: RE: Business Writing
Hi David
I have reserved you a place on this course, could you please ask your line manager to confirm that they approve your attendance.
Many thanks
Catherine
_____________________________________________
From: Sandison, David (EQ/UK)
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2011 04:47 PM
To: Learning and Performance; Ingram, Bruce (EQ/UK)
Subject: RE: Business Writing
Bruce pls can u approve. Wanna lern how to writ proper.
_____________________________________________
Another little confession of shame at the end of this cleansing month with one eye on the worrying news concerning “Madiba” and the other on students rioting all over the world.....it struck me that the only time I took part in any form of political activism at Leicester University was when the Trendy Lefties proposed that the Student Union Bar, named after Daniel Lambert, who in his time was the heaviest recorded human and died in 1809 at the age of 39 weighing 52 stone, should be rechristened the Mandela Bar. I fought this tooth and nail...unsuccessfully I am now glad to say.
My spell on the wagon draws to a close, although I fear this weekend is going to be a tester. Truth be told I’m a little worried at how easy it has been.....there must be something wrong with me.
21st January, 2011
When I wrote yesterday that I was taking a days’ holiday to do the school run I was playing my day down a little. I was indeed on a school run, but to Rugby taking Bob for an interview with his prospective housemaster. A colleague, in all seriousness, remarked to me that this must simply be a formality and that his place at the school was assured. You what?!! Nothing could be further from the truth. Longer term recipients of this email will appreciate that Bob’s elder siblings have not exactly enjoyed an unblemished record either in an academic or pastoral sense. It is not telling too many stories out of school so to speak to recall the fact that Hen once failed to turn up for the practical leg of her Drama GCSE opting instead to attend a polo practice session; got rusticated having been caught smoking on police CCTV....nope....don’t get me started on this tack. In any case it is hardly fair to blame them on the fact that Bob’s admission was no given. Hours of preparation and grooming, and £85 spent on a pair of new shoes in an emergency visit to a shop when we got to Rugby, had managed to get him looking just about presentable, but as we stood nervously in an austere, wooden floored study with the footsteps of the Housemaster announcing his imminent arrival there was a loud crash as something fell out of Bob’s pocket onto the floor. Thankfully the Housemaster, coming through the door at that very moment, presumed one of us had dropped our mobile phone. For my part I was rather proud at how skilfully and quickly I managed to stoop and retrieve a knife which, even by the demanding standards of Bob’s armoury, had to be described as substantial.
Talking about young boys, and OK I admit I am a bit of a name-dropper and never shy to let you know when I have been brushing shoulders with the rich and famous, who should I find myself sitting next to at lunch today, but Jonathan King, appropriately enough at a Chinese restaurant in Queensway.
Hurrah for Friday though I don’t mind telling you I am little nervous ahead of my first ever day cavorting over the Leicestershire countryside tomorrow. My back has barely recovered from the last time I was out on a horse. On on.......
Talking about young boys, and OK I admit I am a bit of a name-dropper and never shy to let you know when I have been brushing shoulders with the rich and famous, who should I find myself sitting next to at lunch today, but Jonathan King, appropriately enough at a Chinese restaurant in Queensway.
Hurrah for Friday though I don’t mind telling you I am little nervous ahead of my first ever day cavorting over the Leicestershire countryside tomorrow. My back has barely recovered from the last time I was out on a horse. On on.......
14th January, 2011
As I am sure you appreciate I like to bring you a varied fare in this Friday afternoon email of mine, albeit it normally revolves around Hen or Bob, but consequently I rarely know what it is I am going to serve up to you until I sit down to scribble something off. I was struggling today. Hen back at Leeds on radio silence – probably lost her phone again – and Twiggie the lurcher is off games so nothing much to report there. But then, click, an email arrived in response to one I had sent which to be honest I had forgotten about. Remember that photograph I sent towards the end of last year?
Fair to say it caused a degree of consternation not least at home, but my conscience was clear. What I was preoccupied with that evening, over dinner in Bangkok, was the most delicious T-bone steak (accompanied by a wonderful bottle of Barolo), pictured above. I subsequently sent the restaurant a request for the recipe which has only just arrived. Never let it be said I don’t look after you lot. I am very happy to share it with you. Print it off and raise a glass to me and Gianmaria when the BBQ season eventually returns:
Dear Mr ,David,
I highly appreciate your comments and apology for having missed your message.
The seasoning of our steak is most natural and simple.
Take 50ml of pure extra virgin olive oil, not over 11 months old, add a mixture of tyme, sage, rosemary and oregano (all fresh) marinate the herbs in the oil for 30 minutes.
Once the beef is cooked before cutting it, massage with a few spoon of the marinated oil applying some pressure on the barbecued meat in order to let the oil to penetrate the meat. ( the meat must be very hot just out of the fire)
as last add rock salt on the sliced meat (maldom salt preferably) to your taste . The salt MUST be added ONLY on the cooked finished meat and NEVER before.
Fresh herbs as above and optional shaved 24 months Parmesan cheese should decorate the plate along with some RUCOLA SALAD.....
I hope you can enjoy to prepare a very tasty steak at home. and I look forward to serve you again very soon.
Best regards
gianmaria zanotti
How delicious does that sound though I’m not sure I need to be reminded of things like this as I struggle my way through January. What I would give for a T-bone and a bottle off Italian red. For a brief moment yesterday I was feeling quite pleased with myself at how easily and quickly my month on the wagon was passing, but I had looked at my watch to see what date it was and misread the 3 for a 9. It was only the 13th January, not the 19th. What a pain. Sad how excited I get these days about the prospect of a Coca Cola at lunchtime. I have resisted temptation so far, despite having found myself involved in this year’s Burgundy En Primeur campaign helping a client to secure the offer of a precious case of Chambolle Musigny Gruenchers, Barthod 2009.
Fair to say it caused a degree of consternation not least at home, but my conscience was clear. What I was preoccupied with that evening, over dinner in Bangkok, was the most delicious T-bone steak (accompanied by a wonderful bottle of Barolo), pictured above. I subsequently sent the restaurant a request for the recipe which has only just arrived. Never let it be said I don’t look after you lot. I am very happy to share it with you. Print it off and raise a glass to me and Gianmaria when the BBQ season eventually returns:
Dear Mr ,David,
I highly appreciate your comments and apology for having missed your message.
The seasoning of our steak is most natural and simple.
Take 50ml of pure extra virgin olive oil, not over 11 months old, add a mixture of tyme, sage, rosemary and oregano (all fresh) marinate the herbs in the oil for 30 minutes.
Once the beef is cooked before cutting it, massage with a few spoon of the marinated oil applying some pressure on the barbecued meat in order to let the oil to penetrate the meat. ( the meat must be very hot just out of the fire)
as last add rock salt on the sliced meat (maldom salt preferably) to your taste . The salt MUST be added ONLY on the cooked finished meat and NEVER before.
Fresh herbs as above and optional shaved 24 months Parmesan cheese should decorate the plate along with some RUCOLA SALAD.....
I hope you can enjoy to prepare a very tasty steak at home. and I look forward to serve you again very soon.
Best regards
gianmaria zanotti
How delicious does that sound though I’m not sure I need to be reminded of things like this as I struggle my way through January. What I would give for a T-bone and a bottle off Italian red. For a brief moment yesterday I was feeling quite pleased with myself at how easily and quickly my month on the wagon was passing, but I had looked at my watch to see what date it was and misread the 3 for a 9. It was only the 13th January, not the 19th. What a pain. Sad how excited I get these days about the prospect of a Coca Cola at lunchtime. I have resisted temptation so far, despite having found myself involved in this year’s Burgundy En Primeur campaign helping a client to secure the offer of a precious case of Chambolle Musigny Gruenchers, Barthod 2009.
7th January, 2011
Remember me? Been a while. I left you sometime in mid December. Having had a busy time of it in Jakarta, Bangkok, Frankfurt, the Turf Club, an East End Karaoke bar and various other sojourns in the first half of the month I was somewhat behind with my Christmas shopping, but I had a brain wave on my one day off in the week before Christmas. I left Bob and Jimmy in Cambridge’s shiny new John Lewis department store with a couple of shopping baskets and, though I say it myself, a most generous budget to find presents for Sophie’s stocking while I went on a desperate search elsewhere in town for her main present. I returned some 40 minutes later having secured her a gift of three hours of treatment at a local beauty parlour expecting to find the stocking filling project completed by two enthusiastic and spendthrift kids. Alas I found my hopeless offspring had managed to put just two things into their baskets. Pathetic. A pad of post it stickers and a brown plastic bog-brush in the shape of a cat.
Remaining on the present theme Hen surpassed herself this year. “Dave” she told me on Christmas Eve, “I’m thinking I’m going to just give you a tenner this year. Hope that’s OK.” I expect my face told her what I thought of that plan and so I ended up getting a beanie hat from her.
Anyway, it was a good break and despite a slightly disconcerting resumption of my tendency to fall off horses, I should be refreshed and invigorated and raring to go but if I seem a little uninspired in the next few weeks it is because I have made the most fool-hardy resolution not to drink during January. I know most of you will feel little sympathy and indeed probably do the no-alcohol thing yourself on a regular basis, but it is a first for me and just three days into it – because my fast kicked off on the 4th – I am not finding it much fun at all. On top of which I have signed up to our desk competition to see who can lose the most weight between now and the end of Q1. 2011 has not been a bundle of laughs to date.
Remaining on the present theme Hen surpassed herself this year. “Dave” she told me on Christmas Eve, “I’m thinking I’m going to just give you a tenner this year. Hope that’s OK.” I expect my face told her what I thought of that plan and so I ended up getting a beanie hat from her.
Anyway, it was a good break and despite a slightly disconcerting resumption of my tendency to fall off horses, I should be refreshed and invigorated and raring to go but if I seem a little uninspired in the next few weeks it is because I have made the most fool-hardy resolution not to drink during January. I know most of you will feel little sympathy and indeed probably do the no-alcohol thing yourself on a regular basis, but it is a first for me and just three days into it – because my fast kicked off on the 4th – I am not finding it much fun at all. On top of which I have signed up to our desk competition to see who can lose the most weight between now and the end of Q1. 2011 has not been a bundle of laughs to date.
17th December, 2010
I negotiated my first trip to Germany ( that’s my 58th country ticked off ) this week and had a good time, sorry, I meant successful trip, the one frustration being failure to find the time for a veal chop at MutterErnst, a small bar/restaurant I was introduced briefly to just round the corner from our office. My sort of place. That, together with the fact that I was in London last night for our desk Christmas party has meant the only night I had at home this week coincided with a 16th birthday dinner party for my daughter Jimmy and 20 teenage friends who also ended up staying the night. Have yet to discover what horrors transpired after I got to bed at midnight. The fact is though that my absence means I have only managed to sneak a quick look at Bob’s latest school report but what I saw of it did not make for pretty reading. Fair to say that his attempt at humour in the accompanying personal statement the pupils are all required to write has fallen a little flat. In the section about what it was he was most keen to better in himself, in an almost illegible scrawl, he had scribbled “I must try to improve my handwriting.” Ho ho ho.....what a wag.
As for the Christmas party I would venture to suggest there are relatively few broking desks around the City who would choose the hallowed venue of the Turf Club for their seasonal festivities. This is one classy outfit that is looking after you. Followed an excellent dinner, delicious wine and couple of glasses of port, with a frame of snooker, yours truly cutting a difficult black into the centre pocket to steal an unlikely win against our head of sales trading who had claimed he was pretty much brought up in a snooker hall. And then it was off for a karaoke session. I’ve got to say I was quietly confident that I would pull off a Matt Cardle moment, but alas my rendition of Delilah was not one of my finest performances.
As it’s Christmas and food has been a repeated theme in this weeks paragraphs, although thwarted in Frankfurt I enjoyed a delicious T bone steak in Bangkok the other day. It was so good I even had a photograph taken. I leave you with that, if it gets through your firewall and, although I will be in for most of the Festive period as I shot my hand up when volunteers were called for to provide desk cover, I will take this opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Yup. Classy. That’s us.
As for the Christmas party I would venture to suggest there are relatively few broking desks around the City who would choose the hallowed venue of the Turf Club for their seasonal festivities. This is one classy outfit that is looking after you. Followed an excellent dinner, delicious wine and couple of glasses of port, with a frame of snooker, yours truly cutting a difficult black into the centre pocket to steal an unlikely win against our head of sales trading who had claimed he was pretty much brought up in a snooker hall. And then it was off for a karaoke session. I’ve got to say I was quietly confident that I would pull off a Matt Cardle moment, but alas my rendition of Delilah was not one of my finest performances.
As it’s Christmas and food has been a repeated theme in this weeks paragraphs, although thwarted in Frankfurt I enjoyed a delicious T bone steak in Bangkok the other day. It was so good I even had a photograph taken. I leave you with that, if it gets through your firewall and, although I will be in for most of the Festive period as I shot my hand up when volunteers were called for to provide desk cover, I will take this opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Yup. Classy. That’s us.
26th November, 2010
I frequently get asked if I invent the episodes I relate, which I promise you I do not, but occasionally people reading this rubbish do get the wrong end of the stick. After relating the other day the story about Bob’s mock Geography common entrance paper in which he had written that the capital of Russia was Roulette, a concerned client asked me why we sent our children to such a patently hopeless academic institution. Oh dear me no.....nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, the school featured in yesterdays Daily Telegraph. I quote:
Edward Tomanek, aged 7, began playing the piano aged 3 and then asked his parents, Lyudmilla, 34 , and Stuart, 46, who do not play themselves, to buy a violin. He studies on a scholarship at Kings College School in Cambridge. Practising for hours a day, he passed Grade 8 violin with a distinction aged 6, before achieving Grade 8 on the piano this year. His mother said “If he’s not playing then he’ll be composing, or get out his chemistry set. And he loves dipping into languages – old English, Latin, Greek.”
Although, according to my youngest daughter Lottie, he swears a lot, which is a slight let-down, I was bathed in a sense of reflected glory as I proudly strolled through the front gates of the school yesterday evening on my way to watch the Year 5 play in which Lottie was Peasant No.3 in Act II of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The description of her part should have alerted me, but there was disappointingly no sign of her for the first hour. However, when the interval mercifully arrived and I queued in the freezing cold outside the Art block waiting for a restorative glass of white wine and a sausage, the evening seemed to be brightening up judging by the sound of laughter as the people in front of me made their way along the corridor. The source of the amusement became horribly clear when one of Bob’s young friends standing in the queue behind me, tears practically rolling down his face, gestured me to look at the display of art on the wall. “Lottie did that one”, he managed to splutter.
“Happiness is a horse and a rich Daddy”.....You what? There was I thinking that with Hen having pretty much left the coop things were going to become a little more straightforward. Sadly not. If Lottie is misguided so was I. Talking of Hen, news from that other centre of academic excellence, Leeds, is that the course she is on is not exactly stretching her. She reported at the weekend that she was being kept busy, and late into the evening, tending to the pigs and crops on her virtual farm.
I am away next week. A hardship posting escorting a couple of clients round a series of company visits in Jakarta and Bangkok. I am embarrassed to say it will be my first trip to Indonesia since 1994 and I will also be returning to Bangkok for the first time since leaving Thailand where I lived from 1996 to 1998. And I have the cheek to call myself an Asian stock broker. Ridiculous. My comment earlier this week about never having used the MTR when I lived in HK went down quite badly with some of you, but I led a similarly spoilt existence in Thailand and one of the things I am most looking forward to is catching up with my old driver Sunna! Sad eh. Anyway, you know how I like to roll our my old trip reports. Here’s one from a visit I made to Indonesia in 1992. (Note that it took me a month between making the visit and putting pen to paper. No wonder I drove my then boss, David Brennan, mad.) It was a different world obviously. Indonesian deposit rates were 20%. Lending rates 25%. Non-performing loans at the state banks running at 20%+. And the country’s population has increased by 60 million since that visit! Interestingly enough though three of the companies I met then we will be seeing again on this trip. Nothing like keeping up to date with one’s portfolio holdings.
Edward Tomanek, aged 7, began playing the piano aged 3 and then asked his parents, Lyudmilla, 34 , and Stuart, 46, who do not play themselves, to buy a violin. He studies on a scholarship at Kings College School in Cambridge. Practising for hours a day, he passed Grade 8 violin with a distinction aged 6, before achieving Grade 8 on the piano this year. His mother said “If he’s not playing then he’ll be composing, or get out his chemistry set. And he loves dipping into languages – old English, Latin, Greek.”
Although, according to my youngest daughter Lottie, he swears a lot, which is a slight let-down, I was bathed in a sense of reflected glory as I proudly strolled through the front gates of the school yesterday evening on my way to watch the Year 5 play in which Lottie was Peasant No.3 in Act II of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The description of her part should have alerted me, but there was disappointingly no sign of her for the first hour. However, when the interval mercifully arrived and I queued in the freezing cold outside the Art block waiting for a restorative glass of white wine and a sausage, the evening seemed to be brightening up judging by the sound of laughter as the people in front of me made their way along the corridor. The source of the amusement became horribly clear when one of Bob’s young friends standing in the queue behind me, tears practically rolling down his face, gestured me to look at the display of art on the wall. “Lottie did that one”, he managed to splutter.
“Happiness is a horse and a rich Daddy”.....You what? There was I thinking that with Hen having pretty much left the coop things were going to become a little more straightforward. Sadly not. If Lottie is misguided so was I. Talking of Hen, news from that other centre of academic excellence, Leeds, is that the course she is on is not exactly stretching her. She reported at the weekend that she was being kept busy, and late into the evening, tending to the pigs and crops on her virtual farm.
I am away next week. A hardship posting escorting a couple of clients round a series of company visits in Jakarta and Bangkok. I am embarrassed to say it will be my first trip to Indonesia since 1994 and I will also be returning to Bangkok for the first time since leaving Thailand where I lived from 1996 to 1998. And I have the cheek to call myself an Asian stock broker. Ridiculous. My comment earlier this week about never having used the MTR when I lived in HK went down quite badly with some of you, but I led a similarly spoilt existence in Thailand and one of the things I am most looking forward to is catching up with my old driver Sunna! Sad eh. Anyway, you know how I like to roll our my old trip reports. Here’s one from a visit I made to Indonesia in 1992. (Note that it took me a month between making the visit and putting pen to paper. No wonder I drove my then boss, David Brennan, mad.) It was a different world obviously. Indonesian deposit rates were 20%. Lending rates 25%. Non-performing loans at the state banks running at 20%+. And the country’s population has increased by 60 million since that visit! Interestingly enough though three of the companies I met then we will be seeing again on this trip. Nothing like keeping up to date with one’s portfolio holdings.
12th November, 2010
Although I ended up in ended up in Denmark the other day when trying to take my wife on a surprise visit to her relatives in Sweden ( note to self : Stockholm, not Copenhagen, is the capital of Sweden ) geography has always been one of my strong points. So it was particularly disheartening to hear the following story of my son Bob in the car back from school discussing with his friend Ed, ( David Cameron’s godson as it happens ) the mock Common Entrance geography exam they had taken that afternoon.
“Ed, what is the capital of Russia by the way?”
“Don’t know Bob, sorry”
“Oh well, I wrote Roulette. Not sure it’s right but it’s the only Russian word I know.”
WRONG. In so many ways. And you can be virtually certain that he failed to spell Roulette correctly. To think that only this week someone was asking me for my views on the Cambridge school Bob attends and I used the word “academic”.
Despair. In addition I have had to do some pretty undignified begging this week to try to make sure absolutely all the companies attending our Shinka Forum here in London next week – what? I hadn’t told you about this? – have a good full schedule. I suppose I might have suggested there would be a reward for those stepping up to the plate and taking meetings with the more esoteric offerings, but really I meant that if we want a broad range of companies to continue to make the trip to the UK it’s in all our interests to give them each an effusive welcome. It is not always possible to predict how one’s email message will be received. What on earth did the person who sent this response think I was up to?
Nervous overtones of the pact between Faust and Mephistopheles here – nonetheless I am happy to meet with *************. Is this a 1on1?
PS. Talking of corporates......Christmas......can you believe my wife rang me today to ask if I would be happy to be given two teak benches for the garden as my Christmas present. To be honest, I would have been outraged if not for the fact that Sophie’s Christmas stocking has begun to fill up already. For escorting a corporate to a client meeting I was handed a parcel, beautifully wrapped in the company colours, containing, I was told, a lovely, natural dyed, allergy free, place mat. No doubt with the corporate logo inscribed.
“Ed, what is the capital of Russia by the way?”
“Don’t know Bob, sorry”
“Oh well, I wrote Roulette. Not sure it’s right but it’s the only Russian word I know.”
WRONG. In so many ways. And you can be virtually certain that he failed to spell Roulette correctly. To think that only this week someone was asking me for my views on the Cambridge school Bob attends and I used the word “academic”.
Despair. In addition I have had to do some pretty undignified begging this week to try to make sure absolutely all the companies attending our Shinka Forum here in London next week – what? I hadn’t told you about this? – have a good full schedule. I suppose I might have suggested there would be a reward for those stepping up to the plate and taking meetings with the more esoteric offerings, but really I meant that if we want a broad range of companies to continue to make the trip to the UK it’s in all our interests to give them each an effusive welcome. It is not always possible to predict how one’s email message will be received. What on earth did the person who sent this response think I was up to?
Nervous overtones of the pact between Faust and Mephistopheles here – nonetheless I am happy to meet with *************. Is this a 1on1?
PS. Talking of corporates......Christmas......can you believe my wife rang me today to ask if I would be happy to be given two teak benches for the garden as my Christmas present. To be honest, I would have been outraged if not for the fact that Sophie’s Christmas stocking has begun to fill up already. For escorting a corporate to a client meeting I was handed a parcel, beautifully wrapped in the company colours, containing, I was told, a lovely, natural dyed, allergy free, place mat. No doubt with the corporate logo inscribed.
5th November, 2010
I do have a tendency to hide my light under a bushel as you might have gathered, but there is one highlight of my sporting career that I am actually quite proud of and will probably surprise you in the telling. In 1987 I made an appearance on the bench as reserve fullback for London Scottish 1st XV in an away match against another 1st division side, Nottingham. I suspect my selection was partially due to a lack of regular team members prepared to make the trip to Nottingham that weekend and it was quite a relief not to get on the field of play since amongst the opposition team I would have found myself confronted by the likes of Brian Moore and Chris Oti, a well built winger of prodigious pace ( thank you Wikipedia ) who went on to represent England on 13 occasions. But anyway, with such a ripe history of sporting success behind me, when on Wednesday afternoon I used up 2% of my annual holiday entitlement to head off to Cambridge to watch my son and his other as yet winless team mates take on another local prep school, I suppose I could be accused of not quite being in the right frame of mind. I arrived early enough to give them some encouraging words and a bit of advice and then stood on the touchline watching their warm up routine which seemed mainly to involve taking practice kicks at and dispersing piles of leaves that had been neatly swept together by the school groundsman. Suffice to say Kings suffered yet another trouncing and Bob wandered aimlessly about the pitch with his mind clearly occupied by thoughts of squirrels and such like to be pursued at the weekend. The only diversion from the torpor into which I had sunk on that dreary, damp touchline, was a buzz on my phone signalling that a text message had arrived from Hen:
“I think I might enjoy being Amish can you arrange that for me ? X”
I digress. Talking of sport I was heartened to find Bob in front of the television last weekend. It is actually quite a rare occurance and I was even more surprised when he shouted through to me that was watching a programme called Extreme Sports. My interest pricked I wandered into the room to discover the particular event he was engrossed in involved a relay team of sprinting midgets in a 400 metre challenge against a camel.
Must tell you my life has been transformed by the fact that I no longer have to drive 70 miles back and forward from home to the office. This week I have been transfixed on the way home watching The Inbetweeners on my iPad. The most astonishing programme I have seen for long time. Well since Skins. My 15 year old daughter recommended it to me and at least I now know I don’t have to teach her anything about what preoccupies the male mind...at that age.
Bonfire night. Normally I would go on a rant about how much I hate the wastefulness and the oooohing and aaaahing, but actually a firework party last weekend was one of the highlights of the year. Our generous host, Mr PDV, a very senior Asian stockbroker in a previous life, provided huge entertainment by taking on the task of lighting the fireworks himself and began the proceedings with the most enormous rocket which the muppet stuck directly into the ground rather than placing it carefully into a launching pipe. Needless to say the firework blew to bits pretty much exactly where he had lit it. Happily he emerged a little mud on the face but other wise unscathed, a very lucky boy!
“I think I might enjoy being Amish can you arrange that for me ? X”
I digress. Talking of sport I was heartened to find Bob in front of the television last weekend. It is actually quite a rare occurance and I was even more surprised when he shouted through to me that was watching a programme called Extreme Sports. My interest pricked I wandered into the room to discover the particular event he was engrossed in involved a relay team of sprinting midgets in a 400 metre challenge against a camel.
Must tell you my life has been transformed by the fact that I no longer have to drive 70 miles back and forward from home to the office. This week I have been transfixed on the way home watching The Inbetweeners on my iPad. The most astonishing programme I have seen for long time. Well since Skins. My 15 year old daughter recommended it to me and at least I now know I don’t have to teach her anything about what preoccupies the male mind...at that age.
Bonfire night. Normally I would go on a rant about how much I hate the wastefulness and the oooohing and aaaahing, but actually a firework party last weekend was one of the highlights of the year. Our generous host, Mr PDV, a very senior Asian stockbroker in a previous life, provided huge entertainment by taking on the task of lighting the fireworks himself and began the proceedings with the most enormous rocket which the muppet stuck directly into the ground rather than placing it carefully into a launching pipe. Needless to say the firework blew to bits pretty much exactly where he had lit it. Happily he emerged a little mud on the face but other wise unscathed, a very lucky boy!
29th October, 2010
As I chewed my way nervously though the main course (“roasted fillet of halibut on a bed of braised lentils”) of an otherwise faultless lunch in our brand new client dining rooms on the 11th Floor of One Angel Lane – Hen, with her new found interest in food has warned me ( ask if you dare ) what can happen when you eat lentils – I should have been hanging on Mr Darby’s every word, but I had spent all day yesterday with him in Edinburgh which was a privilege of course and we even managed to share a nice bottle of Puligny Montrachet at one point. Anyway, the other disconcerting aspect of lunch was that it slowly dawned on me that I had even less than usual to tell you about this Friday. I suspect this is mainly because it has been a frantic week at work and despite the fact that it was half term which normally results in at least a couple of stories. I mentioned last week that it was Bob’s birthday and predictably he was thrilled with the present from his imaginative god-father, a video camera that can be fixed to one’s skiing helmet. I have seen the thank you letter he has written ( pretty well brought up eh! ) and a sentence leapt out. “I am thinking of strapping it on to my lurcher Twiggie and get a film of her chasing a hare.” What did I tell you? Snuff videos.
Hen was back briefly before the allure of Leeds proved too great. Not before we had a classic Hen moment when she grabbed a pair of Sophie’s broken glasses complaining that her eye sight was troubling her, but mostly concerned whether she looked good in specs. Naturally we said they suited her and she, unsurprisingly, said that the glasses improved her sight. She may need help with her eyesight now since she ended up poking herself in the eye when we told her the glasses had no lenses in them.
I know....lame. Almost as lame as what I’m off to this evening....mouse racing. You’ve got to be joking.
Hen was back briefly before the allure of Leeds proved too great. Not before we had a classic Hen moment when she grabbed a pair of Sophie’s broken glasses complaining that her eye sight was troubling her, but mostly concerned whether she looked good in specs. Naturally we said they suited her and she, unsurprisingly, said that the glasses improved her sight. She may need help with her eyesight now since she ended up poking herself in the eye when we told her the glasses had no lenses in them.
I know....lame. Almost as lame as what I’m off to this evening....mouse racing. You’ve got to be joking.
15th October, 2010
Early one and brief, as I am working from home today which is proving to be something of a limiting factor. I am having all sorts of technical problems which are partly related to my horrid MacBook Pro, but also to the fact that Humphrey, miniature smooth haired dachshund, insists on jumping up onto my lap trying to comfort me as I struggle with emails and curse my computer.
It was our client party in London last night. Fun, though sadly my journey home late last night was rather more mundane than the last time I returned from a similar event. Would you believe it when I tell you I was the runaway winner of an internal competition and awarded with an email circulated to the whole firm with my name in bold and a picture of a trophy as the sales person with the most accepted invitations. Not for nothing am I known as Dave the Rave. I was very proud of this achievement, as you would expect, and immediately forwarded the email to my wife as evidence of the valued job I have been doing. Rather hurtfully she seemed to find this amusing. And then a succession of colleagues walked past my desk hissing spitefully at me. I suppose we all find fame and success hard to deal with. I should add it is possible that I had more than my fair share of no-shows on the evening, which is most unfortunate, and I will have some explaining to do to the party apparatus no doubt.
What do I put my success down to you may ask? Well as I have alluded to above I am a bit of a party animal, but even I was surprised so many of you decided to come along. All became clear earlier this week when I discovered I had been “fraped”. It is a concept your teenage children would understand. One of my teenage children was back down from Leeds College of Art the other day for the weekend and it transpires she managed to hack onto my Facebook account via my iPad (pretty cool me eh?!) and updated my status (technical term) to read the following:
David Sandison Is single and ready to mingle. Feel free to call anytime, someone call the woop doctor WOOP WOOP David Sandison is on the loose rude boi xxxxxxxx
That girl is a nightmare.
Off to Scotland for the weekend with Bob champing at the bit and stags on his mind. See ya.
It was our client party in London last night. Fun, though sadly my journey home late last night was rather more mundane than the last time I returned from a similar event. Would you believe it when I tell you I was the runaway winner of an internal competition and awarded with an email circulated to the whole firm with my name in bold and a picture of a trophy as the sales person with the most accepted invitations. Not for nothing am I known as Dave the Rave. I was very proud of this achievement, as you would expect, and immediately forwarded the email to my wife as evidence of the valued job I have been doing. Rather hurtfully she seemed to find this amusing. And then a succession of colleagues walked past my desk hissing spitefully at me. I suppose we all find fame and success hard to deal with. I should add it is possible that I had more than my fair share of no-shows on the evening, which is most unfortunate, and I will have some explaining to do to the party apparatus no doubt.
What do I put my success down to you may ask? Well as I have alluded to above I am a bit of a party animal, but even I was surprised so many of you decided to come along. All became clear earlier this week when I discovered I had been “fraped”. It is a concept your teenage children would understand. One of my teenage children was back down from Leeds College of Art the other day for the weekend and it transpires she managed to hack onto my Facebook account via my iPad (pretty cool me eh?!) and updated my status (technical term) to read the following:
David Sandison Is single and ready to mingle. Feel free to call anytime, someone call the woop doctor WOOP WOOP David Sandison is on the loose rude boi xxxxxxxx
That girl is a nightmare.
Off to Scotland for the weekend with Bob champing at the bit and stags on his mind. See ya.
8th October, 2010
Despite the fact that we ended on a high note with the Barclays placing ( see below ) this week was a bit of an anti-climax on a personal level as I had been looking forward very much to visiting Frankfurt, which I had been due to do on Tuesday. The excitement was partially because my wife, Sophie nee Englehardt, tells me Germany is the new cool and happening place, but principally because it would have been my first ever visit and therefore brought the total number of countries I have been to to 58. Come on, don’t tell me you don’t know how many you’ve visited.....I have to admit if you see me scribbling furiously when I’m sitting in an analyst meeting with you, especially late in the afternoon, there’s a fair chance I am scribbling down names of countries and totting them up just on the off chance I’ve missed one out. If you think that’s awful, when I was at ING Barings I took to teaching myself Italian during client meetings whilst marketing our global strategy product – excellent and riveting though the research itself was I should add. Anyway, planning my trip, I decided against flying Ryanair which, although it takes you to a “Frankfurt” airport which is nearer France than the city itself, would have been a lot more convenient for me, opting instead for the reliability of Lufthansa. I’ve always had a soft spot for Lufthansa since playing golf with a German friend of mine on a course next to Bangkok International Airport. Fair to say there had been a certain amount of competitive and nationalistic banter throughout the round, but my friend had the last word when, as he stood over a crucial putt on the 18th green, the peace was disturbed by the roar of 747 thundering overhead. He briefly looked up and then at his watch. “Lufthansa”, he said, “Right on time” and stroked the ball into the middle of the hole. Well that was then. As far as I’m concerned now Lufthansa sucks. My plane eventually left three hours late by which time I had given up and gone home in a huff.
Probably will not be in on Monday as I have bought 6 tickets in the Euro-millions lottery and am very confident of winning the Euro112 million jack-pot.
Probably will not be in on Monday as I have bought 6 tickets in the Euro-millions lottery and am very confident of winning the Euro112 million jack-pot.
1st October, 2010
So, this was the week during which I marked a significant anniversary of my career in the City, (25 years to the day on which I joined Barings) with a restrained lunch at my favourite restaurant in the company of five of my fellow graduate trainees who started at Barings on the same day as me. I had asked each to bring a bit of Baring memorabilia. Someone, besides myself, brought their contract letter and it was most irritating to find his starting salary had been £250 more than mine. Another brought a Dunlop 65 Barings golf ball (genius) and someone else a Baring notepad and a card with the home telephone numbers of the corporate finance department dated October 1985. Emboldened by the second or third glass of wine I decided to ring the number of universally the most unpopular director, who had made our lives miserable during sojourns with his team, just to say hi. Luckily he didn’t answer the phone, but the voice on his answering machine message was definitely his! Hey ho. It’s a small world. Sitting at the next door table was a lady who had been in the BIM analyst team when we joined and in another strange coincidence, one of my lunch companions related a story that back in 1989, after a particularly big dinner, he had accidently climbed into bed with a gorgeous girl who was the wife of the Bear Stearns broker who had invited him up to the Midlands for a weekend’s pheasant shooting. My friend insists he thought he was getting into a large double bed that he had been allocated to share with a male Italian client of the said broker. The mind boggles. Client entertainment is so mundane these days. Anyway it transpires that the same lady, since re-married, is coming to dinner with us next Saturday! Yee haa!!
24th September, 2010
Bit of a truncated week for me although no less wearing for that. At 7.00am on Tuesday morning, whilst most of you lucky boys and girls on the buy side were rolling out of bed and heading down to breakfast, I was standing on the 1st tee of the Old Course at St. Andrews all set to compete over 18 holes in the Autumn Meeting Medal. I know a very few people who do find golf boring so if you are one of those skip on. Truth is I had a bit of a traumatic time. I hadn’t competed in a Medal at St Andrews for almost a decade and never before in the Autumn Meeting. After the formal handshakes, exchanging of cards and a loudspeaker announcement introducing our threesome onto the tee, my two partners drilled their drives 280 yards nervelessly down the centre of the fairway. I, however, hoiked my effort high and ugly ending up on the road which crosses the fairways really not very far down the hole. My 4 iron, played off the tarmac, missed going into the Swilken Burn by a whisker. 9 iron onto the green and two putts secured an improbable bogey. As we headed to the second and made to write down each others scores I discovered I had lost my partners card. Really, not very impressive. Triple bogey ensued. A scrambled bogey on the third. Then on the fourth I put my drive, and a provisional shot into the gorse on the right, failed to find either ball and that was that. A nil return, the end of my Medal challenge and an ignominious half an hour indeed.
Just in case you are disappointed that my scintillating golf story has come to an end I should add that I am off to St Andrews again next week for another crack at the Old Course so with a bit of luck there will be happier tales next Friday. No rest for the wicked. Back in the office on Wednesday. Hey, don’t give me a hard time about this. I have to make the most of it at the moment as I have just been diagnosed with suspected Dupuytrens Contracture and whilst I am proud to have something in common with Maggie Thatcher sorting this thing out is going to see me off games for a while.
I suppose, its a reminder, as if I needed one, of the ageing process. Talking of which, sad to say, for the second weekend in a row, I am off to a 50th birthday party this evening....... Nope. I can’t repeat what I added over lunch. Just wouldn’t be right.
Just in case you are disappointed that my scintillating golf story has come to an end I should add that I am off to St Andrews again next week for another crack at the Old Course so with a bit of luck there will be happier tales next Friday. No rest for the wicked. Back in the office on Wednesday. Hey, don’t give me a hard time about this. I have to make the most of it at the moment as I have just been diagnosed with suspected Dupuytrens Contracture and whilst I am proud to have something in common with Maggie Thatcher sorting this thing out is going to see me off games for a while.
I suppose, its a reminder, as if I needed one, of the ageing process. Talking of which, sad to say, for the second weekend in a row, I am off to a 50th birthday party this evening....... Nope. I can’t repeat what I added over lunch. Just wouldn’t be right.
17th September, 2010
Try as they might, my colleagues were simply unable to keep looks jointly of amazement and sympathy off their faces when I told them yesterday afternoon that I was off to a dinner, generously provided by a friend to celebrate his 25 years in the City – all of which were spent at the same firm. I am afraid I have to admit I share the same anniversary in a couple of weeks. But since I have been through just a few more companies than he has and have spent the last quarter of a century much less profitably I will mark the occasion in slightly more subdued fashion.
It is fair to say I was not feeling my best this morning which, funnily enough, is often the case when I spend any time with this particular person. These same colleagues of mine were perfectly sympathetic this morning, but not amazed. They have seen it before. I can’t recall if I told you about our offsite to Meribel shortly after I joined this ship. It was not pretty. The good news is that, having spent a chunk of this morning lying comatose on a bench besides the Thames, I managed a wander up to Leadenhall Market as I had to get a present for a friend whose 50th birthday party we are going to tomorrow (aaaaaaagh!) . That done I found myself sufficiently restored and unable to resist buying a brace of grouse for supper tonight which means only one thing. Cos D’Estournel ’96. I’m back.
On the subject of dinner the situation in Leeds has reached a point where I have had to intervene. Here is how Hen described preparing supper which she “enjoyed” this week. “Using my steaming pan I placed some beans in the top compartment. Underneath I boiled rice which steams the beans and also cooks the egg, which I have placed (still in its shell) on the bed of rice.” Where did that one come from? I have now undertaken to send her one recipe per week and if any of you have any bright ideas kindly let me know.
We were told to be slightly wary today of an animal rights demonstration outside our office. Why they bother poor old Nomura I do not know. If they had any sense they would be picketing outside our house. Not this weekend though. Bob is away at a rugby training camp in Lymington ( of all places?) so the local wildlife has a couple of days respite, although if I was a New Forest pony I would watch out..
Oh by the way, as you know I am quite fixated about Leeds and the challenge it is posing to Cambridge as a centre of academic excellence. And apparently there are cultural delights which you too could experience if only you manage to grapple with the tricky little poser I received from East Coast Rail the other day.
This November, the 24th Leeds International Film Festival (LIFF) takes place. Showcasing long and short features from around the globe, exclusive premieres, previews, documentaries and more, the LIFF is now one of the UK’s biggest movie events – and we’re giving away a pair of VIP passes to two lucky film-lovers!
Enjoy all this with the VIP pass:
• Access to every one of the hundreds of film screenings
• Exclusive invitations to special shows
• Advance programme announcements
• A complimentary official event catalogue
To have a chance of winning, just answer this simple question:
For how many years has the Leeds International Film Festival been running?
A. 14
B. 24
C. 34
Enter now hurry competition closes Sunday 3 October 2010
It is fair to say I was not feeling my best this morning which, funnily enough, is often the case when I spend any time with this particular person. These same colleagues of mine were perfectly sympathetic this morning, but not amazed. They have seen it before. I can’t recall if I told you about our offsite to Meribel shortly after I joined this ship. It was not pretty. The good news is that, having spent a chunk of this morning lying comatose on a bench besides the Thames, I managed a wander up to Leadenhall Market as I had to get a present for a friend whose 50th birthday party we are going to tomorrow (aaaaaaagh!) . That done I found myself sufficiently restored and unable to resist buying a brace of grouse for supper tonight which means only one thing. Cos D’Estournel ’96. I’m back.
On the subject of dinner the situation in Leeds has reached a point where I have had to intervene. Here is how Hen described preparing supper which she “enjoyed” this week. “Using my steaming pan I placed some beans in the top compartment. Underneath I boiled rice which steams the beans and also cooks the egg, which I have placed (still in its shell) on the bed of rice.” Where did that one come from? I have now undertaken to send her one recipe per week and if any of you have any bright ideas kindly let me know.
We were told to be slightly wary today of an animal rights demonstration outside our office. Why they bother poor old Nomura I do not know. If they had any sense they would be picketing outside our house. Not this weekend though. Bob is away at a rugby training camp in Lymington ( of all places?) so the local wildlife has a couple of days respite, although if I was a New Forest pony I would watch out..
Oh by the way, as you know I am quite fixated about Leeds and the challenge it is posing to Cambridge as a centre of academic excellence. And apparently there are cultural delights which you too could experience if only you manage to grapple with the tricky little poser I received from East Coast Rail the other day.
This November, the 24th Leeds International Film Festival (LIFF) takes place. Showcasing long and short features from around the globe, exclusive premieres, previews, documentaries and more, the LIFF is now one of the UK’s biggest movie events – and we’re giving away a pair of VIP passes to two lucky film-lovers!
Enjoy all this with the VIP pass:
• Access to every one of the hundreds of film screenings
• Exclusive invitations to special shows
• Advance programme announcements
• A complimentary official event catalogue
To have a chance of winning, just answer this simple question:
For how many years has the Leeds International Film Festival been running?
A. 14
B. 24
C. 34
Enter now hurry competition closes Sunday 3 October 2010
10th September, 2010
I had the pleasure of sharing a couple of bottles of rose over lunch with a client earlier this week ( I needed them after being bollocked by another for arriving late for a meeting earlier in the day ) and sagely, as a parent of experience, offering advice on their son’s University application. And just this morning a colleague asked me for a copy of Hen’s personal statement which secured her a place at one of Europe’s leading academic institutions. The point is it made me think how fortunate I am to have such a dedicated and focussed eldest child. So how is she faring at Leeds College of Art you may well ask? Well a series of conversations over lunch today also made me ponder the very question although I got there in the most circuitous of ways. During a broad discussion I revealed that I had read History AND Economic History at university ( not telling you which one ) and the only thing I remember of my three year course was that JF Glidden invented barbed wire in 1874. Apropos useless bits of information my lunch companion proffered his little nugget, that the can opener was invented some ten years after the tin can. So here’s the thing. Hen is living in a pokey little self catering flat with a window barely twenty yards from the A58(M) and, being self catering, has to cook for herself. She ran into an early problem with tins of sweetcorn which she was attempting to incorporate into an elaborate recipe involving toast, so rang home, on two separate occasions, complaining that her can opener wasn’t working. We suspected that she was trying to open it on the top when she should have been slicing it along the side, but our suggestions did not seem to help. The solution, it transpired, but it took one of her flat mates to point it out to her, was far simpler. The cans of sweet corn were the ring pull variety. How have I gone so wrong? Briefly, ephemerally even, I had flirted with the idea we actually had a genius on our hands.
Very excited. So looking forward to my journey home and an hour on the train. Rather than as per usual ploughing through a mountain of Nomura research I have loaded Life of Brian on MY BRAND NEW iPad. Go me. “He’s not the Messiah. He’s a very naughty boy.”
Very excited. So looking forward to my journey home and an hour on the train. Rather than as per usual ploughing through a mountain of Nomura research I have loaded Life of Brian on MY BRAND NEW iPad. Go me. “He’s not the Messiah. He’s a very naughty boy.”
3rd September, 2010
Look, ( always wanted to start a paragraph with that word ), it has not been an easy return to work for me. I have bored you already on the subject of my trip down the doorstep of my parents house which has left me limping for a fortnight. I have also had to contend with the fact that I am now dependent upon the services of First Capital Connect for my journey to and from work. Whether or not this is preferable to the miles I did driving up and down the M11, well the jury is still out. The fact that someone felt it necessary last night to pull the Communication Cord ( which is a contradiction in terms if ever I heard one ) bringing the train to an immediate halt literally five yards from the station platform in Cambridge where were stranded for at least 5 minutes, has not helped my equilibrium.
Furthermore, my week in Scotland was not, as you may have gathered, plain sailing. Besides my trip down the doorstep, I failed in my quest to win back the Big Stick in the family golf competition. I didn’t manage to complete the 500 piece jigsaw of an Alpine castle despite being laid up with a sore leg and pouring rain. Indeed, everything conspired against me last week come to think of it. I managed to drag myself up a hill at the top of Glen Clova on a big family walk, pretty much the sole purpose of which, as far as Bob and his boy-cousins were concerned, was to set Twiggie, the lurcher, after whatever prey might appear. I appreciate this is a sensitive subject so read no further if you are at all the queasy sort, but needless to say having walked for hours and seen absolutely nothing, it was typical of my luck these days that a hare got up less than five minutes from the end of the walk and was easily caught and despatched by Twiggie to the all too apparent delight of the boys, but right in front, barely twenty yards, of a young couple and their two small daughters. Why do these things happen to me? Why?
PS Off to collect newly crowned genius eldest child from the railway station at Cambridge. Caio.
Furthermore, my week in Scotland was not, as you may have gathered, plain sailing. Besides my trip down the doorstep, I failed in my quest to win back the Big Stick in the family golf competition. I didn’t manage to complete the 500 piece jigsaw of an Alpine castle despite being laid up with a sore leg and pouring rain. Indeed, everything conspired against me last week come to think of it. I managed to drag myself up a hill at the top of Glen Clova on a big family walk, pretty much the sole purpose of which, as far as Bob and his boy-cousins were concerned, was to set Twiggie, the lurcher, after whatever prey might appear. I appreciate this is a sensitive subject so read no further if you are at all the queasy sort, but needless to say having walked for hours and seen absolutely nothing, it was typical of my luck these days that a hare got up less than five minutes from the end of the walk and was easily caught and despatched by Twiggie to the all too apparent delight of the boys, but right in front, barely twenty yards, of a young couple and their two small daughters. Why do these things happen to me? Why?
PS Off to collect newly crowned genius eldest child from the railway station at Cambridge. Caio.
19th August, 2010
Big day in our household today. Very excited Hen who was on the phone surprisingly early this morning having been up all night after waiting for midnight to strike and to turn her into an 18 year old. Apparently she had wandered round Leeds with a bunch of her friends hoping upon hope that she would be asked for her ID. Eventually, having been in any number of pubs and not once challenged, hunger overtook them and they called into a McDonalds where the young man behind the counter was persuaded by Hen’s friends to insist on seeing her ID before handing her over a Coke and a Big Mac.
And then onto A level results. Regular readers of this email will vouch for the fact that I do not regularly blow Hen’s trumpet least of all where academic achievements are involved. That is no reflection on me. It is just that I actually have never previously had the opportunity to do so. I don’t suppose you know many people who forgot to turn up for one of their GCSE exams ( “I thought I had polo practice Daddy” ). But this morning brought remarkable news that Hen had secured 100% and an A* in her Photography A level, had finished top in the country ( I suspect equal top ) and, she told me, she is therefore eligible to apply for a Scholarship, at which point she paused, and said “Sorry Dave......was that you falling off your chair?” It was of course.
So I’m off to Yorkshire this afternoon on my way up to Scotland so bit of an early one. Incidentally thanks to all for your responses to my question last week whether anyone knew about Leeds, especially the helpful charley who responded “they’re used for taking dogs on a walk”.
And then onto A level results. Regular readers of this email will vouch for the fact that I do not regularly blow Hen’s trumpet least of all where academic achievements are involved. That is no reflection on me. It is just that I actually have never previously had the opportunity to do so. I don’t suppose you know many people who forgot to turn up for one of their GCSE exams ( “I thought I had polo practice Daddy” ). But this morning brought remarkable news that Hen had secured 100% and an A* in her Photography A level, had finished top in the country ( I suspect equal top ) and, she told me, she is therefore eligible to apply for a Scholarship, at which point she paused, and said “Sorry Dave......was that you falling off your chair?” It was of course.
So I’m off to Yorkshire this afternoon on my way up to Scotland so bit of an early one. Incidentally thanks to all for your responses to my question last week whether anyone knew about Leeds, especially the helpful charley who responded “they’re used for taking dogs on a walk”.
6th August, 2010
I don’t think I have told you about Hen’s 18th birthday party which is looming large. A week tomorrow in fact. A couple of months ago my wife took a phone call from someone she vaguely knows. “Strangely,” the voice said, “even though Georgie has been asked to dress as an elephant and told NO PRESENT NO ENTRY, she is delighted to accept the invitation to Hen’s party on the 14th August.” No kidding...this was news to us. I suppose we had discussed whether Hen could have a party, but we had no idea that she had decided on the date, venue, even a theme and sent the invitations out. Everyone has been asked to come as a particular animal and they will find their mate specially chosen and similarly attired. Some 30 different pairs of animals will be represented at what is the first Noah’s Ark party I’ve heard of at least. Neat idea actually. Could be very interesting especially from my perspective as Noah. ( Does anyone know what Noah’s wife was called by the way?). Huge amounts of preparation left to do as having sent the invites out Hen promptly disappeared to Turkey and Inja.
P.S. I have organised the wine and am very keen that is all used up. ( Stormy Cape..neat eh?.... from South Africa at £4.99 a bottle ).
P.S. I have organised the wine and am very keen that is all used up. ( Stormy Cape..neat eh?.... from South Africa at £4.99 a bottle ).
30th July, 2010
As I have told you Hen is in India and thus it is not a surprise that the credit cycle there is getting slightly out of hand. I think I read that bank lending rose by 20% YoY in data released the other day. This figure reflects my own contribution to the world of quantitative easing that Hen lives in with the latest £200 emergency credit facility sent her. To be fair to her it has not all been houseboats and safaris. She did do a 2,000 mile train journey this week which I would have found horrendous but she managed in typically relaxed fashion. Only Hen and equally laid back boyfriend Olly, after having had 50 hours to think about it, could nearly have missed their stop at Agra, just managing to jump off the moving train as it pulled out of the statio losing a shoe in the process. Ridiculous. So they are now strolling around the Taj Mahal and romance is obviously thick in the air. Email update received:
Forgot to mention, in agra I am ollys wife, am a hollywood actress we have two children back in england, and we have been married for seven years, very happily married at that x Sent using BlackBerry(r) from Orange
Forgot to mention, in agra I am ollys wife, am a hollywood actress we have two children back in england, and we have been married for seven years, very happily married at that x Sent using BlackBerry(r) from Orange
25th June, 2010
This is quite a momentous week in the world of Hen. Whilst I was sitting in the Headmaster of Uppingham’s study yesterday trying to convince him that my son Bob had so much to offer and contribute to the school ( besides poaching techniques and how to prepare rabbit skins ) my phone vibrated in my pocket. I applauded myself at my foresight and thought with relief of the last time I had been in similar circumstances, meeting the headmaster of Oakham, but had forgotten to put my phone on silent. My rather eccentric ring tone blasted out and I had to answer a call from a lady who had driven down from Derby and with whom I had arranged a rendevouz outside his house in order to attempt to sell her my 5 year old Volvo T5. Needless to say Oakham School was quickly ruled out as an option. On this occasion it was Sophie who embarrassed us and severely compromised our pretty slim chances of securing a place for Bob. The Registrar, an exuberant and good looking young man asked us if we knew any current pupils. As it happens my god-son is at the school. The Registrar recognised the name, but said he couldn’t put a face to it. “He has beautiful blue eyes” said Sophie bizarrely. Bob and I cringed and the Registrar went red. Anyway, it was a text message from Hen “I’M ON MY GAP YEAR! WooHoo! Xxxxxx” I don’t know who she is trying to kid. Her “Gap Year” is meant to end on August 11th when she registers for her foundation course at Leeds College of Art. Perhaps I am missing the point. Whatever. She chose to celebrate the end of her A level exams yesterday lunch time by nipping into town at Rugby and having her tongue pierced.
I had another altogether more disconcerting text from her earlier in the week.....
“Yo Dave” it read “Give me a ring if you could when you have a free moment, and if you know anything about shares? Xxx”
What?????!!!!! Don’t even think about responding to that one any of you.
So Friday it is and the weekend is welcome after a particularly tiring one. Spent a night in town for a desk dinner celebrating our outstanding achievement coming 2nd in the II Survey for Asia this year. More than one person has asked me if I am off to Glastonbury which I like to think reflects upon my own youthful exuberance. Nope. I am not. Tonight Spandau Ballet are playing at Newmarket so how could I miss that.
PS Overheard a conversation from a colleague over from HK which amused me though it may lose something in the relating. He was giving someone instructions about what to do when leaving his flat. “Lock it and leave the key in the shoes outside the front door. They’re flip-flops.” Yup. That’s one key safely stashed away.
I had another altogether more disconcerting text from her earlier in the week.....
“Yo Dave” it read “Give me a ring if you could when you have a free moment, and if you know anything about shares? Xxx”
What?????!!!!! Don’t even think about responding to that one any of you.
So Friday it is and the weekend is welcome after a particularly tiring one. Spent a night in town for a desk dinner celebrating our outstanding achievement coming 2nd in the II Survey for Asia this year. More than one person has asked me if I am off to Glastonbury which I like to think reflects upon my own youthful exuberance. Nope. I am not. Tonight Spandau Ballet are playing at Newmarket so how could I miss that.
PS Overheard a conversation from a colleague over from HK which amused me though it may lose something in the relating. He was giving someone instructions about what to do when leaving his flat. “Lock it and leave the key in the shoes outside the front door. They’re flip-flops.” Yup. That’s one key safely stashed away.
4th June, 2010
I’m afraid I have not got a lot for you this week. There has been a mildly interesting development back home however. The hunter has turned into the hunted. The past two evenings have seen Bob furtively sneaking around our garden with a face cloaked in worry rather than intent. Far from him continuing his vigorous pursuit of the local wild life it transpires that a group of three 12 year old girls from the village has now begun stalking him. Talk about divine retribution, because it is fair to say he is not comfortable with this turn of events....for the moment at least.
28th May, 2010
This afternoon I want to write about squirrels. But please accept a warning up front that this is not for the faint of heart. If you are even mildly squeamish move on to the meat of this email that follows below; all that good stuff from the house of Nomura. As you may have gathered from earlier missives, it would appear that my son Bob ( who is metamorphosing towards his christened name, Oliver, it appears ) has something of the bloodlust about him. Anyway, the point is there is a serious grey squirrel problem in Darien, CT. Don’t think “sweet”. These are nasty little ratty things that spread all sorts of disease and do untold damage to my brother and sister in law’s house and garden and something had to be done to address this problem. Despite the seriousness of the mission, it is fair to say though that the highlight of the trip to the US for Bob was not listening to the solo his father had to sing at the Carol Singing party, nor a wonderful Christmas dinner, not even the skiing in Vermont, but the hours of ultimately futile entertainment spent with his cousins trying to catch these pests employing a variety of increasingly sophisticated home made traps. Back home in the UK the failure to catch a squirrel whilst in the States rankled Bob, but wandering through the local iron-monger store he hit upon a solution and, indeed, a birthday present for the youngest of his cousins, Rory. A squirrel trap: fully assembled, galvanised mesh design with fail safe setting mechanism, a protective hand plate and carrier handles for safe and easy handling. Into the post it went and off to the US prompting this recent flurry of emails.
1) An email from my brother -
From: Jamie Sandison [
Sent: 27 May 2010 12:02
To: Sandison, David (EQ/UK);
Subject: Pressie
....Well it works!! Lel and I were quietly entertaining a new colleague and his wife (no kids, 3 newfoundland dogs, big animal lovers) when Rory peeked around the corner! subtly gesturing to me come. "We've got a squirrel!".
So I excused myself and sure enough, one slightly agitated "tree rat" encaged. "Ok, you can kill it or let it go." "Can we paint it?" "No!". "Can we paint it's tail?" "Eh?...Nooo!!"
Anyway, suitably clad in lacrosse gauntlets and with the help of a long stick, they set it free.
Big excitement.
Thank you...I think!
J.
2) An email from Bob’s cousins to Bob which puts a slightly different gloss on events –
To: Oliver Sandison<>
Date: Wed, 26 May 2010 20:14:45 -0400
From: Rory Sandison
Subject: Squirrel
Dear Cousies,
Thank you for the squirrel trap. I would like to le you know that within 2 hours we had caught a squirrel. We left this one go but hope to butcher the next. Sorry we don't have any picture but we will send you some of the next butchered squirrel.
Love Angus and Rory
3) Bob’s response
From: Oliver Sandison
To: Rory Sandison
Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2010 1:42 PM
Subject: Re: Squirrel
Hey that is so cool! glad you liked it. twiggie and I have caught another two squirrels last week. next time you get one be careful they bite seriously hard (trust me i am expirienced!) put a thick plastic bag at the open end and then scare them into it. close the top of the bag closed and then whak it against the tree
seriously do that. if t he squirrel is not dead or nocked out then do it again once it is dead chop of its tail and save for me, keep it outside outside!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
and then do what you wish with it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
with lots of love
your
cousin
Oliver Sandison
jokes!, bob
P.S. I had another crack yesterday evening at matching the world record pace set by Georgette Lenoir in the 800 metres ladies track final at the Paris Olympics in 1922 but failed by 15 seconds and don’t feel very well today. Don’t know what to do about achieving this target I set myself last year. Getting quite depressed about it really. Suggestions welcomed.
1) An email from my brother -
From: Jamie Sandison [
Sent: 27 May 2010 12:02
To: Sandison, David (EQ/UK);
Subject: Pressie
....Well it works!! Lel and I were quietly entertaining a new colleague and his wife (no kids, 3 newfoundland dogs, big animal lovers) when Rory peeked around the corner! subtly gesturing to me come. "We've got a squirrel!".
So I excused myself and sure enough, one slightly agitated "tree rat" encaged. "Ok, you can kill it or let it go." "Can we paint it?" "No!". "Can we paint it's tail?" "Eh?...Nooo!!"
Anyway, suitably clad in lacrosse gauntlets and with the help of a long stick, they set it free.
Big excitement.
Thank you...I think!
J.
2) An email from Bob’s cousins to Bob which puts a slightly different gloss on events –
To: Oliver Sandison<>
Date: Wed, 26 May 2010 20:14:45 -0400
From: Rory Sandison
Subject: Squirrel
Dear Cousies,
Thank you for the squirrel trap. I would like to le you know that within 2 hours we had caught a squirrel. We left this one go but hope to butcher the next. Sorry we don't have any picture but we will send you some of the next butchered squirrel.
Love Angus and Rory
3) Bob’s response
From: Oliver Sandison
To: Rory Sandison
Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2010 1:42 PM
Subject: Re: Squirrel
Hey that is so cool! glad you liked it. twiggie and I have caught another two squirrels last week. next time you get one be careful they bite seriously hard (trust me i am expirienced!) put a thick plastic bag at the open end and then scare them into it. close the top of the bag closed and then whak it against the tree
seriously do that. if t he squirrel is not dead or nocked out then do it again once it is dead chop of its tail and save for me, keep it outside outside!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
and then do what you wish with it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
with lots of love
your
cousin
Oliver Sandison
jokes!, bob
P.S. I had another crack yesterday evening at matching the world record pace set by Georgette Lenoir in the 800 metres ladies track final at the Paris Olympics in 1922 but failed by 15 seconds and don’t feel very well today. Don’t know what to do about achieving this target I set myself last year. Getting quite depressed about it really. Suggestions welcomed.
21st May, 2010
By rights there should be nothing from underneath the Bodhi tree as we celebrate Buddha’s birthday today, but there's no rest for this bad boy.
For starters, never let it be said that Sandison children lead a cosseted or privileged existence. Last Saturday we went to look around Stowe, not at all cowed or deterred by newspaper reports the previous week of a boy having been stabbed at this exclusive public school by an irate fellow pupil with a knife stolen from woodwork class. As luck would have it Bob and I have just recently bought the most impressive stalking knife at the East Anglia Game show, but rather disappointingly my wife Sophie firmly stamped on my suggestion we take it on our visit to Stowe “to show the boys”. However the said knife was called upon the following day on what ranks as one of the more eccentric Sunday afternoon walks. Twiggie, Bob’s lurcher, happened upon a hare. It was a lovely day. We were in no particular rush. And finding ourselves in a nice secluded spot (a freshly dug and bone dry ditch), we lit a fire with the aid of a Bob’s army survival steel magnesium flint, butchered and then spit roasted the hare which was delicious though we shared it with Twiggie and our two miniature daschunds. I say “we”. To be strictly accurate I had relatively little to do with all of this, but it was my idea at least. Sometimes I am a bit worried about myself I have to admit.
For starters, never let it be said that Sandison children lead a cosseted or privileged existence. Last Saturday we went to look around Stowe, not at all cowed or deterred by newspaper reports the previous week of a boy having been stabbed at this exclusive public school by an irate fellow pupil with a knife stolen from woodwork class. As luck would have it Bob and I have just recently bought the most impressive stalking knife at the East Anglia Game show, but rather disappointingly my wife Sophie firmly stamped on my suggestion we take it on our visit to Stowe “to show the boys”. However the said knife was called upon the following day on what ranks as one of the more eccentric Sunday afternoon walks. Twiggie, Bob’s lurcher, happened upon a hare. It was a lovely day. We were in no particular rush. And finding ourselves in a nice secluded spot (a freshly dug and bone dry ditch), we lit a fire with the aid of a Bob’s army survival steel magnesium flint, butchered and then spit roasted the hare which was delicious though we shared it with Twiggie and our two miniature daschunds. I say “we”. To be strictly accurate I had relatively little to do with all of this, but it was my idea at least. Sometimes I am a bit worried about myself I have to admit.
7th May, 2010
We moved into our house just over three years ago and last weekend we decided it was time to give one of the rooms a thorough clear up. Ironically it is a room with a triple locking metal door and there is a huge safe inside it too. Ironically, neither of these had helped us much when, three months after we had arrived at our new house, a burglar climbed through an upstairs window, into our bedroom, and removed practically every item of jewellery Sophie owned which for some reason we had decided to store there! Anyway, tucked behind one of the shelves in the strong room, Sophie found a little red box and opening it up discovered inside the most enormous ruby ring, a ruby pendant and a pearl and diamond brooch. At a quick glance we estimated it was about £20,000 of jewellery! Unreal eh. I mean the people we bought the house from left behind the usual collection of grubby loo seats and I was excited once to find an old racing bike suspended from the rafters of a ramshackle shed, so there have been rich pickings, but this really was an unexpected treat. Oh don’t worry. We rang our predecessors up and reunited them with their nick nacks. Very sweetly they came round with a magnum of Chateau Meaume 2004. Wow.
23rd April, 2010
As we took the first of what proved to be many glugs of Gavi di Gavi yesterday evening at dinner, the person sitting next to me leaned over conspiratorially and said “I was told to ask you about the Jam Boy.” It’s quite an opening line and I have to admit it somewhat took me aback. However I admit that it only took one more word, GOLF, to remind me of one of the more bizarre things I have seen.
I have banged on quite a bit recently about Thailand, but it is a whacky place. I had a tough old time when I lived there between 1996 and 1998. The SET index was in the process of falling 90% in US$ terms, so making the best of a bad situation, I got my golf handicap, briefly, down to 4 or 5. I had time on my hands it is fair to say. Consequently most lunchtimes would involve 9 holes at the Royal Bangkok Sports Club, a bowl of roast pork and noodles washed down with an ice cold bottle of Singha. So I got lots of practice, plus I had every conceivable prop to support me on the golf course. A round of golf was no lonely affair at the Sports Club, where Bangkok’s elite made sure every need was catered for. There was, naturally, the caddie carrying one’s bag, another loping along behind with a chair in the event of a hold up and prepared to give tired shoulders a massage on demand. Then there was a troupe of klong boys who, on the very rare instance my ball ended up in the water, would dive into the brown muddy cess pits and miraculously, the appropriate amount of baht having changed hands, I would find my ball lying safely on the fairway. But we should not forget another, albeit rather forlorn figure, who trailed around the course with us on days when the skies were grey and overcast, at a respectful distance, wearing rubber wellington boots and holding a tall metal pole above him. He performed the role of a human lightening conductor. Marvellous. Is what is happening just now in Bangkok any surprise really?
So where does the Jam Boy come into this? Well, my dinner companion has yet to revert, having told me he would have a quiet chat with the gentleman who had told him to probe me about the Jam Boy because he clearly has a rather warped imagination. He claims, but I can assure you he had completely invented this, that I invariably had another companion on my jaunts round the Bangkok Sports Club golf course. A naked man, smeared with jam from head to toe, whose role in life was to attract flies and wasps away from the golfers??? I mean....where did that come from?!
I have banged on quite a bit recently about Thailand, but it is a whacky place. I had a tough old time when I lived there between 1996 and 1998. The SET index was in the process of falling 90% in US$ terms, so making the best of a bad situation, I got my golf handicap, briefly, down to 4 or 5. I had time on my hands it is fair to say. Consequently most lunchtimes would involve 9 holes at the Royal Bangkok Sports Club, a bowl of roast pork and noodles washed down with an ice cold bottle of Singha. So I got lots of practice, plus I had every conceivable prop to support me on the golf course. A round of golf was no lonely affair at the Sports Club, where Bangkok’s elite made sure every need was catered for. There was, naturally, the caddie carrying one’s bag, another loping along behind with a chair in the event of a hold up and prepared to give tired shoulders a massage on demand. Then there was a troupe of klong boys who, on the very rare instance my ball ended up in the water, would dive into the brown muddy cess pits and miraculously, the appropriate amount of baht having changed hands, I would find my ball lying safely on the fairway. But we should not forget another, albeit rather forlorn figure, who trailed around the course with us on days when the skies were grey and overcast, at a respectful distance, wearing rubber wellington boots and holding a tall metal pole above him. He performed the role of a human lightening conductor. Marvellous. Is what is happening just now in Bangkok any surprise really?
So where does the Jam Boy come into this? Well, my dinner companion has yet to revert, having told me he would have a quiet chat with the gentleman who had told him to probe me about the Jam Boy because he clearly has a rather warped imagination. He claims, but I can assure you he had completely invented this, that I invariably had another companion on my jaunts round the Bangkok Sports Club golf course. A naked man, smeared with jam from head to toe, whose role in life was to attract flies and wasps away from the golfers??? I mean....where did that come from?!
16th April, 2010
Things have been a little bit testy to say the least, essentially revolving around 12 year old son Bob’s shenanigans. If you have read this previously I think you will agree the signs were there that things were getting a little out of hand. He had been left home alone, just for ½ an hour or so, on a couple of occasions. Once, when I rang home to check all was well, I discovered from his 9 year old sister who he was meant to be looking after, that he was outside gutting a rabbit. The other time I came back to an open front door and a kitchen which seemed strangely re-arranged. Bob had removed all our musical equipment and was upstairs, his white school shirt covered in the blood of a pheasant he had managed to extract from the teeth of a dog, hammering away on his drum set accompanying an old Razorlight song. These pale into insignificance when compared with last Friday afternoon when Sophie received a rather terse message on our answer phone from someone who, together with the dog he was out for a walk with, had been somewhat taken by surprise, when, right in front of them, a pigeon fell out of a tree in our garden onto the road outside the house. The man explained he was also a little nonplussed by the loud report of a gunshot which preceded this event. Happily all was well in the end, save for the pigeon of course. The latest incident - and this reminds me actually, I must sue Bear Grylls – was when my wife came into the kitchen to discover Bob sipping a cup of tea. An avid watcher of Mr Gryll’s survival programmes, he thought he would try out stewed pine needles which Bear insists is delicious and nutritious. Perhaps they are. But although similar looking, the leaves of yew trees have very different properties.
Talking of hitting the road, I am off early today....trying out a new horse! Yee haa. As my grandmother used to say. To heck with poverty. Put another pea in the soup.
Talking of hitting the road, I am off early today....trying out a new horse! Yee haa. As my grandmother used to say. To heck with poverty. Put another pea in the soup.
26th March, 2010
I have been going on about running quite a lot recently and so I can’t remember if it was on my Facebook page ( dig me eh ) or in an email last week that I highlighted a song I had heard the other day whilst out for a jog around Canary Wharf. I was feeling a bit lumbersome (? I get the dreaded red line underneath but I like the sound of the word so I will stick with it), indeed you might say I was plodding, until the radio station I was listening to, rattling off a series of ‘80’s numbers, played a song by Kirsty MacColl – A New England. Within seconds I was charging along like a mad man in time to the music. Try it! It’ll work for you too I have no doubt. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fwtFSEovro
Anyhow sad boy that I am I bought it on iTunes and having collected Hen from somewhere or other excitedly I put it on to play it to her in the car. She quite liked it, truth be told, and, emboldened by this, I started singing along. She looked at me quizzically. “Who did you say sang this one?” she said. “Kirsty MacColl” I replied. “Let’s leave it that way then shall we Dave?” was her mildly crucifying response!
Anyhow sad boy that I am I bought it on iTunes and having collected Hen from somewhere or other excitedly I put it on to play it to her in the car. She quite liked it, truth be told, and, emboldened by this, I started singing along. She looked at me quizzically. “Who did you say sang this one?” she said. “Kirsty MacColl” I replied. “Let’s leave it that way then shall we Dave?” was her mildly crucifying response!
19th March, 2010
No doubt you will be desperate to know how I got on last weekend running the Crick cross country race up in Rugby. Frankly, I’m a bit disappointed with myself if the truth be told. I was a bit cocky about it I suppose and got a little carried away on Saturday night – during what was meant to be a quiet evening at home in front of the fire - tucking into the most delicious bottle of Clos des Quatre Vents 2004 which would have been fine if it hadn’t been preceded by several Stellas during the worst rugby match I have ever watched and an Italian white. And the run would have been challenging enough even if I hadn’t had to carry a throbbing headache around with me. Multiple ( how I hate the way that word has crept into common parlance ) stiles, boggy fields, steep railway embankments, endless uphill roads and a stiff wind which seemed to blow straight into one all the way round. Needless to say, I failed to beat my targeted time, and indeed only managed to get anywhere approaching respectability thanks to the fact that I rashly and, I admit, somewhat arrogantly but it wasn’t like that at the time, offered to double the sum I pledged to some schoolboy I had breezed past early on in the race, who told me he was running to raise money for a school in Kenya, if he beat me. This guy, who had seemed to me to be down and out, turned out to be the Headboy no less and made of sterner stuff than I. A mile further down the road he drew up alongside me and the race was on! Actually he was a god-send and we lumbered along together, even managing the occasional, chat much to the subsequent embarrassment of Hen.
Talking of being chatted up, a couple of years ago, shortly after I joined a golf club near home, I had a mildly disconcerting experience when the then Captain, an elderly retired Naval Commander, seemed to take something of a shine to me and on only the second occasion we met invited me to come sailing with him in the Swedish fjords. I have entered the club match play competition recently and the first round is to be played this weekend. Guess who I have been drawn against?! Yeee ha! Wish me luck.
Talking of being chatted up, a couple of years ago, shortly after I joined a golf club near home, I had a mildly disconcerting experience when the then Captain, an elderly retired Naval Commander, seemed to take something of a shine to me and on only the second occasion we met invited me to come sailing with him in the Swedish fjords. I have entered the club match play competition recently and the first round is to be played this weekend. Guess who I have been drawn against?! Yeee ha! Wish me luck.
12th March, 2010
Sometimes when I sit down to scribble this rubbish I just know it’s wrong, but I missed you last week and I can’t stop myself. This one is going to be wrong on so many counts. You see, it has been a traumatic couple of weeks in which almost all members of the Sandison family have disgraced themselves – to varying degrees - with the notable, perhaps because it is so rarely the case, exception of Hen who is serenity personified at the moment.
The “traumas” began with a phone call to second daughter Jemima one evening last week in which the conversation turned to what she was up to. “Toasting marshmallows” was the response. This was somewhat alarming news as she was meant to be in her room doing her prep at the time, but secondly, I asked her, what on earth was she using to toast them with. Matches she explained. So, there you have it. Perhaps I am leaping to conclusions here, but I suspect toasting marshmallows is a euphemism for “I’ve started smoking”. I despair.
Meantime Bob, 12 year old son, is also getting out of his box. At a Design Technology class the other day his teacher, who reported this incident to Sophie, was teaching the class about the process of lamination...... “laminates prevent creasing and makes things last longer” he explained, to which Bob’s instant response apparently was “I think I’d better introduce my mother to this stuff”.
The reason for no email last Friday was that our desk here went on a PA team bonding trip to Meribel. Ahead of a big weekend of rugby it is apt to quote the great man himself. “O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us”. I suppose that is one of the purposes of bonding excercises. I can safely say I had that power on Saturday, after a big bad one on Friday night. But it was about the only power I had that day. I knew precisely how my new colleagues were seeing me. I was an abject sight indeed. ‘Nuff said.
So what about Sophie, my wife. She is not blameless this week either. Deeply irresponsibly she left Bob home alone save for being in charge of his 9 year old sister on Wednesday evening as she had to leave the house before I was due back. To be fair to her it was only meant to be for 20 minutes or so, but Bob can do an awful lot of damage in 20 minutes and, typically, some ****** had crashed at Junction 8 on the M1 so I was running badly late. I decided to ring home suddenly fearful that Bob would have decided to light a fire in the sitting room to toast marshmallows or whatever. With a sense of trepidation I rang home and the phone was answered by Lottie. After brief courtesies I asked to speak to Bob. “He’s not here” she said. “Aaaagh.....where is he” I said trying not to panic. “He’s outside gutting a rabbit” was her cool response.
Big weekend indeed. Besides the inevitable trouncing we are going to deliver the Inglish tomorrow afternoon at Murrayfield, some bizarre urge overtook me the other day and I signed up to run in a 10 miles cross country race against the more athletic of the students of Rugby School on Sunday afternoon. Hen and Jimmy are appalled at me – it goes without saying they are not participating. And Sophie from whom I would have expected more support, when going through the weekend’s plans earlier on today, referred to Sunday as “the day that you are going to make a complete fool of yourself.” Only the girls housemistress is on my side. I am the first parent in the history of their house that has run in this event. “No pressure” she says. “Just bear in mind the words of Sir Clive Woodward........Better never stops.”
The “traumas” began with a phone call to second daughter Jemima one evening last week in which the conversation turned to what she was up to. “Toasting marshmallows” was the response. This was somewhat alarming news as she was meant to be in her room doing her prep at the time, but secondly, I asked her, what on earth was she using to toast them with. Matches she explained. So, there you have it. Perhaps I am leaping to conclusions here, but I suspect toasting marshmallows is a euphemism for “I’ve started smoking”. I despair.
Meantime Bob, 12 year old son, is also getting out of his box. At a Design Technology class the other day his teacher, who reported this incident to Sophie, was teaching the class about the process of lamination...... “laminates prevent creasing and makes things last longer” he explained, to which Bob’s instant response apparently was “I think I’d better introduce my mother to this stuff”.
The reason for no email last Friday was that our desk here went on a PA team bonding trip to Meribel. Ahead of a big weekend of rugby it is apt to quote the great man himself. “O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us”. I suppose that is one of the purposes of bonding excercises. I can safely say I had that power on Saturday, after a big bad one on Friday night. But it was about the only power I had that day. I knew precisely how my new colleagues were seeing me. I was an abject sight indeed. ‘Nuff said.
So what about Sophie, my wife. She is not blameless this week either. Deeply irresponsibly she left Bob home alone save for being in charge of his 9 year old sister on Wednesday evening as she had to leave the house before I was due back. To be fair to her it was only meant to be for 20 minutes or so, but Bob can do an awful lot of damage in 20 minutes and, typically, some ****** had crashed at Junction 8 on the M1 so I was running badly late. I decided to ring home suddenly fearful that Bob would have decided to light a fire in the sitting room to toast marshmallows or whatever. With a sense of trepidation I rang home and the phone was answered by Lottie. After brief courtesies I asked to speak to Bob. “He’s not here” she said. “Aaaagh.....where is he” I said trying not to panic. “He’s outside gutting a rabbit” was her cool response.
Big weekend indeed. Besides the inevitable trouncing we are going to deliver the Inglish tomorrow afternoon at Murrayfield, some bizarre urge overtook me the other day and I signed up to run in a 10 miles cross country race against the more athletic of the students of Rugby School on Sunday afternoon. Hen and Jimmy are appalled at me – it goes without saying they are not participating. And Sophie from whom I would have expected more support, when going through the weekend’s plans earlier on today, referred to Sunday as “the day that you are going to make a complete fool of yourself.” Only the girls housemistress is on my side. I am the first parent in the history of their house that has run in this event. “No pressure” she says. “Just bear in mind the words of Sir Clive Woodward........Better never stops.”
5th February, 2010
It is only gradually, after joining a new company, that some of the most fundamental differences between an organisation dawn on one. At CLSA my desk neighbours were two crusty old soaks with a combined age of something like 99 years if I’m being charitable. If ever we did talk to one another we either couldn’t hear what the other was saying, we fell asleep mid sentence or if we did indeed manage to converse it would be about vital topics such as the 2008 vintage in Bordeaux or the damage Gordon Brown was doing to the economy. Here at Nomura the combined age of the two people on either side of me is marginally shy of even just one of my former colleagues and what fun it is as a consequence. I am always fully furnished with stuff such as the latest jokes about John Terry, my clothes sense is being brushed up and what’s more they are both extremely good brokers so there is hope for me yet on that score. The only trouble is when one of them asks me what I have got planned for the weekend. How can I possibly tell them that I am off to watch Alvin and the Chipmunks – the Squeakquel this evening?
Talking of squeaking, my muntjac story predictably turned a few stomachs last week, but honestly, the spare ribs really were delicious.
Moving swiftly on I can’t keep Hen out of the spotlight these days. I am used to her antics and the whacky things that happen to her but this one even surprised me. It turns out that when most of her contemparies are knocking a hockey ball about or running on a treadmill in the gym she spends Thursday afternoons working in a charity shop down some dodgy backstreet in Rugby – probably the one where she was caught smoking when the police studied CCTV footage as they investigated events leading up to a most unfortunate scrap she was involved in with some local youths. Her new best friend apparently is a con-man who is currently serving time in a nearby open prison and and is also released from an institution on Thursdays to lend a hand in the shop and give something back to the local community. Sweet. An unlikely tale, but true.
Talking of squeaking, my muntjac story predictably turned a few stomachs last week, but honestly, the spare ribs really were delicious.
Moving swiftly on I can’t keep Hen out of the spotlight these days. I am used to her antics and the whacky things that happen to her but this one even surprised me. It turns out that when most of her contemparies are knocking a hockey ball about or running on a treadmill in the gym she spends Thursday afternoons working in a charity shop down some dodgy backstreet in Rugby – probably the one where she was caught smoking when the police studied CCTV footage as they investigated events leading up to a most unfortunate scrap she was involved in with some local youths. Her new best friend apparently is a con-man who is currently serving time in a nearby open prison and and is also released from an institution on Thursdays to lend a hand in the shop and give something back to the local community. Sweet. An unlikely tale, but true.
22nd January, 2010
Having just given myself a pat on the back for Hen’s minor triumph last week I get a quick reminder that there is more than one chip off the old block in the Sandison family. It is fair to say that Bob, 12 year old son, is similarly disposed in the classroom as his elder sister. His Religious Studies report last term for example began “Bob enters the classroom cheerfully and exits even more so.”
His French teacher is less couched. I received from her on Wednesday a complaint about the standard of a bit of homework he had submitted. I immediately replied to her that we would give him a kick up the derriere. Oh what a wit I am. Her subsequent email is a gem and explains her obvious frustration with Bob’s attitude and approach.
Dear Mr Sandison,
Thank you so much for this prompt reply.
As you know, we all really have Bob's best interest at heart and how best
to help him.
I perceive him to be a bright boy and capable of much better than his most
recent homework which was, incidentally, late also. It grieved me too to see
his French books lying around in the cold outside today.
You WILL be able to see Bob's homework (hard copy) since he has (should
have!) brought it back home tonight to re-do and add on. He has been
given all the requisite vocab. and pages in his text book to refer to, But
certainly not a French dictionary out of a cracker which he said he had been using!
Please do get in touch with me at any time.
Best wishes to all the family
Madame Grimal
His French teacher is less couched. I received from her on Wednesday a complaint about the standard of a bit of homework he had submitted. I immediately replied to her that we would give him a kick up the derriere. Oh what a wit I am. Her subsequent email is a gem and explains her obvious frustration with Bob’s attitude and approach.
Dear Mr Sandison,
Thank you so much for this prompt reply.
As you know, we all really have Bob's best interest at heart and how best
to help him.
I perceive him to be a bright boy and capable of much better than his most
recent homework which was, incidentally, late also. It grieved me too to see
his French books lying around in the cold outside today.
You WILL be able to see Bob's homework (hard copy) since he has (should
have!) brought it back home tonight to re-do and add on. He has been
given all the requisite vocab. and pages in his text book to refer to, But
certainly not a French dictionary out of a cracker which he said he had been using!
Please do get in touch with me at any time.
Best wishes to all the family
Madame Grimal
7th January, 2010
I almost didn’t come back from the States where we spent Christmas with my brother and his family. SuBo has nothing on me. The evening we arrived, barely having had time for a cup of tea at my brothers house in Darien, we were whisked off to a drinks and carol singing party at some friends of theirs. I was well and truly stitched up by my brother who had turned down the role of Casper, one of the three Kings, on the grounds that he was already committed to playing the bagpipes, but had very cheekily offered my services. Funny boy. So up came our host, with a carol sheet in his hand and I was pressed into service to sing the solo verse about frankincense and incense in We Three Kings of Orient Are in front of 50 or 60 complete strangers. My face must have been a picture when I was handed this role, but was nothing compared to Hen’s who was mortified by my performance. Personally I thought it went rather well but that could have been the combination of jet-lag and beer.
And what of Hen these days. This is the kiss of death of course but things are going quite smoothly. She has been offered a place at Leeds which we have been told by the school is most likely an administrative error on the part of the University (I’m not kidding you) and by friends that it is the party capital of the UK. Not surprisingly therefore she has grabbed it with both hands and has gone back to school intent on securing the required A level grades of two B’s and a C. Her focus and concentration will undoubtedly be helped by the fact that the boyfriend has gone to Burma and that his mobile phone was confiscated as he entered the country. Well that’s what he told Hen, but anyway marvellous news.
And what of Hen these days. This is the kiss of death of course but things are going quite smoothly. She has been offered a place at Leeds which we have been told by the school is most likely an administrative error on the part of the University (I’m not kidding you) and by friends that it is the party capital of the UK. Not surprisingly therefore she has grabbed it with both hands and has gone back to school intent on securing the required A level grades of two B’s and a C. Her focus and concentration will undoubtedly be helped by the fact that the boyfriend has gone to Burma and that his mobile phone was confiscated as he entered the country. Well that’s what he told Hen, but anyway marvellous news.
27th November, 2010
The only significant development has been the “decision” – forced on us because no one else wanted it – to keep the runt of the litter of miniature smooth haired daschunds. I call it the runt but I suppose that is not strictly true. The puppies were expected to be black and tan and indeed two of them were, but strangely, one of them emerged double the size of its siblings – each of whom has been sold for, would you believe it, £800 – yeehaa! - and a sort of reddish-brown colour. It is quite an ugly thing truth be told, christened Humphrey. True to her alternative nature, much of the pressure to keep him came from Hen who absolutely adores him and reacted quite ferociously when I emailed her referring to him as hideous.....
HE SO IS NOT! have you never heard the expression never diss a mothers baby or they will hunt you down and kill you|??!!! wel i have, and let me tell you MR you better watch your step!!!! xxxxxxxxx
English is her second language of course.
HE SO IS NOT! have you never heard the expression never diss a mothers baby or they will hunt you down and kill you|??!!! wel i have, and let me tell you MR you better watch your step!!!! xxxxxxxxx
English is her second language of course.
20th November, 2009
Had a lovely month or so on gardening leave and am now here at Nomura. Our Argentinian couple went back to South America four days after I left CLSA so I was basically housebound looking after Furtie’s puppies with the odd foray onto Royal Worlington golf course, a bit of hound exercising and shooting and I took Bob up to Scotland stalking. Otherwise I basically swept leaves off the lawn. Sophie and I did have a little trip out of the country early on. We had a three day window of opportunity and Sophie desperately wanted to go to Rome. Alas the flights didn’t work out so I came up with the brilliant idea of a surprise trip to her homeland, Sweden. I say homeland. She is half Swedish, though she had never actually been there. Suffice to say she still hasn’t. I went on the Ryan Air website to try to find suitable flights to Stockholm, but there weren’t any so I reluctantly clicked on Easy jet and, blow me down, there were flights at precisely the right times. It was only after booking the flights and while I was printing off the boarding passes that the appalling realisation dawned on me that the capital of Sweden had become, in my pea-brain, Copenhagen and I had booked us tickets to Denmark. So I was very popular needless to say. In fact, happy postscript for a change, we both had a lovely time in Denmark. Sophie was able to at least see Sweden across the water and we bought the most deliciously luxurious Siberian goose down duvet.
Time flies by in Hen’s world. She rang home in a state of high excitement yesterday with the news that she had been offered a place to read (?) Art at Leeds contingent on her achieving A level grades of BBC ( coincidentally precisely what her father managed just a few years earlier....I lobbed in a 1 at S level geography too btw before you unduly deride me ). This remarkably generous offer is entirely down, so Hen tells me, to the “utterly brilliant personal statement” she had prepared together with her application. Now that is a bit of paper I would like to get my hands on! There was additional excitement yesterday provided by the fact that Bob and Lottie met the Queen who was paying a visit to Kings on its 800th anniversary. Lottie, you may recall, was the girl who concluded from the fact that some scaffolding had been erected on Kings Chapel that they were obviously building a new one as “it is rather old you know Mummy”. I digress....I asked Lottie if she had also seen the Queen’s husband. “No”, she replied. “He wasn’t there. She was with the Duke of Edinburgh.” You may have to think about that one!
Time flies by in Hen’s world. She rang home in a state of high excitement yesterday with the news that she had been offered a place to read (?) Art at Leeds contingent on her achieving A level grades of BBC ( coincidentally precisely what her father managed just a few years earlier....I lobbed in a 1 at S level geography too btw before you unduly deride me ). This remarkably generous offer is entirely down, so Hen tells me, to the “utterly brilliant personal statement” she had prepared together with her application. Now that is a bit of paper I would like to get my hands on! There was additional excitement yesterday provided by the fact that Bob and Lottie met the Queen who was paying a visit to Kings on its 800th anniversary. Lottie, you may recall, was the girl who concluded from the fact that some scaffolding had been erected on Kings Chapel that they were obviously building a new one as “it is rather old you know Mummy”. I digress....I asked Lottie if she had also seen the Queen’s husband. “No”, she replied. “He wasn’t there. She was with the Duke of Edinburgh.” You may have to think about that one!
7th August, 2009
The appearance just now on my desk of a little bottle of hand sanitizing gel - part of CLSA's ongoing battle against swine flu - prompts me to tell you about my latest brush with death which occurred earlier this week. I went into Bob and Lottie's bathroom to do the evening clear up of towels and removal of plug, soap (occasionally), festy face cloths and plastic crocodiles from the bath. Two steps in and wham, I slipped flat onto my back. The little s*ds had discovered that by emptying the entire contents of a bottle of head lice spray onto the bathroom floor the room could be converted into a very satisfactory ice rink.
Hen meantime is sunning herself in the south of France where the boyfriends parents have a house - she's not that daft. They went there by car and a long old journey it was apparently. She rang me just after 5am on Tuesday as they began their drive from the Midlands and two hours later rang again to tell me that Olly had forgotten his passport and they were back where they had started. I would have gone mad, but I wish I could show you the text Hen sent me..... "We've booked another ferry which leaves at quarter to two. It was only £15 to change it. It's fine. We had forgotten the Doritos too so forgetting the passport was irrelevant".... You've got to love it. Many hours later I received another text. "je suis arriver en France!" to which I replied... "C'est pas possible. Es tu certain tu n'es pas en Belgique?"
I think I need a holiday.....oh yes, but I've got one coming up the week after next. Emulating our glorious PM I will be in the East Neuk. Lifestyles of the rich and famous. I tell you this now because I have an abbreviated week in the office coming up first as I head off early on a course or two. Anyway, have a good weekend and catch you on Monday.
Hen meantime is sunning herself in the south of France where the boyfriends parents have a house - she's not that daft. They went there by car and a long old journey it was apparently. She rang me just after 5am on Tuesday as they began their drive from the Midlands and two hours later rang again to tell me that Olly had forgotten his passport and they were back where they had started. I would have gone mad, but I wish I could show you the text Hen sent me..... "We've booked another ferry which leaves at quarter to two. It was only £15 to change it. It's fine. We had forgotten the Doritos too so forgetting the passport was irrelevant".... You've got to love it. Many hours later I received another text. "je suis arriver en France!" to which I replied... "C'est pas possible. Es tu certain tu n'es pas en Belgique?"
I think I need a holiday.....oh yes, but I've got one coming up the week after next. Emulating our glorious PM I will be in the East Neuk. Lifestyles of the rich and famous. I tell you this now because I have an abbreviated week in the office coming up first as I head off early on a course or two. Anyway, have a good weekend and catch you on Monday.
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