In these dog days of summer there’s not a huge amount going on is there. So I’ll make this short and sweet. Talking of which the highlight of my day has been handing around to my colleagues some giveaways that a Malaysian rubber company called Karex presented me earlier this week after I hosted five investor meetings for them here in London. There is a practice on our desk of bringing sweets or chocolate back from business trips. Well my offerings are wrapped and some are even flavoursome, but ultimately they’re not edible. They seem to be going down well certainly amongst the younger team members. Ahem.
Happily, a quick note included below on Gudang Garam, which has just announced a surprising diversification from its principal business rolling cigarettes, allows me to flesh out this missive with a trip down memory lane which some of you may have heard before I suppose. HM Sampoerna, another one of Indonesia’s cigarette producers, was one of the first companies I visited when I moved out to Hong Kong in 1991 and was given Indonesia, a bit of a backwater back then if not a poisoned chalice, to specialise on. I suppose it was one step up for me from Australia which I had previously been responsible for, so fair dinkum. The head of our office, not my favourite man of all time, sent me down to Surabaya with the specific purpose of finding out why the company had so drastically missed the profit forecast it had issued in conjunction with a rights issue they had launched a couple of months prior. Management were refreshingly honest with me. The Investor Relations spokesperson, a laconic American called John Meeks, looked me straight in the eye. "Well, Dave, did you see the fine marching band that was playing outside when you arrived? And do you like this very wonderful new office building that we are in?” I nodded, uncertain where this was leading. “There’s no way investors would have supported the rights issue we needed to pay for these if we had told you what we were really going to report this half." Obvious really.
But I was talking about presents. Bob is off fishing on the Test this weekend, courtesy of an 18th birthday gift from his super generous godfather. This has been a couple of years in the planning. It’s a tough act finding time for all the wildlife that needs pursued. Heading off this weekend means he isn’t able to take up a commission received last week from one of Newmarket’s leading racehorse trainers to track down and hopefully despatch a fox that has been picking off his chickens. Anyway tight lines to him. Incidentally, I was reminiscing about all the very imaginative presents this particularly well selected godparent has given Bob over the years. Bob’s eighth birthday gift provided a perfect example:
26th January 2007
26th Jan 2007
Moving swiftly on, weekends don’t quite hold the appeal they used to for me. This no-alcohol thing is getting tiresome. However, looking on the bright side the Sandison family are delighted to have a new arrival – 19 in fact - which should ensure hours of entertainment. Such was the intense excitement surrounding this latest adventure that I was forced to chase the people who were delivering the little beauties to us….see their email response below. As I said to the kind person, Bob’s godfather, who gave him Antworks, a transparent box full of strange translucent blue gel into which the ants tunnel, what is this strange world into which we have entered? “Exceptionally high demand”??? For ants????
From: ants@breezily.co.uk [mailto:ants@breezily.co.uk]
Sent: 18 January 2007 19:05
To: David Sandison, CLSA
Subject: Re: 6BM841016C937982H
Thanks for your email.
We can confirm receipt of your order which is in processing.
As stated on the website orders may take up to 10 *working* days under normal circumstances.
However, there is exceptionally high demand at the moment which is causing delays in addition to the usual delivery time.
You should receive your ants within the next week when we are able to send you enough ants to ensure you receive a good sized batch (we always try to send as many ants as possible).
We apologise for any inconvenience this temporary unforeseeable exceptionally high demand may have caused and thank you for your understanding and patience.
Thanks,
The team at Breezily.co.uk
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
info@breezily.co.uk
http://antworks.breezily.co.uk/
P.S. The ants arrived in a test-tube through our letter box although, sad to say, 6 were DOA and one more died shortly afterwards when it got stuck trying to squeeze through a minute air hole in the Antworks box.
PPS. I’ve just allowed myself a quick respite from the day job to check if antworks breezily still exists. Happy to report they are still burrowing away and indeed there is an August 2017 update on their website: Since 2005 we’ve dispatched over 264,850 ants to over 6, 760 happy customers!
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