Friday 7th December, 2012

I have to say I'm a little disgrunted this morning. I really expected to have a letter to the Editor published in The Daily Telegraph. How many other people do you know who noticed that Dave Drubeck was listed in yesterday's Birthdays column ( 92 years old ) right across the page from his Obituary. Not that many I suspect. Well anyway, disappointingly, I pointed this out to the Editor but it seems he didn't care that much. The truth is though that my mood has been affected more by the prospect of two rarified evenings in a row. It was our sales traders "drinks party" at Dirty Dicks last night. I am pretty sure I invited you. Pity you couldn't make it. Tbh I was in the Christmas spirit ( Spanish brandy to be specific ) after a working lunch even before I got there and didn't last that long. The stories are beginning to come out of various degrees of carnage wreaked and as I was lapping these up, I noticed that a friend of mine had just posted the following quote from James Joyce following an evening of his own which I thought was kind of appropriate ( if a bit rarified )...."There is a curious kind of honour-code among men which obliges them to assist one another and not hinder the free action of one another and remain together for mutual protection with the result that very often they waken up the next morning sitting in the same ditch." - James Joyce And tonight I have to head up to Rugby for my daughters end of term house Christmas dinner. What a treat that always is. Virtually undrinkable wine, seafood delice (what ever that is), a sloppy slice of turkey and a bit of cold Christmas pudding with custard. The consolation is I doubt very much I'll end up in a ditch. Oh its high living all right. I can hardly believe, this time last year I was in Sri Lanka staying at the Amanwella. Christmas Challenge As you run down the year here's something for you to mull over....I confess I have done this one before, about ten years ago, but I've always enjoyed limericks......I've written the first line for you. Please complete.......the best contribution wins a bottle of something good...not Spanish brandy I promise..... "There's a salesman at CIMB...... Take your time, do your worst and have fun!

Friday 30th November, 2012

Well, its been a while. Sorry about that. I was ill last Friday. Wasn't at all pretty. I blame the minestrone soup I picked up from Pret A Manger on Thursday afternoon. Still, better now and I have survived, relatively unscathed, a week that included our office Christmas party. I was on best behaviour for that. There have been too many unfortunate scenes on past such occasions. The last one I recall I ended up having to excuse myself from my desk and spent almost half a day lying shivering on a bench on the walkway by the Thames in front of Nomura's office. Truth be told, although a little more circumspect these days, I was also slightly sulking this time as my proposed venue for our bash ( Le Rendezvous, obviously ) was voted down in a secret (rigged obviously) ballot and we ended in some very lame gastro-pub near Victoria Station. Ever with a mind to delivering value-added in these emails of mine I might tell you that if you make use of Lastminute Top Secret hotels facility and are looking for somewhere to stay near Victoria be careful you don't end up at Tophams Hotel on Ebury Street. I was feeling quite pleased with myself at having got a booking there because it was just 100 yards from where we were having dinner however my room was in the basement, smelt like a sewer and the bed was a fold out sofa. What a dump. I just remembered the strangest thing that happened to me that evening.....in the middle of dinner my phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from Hen: In history were the jewish people awful to the arabs or have I got that all wrong? x I never did get to the bottom of that one. There's a story there somewhere I suspect but I was already four or five glasses of red the wrong side of caring. Don't get the wrong idea of how I have spent this afternoon, but I thought I would share with you an educational website that was sent me by a friend of mine. Improve your French, your mouse-control skills and test your knowledge of global locations. http://www.tv5.org/cms/chaine-francophone/jeunesse/p-14809-Cartoquiz.htm And if you can beat my score of 321,459 points.....well, respect. But you will not be able to.... PS Nice cartoon in this weeks Spectator. A man in a chair at the optician. " The recession is finally over and my bishop is a woman " he reads off the board in front of him. To which the optician remarks "Well, I'd say you've got 2020 vision"

Friday 16th November, 2012

It's been a while since I last indulged in a bit of name dropping. Life styles of the rich and famous in Knightsbridge. I was out for a run on Wednesday and who should I bump into but Yingluck Shinawatra. Well I say bump into. I was trundling along the track parallel to South Carriage Drive as she came up the other way in an open horse drawn carriage heading I presume for the Thai Embassy having just been given a 21 gun salute. There weren't many crowds of adoring Thais around so I gave them a wave. Exciting eh. What else this week? Oh yes, I devised a new game to pass the time during one of a series of company meetings where the IR representative started pulling a series of nick nacks out of his bag to illustrate various points he was making including the multiple uses of PET. It was like watching the Generation Game. Here....I'll see if I can remember them all now... packet of tooth floss A Shoe horn Can of sweet corn A water bottle with a green top A Starbucks smoothie container Tooth brush Antiseptic wipes Brazilian football shirt A husked corn cob Cuddly toy Go me! Now, on a serious note, some of you may need reminding why I call my Friday afternoon email "Under the Bodhi Tree". I don't bang on about this too often, for obvious reasons, but it was under the Bodhi Tree where the Lord Buddha finally achieved enlightenment. Every now and again I like to think some of the CIMB research I send through is similarly inspiring and there's some good stuff below, but if you have a quiet moment and have had a bad week you could do a lot worse than read this blog from a friend of mine. It is not for the faint hearted but I thought it was amazing. http://reminiscencesofalongdistanceswimmer.blogspot.co.uk/ Just to lighten the mood before we head off for the weekend I thought I would tell you of a lucky escape I've just had. Hen has been set a photography project the essence of which is to shadow someone through their day taking a series of photos. She was in town today having lunch with me and it was with a gathering sense of horror that I listened to her describing an idea she had to photograph me in the workplace. I thought I would nip this in the bud and so after lunch whisked her into the office here. Job done. As we left she turned and told me that she had a back up plan which on reflection might be more interesting. "I've got a friend at Leeds who's a stripper. I think I'll take photo's of her instead Dave, if you don't mind". And with that she wandered off to Oxford Street to buy a new pair of jeans.

Friday 9th November, 2012

Two unfeasibly large cans of Zippo lighter fuel surprisingly arrived on our front door step at home last week. It transpires that Bob ordered these having discovered that I had set up one click shopping on Amazon. Precisely what purpose he has in mind I know not, but for the moment it would appear I got off lightly. A friend of mine told me he knew someone who ended up with a 125cc rally cross motorbike through a similar misadventure. Well, relaying this story last night, I may have stumbled upon a soul mate for Bob. I was with a friend to watch a "play", Simon Callow in The Mystery of Charles Dickens....go David, another winner. It's not a play really. More of a monologue. If you want to listen to someone recounting a protracted and frankly pretty boring bedtime story whilst you sit in a cramped seat in a stuffy theatre ( inevitably with some large uncouth yob behind you coughing their insides out ) this one is for you. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. Well would you credit it, but my friend's son - who has a fine collection of knives apparently - had also done the 1 Click Amazon thing. A book arrived at his office...."Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction". Respect! Bob's Christmas present sorted one might think. But not necessarily. I have some extraordinary news for you. The other day I got an email out of the blue informing me he had joined the choir. And shortly after that he secured permission from his mother to re-jig his GCSE options. He has given up History ( shame on him and Sophie ) and taken up Art. Here is a picture he sent me in a text message, made from leaves apparently. In due course I suppose it could be a valuable as an example of work from his formative years so I'll file this. It is too early to tell whether Bob's more sensitive side is taking over or to put another way he is turning over a new leaf. Boom boom. I have learnt from Hen that change in character traits take a while to play out don't they. People continue to ask me why we hear so little of Hen these days and I think I have told you already that life was becoming an altogether more serious business for her. At 20 you would expect that really. But if you want an update of her progress, studying photography at Leeds University, you may be amused to hear that I received this message from one of her house mates who seems to be finding her mature outlook too much to bear. "Hen is sitting in her room cutting out pictures of fairies and listening to Metallica....I want her to move out."

Friday 2nd November, 2012

If you ever doubted the professional in me you should be reassured by the fact that I have nipped back to the office from our London Conference whizzing down Piccadilly and round Hyde Park Corner on my trusty Boris Bike....just to send you this and wish you a good weekend. The conference, though I say it myself, has been a great success. CLSA eat your heart out. 38 Asian leaders in a West End hotel. Tony Fernandes entertaining us over lunch with a rivetting run through his career to date. Indonesian trade minister. Prosecco. Duck pancakes. A magician AND....music from the Coutures, aka Three Girls from Essex. Oh and a little too much Soju, a drink of which even a little is too much. I also got carried away with a small Indian company.....be warned this last time this happened to me was when I was reluctantly dragged into a meeting with Inspur at a HK Forum and came out Inspired. It has been a sorry tale since then. But this one is different. Really worth a look..... Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri (TBZL IN) - If you can't get your tongue around this company's name don't worry. Call it TBZ. But remember this one. Its only US$220 m market cap but that is changing fast. It has doubled in the last few months and I am pretty sure it is going to do the same again in the next few. It is a play on the rising Indian middle class and its insatiable appetite for jewellery. The critical transformation for this company which for close on a 100 years was a Bombay based wedding jewellery specialist designer, manufacturer and retailer was the decision to switch business model to gold leasing. Think of it as going asset light. Instead of being exposed to gold price volatility and restriction imposed by holding inventory this has allowed it to pursue a dramatic growth strategy transforming itself into a pan Indian company building on its renowned reputation. Now, instead of people trecking to Mumbai to buy their jewellery TBZ is going to them. By end FY15 they will have 57 stores from the current 12 dotted in urban centres all over India and these stores are profitable almost from the outset. Average sales is 300,000 rupees per sq ft. Average billing size is 150,000 rupees. Nothing else in retailing in India comes close. CAGR over last 5 years of like for like gold sales has been 8% and for diamonds (25% of sales) it has been 28%. Add on top the store expansion and you have a stellar growth story. Take a look. So it's been a long week and I have to get back to the conference, but just quickly have to tell you about my trip to Edinburgh on Wednesday where, would you believe, on 31st October, the Christmas trees are up. Anyway, as you know I have various little tricks to keep me engaged during meetings. If I'm with a Chinese company and in front of a client who is a Mandarin speaker I encourage them to conduct the meeting in their own language. Truth is I like listening to Mandarin. When I was with Barings in HK I actually had lessons for a few months and our teacher invariably praised me for my accent which I was quite pleased about. So now one of my little querks is to wait until, with the help of the occasional bit of English that always crops into business talk, I can guess what they are discussing and then chip in with a casual pertinent comment of my own. Fun eh!? Anyway the conversation over lunch was in full flow at the point, I was sure they were discussing various private equity investment firms operating in China. I decided the time was right to launch my attempt to make them think I understood everything they were saying and asked how they selected which firm to work with? They looked at me blankly. "Sorry. We are talking about pineapple cakes" I was told. Busted. After that every now and again, as I reached for another sip of house red, they would break off and with a sympathetic nod in my direction explain they were talking about the Taiwanese financial industry. Hey ho. At least I have the consolation that I can speak more Cantonese than my lunch partner's colleague who, after living in Hong Kong for close on 10 years, can only manage four words....Gung Hei Fat Choi. Pip pip.

Friday 26th October, 2012

Frustrating week for me because as you will no doubt be aware the CIMB Classic began yesterday in Kuala Lumpur and the likes of Tiger Woods and my fellow Scot, Martin Laird, must be fancying their chances of scooping the US$1.3 million first prize in my absence. I asked one of you to provide me with the excuse to get out there but you let me down. Thanks a lot. Talking of golf Bob was 15 yesterday and part of his day was spent over nine holes at Royal Worlington supposedly playing golf with a friend. He didn't have much to say about his game. The fact is he would have been pre-occupied exploring the adjoining woods which harbour all sorts of interesting wildlife. I know I go on about his pursuit of furry creatures. In fact fishing is his greatest passion. I can't help him there. I totally hate the smell of fish on my hands. Now, you might have the impression of Bob as an outdoor guy, which I suppose he is, but there is a reality TV show he never misses. Not for him Hollyoaks or TOWIE. It's called Wicked Tuna. Every evening this half term we have had a running commentary over dinner on the latest developments from the fishing town of Gloucester, Massachussets. A blue finned tuna sold for $13,000 in yesterday's episode and there was an interesting scrap between the locals and some outsiders who had strayed into their waters. Oh it's exciting stuff. So I'm back from lunch - client was quite late but with an interesting excuse...."my IT guys in their wisdom decided to put the clocks on our floor back a day early"..and we had a good time reminiscing. That's another thing I've noticed as I write this weekly drivel. Besides blowing my own trumpet more than I used to I also include much more nostalgia. Sign of the times. Anyway an interesting thing happened this week. There was this guy I knew at school who was a good friend, but I hadn't seen him since we'd left. Every few years or so some random event reminds me to type his name into Google to see what he was up to. Nada. No disrespect to him. I used to be a similar non-entity. Something about Glenalmond obviously. If you searched for David Sandison you got a photographer, an accountant or a fisherman in Shetland. But then I ran the Jungfrau Marathon and suddenly I was somebody. Anyway, I spotted his name whilst re-reading my 1981 diary in bed on Wednesday evening and was prompted to have another search for him yesterday. To my surprise, my friend who, as my brother reminded me, lent my parents a pen-knife on my first day at school with which they carved notches into a coat hanger on which to hold my kilt, has re-surfaced. There he was, pictured in the Daily Mail, wearing his OG tie. It's a sad story though I'm afraid. It appears he recently drove his £70,000 Maserati through a stone wall into the harbour in Shieldaig, Ross-shire. And that's the least of it. He has just been fined £1,000 in Perth Sheriff Court for a separate incident. Tut tut.

Friday 12th October, 2012

Soroptomist ..... As you probably know I like new words and this was one I found inscribed on the plaque of a bench in Princes Street Gardens on Tuesday morning. I should add I was walking through the gardens on my way to a 'portant meeting. I was not one of the six tramps I passed horizontalising in various sheltered spots, soaking up the sun rise. I had spent the night in the Balmoral, dig me. So anyway, no conferring and Google strictly ruled out, but can anyone tell me what a soroptomist is? First one to reply with the correct answer gets a prezzie. I wasn't looking particularly for new words. Normally when I walk through Princes Street Gardens I recall a time quite a few years ago when I was marketing with a Sanford Bernstein analyst and we made a detour into the park. The analyst had heard music ( if you can call fiddling that ) and we went to investigate its source. It turned out there was a Scottish Country Dance exhibition going on and I still don't think the analyst believed me when I waved at an elderly lady in the front row of the stage who happened to be my grandmother! No, on this occasion my eyes were peeled for a fox which I'd been told about the evening before over dinner. My friend told me he had seen it one morning on his way to work and it had apparently been stalking an old lady out for a walk with her Jack Russell which I thought was quite remarkable. I am particularly interested in Edinburgh's fox population as I have promised a client, who has a problem with a fox which has made their back garden its home, that I will send Bob up for work experience at some point. Back on the subject of words we had lunch on Tuesday in Cafe St Honore a very traditional French restaurant in North Thistle Street, not to be confused with Rue St Honore, the road sign on the front of the restaurant. Traditionally French it may be when at the end of lunch I drew on my extensive command of the language and asked for a cafe au lait the waitress's face was a surprising blank. Sparing her embarassment I re-ordered. "A cup of coffee please". "No problem" she said. "Would you like milk with that?" It reminded me of the time in Ireland when I was looking for double cream. I looked high and low but there were only cartons of single cream on the supermarket shelves. So I asked a young lad wheeling out a fresh stock of dairy products whether they had any double cream. "No sir," he said pointing to the rows of single cream, "I'm sorry, but it only comes in this size". Last snippet on my theme. Unlike our other children Lottie, our 11 year old genius, needs no help with here homework. She just sits down and gets on with it. Last night was English and the subject was opposites. She was reeling them off with consumate ease till she got to the word IMPROVE. She paused for a second and then came out with "Dettoriorate". Sorry. It's a Newmarket joke really. Frankie's daughter is her best friend in Pony Club.

Friday 28th September, 2012

I received this email on my way out to Frankfurt earlier this week. I don't know what it is about me and Frankfurt, but everytime I go there I get messed up by flight delays and cancellations. It was the same this time albeit, gratifyingly, at the hands of Lufthansa rather than BA. Anyway, this came from a former colleague, "Lucky Tim" we call him, as I twiddled my thumbs ruefully in H'row T1.....it's a long story but worth a read. Happy Monday, I hope you had a lovely weekend? I have a interesting story that I think you will like being a fellow sailor. ( DS adds.....I must admit to have been rather flattered by that ! ) So Im not sure if I have mentioned this to you before but I am a massive fan of the yacht called the Maltese Falcon (google if you have no idea what I am talking about). Since friday the Monaco yacht show has taken centre stage here and the MF has been on anchor just outside the main marina. The yacht show was fantastic and I managed to schmmooooze myself onto a few lovely boats but the boat I really wanted to get on of course was MF.. So to cut a long story short when back at my flat and staring at the MF from my terrace I decided to google it and see whether I could find a contact. I found a typical enquiries@ address and sent off a polite intro/begging/Im a fund manager rah rah rah email and within 2 minutes I received a call back from the PA of a lady called Elena Ambrosiandou (ring any bells?). Elena is the founder of Ikos and had that very public divorce you may have read about. Anyway so I gracefully accepted the invitation from Elena's PA to come onboard that afternoon and have a tour by one of the crew and I was instructed to meet the MF tender at the Monaco Yacht Club jetty. At 1.45pm I arrive nice and early at the jetty to be met by 5 staff who were not at all shocked by little old me, mentioned that they were expecting a friend of Elena's and that they were ready to take me to the MF.. A quick motor out to the MF and Im starting to act like a child in a candy store but still trying to look like this is a normal experience for me in front of the MF crew.. Once onboard I am met by the captain and given a tour ( I have attached a few pics). The MF is truely remarkable! After the tour the PA of Elena arrived and told me that Elena would be onboard shortly and would like to invite me to stay for lunch along with a few other guests. I accepted without too much thought and perched by the bar, intrigued as to who the other guests would be... So along with Elena, the other guests were a Saudi Sheikh called Sheikh Hammed, Dr Mohammed Al Barwani (He had just arrived from Scotland where he was a guest of Charles and Camila because one of his Oman O&G companies had just bought an interest there) A couple of hotties from Motor Magazine (who were writing a piece on Elena) and finally and most interestingly a chap called Alvaro De Marichalar who is now famous as the man that crossed the Atlantic on a Jet Ski travelling from Rome to New York. So after a 3 hour lunch and chilling on the MF like it was my local I hopped on the tender and was delivered back into port with Elena's number in my pocket and promise of lunch and guidance whenever its needed in my new ventures with Tipsy Capital (DS again....I made up this name btw). All in all a crazy day in Monaco! Hope you like the pics Tim How cool and ridiculous is that? I don't know about you, what I really wanted to see was the email Tim had sent. I suppose I was thinking if only I could draft something as convincing as he obviously had done all my problems would be over. Here is what got him on board the Maltese Falcon. Good morning, Please forgive this rather random email but I am huge admirer.. previously from afar... of the Maltese Falcon. Not least this is because of my Maltese heritage but also because of my love of the design and capabilities of the vessel. I'm presently based in Monaco and have been staring from my balcony at every spare moment as she swings on her anchor in the harbour. I was wondering if there is any possibility of going onboard for a quick tour? I am a fund manager so I am often looking for client entertainment ideas and also I am a very keen sailor. I'm not expecting a positive response from this email however I thought, as I watch the gorgeous boat out there, I should at least try kind regards So there you go. It was as easy as that. I'll be brushing up my email skills over the weekend and trying something similar on you next week after which I have no doubt a couple of US$200 million orders will follow. Failing that I'm off to try my luck as a fund manager in Monaco. P.S. Just finished The Sugar Barons by Matthew Parker. Fascinating read, yet horrendous.

Friday 14th September, 2012

Despite the satisfying, albeit delayed, outcome at Flushing Meadows I had been fully anticipating writing you a message that reflected general gloom and despondency chez Sandison and yet it turns out that this is a story of surprise, joy and love. I was expecting to have to report on yet another 60 lids down the drain spent in a futile attempt to get one of children across the finishing line in their driving test. On top of which a Vodafone bill had just arrived revealing that my youngest daughter had managed to run up a bill of £33 in 14 seperate 118118 calls made last Saturday afternoon when she was meant to be watching the Burghley Horse Trials. Maddening. But would you believe it, early yesterday morning, three and a half years after her first driving lesson, Hen passed. Yes, Hen. Not Jimmy, three years her junior, who had been quietly confident - even though she has failed her test three times in the last couple of months - that she would be qualified before Hen. Jimmy has felt she has had the edge ever since, all those years ago in Thailand, she was out of nappies months before Hen could be bothered to look after her own business. Sibling rivalry. Terrible thing, though I should say Jimmy was delighted at Hen's success. "This opens up a whole new world of opportunity for us Hen" she said ominously. Anyway I digress. I was talking about money. Of course test fees kind of pale into insignificance when you consider what we have spent on driving lessons for Hen over the years which also helped lessen the blow of having to insure her. I was pleasantly surprised in fact. I don't want to tempt fate but the RAC may wish they had demanded a bit more than the £750 they did to cover our aged VW Polo. So, it was a very happy home last night and we celebrated wildly. Hen revealed, that whilst she had not repeated previous errors which had included breaking a red light and requiring her examiner to perform an emergency stop, she had been convinced she had failed and burst into tears of surprise and joy when her examiner gave her the happy news. Wiping the tears away as she added her signature and dated the Pass certificate she noted it was the 13th September. "Unlucky for some, but not for me!" she told him gleefully. It was at this point I suspect the poor man began to wonder what exactly he had unleashed on the roads of Cambridgeshire and Suffolk. He would be even more concerned if he saw her latest Facebook post after she had spent the afternoon getting used to the sensation of driving on her own. "Jus been patrollin Gazeley-Ashley way, watch out bitchez imma ridin ma weeeeels." So what of the love angle this week? Maybe it was the champagne we were toasting her success with over supper yesterday but Hen started to get quite emotional again as she discussed the contribution her driving instructor Colin had made. As you would expect she has been through quite a few instructors over the years. Colin has only relatively recently come onto the scene. He is 67 years old, married, although apparently he and his wife have seperate bedrooms, and Hen later in the evening told us how much she loved him. Apparently he was friendly, wonderful and gorgeous and witty too. He has some great one-liners many of which she recited to us though I can only recall two of them. "Better to arrive 10 minutes late in this world, than early in the next" and "Early observation = early information; Late Observation = pain in the ar*e." Anyway, at this point, after a tiring day, she shuffled out the kitchen telling us she was off to write Colin a letter.

Friday 31st August, 2012

Anyway, back to Sweden. Yes, what a great country. We rented a house on one of the islands in the Swedish archipelago together with a boat to get us there. It was not the modest vessel I had hoped for, but a Chris Craft 25ft motoboat with an 8.1 Volvo Penta inboard engine together with brand new set of propellors which meant the boat was capable of a stunning 60mph. Alas it did not come with GPS and I can tell you the Swedish archipelago is one complicated and rocky place. I wasn't actually skippering the boat. The friends we were with had heard about my exploits in the British Virgin Islands no doubt and had pre-qualified their 16 year old son who passed his small boats licence days before. Fair play to him. We rocketed along on our 40 mile journey to Blido, darting artfully around islands and between yachts, flying across the substantial wake thrown up by various enormous ferries that ply their way between Stockholm and St Petersburg or whereever. My mistake was to take the steering wheel on the last ten minutes of the journey, in my defence a particularly precarious section that involved some dangerous rocks. I'll get to the point. I successfully negotiated all of these until we were just about to tie up to the jetty off our house. At that point there was an horrendous scraping noise and we had run aground. The pristine propellor flukes were not looking quite so shiny and smooth anymore. 'Nuff said. Blinking hate boats. To be fair it wasn't really my boat handling that was at fault. I was quite pleased at how I smoothly extricated the boat off the rock and edged gently up to the pier. The problem was the lack of sat nav and map reading, I admit, is not my forte. Believe it or not days later I had another little navigational incident. This time though it was on the Old Course at St Andrews. Now, as you might expect, I know my way around the Old rather well. I won the our family golf competition, The Big Stick, again this year, the eighth time out of the 15 occasions on which we have held the event. As I scribble this I am still considering whether or not to send you the write up which, as the winner, I am obliged to come up with. We'll see. The Old Course starter official manny handed us each a score card together with a sheet containing the day's pin positions and I was rather pleased with myself when, faced with a tricky approach to the third, I remembered to pull the sheet out of my bag and consult it. Armed with the knowledge that the pin was 22yds from the front and 7yds from the left I took an extra club, decided to add a bit of a draw and my 9 iron finished two feet from the hole. I resisted the urge to suggest that my father, brother and nephew would do well to pay such attention to detail, because I felt that would have been a little bit pompous. Just as well. When I next resorted to my pin sheet on what I thought was the 5th, I couldn't reconcile from the sheet whether or not I was on the hole I thought I was so I just hit the damn ball and hoped for the best. On closer inspection as I wandered up to the green I discovered that, from the start of the round, I had been using a map with the pin placements for the New Course on 19th August 2011. What a numptie. Oh what the heck, it's a dull old day...I'll send you my write up. But if you havn't heard of William Macgonagall, Scotlands second greatest poet then you may well think I have finally lost the plot. My write up owes a debt of gratitude to his seminal work, A Descriptive Poem on the Silvery Tay. Just for reference, faither means Dad, J is my brother and Charlie is my 17 year old nephew. The yellow jacket is a hideous corduroy creation once owned by the brother of the editor of Private Eye, which the loser of our golf contest is obliged to wear over lunch in the R&A.

Friday 10th August, 2012

It has been such an astounding week or so for Team GB you have probably had enough of impossible stories, but there has also been some sporting action to report away from the Olympics. I am often asked whether I make up the stories about Bob. I don't. I really don't. Anyway, it would take quite an imagination to come up with his exploits last weekend. If it wasn't for the pile of feathers by the sink I spotted when I came down for breakfast suggesting he might have been up and about I suppose I would have been a little irritated that Bob didn't show till some time after 10am. It transpired that he had got up at 3.30am, wandered to the bottom of our paddock and sat, .410 shotgun in hand, for four hours, hoping that a rabbit would emerge from a burrow. When, by 7.30am, it became apparent that the rabbit community was wise to his prescence, and a pigeon wandered lazily overhead, he popped that, plucked it, put it in the fridge and a slightly disgruntled Bob pottered back to bed. It was a shame he explained to me. He had been very keen to get a rabbit as he had found a nice recipe for Lapin a la Moutarde. The local wildlife had one up on him the next day too. He had been asked to take the dogs for a quick walk. We were going out for the day and they would have to spend a few hours locked in the dog house so they just needed a little run about. He came back forty minutes later. Twiggie, his lurcher, was a muddy mess. Humphrey, our miniature smooth haired daschund had a cut on his side and squealed when you so much as touched him. And Bob's wellies - my Le Chameau's to be precise - had been been sliced open. As I said, we had just sent him for a quiet Sunday morning walk and he had turned it into a bloodbath. He calmly explained to me they had had an encounter ( I'll spare you all the details ) with a male muntjac ( photo attached so you know what to look out for next time you go for a wander in the countryside). Some muntjac this. Feeling slightly threatened admittedly, it had turned on Bob and Humphrey and bitten them both! Humphrey has had a lucky escape safe to say, but my wellies are a write off. I had to take the dog to the vet so that'll be a £100 bill at least plus £160 for a new pair of Chameau's. Blinking boy. Drives you mad. We are off on holiday to Sweden tomorrow morning, my wife's first ever visit to her fathers homeland. We have tried to go there before as I may have told you but ended up that time in Denmark as I had booked flights to Copenhagen believing it to be Sweden's capital city. So away next week and in my absence please contact my colleague Matt Brown (0207 201 3540) who will be happy to help if you need anything from us......

Friday 26th July, 2012

As you know, I am quite fixated about tallying the number of countries I have been to. I think I have told you before that if you see me scribbling away furiously during a particularly boring analyst meeting I am most likely writing out a list of countries I have visited. Actually these days I might be jotting down something else. After a bit of practice I can now recall and write out the names of all 50 states in the USA in 2mins 10 seconds flat. Test me sometime. Nationalism is a bit of a bug bear of mine actually. Hate it. Really brings the worst out in people. Nevertheless on the eve of the Olympics it is hard to avoid the subject of countries and sport. I suppose I started on the theme yesterday. Now, of course, I happen to be Scottish, but speaking as a Brit I must say we didn't give Scotland much to do in the Olympics. Women's soccer I think was about it. And they only go and mess it up. I helpfully sent my Scottish clients sent a picture of the correct North Korean flag which prompted this response from a friend in Edinburgh. This is the flag they almost put up Anyway, to put the hapless Hampden officials into perspective, it wasn't as crass an error as the one made during the medal ceremony at a Kuwaiti shooting event earlier this year won by a Kazakh, Maria Dmitrienko. Click on the following link. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17494812 I have mentioned before how many people you spot wandering around London in whites and carrying tennis racquets when Wimbledon is on. On Monday and Tuesday this week the thing I noted was the number of cyclists - I even seen one on a Boris bike - wearing yellow jerseys. Bradley Wiggins is a legend, don't get me wrong. First words on winning the Tour de France and facing the crowds with microphone in hand? "We're gonna draw the raffle tickets now!". So English. Anyway, as you know I am reasonably sporty myself and have a fairly diligent regime involving running round Hyde Park at lunch time. I was out there again yesterday. Surprise surprise, blinking thousands of would be Olympians had suddenly appeared. Perhaps I am being unduly cynical. There was a great atmosphere and they all seemed to be having a lovely time. I say I go running. It's a bit more than that of course. I mix it up with stragically chosen moments of sprinting, star jumps and squats, depending on who's watching. I digress. I was meant to be writing about my bug-bear.... nationalism. London is a multi-cultural place, but the Olympics have brought it to a different level. The city is heaving with different nationalities wandering around the West End, trying to put off the moment they have to head over to Hackney. Getting to the point, I was wearing my acrylic purple T shirt proclaiming that I had completed the 2011 Jungfrau Marathon, but almost everyone else seemed to be running around hair or eyebrows paints funny colours, carrying flags or with the names of their countries emblazoned across their chests. I don't know. Just seems strange to me. The only interesting thing was the number of runners I spotted from countries begining with C. China, Cameroon, Chile. I even passed someone claiming to come from a place called CANADA, wherever that is. I paid my second ever visit to Germany this week which was very exciting. My British Airways flights was inevitably delayed - well over an hour. Would never have happened if I'd flown Lufthansa. So I had to cancel my client dinner, and landed in Frankfurt at 9.00pm suspecting it was too late even for an impromptu rendevous with a good German friend of mine and to grab a bite to eat. Oh ye of little faith. Never underestimate German efficiency. Whisked in seconds through passport control putting Heathrow to shame, moments later I was in a taxi doing 110 mph down the road into town. The last time I'd been driven that fast by a taxi-driver I was on the way from Macau to Chungshan Hot Springs Golf Course and we nearly died. Within about half an hour of landing in Germany I was sitting in the garden of a charming restaurant eating the most enormous Wienerschnitzel and drinking a large glass of ice cold apple wine. So you see, stock broking has its moments.

Friday 13th July, 2012

Bob got back from Rugby last Friday for the summer holidays and much as I was looking forward to seeing him again the joy did not last long. An hour at most. It had been a long and stressy week as I think I told you. After supper I slumped in front of the TV. Moments later Bob arrived looking uncharacteristically frazzled to tell me that our next door neighbour, with whom I had had no contact whatsoever in the five years we have lived at our house, wanted to see me, adding that he had shot a pigeon with an air-rifle which had then fluttered over the substantial dividing wall into the neighbours garden. Talk about irate. The guy was apoplectic and ordered me into his house for a serious dressing down. Apparently he had been sitting in his conservatory enjoying the peace and tranquility of our Suffolk village when a bird landed on his lawn followed immediately by a boy wearing camouflage trousers, vaulting the wall and proceeding to dive on the hapless pigeon. I could see from the large pile of feathers strewn over the guys garden that he was probably telling the truth. I apologised profusely of course. His point that if his wife had been home alone she would have been terrified by this intrusion was well made. But funnily enough the thing he seemed most preoccupied by was the fact, he told me, that Bob had been barefooted. I think he considered this was a signal of some much more malicious motive beyond putting a poor bird out of its misery. I assured him - as you already know - that this was completely normal behaviour. Recall that he once ran two miles to the local railway station, caught a train to Cambridge and onto an appointment with his orthodontist with no shoes on. Fair play to the neighbour, though slightly to my surprise, he calmed down, even seeming to view me with some sympathy I felt. PS Otherwise engaged, Bob had missed supper so whilst I patched things up with the neighbour he rattled off a bite to eat for himself. The pigeon having been left behind in the furore next door, he settled instead on "poaching" an egg in the sauce of a can of baked beans which he emptied into a saucepan. Haute cuisine. PPS Went to a friends 40th birthday party last night. How cool am I to have friends that young?

Friday 6th July, 2012

I have had my second curtailed week in a row so I feel the need to explain myself. Whilst it may not have surprised you, my repeated absences probably havn't shown me in the best light to our new colleagues who have joined us from RBS. Being serious for a moment though, everyone here has been fantastically supportive and helpful. My mother was taken ill as she was travelling down south with my father to visit my brother in Wiltshire. They were staying in a hotel just north of Birmingham when she developed chest pains early on Tuesday morning. Perhaps you havn't met my mother, but she is quite a piece of work. In considerable pain, she was being looked after by an understandably slightly frazzled, young hotel receptionist while they waited for the ambulance to arrive. "Don't worry, don't worry" my mother tells me the girl said to her. "Take slow deep breaths. Like this..... Breath in.......breath out......breath in......Now bring your legs up a bit dear" At which point my mother apparently couldn't resist retorting, through gritted teeth "I'm having a heart attack you know, not giving birth!" Very fortuitously one of England's newest hospitals was close to hand and having been taken there in an ambulance, within minutes she was being attended to and, fingers crossed, all is now well thank goodness. She'll be leaving this morning and heading home to Elie, Fife. Wolverhampton. Now there's a place I had not been to before and at the risk of alienating myself with the large number of my clients who will now no doubt reveal that's where they come from, it's not a place I need to visit again. You know when you go somewhere for the first time and it's rainy and grey? You kind of feel you should give it the benefit of the doubt and only judge it when the sun comes out. No need to bother with that when it comes to Wolverhampton. What a dump. Mind you, our opinion of the place was not helped by the Ely House Hotel which I booked my father and I into on Tuesday night. I liked the name obviously and it had looked pretty smart on the website, but as Hen likes to say....Never judge a book by its cover. To be fair to me, I suspect there were probably worse hotels about and it did have a reasonable selection of malt whisky. Anyway, if you were in hospital in Wolverhampton, feeling a touch under the weather, I suspect this would perk you up......written on the back of the home made get well card that my mother received, a message from our 11 year old daughter. Dear Grannie, I hope you are not to badly ill, poor you!! And not even in your own comforting surroundings. I don't feel perfect to, although I'm sure your ailment is a bit worse than a cold. Please get better soon and come to see us. Lots of love, Lottie xxx OK...she can't spell but quite sweet! Changing the subject Hen is in France for yet another holiday at the parents-in-law pad in Gascony. This time, rather than lounging about the pool in what inevitably proves to be a futile attempt to get a suntan, the highlight she tells me is the prospect of a visit to Disneyland Paris on the return trip. Hen absolutely hates scary, "fun" rides. Wild horses could not drag her to Big Thunder Mountain. But she has agreed to go to Disneyland, can't wait actually, on the promise that she is allowed to dress up as a real live sparkly, pink Princess in order to cavort on equal terms with Mickey and Minnie Mouse. It's a worry. The girl is going to be 20 in a few weeks time.

Friday 29th June, 2012

You may not have noticed it, but I have been a little under the weather this week. I have had a rather nasty cold. More to the point though the effect of this is that it has been almost a week since I last had a glass of wine. This is virtually unprecedented for me. I read somewhere that a Greek philosopher, Plato or Socrates - perhaps you can help me out here - advocated regular and substantial wine consumption for men upon reaching the age of 40 to ward off the grumpiness of middle age. He wasn't wrong. If I am a little stressy at the moment though it is most likely for another reason, truth be told. The fact is I now have not one, but two children learning to drive. I have told you before about Hen's previous efforts. She took her test about a year and a half ago, after I had spent roughly £1,000 on driving lessons for her. Much to my relief and, I might add, the general safety of the roads in Suffolk, she failed. As she blithely explained she would almost have passed given she committed 13 minor errors, only two more than the permitted number. The problem, she magnanimously conceded, was the red light she had run and the fact that the instructor had had to apply the emergency brakes to avoid their crashing into the back of a white van. So much time has elapsed since her last attempt that she is now required to re-sit her theory test so we are all ok for a while yet. However second daughter Jimmy is an altogether different proposition. She has passed her theory test, spent hours driving a clapped out Jeep around a field perfecting her gear shifting, a basic skill which eludes Hen, and has had a series of lessons in Rugby and around Bury St Edmunds. Her test is scheduled for 18th July at 2.30pm. I am a worried man. She might just pass. Which brings me to an email I received from my brother yesterday, who was concerned by the quote he had received to insure his son, who has passed his US driving test, to drive in the UK this summer: From: "Jamie Sandison" Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2012 13:10:52 +0100 To:

Friday 8th June, 2012

I think you know that I am not one to brag about my family's various talents, although I probably have allowed myself a little bit of crowing about Hen's artistry. It is not just photography, her claim to fame there being a one page spread of her photos of a 21st birthday party which appeared in Tatler a few months ago. OK....she didn't manage to complete her Foundation course at Leeds last year, but with an A* in Art A level and a few months of that course behind her she can sketch and draw pretty competently and now she tells me that she has landed a job which involves another artistic discipline. She is spending the next couple of weeks painting show jumps for the Olympics Equestrian events. Marvellous. Takes after her father that girl. In my year off I travelled round the world working on a Stolt-Neilsen chemical tanker. The intention was I would see lots of countries - or at least their ports - whereas in fact what happened was I spent three months, head down, chipping rust off and slapping paint on. I got a glowing reference which I will furnish you with in due course, but to this day I shudder at the thought of my departure from MV Stolt Osprey. I had been given the job of painting the superstructure and had been congratulated on the super job I had done as the front of the living quarters glistened with a fine coat of fresh cream. Happily I completed what was, truth be told, a rather slip shod job on the day before departure, having been quite incapable of preparing the surface as I was meant to. Alas, a heavy storm and strong winds the night before we arrived in Marseilles began to lay me bare even as I said my goodbyes and thank you for having me. Happily only I noticed the tell tale signs of peeling that signalled the whole face of the boat was going to require a second coat at the very least. And somehow I have a feeling that horses and riders at the London Olympics will not want to have too close a look at the fences and poles, at least come the second week. Back to me..... I was quite jammy eh?! Talking of which, and this is a rum one, I was at a loss for something to tell you today - as you might have gathered - so I was going to report that I have at last concluded that I am indeed a lucky boy. Twice now, in the space of just over a week, I have been given the opportunity to buy a gold ring that some Eastern European has found on the pavement just in front of me not far from our office on Knightsbridge. How fortuitous is that? The second time this happened was only an hour or so ago and I had literally just decided to tell you about this as I made my way back to my desk when I was approached by an Indian gentleman as I paused to look at the cars in the Ferrari garage next door to us who said to me " My god, you are a lucky man. You have a lucky face. Shall I tell you why your face is lucky? " Well I didn't stop to find out. It could only end in anti-climax, but I do feel better about myself, I must say. And whats more, I still have a job, I think......so that's good.

Friday 15th June, 2012

A friend of mine wrote on her Facebook page the other evening that "You know you're past middle age when your memories mean more than your dreams". Oh dear me. How depressing is that? I was about to let rip and give her a kick up the backside, but just in time I recognised the irony given how I had spent the morning that day. If you fly into Edinburgh Airport from the south west and are sitting on the right side of the plane looking out of the window, just moments before you land, you might have noticed a castle next to the Glasgow motorway, but otherwise surrounded by huge trees, a river, the Grand Union Canal and a lot of non descript shacks which, for your information, happens to be a chicken farm. The "castle" is in fact a mid 19th century baronial style building, occupied for the last 80 years or so by Clifton Hall School, my alma mater. The tower on the right, at the top of which was my dorm when I first arrived, is still apparently occupied by the ghost of the Green Lady. I caught sight of the place flying in on Easyjet at the crack of sparrows on Wednesday morning and as I had a couple of hours to kill before a hectic series of meetings I decided to go and have a look round. I had not been back since I left the school in July 1976! THIRTY SIX YEARS AGO. The mental scars of having been sent away to boarding school aged 6 and a bit obviously run deep. By the way perhaps don't mention to the powers that be what I get up to on my trips to Scotland, but in my defence I was shown round the school by a very chatty 15 year old girl who was interested Formula One so I her talked her through the proposed IPO. I had such a lovely time wandering around reliving these halcyon days of the early 1970's until the headmaster announced that they had recently stumbled across some archived records within which he might well be able to find my old Common Entrance results. Retrieve them he did together with those of my younger brother. I have a reasonably well developed ability to laugh at myself, but I was not amused in the slightest to find that Jamie's results were infinitely superior to mine and indeed that I had only just managed to scrape into Glenalmond. Here is a sample of my results and the somewhat extraordinary comments. 54% in English I - " Comprehension showed no obvious talent " 52% in Maths II - "Q6 was not done and his main weakness was in Q2 " ( that implies to me I would have been better off omitting to answer Q2 aswell ). 55% in History - "One question well answered, otherwise knowledge often inaccurate." 39% in Latin - " Very weak and should't have attempted part B " ( common theme there! ) 33% in Maths III - " Insufficient knowledge " 50% in French Oral - the comment on this one really annoyed me - " Rather like Morrison, though a bit better in Q.4 " What do they think they are doing comparing me to him? Morrison played rugby for Scotland. Started at Barings the same day as me. He couldn't speak French to save his life and when he tried his accent was horrendous. I am told I sound like Prince Charles when I speak French but I'm quite proud of that. Oh well. There is one positive aspect from roaming around in the past. It makes my own children's efforts seem quite encouraging.

Friday 25th May, 2012

Hen was home last night and she and I settled to an exciting evening in front of the telly after a barbeque and two bottles of Pino Grigio Rosato. What a fascinating programme we watched about Billingsgate Fish Market. I think I've told you before about my attitude to fish and fishing. It is definitely at odds with Bob's. Apart from the smell, the tangles and the danger to body posed by hooks, gaffs, knifes and teeth, not to mention the risk of ciguatera, it is also the fact that I am incredibly unlucky and rarely catch any of the little blighters. My luck changed once though. It was many years ago, pre dating any influence from Bob, we were staying in Ireland in a house on the shore of some sea inlet on the West Coast and I decided to have a go at catching supper. Would you believe it within 20 minutes I had pulled out four or five substantial and I must say, quite attractive looking fish. Manfully, I gutted and filleted them, wrapped them in tin-foil and put them on the barbeque. I can't tell you how utterly disgusting it was. Tasted like eating mud. In an effort to identify the fish, the next day I went to a shop in Sneem and described them to the shop keeper. "Oh they'll have been the pollock" the man said. "Are they edible" I asked? "Oh yes" came the enthusiastic reply. "They used to be very popular here in Ireland.....during the Potato Famine." Well funnily enough one of the fish merchants on the TV last night told us that thanks to celebrity chefs likeGordon Ramsay and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall pollock has become incredibly popular and he can hardly give cod away these days despite its abundant supply. At that point I almost switched the telly off in disgust, but a moment later I could have hugged him. "That's a pollock," he says, holding one up. "Lovely piece of fish, lovely bright colours, that sort of thing. Tastes like sh*t. Then you get cod [holds up a cod]. That's a fish that's been swimming in the North Atlantic, feeding on the right products, since the day it was born. If that's a human being, that goes to the gym every day, yeah? It eats all the right foods. It probably drives a Porsche, right? This – back to the pollock dangling limply in his hand – is sitting at home on the settee, in a tracksuit, watching Jeremy Kyle, eating a burger." Well I thought it was hilarious, but I suppose it boils down to one's history with pollock and your sense of humour which can be like ships passing in the night....witness a couple of Blackberry exchanges I had with my daughter Jimmy this week: David Sandison, Jimmy Sandison NEW Messages: --------- David Sandison: My auntie died this morning Jimmy Sandison NEW: Oh daddy I'm so sorry are you ok? Jimmy Sandison NEW: Who's sister was she David Sandison: I didn't know her well. She never talked to me, or to anyone really David Sandison: R.I.P. Auntie Social David Sandison: Ha ha ha!!! Jimmy Sandison NEW: Oh golly ok David Sandison: It was a joke!! Sorry. Couldn't resist it!!! David Sandison: Do you get it?? Jimmy Sandison NEW: What no one died? Jimmy Sandison NEW: U sick freak David Sandison: Did u know that Beyonce is Roy Castle's love child? She chose not to take his name as she didn't want to be known as Beyonce Castle. Boom boom! Jimmy Sandison NEW: Isn't he a music producer? Or something Jimmy Sandison NEW: Very interesting David Sandison: Do u get the joke? Bouncy castle. Jimmy Sandison NEW: Why have u taste in jokes gone so down hill Jimmy Sandison NEW: I've gone deaf in one ear Jimmy Sandison NEW: Completely David Sandison: What? Didn't quite hear you David Sandison: Poor you. When did this happen? Jimmy Sandison NEW: Last night I think it was cos I was spinning around loads so my balance in my ears have gone weird David Sandison: Try spinning back the other way?? Jimmy Sandison NEW: That's what I thought but I'm not gunna risk it cos I can't remember which way I spun in the first place

Friday 4th May, 2012

Here's a strange one. A couple of days after being asked by his old University if they could give my father's telephone number out to someone who wanted to make contact with him, my mother answered the phone to a lady calling herself Moira asking to speak to Ian ( my father ). My parents have been happily married for 50 years, but my mother's hackles were raised. She knew immediately that this was the very Moira, my father's first serious girlfriend, and who had dumped him apparently on the grounds that he was unlikely to convert to Catholicism. You probably havn't met my mother, but she is not to be taken lightly, especially when her hackles are on end. Nonetheless my father took the phone and despite not being the sort to linger on calls ( "have you seen this blinking phone bill" he used to shout at us ) 45 minutes later was still nattering away, reminiscing happily to this lady who, 56 years after they had last talked to each other, had suddenly decided the time was right for a reconciliation. Moira is not the only one susceptible to a bad dose of nostalgia. Just last weekend I was standing in the kitchen listening transfixed to a programme on the radio called Reunion about the handover of Hong Kong back in 1997. It was quite entertaining stuff. Emily Lau hasn't softened a jot. But when they played a recording of the ceremony itself I suddenly found, much to the amusement of Hen who was looking on, that I had tears running down my cheeks! How sad is that. In my defence it was a very emotional event and even Lord Patten admitted that he had to suck polo-mints in an attempt to hold back the tears! And that brings me to Dirk the penguin. This is a story I spotted this week about a pair of tourists in Australia, Rhys Owen Jones, 21, and Keri Mules, 20, from Wales, funnily enough, who admitted the theft of Dirk from Sea World on Queensland's Gold Coast, when they appeared before Brisbane magistrates. The pair broke into Sea World, swam with dolphins and let off a fire extinguisher in a shark enclosure before setting off back to their hotel with Dirk, a fairy penguin, under their arms. Wacky. Happily Dirk was rescued and returned to Sea World unharmed and reunited with his little partner, Peaches. But what has this got to do with my focus on nostalgia? Sadly I never managed to visit Sea World as it does sound like a fun place, but all those years ago when I was a fund manager and ran the Baring Australia Fund - consistently number 1 in the South China Morning Post fund rankings btw - I owned a substantial stake in the marine park which was then listed as a property trust. I never expected too much from my stock picks so you can imagine I was delighted one morning to wander into my office to find the company had reported and the stock was up some 9%. I rang an Ozzie broker - I think it was Simon Poidevin - to find out what in the results had prompted this move. "Mate", came the reply, quick as you like, " havn't you heard? Flipper the dolphin had twins!" Enjoy the Bank Holiday. We have my mother, who needs time to think about things away from Dad, to stay for the weekend. I jest. In fact it is all very exciting. She is bringing down 20 asparagus crowns, a belated birthday present, which hopefully I will be able to plant if the rain ever stops.

Friday 27th April, 2012

My my. This has been a dull old week. So much so that I have been thoroughly enjoying "Darkness at Noon" by Arthur Koestler. Of course that is a potentially fraught statement. I was in Scotland on Thursday and that was fun so nae offence pals. I caught up with a client for a bite of dinner on Wednesday night at Cramond Brig, a quaint little inn just off the A90 as you come into Edinburgh, which was a very good evening and then had an equally delightful, if somewhat more expensive, lunch at Martin Wishart on Thursday which at least will prevent the powers that be here from getting the wrong idea about my corporate credit card use. That brings us to Friday and I have spent this morning trying to justify my existence to senior colleagues who had flown in from HK and Singapore in light of the impending joining of forces with RBS. Just a thought, whilst I have your attention, if you can see your way to lobbing us a US$200 million order or two that would be handy. Talking of the powers that be, I was scrolling through my Bodhi blogsite as is my want when at a loss for what to write about after a week such as this, fine dining in Edinburgh excepted, and found the following poem written by a somewhat disenchanted young colonial in the 1920's that I had transcribed from a book I read at the tea plantation Manager's Bungalow in which Sophie and I stayed in the Hill Country of Sri Lanka during my Gardening Leave. I wish I were a manager With umpteen quid a year What a glorious life with a handsome wife And never a boss to fear. With unlimited powers and no fixed hours And never a care to muster (To go out at night and come back when it's light Is an old mangerial dastur). With a bungalow like an old chateau And a most expensive car. A blooming toff with all day off For that is what managers are. Now, having got that off my chest, if you have ever read anything grosser than what I am about to tell you, let me know and if you are even slightly faint of heart perhaps skip the next few sentences, but when I heard this story about Bob's return to school last Sunday evening I had to wonder whether this boy has anything to do with me at all. Before getting back to school he was determined to finish off a book he had been lent and so read all the way to Rugby sitting in the back of a friends Toyota Landcruiser. Sophie had noticed that he was uncharacteristically silent and he had not replied to her enquiry, from the front of the car, about his well being, but she presumed he was simply engrossed in his copy of Bear Grylls', "Mud Sweat and Tears". Nope. When they pulled up outside his house, the first drop off point, he darted out the car without so much as a by your leave and disappeared for a minute or two behind a bush. It's worse than that I'm afraid. It transpires that half way along the A14 he had begun to feel rather car-sick and some few miles outside Rugby, as they meandered through winding country lanes, he had in fact been sick. Somehow, he had managed to keep his mouth closed and had sat there in the rear seat, mouth full, no doubt feeling a little sorry for himself for ten minutes, until he was able to get out the car and deposit his gruesome load behind said bush. Weird, but tbh, I don't really know why I'm telling you about this. It is almost as odd as the boy himself.

Friday 20th April, 2012

OK. Back from our two weeks sailing in the BVI. I am ashamed to say that whilst I didn't end up on a coral reef this time, I did have a Francesco Schettino moment. I don't know about you, but I am not that keen on fishes and other nasty things at large in the sea. I was trying very hard to be brave when we all went for a snorkelling expedition at the wreck of the Rhone and in fact I was quite pleased with myself at managing to dive some considerable depth and touch the rusty hull, carefully avoiding the barnacles. Anyway, having done that I quickly resurfaced and, deciding enough was enough, swam back the 100yards or so to the buoy where we had tied up our dinghy. My wife was already there waiting I presumed for assistance to clambour aboard, but as I arrived she whispered in my ear that I should help Lottie, our 11 year old, to get out the water...."quickly". "She's fine...doesn't look at all tired" I replied. "There's a shark" mouthed Sophie, urgently. "Get her out of there!" In my defence I was really quite calm and was about to help them both, but just at that point my other daughter Jimmy, even more scared of fish than I am and who had stayed on the dinghy avoiding the swim completely, looked at me and shrieked. "Yugh Daddy.....you're covered in blood." Climbing aboard an Avon inflatable from a wavy sea is no mean feat, but I shot out the water and was aboard before you could say SS Concordia. Forget this "women and children first" malarky. Fair enough though don't you think?....I wouldn't be doing anyone a favour pouring blood in the sea trying to keep a shark at bay. Anyway all ended fine. I had suffered a nose bleed, the result of my deep dive. And the shark, it transpired, was a 6 ft nurse which was dozing lazily on the sea bed where it became the subject of close attention from Bob who, I have to admit, is both a better diver than me and a bit braver. You wonder why I dislike fish so much?......the whole fortnight was very little to do with sailing really. Instead of a 38ft catamaran we might aswell have been on a trawler off the West Coast of Scotland. When I think about it my time was rarely spent on navigation or trimming the sails. Instead it was about setting the engine to achieve a steady 5.5 knots, tiptoeing about the deck trying to avoid bits of fetid bacon and bare hooks, fixing rods, untangling lines, flailing around with a gaff, gutting, filleting and barbequeing various varieties that were landed...and dealing with Jimmy in the middle of the night when she was struck down with ciguatera fish poisoning. Hate them. There was though a joyful moment at 10.00pm one evening when Bob decided there was still time in the day to have another crack at the fish off the back of the boat and caught a 10lb blackfinned tuna which fought like the very devil. Now that was fun, the best bit of which was seeing Hen, a surprising enthusiast when it comes to this sport, emerging at speed from her cabin, dressed in just a bedsheet, knife in hand to finish the poor thing off. Back on the subject of bravery we decided to stave off jet lag last Saturday by heading out to buy some more chickens. Three Wellsommers, a Light Sussex, a Black Pekin and a silver tipped bantam Wynadotte. Oh and the nice man gave us for free a magnificent strutting Brahma cockerel which we've called Swagatam. It's important to give your chickens names. We put a lot of thought into that. There wasn't room for the Wynadotte in the cardboard box so she travelled home on Sophie's lap perched on an AA road map of Great Britain. Whilst we were struggling to come up with a name her there was suddenly a commotion and a nasty mess appeared on the map happily obliterating only Norwich which I have no intention of visiting anyway. So Norwich she is. PS. I note ruefully reports today that a Singaporean businessman has decided against bidding for a bankrupt Scottish institution. No David.....wrong attitude. PPS. My vegetable garden is coming along nicely and who cares about the hosepipe ban. It has barely stopped raining since they implemented it. Bit worried about my late autumn raspberry canes though. Four out of five of them look very dead.

Thursday 29th March, 2012

Thought I would spoil your Thursday afternoon with an early Bodhi Tree as I am away for the next couple of weeks. More on that later. Meantime there is something I want to get off my chest. For someone who is frequently spotted laden with shopping bags pottering along Sloane Street, Sophie has quite a cheek. Once a month I find our latest credit card statement on my desk with bold yellow highlighter pen marks circling any payments that she has failed to identify as hers. Obviously there are not many of those, but this week there was a circle around an item which read as follows....... 07/03/12 THE PLAYERS LOUNGE - ROSE STREET, EDINBURGH - £30.00 Whilst it almost goes without saying I have a completely clear conscience, I must admit I blushed like a guilty teenager at this entry. For those of you unfamiliar with Edinburgh, Rose Street used to be the red-light district. For the life of me, try as I might, I could not think what the heck I had spent that £30 on. Mystery. It would seem too that others in the Sandison family are also in need of some lessons on tracking expenditure more carefully. I got a phone call yesterday lunchtime from Hen who was at Leeds railway station, with two large suitcases, heading home for the Easter holiday. She was ringing to tell me she had discovered her bank account was empty and she was unable to buy a train ticket. What should she do? Unreal. She rang at 12pm. I spoke to my bank to transfer some money and before I knew it she was texting me aboard the 12.15pm Leeds to Stevenage train asking me how impressed I was with her for getting a train so quickly. I might be prepared to shoulder some of the blame, but another of my daughters, Jimmy, seems much more frugal and level headed. She returned last night from a Geography field trip in Barcelona (?!) with a present for me. A pile of seven perfectly shaped skipping stones, removed from the bed of a Spanish river whose course she was supposed to be plotting as part of a project, which I am to take to the Caribbean to chuck across a nice sheltered lagoon in an attempt to beat my record of 22 skips. Another slightly strange thing happened this week. A colleague asked me if I might be able to get him some used shotgun cartridge cases. Rum indeed. Apparently his daughter is going to a fancy dress party and needs them as accoutrements. Why he chose to ask me I do not know. Do I look like a hunting, fishing and shooting sort to you? Anyway as it happens I knew who to turn to and rang Bob, fresh back from school for the Easter holiday, to give him this mission. I presumed that on one of his prowls around the countryside he would be able to retrieve some empty cases left by the local shoot. He had other ideas however. At least on this occasion he had the good sense to ask Sophie's permission to get a shotgun out of the gun cabinet. On my way home I received a message from him asking me to pick up a packet of leeks from M&S and arrived to find a small pile of cartridges alongside a plate of seasoned pigeon breasts ready to be cooked to quite an elaborate recipe. The following morning I sent my colleague an email having left the shells on his desk: Mike, I hope your daughter doesn't feel too guilty about her request for 5 spent shotgun cartridges. See attached photo. Bob was instantly on the case... rgds, David Incidentally, you know I fancy myself as a bit of a gardener, but if you look carefully in the background of the photo you may pick out burnt patches on my otherwise pristine lawn. This is the very annoying consequence of having three dogs who use it to pee on. Prompted another earnest discussion of deep consequence on the desk here at the great house of CIMB. Someone claimed the answer was to put a dollop of tomato ketchup on the dog food. The logic of this I discovered on Google. It is not a complete old wive's tale however if it works it is simply because it makes the dog thirsty causing it to drink more water. As I now know "Dilution is the solution to the pollution." Talking of water, as I may have mentioned, I am off to the BVI tomorrow morning crack of sparrows. I havn't decided whether I am looking forward to the flight or not. Apart from the fact that I appear to have left my precious Kindle on the train I have also yet to reveal to the family that a quirk of the airline on-line check in process has left allocated me seat 60D whilst Sophie and the children are in 47 C, D, E, F & G. Back in the office on Monday 16th April assuming nothing worse happens than a repeat of my encounter with a coral reef. Missing you already.

Friday 24th March, 2012

I have to confess my enthusiasm for the Kindle is slightly on the wane as I am struggling with an absolutely rubbish book by some twit called Alan Judd, so I have started to watch Mad Men on my iPad. Hooked. It's brilliant. Got me to thinking this afternoon about advertising and branding. It still grates on me to be met, on arriving at Cambridge station, by posters proclaiming the city as "The Home of Anglia Ruskin University". What about Peterhouse College which was founded in 1284, Pembroke (1347 ), Magdalene (1428) or even new ones such Kings (1441) or Trinity (1546)? Any of those venerable institutions could have been chosen. But Anglia Ruskin University which was only given university status when work began on their campus in Chelmsford, as it happens, in 1992? What a joke. The sad truth is the rarified atmosphere that drew me to Cambridge, albeit I only eventually managed to live there aged 42 having earlier become the first headboy at Glenalmond who sat for a place at Cambridge to fail to pass the entrance exam, has gradually dissipated. And, for me, Cambridge hit rock bottom on Monday morning this week. There I was at 5.40am, lining up to buy a cup of tea on the station platform to brace me for my train journey which these days annoyingly stops to pick up undesirables at Royston and Letchworth Garden City having previously been non-stop, when I became the subject of a torrent of vile and vitriolic abuse from a wretched yob, probably drugged or boozed up. For close on 5 minutes he ranted and raved at the four of us in the AMT queue haranguing us for wearing suits, being bankers, contributing nothing to society and spending money on latte's whilst his "brothers" were dying. I am under strict instructions from Sophie these days, since once nearly being thrown off a cross channel ferry by Liverpudlian football fans and, on another occasion when I tried to assert my rights, assaulted at Tottenham Hale Station, not to react to provocation. So, to my shame, I just stood there and soaked it all up. It is not good for the soul. The postscript to this silly story - apart from the fact that when emerging from Hyde Park Corner an hour and twenty minutes later I found myself alongside someone who looked uncannily like my earlier assailant I did summon up the courage to have a polite word with him ( it turned out to be a case of mistaken identity on my part ) - is that when I got home that evening the phone rang. It was 8.35pm and the letters INTERNATIONAL flashed up on the handset which you know means its a cold call from someone in Bangalore trying to sell you a miracle cure for the bugs on your computer. My usual tactic for such calls ( handing the phone to Hen ) was not available so I picked it up and without waiting for the caller to introduce themselves said "Sorry. Not interested. Thank you So much " and put the phone down. Immediately and persistently the phone rang again. I had to answer it again and it was magnificent actually. "You ignorant ****" the guy shouted at me. "You are so ******** stupid. You didn't even wait to hear what I was calling about. **** you. **** you." - to paraphrase. And then he slammed the phone down on me. Hand on heart I was going to apologise if he had rung again. But he didn't. Oh well. Abuse at 5.40am and then 8.35pm. Thank goodness I have you lot in between times. Talking about in between times, I got a text message from a friend yesterday, just after lunch. I spotted your wife in Sloane Street from my car earlier. She could hardly walk being laden down with expensive looking shopping bags!! No budget day worries in your household! He was spot on. Sophie was in town. Now there's someone who really could do with a quiet word in her ear from that man on the station platform.

Friday 16th March, 2012

The trouble, if you are someone who catches pigeons with your bare hands and lobs them at unsuspecting friends, is that all sorts of stories wing their way around about what you have been up to lately. This weeks one was from the mother of a girl at Rugby who bumped into Sophie ...."Oh" she said, "Olivia told me the story about Bob smuggling a dead pheasant into school with him after the last leave out and putting it in one of his friend's bed". Gross, or what. He insists this is completely fictitious, but why am I not completely convinced? Talking of wings, have I ever told you about Humphrey? He had his own Facebook page for a while. He's Hen's miniature smooth haired daschund. Knee high to a grasshopper, but so much better looking than Yoda, the ugliest dog in the world who has died aged 15. Yup, he's sweet, apart, that is, from the fact that he has bitten both the postman and the window cleaner and, when out on a walk, he is inclined to attack other dogs, regardless of size, that come within 50 yards of him. I don't know, its maybe not so funny in the writing, but last weekend, whilst I was quietly weeding and minding my own business, there was suddenly the most horrific and startling commotion. I jumped up to see Humphrey scampering, tail between his legs, and squealing, as though there was a pack of rottweilers after him, up the path from the field where he enjoys snuffling about and feasting on horse poo. It will be a while before Humphrey lives this down. What a loser. Hot on his heels and chasing him for all she was worth, was Penry, our Suffolk white hen. Chicken legs drumming on the gravel, wings flapping I have to admit she was quite a scary sight. I thought I was going to have to lots of interesting stuff to tell you about this week as it was Lotties school play last night, "Arsenic and Old Lace", but alas it was a dull old event. Indeed if wasn't for the fact that I was able to leave early as Lottie only appeared in Scene Three, I would have been quite happy if my couple of glasses of eldeberry wine, washing down three stale sausage rolls, at the interval had been laced with arsenic, strychnine and a pinch of cyanide. I got my comeuppance for my disloyal behaviour though as I ended up stuck in a traffic jam on the A14 for 40 minutes and missed the end of Master Chef. You probably occasionally get the sense in these missives that I consider myself a pretty unlucky person and you would probably be right. Three years ago, when it was our turn to have my parents for Christmas, my father dropped the stopper to one of a pair of beautiful William Yeoward crystal decanters we have whilst he was doing the washing up. It shattered on the kitchen floor, but I kept remarkably calm not wanting to ruin Christmas and anyway I have never really been convinced that you should put a stopper in a decanter. Well, one of the few other things I managed to do during my garden leave, besides building a vegetable garden - HOSEPIPE BAN....aaaaaagh! - was at last to make a trip to William Yeoward where I handed in the remaining stopper and asked them to find a copy to replace the broken one. Still with me? Anyway, four months on and I get home last night in a right bate to find a large cardboard box had been delivered. Inside were two hand cut crystal decanters, almost identical to the ones we already have, and a letter from the nice young boy at William Yeoward apologising for the fact they hadn't been able to find a replacement stopper and would I accept these as a gift with their apologies. There is a God and well done Dad, but no......you don't need to do the washing up again. Sounds like something out of Trading Places. P.S. On the subject of God, I hear the Archbishop of Canterbury is standing down to take up a position as Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge. It all makes sense now. I saw him the other evening on the platform of Cambridge railway station. I thought at the time he had a rather guilty look on his face.

Friday 25th February, 2012

Look. I'll come clean. It is taking me slightly longer to get into the swing of work than I'd thought it would ( some may say, and so I will pre-empt you, it has been 26 years so far ) and thus I spent a wee bit of this morning thinking about why this might be the case. Once I'd done that I felt a lot better actually. The first excuse I've come up with is the ongoing discussion our management appears to be having with the good folk at the Royal Bank of Scotland which may or may not yet substantially alter my landscape. The good thing for me at least is I'm Scottish. Then my return to the desk has coincided with results season which is so dull. Then there was the small problem of my birthday to which I referred last week. I didn't tell you about my present. It has taken Sophie a long time to repay me for the pooper scooper I gave her one year, but repay me she has done....with a trouser press. Thirdly, and why I did this I do not know. I've got enough to cope with as it is plus I'm not even religious, but for the first time ever I decided to give up something for Lent. Rick Astley eat your heart out. Crisps, biscuits, sweets and chocolate are banned till whenever Lent finishes. Someone tell me please. But the main thing that has unsettled me is the fact that my two brothers have gone off to Chamonix without me. How come I have three months pootling about, doing pretty much nothing, at home and as soon as my gardening leave runs out, off they go. It's just not fair. Aww. Get a grip. It's all good really and something amazing happened this week. I bought a Kindle. Having told you last Friday I was going to get stuck into Mad Men ( I accidently left my iPad behind in the rush to leave the office btw ) I havn't watched a single episode. Instead, I have read "Back from the Brink" by Alastair Darling, "It's All about the Bike: The Pursuit of Happiness on a Two Wheels" by Robert Penn and I am half way through "Watermelons: How the Environmentalists are Killing the Planet, Destroying the Economy and Stealing Your Children's Future" by James Delingpole. I know I am late to the party on the Kindle front, but honestly, if you havn't got one yet.....treat yourself. And if you have read any good books recently please let me know. In return you, no doubt, want to know how Bob's half term has got on. Lets tally it up. Last Friday as I was writing to you, a Muntjac was indeed hitting the deck. Mid week a hare went the same way. A squirrel too I think. And last night, driving home with instructions from supper to cook him supper, I arrived to find Bob finishing off a salad topped with the breast of a pigeon that he had just shot, plucked and fried himself. Today's quarry was something completely different. He and Sophie headed up to the Norfolk coast to give Twiggie a run on the beach whilst they went in search of razor clams with a bottle of salt in hand. If that is something of a mystery to you take a look at this video clip when you have a spare moment. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlKRfvHHYT0

Friday 10th February, 2012

It is risky enough for a broker to move jobs and even more dangerous if one starts banging on about what a lovely time one has had on gardening leave. Hence I decided against a change of title for my ridiculous Friday afternoon email. Play it safe I tell myself because of course I have moved jobs - yes.....yet again! I have joined CIMB which I firmly believe is an opportunity for me to get back to basics and focus on delivering some interesting ideas, research and corporate access, primarily, at least for the moment, founded upon our position within ASEAN. And, throwing caution to the wind, before I set out to deliver some value added later on in this email,I just can't resist telling you what I've been up to since October.

If I was to say that the highlight of my spell on the sidelines was being able to enjoy a mid-morning cup of Waitrose Kenyan coffee standing by the Aga with Mrs S then you may immediately get the sense that this was not the most self-indulgent of breaks. We did enjoy a week in Sri Lanka and I came back extremely bullish on that economy. Interestingly enough a quick glance at my Bloomberg screen reveals that it is comfortably the worst performing market in the world since our visit. Only Bosnia and Herzegovina and Jamaica come anywhere close. It would appear that three months off have done nothing to improve my ability to identify attractive investment opportunities.

Nope. Far from gallivanting about the globe my three months included just six games of golf, five days out hunting with the Thurlow, a few days shooting and an afternoon's walk with the dogs on the beach in Norfolk. Otherwise I was at home, busily engaged in a major gardening project, appropriately enough, Remarkably, I managed to sell a large, unsightly and unused ( partially because it was broken ) horse-walker on Ebay which was positioned at the back of our house. The buyer took it away and the next day we set about fashioning a vegetable garden out of the concrete foundations that remained. How exciting is that. Brace yourselves for a riveting series of updates as my garlic, carrots, lettuce, potatoes and raspberries progress once spring is upon us. And never let it be said I lack ambition. I have also started a small orchard, renting a Kubota digger on which I spent a happy day creating 15 enormous holes around the place. I have since planted a selection of apple, cherry, pear, quince and almond trees. Furthermore, in my drive for self sufficiency, Sophie was thrilled yesterday with the present of a new chicken hut for her birthday. Six hens to follow, possibly seven, if ultimately we need to replace Topic,one of the existing flock, a lovely Sussex hen, savaged by a miniature Schnauzer which some friends brought with them for lunch last Sunday. So, busy busy busy. Quite how my colleagues at CIMB think I am going to be able to hold down a job with all this going on I do not know.

And what of the rest of my flock I hear you ask. Well, Hen is with us for a few days recuperation from the trials of Leeds. I got home last night to find she had spent the day drawing up, on two sheets of A4, a "healthy living regime" based on meals of superfood vegetables, mackerel and chicken fillets interspersed with regular sessions of meditation which she intends to follow over the next few weeks to restore her equilibrium, so she explained to me. Aghast look when I suggested she also drank less and gave up smoking and little mention of how her university course was going to fit into this programme but who I am to question her on this? Meanwhile if it wasn't for the fact that last time he come home he immediately went out for a walk and came back an hour later covered in blood and mud to inform me that he and Twiggie, his lurcher, had caught a roe deer, you might think that my son Bob was developing a soft spot. I had a text message from him the other day after I had quizzed him about a story I had heard involving another pigeon he had apparently caught with his bare hands and summarily dispatched, rather than, as last time round, smuggling the unfortunate creature into his house under his armpit and lobbing it at an unsuspecting friend.

From: Bob Sandison <
Subject: RE: Pigeon
Date: 8 February 2012 20:02:46 GMT
To: ">
Nah, people change it around!!!!
Could have caught a squirrel yesterday, got right up to it but didn`t go for the grab cause squirrels bite!!!


Reassuring to see just a hint of discretion over valour. Hey ho.

Right. On a serious note I am raring to go here. Bought three new suits to replace the two I had previously been wearing which had been made for me by a tailor in some little soi behind the Oriental in Bangkok back in 1997. Sophie has callously put these in the bin. My first day in the office here at CIMB was interupted by the need to wander down to Sloane Square to have the security tag removed which I discovered dangling obtrusively off the back of my jacket, but I am all attention to detail and professional these days and VERY keen to be of service. Please drop me a line if you need anything and in particular if you are planning a trip out to Asia anytime soon.....in the meantime I am still trying to sort out who's who, how our systems work and trying to restore my confidence after the disappointment of my call on Sri Lanka.