The highlight for me this week on the research front was the Asia Special Report entitled India’s Defining Moment. Within is a comprehensive collaborative effort from our excellent macro team that tells you all you need to know in the run up to the Indian election and the implications of the various most likely outcomes. Of course quite apart from our professionals I now have my own ear to the ground in India, in the shape of my daughter Jemima, reunited with her Caxton currency card, and now on her way to Varanasi with some new male ( as per usual ) travelling companions. I have told her about the ongoing election and she assures me she will be on her guard and ready to share any interesting nuggets of information she gleans. She has a discerning and analytical mind and an eye for detail too this girl. I asked her about her visit to the Gurkha Welfare Trust at the Army camp in Pokara.
“ Really cool….pictures of princess di and prince Charles and loads of medals and stuff on the wall that I caught glimpses of..”
The Gurkha’s 200 year long history of outstanding contribution to the British Army summed up in barely a sentence. I should send it to Joanna Lumley.
I am expecting more perspicacious contribution from her in India. After all she studied “A Passage to India” in her English Literature A level which, rightly or wrongly, has greatly shaped and influenced her attitudes and expectations as to what she will find in the country. She urged me this week to re-read EM Forster’s classic novel and directed me to the copy she had used at school which contained her various annotations and analysis. I must say I was quite impressed as I waded my way through the first couple of pages. “Swelling here, shrinking there” was underlined and against which she had written the word sibilance. Who knew? And how about her scribbled observation concerning the “nihilistic sense of the caves”. I must say by the end of the first two pages I was whetting my lips at the prospect of reading this bit of treasure and I don’t mind telling you I was slightly patting myself on the back at having chosen such a fine educational establishment, as Rugby, for her to complete her studies. But then I turned to start a new chapter and what I found is in the attached photo. A nasty little squished mess on the top of the page, encircled by a black and red heart and the words “RIP nit” telling you all you really didn’t need to know. So gross.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not all perceptive insights into matters historical, political and cultural that I get from her. These were a couple of other snippets in our latest exchange:
“ PS tell Bob I have been using his penknife non stop. Been the most useful thing.
PPS I hope you have a lot of money on Liverpool Daddy. I’m following them slightly. That’s what happens when you’re travelling with boys. “Liverpool since I was born.” Ha ha. “
And to put most of the above into a familiar context I have just this moment put the phone down to Lottie. Verbatim….the conversation went like this:
“Hi Lottie…alright?? I had a thought. I wondered if you could have a chat with Bob and then let me know whether you and he would like to go with Mummy and me to Latitude Festival this summer”
“ OK Daddy I will, but hang on a minute……….Bob wants me to tell you he has just killed a fly with a rubber band.”
Fact was that Bob was meant to be in the middle of a solid hours physics GCSE revision. There’s something remarkably circular – and, I assure you, completely uncontrived - about the above paragraphs.
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