Mixed signals
January 25 - 31, 2012
“IT IS not our abilities that make us what we are, it is our choices.” – Albus Dumbledore.
Bitten on the bum by a Black Swan
December 15 - 21, 2011
I DON’T have a creative bone in my body. I did once try to paint, but that was really just an excuse to perve and I can’t play anything more musical than a radio. Yes I do write a bit but I can’t imagine that even my most ardent fans would for one second mistake any of it for literature. I still cling vainly to the dream that I have a book in me somewhere, but as the years roll on I fear I am coming to the realisation that it will have to be surgically removed if it is to ever see the light of day.
Brave new world
November 24 - 30, 2011
‘ALL great financial crises begin with the belief that the world has changed forever. They all end with the realisation that change was not what it seemed’. Anatole Kaletsky.
Law of unintended consequences
November 17 - 23, 2011
LIFE is full of little milestones. We are born, we get taken home and we poo everywhere.
Revenge of the Luddites
November 10 - 16, 2011
THE English language is a bugger of a thing. Huge, complex, irrational, cobbled together from bits and bobs of other languages and, most annoyingly, changeable. Apparently it is a living language so the experts say, whatever that means, but I do wish it would just stand still from time to time.
The law of large numbers
November 3 - 9, 2011
THE BIG news this week for those that take an interest in demographics was of course that somewhere on the planet on Monday, the world’s seven billionth person was born. Or to be more accurate, the UN decided that this was the week. Exactly how they knew it was Monday was a bit of a mystery as for all they knew there may have been a particularly cold snap in Inner-Mongolia about 10 months back and so the event happened last month. But I don’t begrudge a bit of a guess, it works for me as an analyst, and at least they resisted the temptation to anoint some poor bloody child in Asia as the symbolic 7 billionth, inflicting instant fame on the poor little tyke, for about a day, before tossing it back into poverty.
The peasants are revolting
October 27 - November 2, 2011
I AM not inherently a man of rigid routine, and even if I was the mining game is not that conducive to peaceful life, so it is probably for the best. However, that is not to say I am entirely without structure to my life, when not engaging in feats of derring-do in the Dark Continent, I do like to take it easy back in London with some regular pastimes.
Hedge your bets
October 20 - 26, 2011
IT MAY surprise you to learn that I am not perfect. In fact if I am to be wholly honest I am not even close, my shortcomings are glaring, my weaknesses are palpable and my character flaws legion. As a young man of course I didn’t recognise this and simply thought that I was right and everyone else was an idiot. Some years later I had mellowed and tried to play nicely but with limited success. In advanced middle age now, the hard edges are very blunt indeed as is the appetite for change as I have come to the, perhaps resigned, conclusion that without my character flaws I would have no character at all. The world and I have found a way to get along, even if it does involve ignoring each other for long periods.
The other yellow metal
October 13 - 19, 2011
HOW does Reinhold Neibuhr’s old serenity prayer go? “Grant to us the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be changed; courage to change that which can be changed, and wisdom to know the one from the other.”
Iron clad
October 6 - 12, 2011
AS A young man I, like many young men, had visions of making my fortune and retiring to my yacht and bevy of wenches at about the age of 45 to spend my remaining days reclining at leisure and being an embarrassment to whatever children I may have sired around the place.
The end is nigh – about bloody time
October 6 - 12, 2011
OCTOBER 1: YOU know it is going to be a bad day when the seat row on your boarding pass is double digit – bloody hell it was almost triple digit. Who knew the seats went that far back?
The art of ownership
September 22 - 28, 2011
STREWTH, fair dinkum cobber, fair suck of the sav … I confess I haven’t the faintest idea what any of that means, but I feel that I should.
Part of the Union
September 15 - 21, 2011
IT DOESN’T take a rocket scientist to look at my nose or listen to me moan in winter to conclude that I played a bit of rugby in my day. I will never claim that I was anything other than a solid 5th grader, but what I lacked in speed, skill, strength, fitness, endurance, ferocity and agility, I more than made up for in enthusiasm, money spent over the bar and a big washing machine. I was a stalwart.
M & A (mayhem and anarchy)
September 8 - 14, 2011
INVESTMENT banking is a funny old game. Not so much ‘funny ha ha’, although we did use to have a good laugh from time to time when we charged a client $200k in fees for advice they could have got for free from Wikipedia, but funny strange, as in why the hell does society allow this industry to exist at all? I dabbled in the dark art from time to time, but by and large I classified myself as a stockbroker and that is a noble profession, and so I think I am qualified to comment on my shifty brethren.
A dignified death
September 1 - 7, 2011
I AM of an age now where I am beginning to contemplate death. Not seriously mind you; I may feel a little poorly in the morning after a particularly hard night, and my bastard of a personal trainer may inflict more damage than I will ever admit to, but the signs are starting to show that I may not actually be immortal after all. That is annoying I must say as I had up until recently worked on the assumption that I would live forever, and had borrowed accordingly. My cunning plan is not ironclad after all, and my children will not be impressed to inherit my debt. Ah well, not my problem.
It's all relative
August 25 - 31, 2011
I HAVE never been one for standing still. Laying still perhaps, if a particularly nasty hangover makes moving painful or there is something splendid on telly, but otherwise I need to be moving. Whether it is the inability to stare at a computer screen for more than five minutes, or the preference for walking around the room while talking on the phone, I am not a static person. This annoys the hell out of my wife.
The essential geologist’s guide to life, the universe and (just about) everything
August 18 - 24, 2011
BONJOUR. Merci. Un Biere froid s’il vous plait. Le recu s’il vous plait. No one can ever accuse me of not being a linguist. I may not have the most exhaustive vocabulary going, but I can say hello, thank you, cold beer and receipt in about 20 languages. That pretty much covers the basics and anything else I find I can get by flapping my arms, pointing and looking hungry. Actually it used to be just “beer” but then I found the Chinese had an annoying habit of drinking their lager warm, and as much as I am a happy traveller, there are some things that just won’t do.
This time it’s different
August 11 - 17, 2011
CRIKEY Mikey, what a week that was. The markets are in flames and so it seems is London; time to knuckle down, gird our loins, steel that gaze, stiffen that lip, shoulder that burden and do what generations of London bankers and politicians have always done in moments of global crisis – run away to France for a holiday.
Magic numbers
August 4 - 10, 2011
I THINK we have all heard that joke about a businessman interviewing a number of people, I think from memory, an engineer, a lawyer, a social worker and an accountant, and asking them all what two plus two is. They all give various answers and the last, the accountant, leans forward and asks quietly, what do you want it to be? Of course he gets the job.
Breaking up is hard to do
July 28 - August 3, 2011
COME to my arms my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!' Break out the champagne, ring the bells, BHP managed to buy something!
