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.