Very quick one this week as I have been completely on the run and totally frantic but I wanted to get something of my chest. So, not only did Jimmy fail to get to the Bodhi Tree in her time in India, how many people do you know that have spent four months travelling there and didn’t visit the Taj Mahal. I mean what’s that all about? Seems that the north of India had a magnetic pull to her. I am not convinced by her explanation that it is the only place she has been to where Jimmy is a girl’s name ( apparently ), but it does seem something spiritual happened up there as she assures me she feels she must have been born in Tibet in another life. Getting the jargon too. So she returned earlier this week for a fleeting visit prior to heading off to New York so much excitement as she gave us our presents. Mine was a pair of ornate antique tin boxes with two figures who appeared to me closer to European royalty than a Maharajah. And so it was confirmed when I looked closely at the tins and found in bold stamp, Made in Germany, on the underside. I agree, it was churlish of me to point this out to her and it was quite a grumpy Jimmy who headed off to the States.
One more thing in a week which has not gone entirely smoothly. Oh all sorts of nightmares. Sophie got stranded for a couple of extra days in Mallorca thanks to the French air traffic controllers strike which I needed like a hole in the head. I had to stand in at the last minute and take Lottie to an induction day at the Perse where she got the most dramatic nose bleed in the middle of the Headmasters introductory speech. No stop David…I mustn’t unload on you. But as yet another lesson, if it were needed, that you need to be careful what you put on email and the Internet, I had a phone call at home last night from an old broker friend who is retiring from the industry and looking to pick up some NED’s. His headhunter had asked him to explain an item she had picked up when she conducted a regular search of his name on Google. The “offending” article went something like this…..
There's nothing like dim-sum lunch in Chinatown to drop me into a nostalgic blur on a Friday afternoon at the end of a week when emerging markets have been front of mind in any event, given the carnage being wrought on them by rocketing oil prices. Furthermore, this weeks aggressive bid by SABMiller for Harbin Brewery took me back to April 1992. Ayeaaaa - so long ago. Five of us flew to Beijing from Hong Kong, picked up shotguns and cartridges and it was off to Harbin in pursuit of wild Manchurian duck. Funnily enough, this being China, someone had got to the duck first, and the few birds we saw had no intention of coming anywhere near us. Nonetheless, it was a great trip, the highlight of which was dinner with the Mayor of Harbin who took a shine to one of our party and spent the evening trying to kiss him. And SABMiller really think that an aggressive bid is the way to go about things in North East China....??!!
Who would have thought an innocent little incident in Harbin in 1992, written about in 2004 and put on the Internet in 2010, would finally catch up with you. I hope have not jeopardised his prospects unduly. To be honest respect to him I would have thought. Well connected and charming man obviously. But I have now removed my friends name.
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