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