Friday 25th January, 2018

I was away for a couple of days at the end of last week so maybe you missed me.  Nipped off for a sneaky three days skiing with two of the bambinos.  Important to start these post MiFID2 days and to brace myself for what is, I understand, the grimmest week of the year by pampering oneself. 

 

The 23^rd January is specifically the day that the “blues are at their bluest” I read.  I made a big mistake that day actually.  Travelling in to work I tapped into Spotify on my phone and decided to listen to an 80’s hit list radio stream.  By the time I got to the office I was a nostalgic wreck only getting consolation from the fact that I’d been able to remember the words to almost every song that had come, so at least, I concluded,  Alzheimers is being warded off.

 

On that subject and perhaps to demonstrate that I’m not really the glass half empty sort of guy I think many of you believe me to be, something incredible happened this week.  I decided that I would like to understand better some of the driving forces behind SRI funds and ESG investing and so I paid some of my own hard earned mullah to enrol on an online course.  Is there no end to the lengths I will go for my clients I hear you ask?  It took a few hours over a couple of evenings to work my way through this before I reached the denouement which took the form of an extensive and challenging series of multiple choice questions.  I only went and nailed it!  95%.  Go me.  But what’s so incredible about this I hear the more cynical amongst you saying?  Well, unless you count my success in getting my Day Skipper qualification, which was more a practical test and in all honesty I only scraped through the theoretical side because Sophie was mouthing the answers to me behind the instructor’s back, this is the only exam I have taken since my Finals at Leicester University whenever that was.  I know.  I’m very proud.

 

Small aside.  I feel you’re due an update on Hen.  She’s on good form earning money pruning vines in the South West of France particularly as her boss, “Uncle Robert” she has to call him to get round the restrictive French employment regulations, has left her to it and gone back to the UK for a few weeks.  She is not a fan of Robert, despite the fact he has provided her with a job.  He is 60, a gossip and a snob according to her and resistant to the various attempts she has made to moderate his behaviour.  The message in the attached photo adorning the inside of her van is directed at him.

 

Last night my journey home was delayed as I had a quick desk dinner after work with a visiting high heidyin.  It was Burns Night so I can call him that I think.  And oh yes, didn’t we just have to go to the same old joint our desk head always chooses?  I’ve lost count of the number of times he’s dragged us all there these last five year or so.  It’s convenient enough, but a bit of a dive, The Don Bistro.  We didn’t hold back.  The whole desk in fact was giving him grief about the venue until I asked for some mustard to go with the famous Don Burger I’d ordered in lieu of haggis.  The waitress came back with a slightly sheepish look on her face and apologised for the fact she hadn’t been able to find any.  “We’re running out of a lot stuff like that” she explained. “The restaurant is closing down on Monday”.  There is a God!

 

After being reassured by the waitress that she was quite happy to be looking for a new job we celebrated wildly and I only caught my train home by a whisker.  Then just before we arrived at Whittlesford I noticed an iPhone left on a seat across the carriage from me so I picked it up and took it home. Interesting story actually because its owner, bizarrely I thought, didn’t ring it.  As I contemplated how I could possibly reunite them in the absence of them contacting me I recalled an episode of Silent Witness in which Jack picks up an unknown victims phone, presses the home button and asks Siri whose phone it is.  I did just that.  Siri was essentially stomped unfortunately.  “Thank you Angela, that’s an interesting question” was the response.  So at least I knew the owner was called Angela.  This morning, still no call, but, although the phone was locked, various messages popped up on the home screen, including one from Strava suggesting she send kudos to someone, presumably a friend of hers.  Being a Strava “athlete” myself I searched the guys name, scrolled through his list of friends, and there was Angie So and So of Saffron Walden which is in our vicinity.  From that point all I needed to do was a cursory Google search and hey presto I had her work details, a firm of architects in the City, sent an email to reception, and, sorry about this, but you know how I like to tie my little stories together, Bob’s your father’s brother.  Angie and I are now bezza’s and the phone is wending its way, Special Delivery, to North Essex.  Really, no patting myself on the back for a good deed done.  Considering the number of times I’ve ( or more precisely the baby darlings ) been reunited with lost phones, this was pay back time.

 

Oh yes also this week I watched one of the most remarkable programmes I’ve seen in a very long time.  If you have Netflix you really must see this: 

 

Chef’s Table, Season 1, Episode 3. It is absolutely wonderful.

 

So all in all the most miserable week of the year has been quite good fun actually.  Still, glad it’s Friday.

Friday 12th January, 2018

Happy New Year to you and yours.  I’ve given up crisps for 2018.  What’s your New Year resolution?

 

Now I don’t want you to think we’re getting soft and tree huggerish, but there have already this year been some strange developments at home.

 

I hadn’t really thought so much of this particular story until I went to get a newspaper from the shop in the next door village last weekend.  “I hear your wife did a very brave thing the other day” Mike the store keeper ( who used to play for Spurs incidentally ) said to me.  I was a bit slow on the uptake, but fortunately he elaborated.  “Taking on the gypsies.  Next time tell her to ring me and I’ll help” he added, feigning boxing punches.  Ah. With ya.

 

Regardless of whether or not it was appropriate for Mike to use that word to describe the men who, two days earlier, had been careering over fields in a battered blue Volvo estate ( almost certainly stolen ) in hot pursuit of two dogs and a hare it was indeed the case that Sophie had interrupted her walk to ring the police and report them for trespass and illegal coursing. The Newmarket constabulary sprang into action with commendable speed.  Sad to say, however, three police cars and a helicopter, not to mention Sophie’s directions and on the ground intelligence, proved inadequate and the men nonchalantly evaded capture and drove off at some speed, no doubt on their way back to Essex, directly past Sophie who was standing at the side of a field and still on the phone to HQ.  The two gents in the back seat leaned out the window cursing at her roundly and promising dire reprisals.  Sophie doesn’t seem unduly worried thank you very much.  The irony of this story perhaps will not be lost on those of you who have read my emails over the years, but of course Bob was much younger than he is now and didn’t use a car.  Most of the time he spent crossing the very fields these guys were damaging he wasn’t even wearing shoes!

 

The other thing to report is that although, what with Bob and the pikeys, our house and surrounding fields couldn’t generally be considered the safest places for local wildlife we’ve set up a hedgehog sanctuary.  I know!  What are we like?!  It started when Bob and his girlfriend found a poor little baby one shivering under a car and in a very sorry state.  We tracked down a lady living just a few miles away who has a fully fledged rescue centre for the creatures.  She took the orphan under her care and named it Sophie.  It was touch and go, but she finally managed to get Sophie to take some liquid at about 2.00am ( some people are amazing aren’t they ) and the hedgehog was on the road to recovery. 

 

The centre is full to over-flowing however and so we decided we had better try to help.  It happens we have a couple of old pigsties so we spent a morning clearing them out of the useless clutter that had accumulated there and threw in a few piles of straw.  Hey presto…the perfect environment for a hibernating hedgehog.  We now have eight males in one shed and seven females in the other and there they will stay until spring comes along.  It involves a little more work than you might imagine though not that much really.  Water and food and mucking out their den.  That’s about it.  Which is fine because it’s not like you can bond with a hedgehog particularly.  They tuck themselves up, invisible under their bedding, and sleep all day.  At night-time if you put your head torch on, tip toe across the gravel and open the top part of the door quickly enough you will see them scuttling back into the corners which is kind of sweet.

 

But hey….is there someone in your family who is the gullible one?  Ours is Jimmy.  Living in London at the moment she asked after the hedgehogs on the family WhatsApp chat earlier this week.

 

“Are they happy?” she wrote. 

“Yup.  Partying like crazy every night.  Neighbours are complaining about the noise” one slightly impish group member replied.

 And we all just knew she would fall for it. 

“Really?  (worried concerned face)” came her immediate response. “What is the noise like?” 

 

Hook, line and sinker.  Maybe I’m being unfair.  If you too are unsure how noisy hedgehogs can be and have access to Youtube click on the link below, but be sure to have the volume turned down or you could seriously damage your hearing.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sgw-achKVM

 

 

Friday 22nd December, 2017

Well well here we are.  The end of another year and much to my surprise I got quite a few contributions to last week’s Christmas competition.  

 

The first response, from an old friend who has clearly managed his affairs much more sensibly than me and has been able to retire, seemed to confirm my suspicions that this was a challenge to which not many would feel the urge to rise.

 

Do you know even in my more relaxed state these days I’m going to eschew a limerick competition where Triffid or Dyfed would likely feature.

Happy Xmas to you and all the family.

 

Others are made of sterner stuff albeit, at the risk of appearing a touch pompous, I would observe that you all have a slight problem capturing the true rhythm of the limerick.  Lear will be wincing in his grave.  But putting that to one side the winner is this effort mainly for the pun:

 

It used to be simple to do

Provide research and get paid a few

But new rules must be met

And though we’re very upset

Our clients, they’re probably miffed too.

 

Other commendable contributions:

 

I remember the glory days well   

Our service was easy to sell

Now commissions are limper

From Big Bang to a whimper

Mifid 2 is ringing the bell. 

 

 

There was an old broker from Threadneedle Street 

A nicer man you couldn't hope to meet 

Upon the advent of Mifid2 

The air at lunch went blue 

And the rest is control alt delete

 

There once was an author called John
Who imagined plants blocking the sun

He baptised them Triffid

Created a hell just like Mifid

And made all the brokers shout ‘run’

 

 

Oh Mifid2,

It makes us blue.

We need it 

Just like a stone in our shoe.

Cave, cave

The blessed EU...

 

This one didn’t doesn’t even pretend to be a limerick, but I rather liked it….

 

“What’s the point of MIFID2”

He said to me, “And I ask you.

D’you think in Spain, Italy or France

They’ll give it e’en a second glance?”

 

And lastly, before they get a little too blue-blooded….

 

There was fine old boy in EC2

Who hadn’t a clue what to do

In scope, out of scope?

There really doesn’t seem much hope.

Lets all raise two fingers to MIFID2

 

Yup.  Thinking about it most of the others are frankly unprintable.  Of course it’s a touchy subject and feelings are running high, but I have little doubt the rest had been written after or perhaps during a good session in the pub last Friday lunchtime if that sort of thing is still allowed these days.

 

Whether or not this is appropriate I will leave you to be the judge.  Underneath our Christmas tree are two presents tied together and bearing an intriguing label which reads.. “Dearest Jimmy, Merry Christmas with lots of love, Felix and Mummy”.  I spotted the package during one of my regular evening trawls prodding the prezzie pile.   Even though he is one of the good guys I felt compelled to ask Sophie why she and Jimmy’s boyfriend were given our second daughter a present together.  It transpires that other day Felix dropped Sophie a WhatsApp message saying he knew what he wanted to get Jimmy for Christmas, and that she would definitely love it, but being quite a lot over his budget he wondered if Sophie might like to go halves on it with him.  If you promise not to tell Jimmy…..it’s a set of silk underwear.  How good is that?!  In a millennials world perhaps there is nothing especially outlandish at this practical solution to a budgetary problem, but I’m not sure it’s an idea that would have gone down well with my future in laws back in the day!

 

Talking of Jimmy, she’s just sent me this.  Made me smile anyway.

 

 

 

My Christmas present to myself was 6 cases of cheap provincial Italian made from grapes cultivated on the hillside of an extinct volcano in the Cilento National Park.  Alas the trailer that the wine and three bottles of exquisite limoncello were sent over on has been impounded by British customs. Sebastiano, who sold me the wine tells me, there was contraband tobacco in the consignment too.  So it could be a dry old Christmas I’m sad to say.

 

Before I go though I have one more message for you.  Admire its form and structure:

 

You’ll be worried, I know, what to do

With the Bodhi Tree and Mifid2?

Insubstantial, but fun

Doesn’t suit everyone,

Do you want me to send it to you?

 

LET ME KNOW!

 

And on that note I’m rushing out on a panicked mission in the general direction of Jo Malone.  Wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year when it comes.

Friday 15th December, 2017

Ever since it worked for me and I got lucky in an Old Course ballot when it was imperative I secured a tee time for a round with my Japanese boss I have kept a keen eye out for a penny on the pavement.  I recall exactly where I found that one. On the walkway from the St James Centre in Edinburgh leading across the road over to Baillie Gifford’ office.  

 

You will know the old adage obviously. “See a penny, pick it up and all day long you’ll have good luck”.  Of course, not only do you need a keen eye to spot them, and they are rare enough, especially in Edinburgh, but you need to do so at an opportune moment.  It is quite easy to catch ones fellow pedestrians unaware regardless of how adroitly one swoops to the ground to retrieve ones find. The happy combination of these circumstances are as hard to come by as hens teeth. 

 

Last Friday however I was trudging along Old Broad Street on my way in from Liverpool Street station when joy of joys I spotted a little blighter and the opportunity presented itself.  It was raining and dark and a delayed train meant I was running a bit late, but there was no one directly behind me so gleefully I plucked the coin out of the puddle it was resting in and popped it in my pocket happy in the knowledge my day was made.  Perhaps another client would sign a research agreement or maybe I would go and buy a lottery ticket I mused.  By midday however I couldn’t say anything out of the ordinary had occurred though I was relieved that the client, who had called in to cancel the arrangement we had made to lunch the following Monday, was able to bring it forward to that very day.  And I managed to get a table at short notice at Wright Brothers.  So fish and chips at the desk was at least avoided and we were having a pleasant lunch, but churlish though it may sound neither of these were quite on a par with a round on the Old. At risk of boring my lunch companion I started to tell him about that mornings find and reached into my slightly gritty pocket to display it. Thank goodness I hadn’t got round to buying a lottery ticket. It was a dime. What are the odds of that on Old Broad Street. Just a hop skip and a jump away from the Bank of England too. 

 

There is a postscript if one were needed for this lame little story. I was in Edinburgh on Wednesday night and caught up with an old friend for dinner at the New Club. My first return to the Club since an incident there with an old buffer which culminated with me singing him a song from HMS Pinafore to prove how good my memory was.   I had learnt my lines as Captain Corcoran at prep school in 1976. I digress.  There I was waiting outside the Clubs front door on Princes Street having buzzed for entry when on the pavement I spotted, indisputably, a penny.  The second one I have ever found in Scotland and quite probably a New Club members coin too. Hurrah for that.  I had a lovely evening and felt lucky enough for that to be honest.

 

I’ve had a torrid old week though with regards to our favourite topic MIFID2, but the good thing about the new regulatory environment is that as everything will be above board post January 3^rd 2018 it shouldn’t be a problem if I popped round early in the New Year with a lavish prize for the winner of this years Christmas competition.  YES.   COMPETITION TIME!!!  Your challenge if you care to accept it is to write a limerick incorporating the words MiFID 2.  I’ll try to come up with one too.  Let the mind roam free and may your fingers effortlessly trip out something witty and hilarious. 

 

Talking of MiFID this might just be the penultimate Bodhi Tree you’ll ever get if you don’t get signed up with us to receive this substantive and opinionated drivel so with that happy thought I’m off for dinner in London with Jimmy and her boyfriend.  Pip pip.

Friday 8th December, 2017

 

Brief update for you from France if you care.  I think it’s fair to say Hen has been slightly twiddling her fingers this last month or so, faced with a bit of a conundrum.  Not that she hasn’t kept herself reasonably busy.  She knows the hillsides surrounding Rennes-les-Bain like the back of her hands scouring them daily for mushrooms which she tries to sell in the local markets.  And then there’s always the wildlife to look out for.  I was talking to her yesterday as it happens when suddenly she broke off with an exclamation of shock.  “Blinking heck, there’s an otter crossing the river.  Or maybe it’s a beaver?  Or a squirrel perhaps.”  I asked her what size it was.  “Hmmmm….its about the length of a ruler.”  Really??  We concluded it was most likely a weasel or possibly a stoat, which many mistake for a weasel even though, wait for it, it’s totally different.   

The conundrum is that she wants to head south for the winter, but before that she needs the weather to break and the leaves fall for the opportunity of a job working in the vineyards pruning vines which will help pay for the petrol to drive 1,000 miles to the south west of Portugal!  Well the weather has broken.  Here’s a photo she sent last weekend…

 

 

 

Meanwhile developments concerning animals in another woodland area provided one of the great BBC headlines….more than 150 homes have been destroyed and 50,000 people evacuated but the good news…….

 

 

 

It’s not all a bed of roses in my world either I might tell you.  I went home earlier this week having decided, on the way back, to bake a cake that evening.  I had glimpsed a recipe for a delicious looking flourless orange almond cake in the Polpo cook book.  I don’t know about you, but I find it ever so irritating when someone looks over your shoulder when you’re working in the kitchen.  But she just couldn’t help it.  “Have you checked the measurements properly” Sophie said “I really don’t think you have”.  Pah I thought to myself ploughing on regardless and perhaps even more cavalierly chucking ingredients into a mixing bowl.  The consequence of chucking the additional 400 grams of  sugar which was meant to make a sticky syrup to pour over the cake into the mix combined with the fact I used three large tablespoons of baking powder instead one teaspoonful was an explosion in the Aga and a sticky burnt mess which we ( I mean Sophie ) is still trying to clear up three days later.  You pay for these unlucky little slips ups you really do.

 

On a happier note I got this message yesterday from a lovely person in our corporate access team in HK who I had been able supply with timely and comprehensive feedback from the various meetings we had organised for some clients at our recent Japan Forum.  

Thanks David! Please visit Asia soon!!

 

I might just do that if Sophie doesn’t stop banging on about my cake.

Friday 1st December, 2017

Slightly early one, but don’t get the wrong idea.  I just wanted to get this off to you in case I am a bit distracted later on.

 

Travelling home the other evening I got out of my seat, as is my want, to stand and stretch a bit during the final leg of the train journey from Audley End to Whittlesford Parkway.  This has the added advantage of meaning I am always first off the train, into my car and out of the station car park.  Anyway, as I stood there by the door my attention was attracted by a man furiously typing a letter on his lap top.  I really couldn’t help it, but through the window between us I was able to read what he was writing.  Now you would expect me to turn away and get back to my exercises and of course that’s essentially what I did, but not before I inadvertently gleaned that he was writing to a school-teacher to complain that his daughter was being picked on by a nasty little boy called Robert.  I left him to his epistle thinking what a horrid, horrid situation.  That said I probably wouldn’t have given it much more thought except that I stumbled just now, in a search for inspiration for something to tell you at the end of what has been a rather dull week, on a story I told you back in 2005. It’s a weird one, but true.  Here it is:

 

 

Friday 25^th November, 2005

“I don’t suppose you’ve heard of Alphabetical Bullying before. Neither had I, but this disturbing social phenomenon was articulated to me the other evening by my 5 year old daughter, Lottie. She bore the tell-tale sign - a nasty scratch on her cheek - of yet another grapple with one of our cats. You would think she would have learnt by now. She has been told off enough times for manhandling them by her parents as well as by the creatures themselves. I chastised her yet again, but, looking grumpy and affronted, she protested. "It wasn’t Pickle or Flowerpot.  It happened at school. Charles attacked me in the playground."

Well, of course, I couldn’t imagine such a thing would ever happen at the sweet little prep school we sent our baby darlings, but playing along with her I asked her why Charles had been so mean. 

"He doesn't like girls whose name starts with L" was her response. "He always attacks Lillie and Laetitia too".

"Oh dear me", I said sympathetically, " I hope there aren't any other bullying boys at your school."

"There are." she said. " Alexander......he doesn't like girls whose name begins with S".

She followed this with the name of yet another thug who apparently targets the J's.

By now I was beginning to accept perhaps she hadn’t been molesting the cats but still somewhat sceptically I asked her if any letter was safe. She didn’t even blink.

"If you’re an M that's ok......Mary never gets beaten up."

 

At the risk of turning this missive into something substantive I have a tip for you for 2018.  Keep a diary.  You never know when it will pay you back, but surely, every now and again, it will do.  Mind you I’m now wondering what has happened to Charles and Alexander.  Hmmm.  I think I’ll get Lottie, Lillie and Laetitia ( who remain Lottie’s best friends ) to track them down.

Friday 24th November, 2017

It’s not that I’m feeling flush.  Actually, as a sign of how tough times are, we are on a mission to convert the old Hen House into a very desirable AirBNB spot for anyone looking for a weekend up in Suffolk.  I’ll let you know when you can sign up.  That’ll be a weird weekend!  Anyway needs must as MiFID2 looms.  By the way, on that subject, I’ve been pondering what I can do to in order to keep in touch with you in the unlikely event you decide not to sign up to pay for Nomura Research.  My reading of the guidelines, and I’d be very interested to hear your take on this, is that I will still be email you without causing any undue problems with the authorities, so long as my email can’t be construed as providing “intellectual rigour using original thought, analysis or information”.   Pondering this briefly I conclude I don’t need to change much, if anything at all.

 

Hmmm. Oh yes, I know what I was trying to tell you. As its Black Friday we’ve decided to buy a new telly.  Well actually, if I’m revealing all, I should confess Sophie informs me she’s also ordered a new bed and a Dyson hoover.  Yeehaaa.  But anyway, our current TV is over ten years old.  So what we thought we’d do is move it over to where you’ll be staying and get ourselves a brand new one for the big hoose.  Well, not really big, but whatever, where we settle down in these long, dark evenings, to watch Masterchef, Strictly Come Dancing and, of course, Peaky Blinders is a lovely old room.   When I sit there I feel I am in the Captain’s Cabin on HMS Surprise, the boat in “Master and Commander”.  Without the decanters of port.  Oh dear I’ rambling this week.

 

I didn’t want Soph to think I was being impulsive so I asked her to measure our television and send me the dimensions which she duly did, somewhat reluctantly I might say.  Nevertheless I received measurements from her of both the screen and the TV set  as a whole, but it was only when I set out upon a bit of research that I realised I needed the measurement across the diagonal to get a proper sense of how much larger our replacement was to be.  I don’t know about you, but these days across a slightly dark room, log fire a-crackling, I can barely see Tommy Shelby, never mind make out what he’s saying in that Brummie accent of his. 

 

Well, when I Whatsapped Sophie to ask her for the additional measurement did I not get it in the neck.  “Ffs. Will be an hour or so x” was the cursory response.  I quaked in my boots.

 

And then I had a brainwave.  I had the width and the height.  I could do something with this.  I had heard about that fellow Pythagoras.   I imagine the first time was ahead of sitting my common entrance exam which I scraped through and then more specifically for my Maths O level which I only passed on the third attempt, but hadn’t he had something to say about this?  Admittedly I had to Google it just for a refresher purposes, but oh what satisfaction!!!  27.5” wide x  15.5” high = the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides…….   32” on the diagonal!!!  I can’t tell you, when I popped into Richer Sounds, on my way to lunch at Wright Bros, to have a look at various models it was all I could do to stop myself relating this story to the guy helping me choose the 49” Sony over the Samsung.

 

So how’s that for research and analysis?  And am I still MiFID2 compliant???  Heck no!

 

PS.  Recall my adventures when I was looking for a taxi in East London last week?  Well I was walking to Liverpool Street last night when I passed a guy shouting repeatedly down his phone “5 Old Bro’ Street”…. I puzzled on this for a while as I wandered on and then it dawned on me.  He was French, needed a taxi and at least he had the wherewithal to try to order an Uber.  But I wondered how long it would be before they realised it was Old Broad Street, not Bro’.  (I know.  It loses something in the telling but it made me chuckle at the time.)