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.”