Friday 21st December, 2012

You might not believe it, but I have been in the office all week and you know what, I'm in through Christmas as well. Taking one for the team. Having said that I am not hanging around today. Got 18 people coming for dinner and I'm cooking. An Ottolenghi recipe, Moroccan Lamb with prunes washed down with Vieux Chateau Certan 1996 and La Conseillante 2004. While I have been trudging in and out the office, a journey which has been taking considerably longer this week thanks to a continuing problem with overhead lines at Hitchin, all four of our little darlings have been home. I thought I would finish the year with an update for you from each of them: Hen has been on cracking form and, having passed her driving test at long last, has proved particularly useful going back and forward to the vetinary clinic with Twiggy who cut her leg badly on a recent outing. It transpires though she has an ulterior motive. She has developed a crush on the young vet there. She came home the other day and revealed this to Sophie telling her that was going to "wander around the garden and see if I can find any other wounded animals." Bob has been hampered in his normal activities by his dog's injury and a shortage of arrows which will be corrected, judging from the shape of parcel I received for him from his godfather, on Christmas Day. Despite this he still manages to leave a trail of destruction. His last contribution before leaving school this term was to trip and knock an enormous hole in the wall of the corridor that he was running down. On the first night home he shoved his hand through the glass of our bedroom window and on Tuesday left the fire unguarded and burnt three holes in our sitting room carpet. We have an 18 year old daughter called Jimmy. Don't normally tell you much about her as she is a more restrained and private type, but she will not mind me relating one quick tale which made me laugh. She was down in London earlier in the week with a few friends. You know what it's like. You wander around around town kind of expecting to bump into someone. On the corner of a street near Paddington Station was a man in a Father Christmas costume selling the Big Issue. "Hey, I think I know that guy" she told her buddies, excitedly. And then there's our 11 year old, Lottie. Well she just went and passed Grade 4 cello with Merit. Our normal one. Go her! Now, maybe you thought I had forgotten about the limerick competition I had set you. Well, I might as well have done. There is a slightly disturbing recurrent theme, but with all due respect to the ones I include below, these were the best of a bad bunch and at this point I simply can't bring myself to select a winner. Brush up folks or you're going to struggle in 2013. There's a salesman at CIMB Who I told "If you listened to me, You would make it a rule To go straight back to school And out from under that Tree" "There's a salesman at CIMB..... Who dreams of sailing the oceans free. He's not really that bad except when he's sad, and that's probably only when talking to Me!" There's a salesman at CIMB...... He needs to win the lottery His advice is so bad, I'm close to slapping the lad And wish he he'd stayed in Trincomalee! There's a salesman at CIMB who dwells under the Bhodi Tree But unlike most sanyassin He's truly a value assassin At least judging the advice he gives me........... There's a salesman at CIMB Whose hair loss is painful to see he tries his best though often gets stressed, But he brings lots of cheer to me. See what I mean?! Disappointing. Right wish you a very happy Christmas and a good New Year, when it comes. Meantime, before heading home to put my apron on I also have to do my bit to boost retail sales figures. News headline you probably have seen before.. " Sales of 'any old sh*t' expected to treble as men start Christmas shopping" !

Friday 7th December, 2012

I have to say I'm a little disgrunted this morning. I really expected to have a letter to the Editor published in The Daily Telegraph. How many other people do you know who noticed that Dave Drubeck was listed in yesterday's Birthdays column ( 92 years old ) right across the page from his Obituary. Not that many I suspect. Well anyway, disappointingly, I pointed this out to the Editor but it seems he didn't care that much. The truth is though that my mood has been affected more by the prospect of two rarified evenings in a row. It was our sales traders "drinks party" at Dirty Dicks last night. I am pretty sure I invited you. Pity you couldn't make it. Tbh I was in the Christmas spirit ( Spanish brandy to be specific ) after a working lunch even before I got there and didn't last that long. The stories are beginning to come out of various degrees of carnage wreaked and as I was lapping these up, I noticed that a friend of mine had just posted the following quote from James Joyce following an evening of his own which I thought was kind of appropriate ( if a bit rarified )...."There is a curious kind of honour-code among men which obliges them to assist one another and not hinder the free action of one another and remain together for mutual protection with the result that very often they waken up the next morning sitting in the same ditch." - James Joyce And tonight I have to head up to Rugby for my daughters end of term house Christmas dinner. What a treat that always is. Virtually undrinkable wine, seafood delice (what ever that is), a sloppy slice of turkey and a bit of cold Christmas pudding with custard. The consolation is I doubt very much I'll end up in a ditch. Oh its high living all right. I can hardly believe, this time last year I was in Sri Lanka staying at the Amanwella. Christmas Challenge As you run down the year here's something for you to mull over....I confess I have done this one before, about ten years ago, but I've always enjoyed limericks......I've written the first line for you. Please complete.......the best contribution wins a bottle of something good...not Spanish brandy I promise..... "There's a salesman at CIMB...... Take your time, do your worst and have fun!

Friday 30th November, 2012

Well, its been a while. Sorry about that. I was ill last Friday. Wasn't at all pretty. I blame the minestrone soup I picked up from Pret A Manger on Thursday afternoon. Still, better now and I have survived, relatively unscathed, a week that included our office Christmas party. I was on best behaviour for that. There have been too many unfortunate scenes on past such occasions. The last one I recall I ended up having to excuse myself from my desk and spent almost half a day lying shivering on a bench on the walkway by the Thames in front of Nomura's office. Truth be told, although a little more circumspect these days, I was also slightly sulking this time as my proposed venue for our bash ( Le Rendezvous, obviously ) was voted down in a secret (rigged obviously) ballot and we ended in some very lame gastro-pub near Victoria Station. Ever with a mind to delivering value-added in these emails of mine I might tell you that if you make use of Lastminute Top Secret hotels facility and are looking for somewhere to stay near Victoria be careful you don't end up at Tophams Hotel on Ebury Street. I was feeling quite pleased with myself at having got a booking there because it was just 100 yards from where we were having dinner however my room was in the basement, smelt like a sewer and the bed was a fold out sofa. What a dump. I just remembered the strangest thing that happened to me that evening.....in the middle of dinner my phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from Hen: In history were the jewish people awful to the arabs or have I got that all wrong? x I never did get to the bottom of that one. There's a story there somewhere I suspect but I was already four or five glasses of red the wrong side of caring. Don't get the wrong idea of how I have spent this afternoon, but I thought I would share with you an educational website that was sent me by a friend of mine. Improve your French, your mouse-control skills and test your knowledge of global locations. http://www.tv5.org/cms/chaine-francophone/jeunesse/p-14809-Cartoquiz.htm And if you can beat my score of 321,459 points.....well, respect. But you will not be able to.... PS Nice cartoon in this weeks Spectator. A man in a chair at the optician. " The recession is finally over and my bishop is a woman " he reads off the board in front of him. To which the optician remarks "Well, I'd say you've got 2020 vision"

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.

Friday 9th November, 2012

Two unfeasibly large cans of Zippo lighter fuel surprisingly arrived on our front door step at home last week. It transpires that Bob ordered these having discovered that I had set up one click shopping on Amazon. Precisely what purpose he has in mind I know not, but for the moment it would appear I got off lightly. A friend of mine told me he knew someone who ended up with a 125cc rally cross motorbike through a similar misadventure. Well, relaying this story last night, I may have stumbled upon a soul mate for Bob. I was with a friend to watch a "play", Simon Callow in The Mystery of Charles Dickens....go David, another winner. It's not a play really. More of a monologue. If you want to listen to someone recounting a protracted and frankly pretty boring bedtime story whilst you sit in a cramped seat in a stuffy theatre ( inevitably with some large uncouth yob behind you coughing their insides out ) this one is for you. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. Well would you credit it, but my friend's son - who has a fine collection of knives apparently - had also done the 1 Click Amazon thing. A book arrived at his office...."Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction". Respect! Bob's Christmas present sorted one might think. But not necessarily. I have some extraordinary news for you. The other day I got an email out of the blue informing me he had joined the choir. And shortly after that he secured permission from his mother to re-jig his GCSE options. He has given up History ( shame on him and Sophie ) and taken up Art. Here is a picture he sent me in a text message, made from leaves apparently. In due course I suppose it could be a valuable as an example of work from his formative years so I'll file this. It is too early to tell whether Bob's more sensitive side is taking over or to put another way he is turning over a new leaf. Boom boom. I have learnt from Hen that change in character traits take a while to play out don't they. People continue to ask me why we hear so little of Hen these days and I think I have told you already that life was becoming an altogether more serious business for her. At 20 you would expect that really. But if you want an update of her progress, studying photography at Leeds University, you may be amused to hear that I received this message from one of her house mates who seems to be finding her mature outlook too much to bear. "Hen is sitting in her room cutting out pictures of fairies and listening to Metallica....I want her to move out."

Friday 2nd November, 2012

If you ever doubted the professional in me you should be reassured by the fact that I have nipped back to the office from our London Conference whizzing down Piccadilly and round Hyde Park Corner on my trusty Boris Bike....just to send you this and wish you a good weekend. The conference, though I say it myself, has been a great success. CLSA eat your heart out. 38 Asian leaders in a West End hotel. Tony Fernandes entertaining us over lunch with a rivetting run through his career to date. Indonesian trade minister. Prosecco. Duck pancakes. A magician AND....music from the Coutures, aka Three Girls from Essex. Oh and a little too much Soju, a drink of which even a little is too much. I also got carried away with a small Indian company.....be warned this last time this happened to me was when I was reluctantly dragged into a meeting with Inspur at a HK Forum and came out Inspired. It has been a sorry tale since then. But this one is different. Really worth a look..... Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri (TBZL IN) - If you can't get your tongue around this company's name don't worry. Call it TBZ. But remember this one. Its only US$220 m market cap but that is changing fast. It has doubled in the last few months and I am pretty sure it is going to do the same again in the next few. It is a play on the rising Indian middle class and its insatiable appetite for jewellery. The critical transformation for this company which for close on a 100 years was a Bombay based wedding jewellery specialist designer, manufacturer and retailer was the decision to switch business model to gold leasing. Think of it as going asset light. Instead of being exposed to gold price volatility and restriction imposed by holding inventory this has allowed it to pursue a dramatic growth strategy transforming itself into a pan Indian company building on its renowned reputation. Now, instead of people trecking to Mumbai to buy their jewellery TBZ is going to them. By end FY15 they will have 57 stores from the current 12 dotted in urban centres all over India and these stores are profitable almost from the outset. Average sales is 300,000 rupees per sq ft. Average billing size is 150,000 rupees. Nothing else in retailing in India comes close. CAGR over last 5 years of like for like gold sales has been 8% and for diamonds (25% of sales) it has been 28%. Add on top the store expansion and you have a stellar growth story. Take a look. So it's been a long week and I have to get back to the conference, but just quickly have to tell you about my trip to Edinburgh on Wednesday where, would you believe, on 31st October, the Christmas trees are up. Anyway, as you know I have various little tricks to keep me engaged during meetings. If I'm with a Chinese company and in front of a client who is a Mandarin speaker I encourage them to conduct the meeting in their own language. Truth is I like listening to Mandarin. When I was with Barings in HK I actually had lessons for a few months and our teacher invariably praised me for my accent which I was quite pleased about. So now one of my little querks is to wait until, with the help of the occasional bit of English that always crops into business talk, I can guess what they are discussing and then chip in with a casual pertinent comment of my own. Fun eh!? Anyway the conversation over lunch was in full flow at the point, I was sure they were discussing various private equity investment firms operating in China. I decided the time was right to launch my attempt to make them think I understood everything they were saying and asked how they selected which firm to work with? They looked at me blankly. "Sorry. We are talking about pineapple cakes" I was told. Busted. After that every now and again, as I reached for another sip of house red, they would break off and with a sympathetic nod in my direction explain they were talking about the Taiwanese financial industry. Hey ho. At least I have the consolation that I can speak more Cantonese than my lunch partner's colleague who, after living in Hong Kong for close on 10 years, can only manage four words....Gung Hei Fat Choi. Pip pip.

Friday 26th October, 2012

Frustrating week for me because as you will no doubt be aware the CIMB Classic began yesterday in Kuala Lumpur and the likes of Tiger Woods and my fellow Scot, Martin Laird, must be fancying their chances of scooping the US$1.3 million first prize in my absence. I asked one of you to provide me with the excuse to get out there but you let me down. Thanks a lot. Talking of golf Bob was 15 yesterday and part of his day was spent over nine holes at Royal Worlington supposedly playing golf with a friend. He didn't have much to say about his game. The fact is he would have been pre-occupied exploring the adjoining woods which harbour all sorts of interesting wildlife. I know I go on about his pursuit of furry creatures. In fact fishing is his greatest passion. I can't help him there. I totally hate the smell of fish on my hands. Now, you might have the impression of Bob as an outdoor guy, which I suppose he is, but there is a reality TV show he never misses. Not for him Hollyoaks or TOWIE. It's called Wicked Tuna. Every evening this half term we have had a running commentary over dinner on the latest developments from the fishing town of Gloucester, Massachussets. A blue finned tuna sold for $13,000 in yesterday's episode and there was an interesting scrap between the locals and some outsiders who had strayed into their waters. Oh it's exciting stuff. So I'm back from lunch - client was quite late but with an interesting excuse...."my IT guys in their wisdom decided to put the clocks on our floor back a day early"..and we had a good time reminiscing. That's another thing I've noticed as I write this weekly drivel. Besides blowing my own trumpet more than I used to I also include much more nostalgia. Sign of the times. Anyway an interesting thing happened this week. There was this guy I knew at school who was a good friend, but I hadn't seen him since we'd left. Every few years or so some random event reminds me to type his name into Google to see what he was up to. Nada. No disrespect to him. I used to be a similar non-entity. Something about Glenalmond obviously. If you searched for David Sandison you got a photographer, an accountant or a fisherman in Shetland. But then I ran the Jungfrau Marathon and suddenly I was somebody. Anyway, I spotted his name whilst re-reading my 1981 diary in bed on Wednesday evening and was prompted to have another search for him yesterday. To my surprise, my friend who, as my brother reminded me, lent my parents a pen-knife on my first day at school with which they carved notches into a coat hanger on which to hold my kilt, has re-surfaced. There he was, pictured in the Daily Mail, wearing his OG tie. It's a sad story though I'm afraid. It appears he recently drove his £70,000 Maserati through a stone wall into the harbour in Shieldaig, Ross-shire. And that's the least of it. He has just been fined £1,000 in Perth Sheriff Court for a separate incident. Tut tut.