In a 50-50 deal, he keeps the hyphen

Back from a typical British Bank Holiday Monday – it pis*ed down with rain non-stop for 36 hours, and we went to Ikea in the sensible estate car with the children. Anyone who describes themselves as having a ‘GSOH’ should be required to spend an hour in the Ikea canteen at lunchtime.

The best thing by far was the sight of a disapproving-looking BCBG lady of a certain age (the sort who detests everyone who shops at places like Ikea, despite doing so herself) walking with two cups of boiling tea across the middle of the children’s play area, and stopping to glare and tut angrily at each of the four dozen children who came within 10 feet of her. Not sure how she failed to spot the very large sign reading ‘Children’s Play Area.’

Still, Mrs Chimp got lots of new house stuff, the children managed to blag a Barnslig Flodhäst and a Korall Sköldpadda between them, and as for me, I actually quite enjoyed my lukewarm meatballs in strange beige sauce and adding a " ’ " with a green felt-tip to a toy originally marked “My Dolls Bed.”

Last entry for a while due to impending house move (it will somehow take BT, the Great Satan of UK telecoms, three weeks to re-connect broadband). I'm even more gloomy than usual about the imminent stamp duty bill of more than £27,000, which, being a dull accountant, I’ve worked out will cost one whole year of (very large) mortgage repayments to repay. More depressing still is the cost over the life of the mortgage - £50 fecking grand (including interest) or a fiver a day every single day until 2032, by which time I’ll be knocking on 60 years old. It gives me a warm feeling inside to know that I’ll still be paying Gordon Brown’s bloody tax bill long after he’s enjoyed a long taxpayer-subsidised retirement and turned up his toes.

For those of you who think that the ‘Golden Triangle’ is something to do with blonde girls and waxing, think again. Surprised to see that my own alma mater is included in this list.

Look out Blighty, Wholefoods Market, the yankee-doodle-yuppie-foodie-nirvana, is coming to London. I’ve never been there and therefore shouldn’t judge. That said, all the guff on the website about how green they are is somewhat undermined by the massive number of large trucks parked in front of the store in picture on the homepage. (##STOP PRESS - THEY'VE CHANGED THE PHOTO SINCE LAST FRIDAY - THE TRUCKS HAVE MYSTERIOUSLY DISAPPEARED##)

Have you read the latest Cameronian nonsense about trading permits for 'social bads'? Setting aside (if you can) the use of 'bad' as a noun, can you imagine yet another office in Central London filled with expensive people government employees earnestly establishing the relative value of each ‘bad’? How many jam doughnuts equate to driving a car? Is taking the lift instead of walking better or worse than watching reality TV? How many M&S sea bass fillets ‘from the azure waters of Greece’ would be as ‘bad’ a ‘bad’ as a Jaffa Cake? Only the man in Whitehall knows.

The few remaining Poles that aren’t living in London are embroiled in a very important debate – are the Teletubbies promoting an inappropriate alternative lifestyle choice? If it’s found to be true, expect the Teletubbies, Right Said Fred and Peter Tatchell to get pulped by a bunch of nationalists in camouflage t-shirts and thrown into prison, leaving the nationalists to run riot in Teletubbyland.

And finally, for you dismal scientists out there, The Economist’s screen saver is back!

We must either love each other, or we must die

The English summer is upon us, which means that it’s cloudy, there are millions of tourists milling about taking pictures of each other, and of course the office air conditioning is broken. The facilities people have instructed us to sit completely still in semi-darkness until things cool off in October.

I know it's boring to bang on about the nanny state, but it's difficult not to get irritated with the powers that be for pronouncing a complete ban on pre-baby boozing, despite there being nothing as inconvenient as "evidence that a couple of units once or twice a week will do any harm” to an unborn baby. Luckily, today’s advice is “not based on new scientific evidence.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m as dull, risk averse and sensible as any middle class chartered accountant; it’s just that I would be very surprised indeed if the small minority of mums-to-be who get bladdered when they’re up the duff have even heard of the Department of Health, let alone paid any heed to their guidelines, irrespective of whether these are based on scientific evidence, or simply the insatiable urge to tell people what to do. Here endeth the lesson.

Not entirely unlinked to the above is Boris Johnson’s article about happiness in today’s Spectator (read by home county Nazis in tweed), which is the journalistic equivalent of foie gras en brioche. Quite simply fabulous. Before you dive in, though, you might need to mug up (well I had to, anyway, what with my patchy state education) on the following:

• reductionist
• The emergence of Athenian democracy
• TRUD
• Nicomachean Ethics
• Aristotle
• eudaemonic (a crisp fiver to anyone who can successfully weave that into their next conference call)
• pseudo-utilitarianism
• jacquerie
• NEET
• Hesiod
• asphodel

One small point, though – I’m somewhat sceptical that the study of advanced mathematics constitutes an “activity that is truly happiness-inducing”, but then the plurality of maths teachers at my school were sarcastic alcoholics.

And finally, how on can anyone at the bloody moaning Indie think that anyone at all would possibly find this picture of a house remotely interesting, let alone front-page fodder? Bloody puritans. Time to bunk off and read some Hesiod, people.

I think we need a 3-way with Philip

Appearing in a reality TV show? Need for a pre-pixellated shirt? Your problem is solved.

I spent an unhealthy amount of time this monring (New York may be a city that never sleeps, but it doesn’t do conference calls before 2pm UK time) choosing a new fridge freezer, which is exactly as dull and irritating as it sounds.

Amongst reams of data on the height, noise levels, number of egg holders, gross capacity and number of thermostats, there’s something called an ‘Energy rating’, which is a fine idea, the only problem is that practically every fridge freezer on earth is rated ‘A’, so why bother? It's a bit like GCSE results. Anyways, the damn thing (salad crisper an’ all) is being delivered next week. So sorry to be so tedious.

Some sort of coke smuggling gag here, but I can’t quite think of it.

A couple of annoying uses of corporate English that keep cropping up around here:

• The verb ‘talk to’ employed to describe anything other than one human being addressing another human being. Example: “These are the slides we’ll be talking to during the debrief.”


• The use of “It’s all about” without bothering to explain what ‘it’ is. Example: “it’s all about celebrating our values”. What is, for heaven’s sake?

Alex in the Torygraph is mid-way through an excellent run of Wall St inspired gags (here, here and here). Always remember friends, “it's not a question of enough. It's a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn't lost or made, it's simply transferred from one perception to another.”.

I tried that one with my mortgage company. They transferred £275 from one perception (my account) to another (their account) for the pleasure of allowing me to repay my debt early, the swine.

Next time you’re the bee-atch of some PE guy half your age and he gets all hostile on you, try the following gem from Homer’s Odyssey (c.800BC): “think twice before you challenge me; or once you have roused me, old as I am I’ll dye your lips and breast with your own blood.” At least you know where you are with the guy. Here is the whole lot if you’ve got a moment.

Speaking of warriors, a number of people have recently mentioned a fellow called Dan Millman, who has made piles and piles of cash marketing the concept of the ‘peaceful warrior.’ Not having read the guy’s oeuvre, I can’t comment on it, but it’s fair to say that I will always be slightly suspicious of someone who signs off his blog ‘Good journeys.’

Good adding stuff up and making it into graphs.

It’s seldom difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman and a ray of sunshine

We all know that Gordo is a miserable sod, but this is ridiculous. The most annoying thing about these adverts, currently plastered on every billboard and bus in London, is the phrase ‘go smokefree’ (NB no space). A most unusual verb:

• Q: Good morning, and where are you going this fine day?
• A: I’m going smokefree, of course.

Still, at least the government’s 3,200 press officers are earning their salaries. I’m no public sector accountant, but I love the way in which the £322m paid by me and my fellow citizens in 2006, to tell us what someone else thinks we need to know, is somehow ‘turnover’. In such an opaque world, no wonder no-one has any idea how much the government is spending, sorry, earning.

Apparently the fine city of Leeds "struts across England's urban stage like John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever". Good to see that the British sense of humour is alive and kicking.

A distinctly underwhelming compromise

A moderately diverting piece about randomness and luck from the beeb. It makes you wonder why you bother in life, doesn’t it? But then apparently lucky people make their own luck, so keep at it, compadres.

I’ve had the pleasure of reading a competitor’s financial due diligence report today, which contains the following gems in amongst numerous typos and split infinitives:

• “corporate business generally relates to companies”
• “the company reduced prices to counter declining sales. Unfortunately, this had the effect of increasing sales”

I suddenly realise how painful it must be to be a client of someone like me.

Next time you have a hangover, don’t take any crap from your colleagues, attribute your less-than-stellar performance to ‘brain fog’ brought on by gluten intolerance. You needn’t tell them that the gluten was in fact in the pitta of your 3am kebab.

Our friends at Google are really getting into the habit of banning stuff. This time it’s essay writing websites, although the ban hasn’t quite started yet, it seems. I'm sure that there's far more unsavoury stuff to be banned from Google searches (especially with Moderate SafeSearch switched off) ahead of a bit of innocent exam cheating...

I wonder if there’s a gap in the market for a financial due diligence report writing website? Hmmm.

Macro paradigms, or epoch-making overall constellations

Today’s entry is dedicated to the aggressive fiftysomething lady on the rush hour train out of London on Friday night, who grabbed my brother in law’s seat, stole my newspaper, then spent the duration of the journey eating an offensively strong egg sandwich and yelling down her phone at her poor son in his boarding school … whilst sitting in the ‘Quiet Coach’.

Mark my words, friends, the tyranny of the nearly-retired is upon us. Because they don’t work much, they have plenty of time to vote for the party that promises them a massive pension built from the sweat off our backs. We’ll be working until the age of 90 so that this last generation of state-sponsored layabouts can do the same at 60. And they eat egg sandwiches. Horrific.

Speaking of suspicious smells, did anyone else notice something strange about the BA price-fixing story last week? Notwithstanding BA’s name very deservedly being dragged through the mud yet again, we all seem to have forgotten that it requires two parties to tango around competition rules. Step forward Virgin Atlantic, who acted in an equally dastardly manner, but went to the Feds and shopped their old enemy. A new variant on the ole prisoner’s dilemma.

Wonder if Richard Branson is now living anonymously under witness protection? Somehow I doubt it.

Next time an aüslander bitches about black snot and London pollution in general, you’d do well to remind them that in terms of CO2 emissions, our fine city is in fact “dangerously like some hippie commune”. Perhaps Ken should do his bit about the wretched Low Emission Zone and put a sock in it for once.

Speaking of Transport for London, I would like to take the opportunity to declare a jihad against the City Hall muppet who came up with the idea of reducing the number of lanes by 50% on the Embankment just before Chelsea Bridge. This has had the admirable effect of turning a 30 second breeze into a 25 minute perpetual traffic jam. Always a pleasure when the chimplets are getting restless in the back of the sensible estate car.

Did you know that the English version of the Japanese ‘karoshi’ is ‘work-life balance’?

Of the four transactions currently tracking on my radar, two of them have a profusion of people with the same first names. Transaction A has four Tims, whereas Transaction B has three Anthonys. Not sure that this is significant. Or indeed interesting.

It's better to be wrong than alone

Feeling as if my liver is going to explode today, mainly because of a four hour Menu Gourmand (roughly translates as 'bloated pig') dinner yesterday evening here, which involved six courses accompanied by six different glasses of wine, one of which was memorably called ‘Terre Arse’ (although sadly not pronounced in the correct English manner by our inevitably Polish waitron).

After a little awkwardness during a conversation with our German guest about whether wine from Alsace is German or French (it depends on who's asking, apparently), a fine evening was had by all. Wish I’d eaten less, though. Four courses would have been fine.

Here’s a story about City high flyers out-breeding each other. Makes my own two look rather meagre. If only they were joking about it being “cheaper to run a string of polo ponies than bring up twins.”

Be careful what you look for on Gumtree, however.

Good (ie. brief, and doesn’t contain any bloody ‘random musings’) blog about chatter on the tube. On reflection, this must be made up, as everyone knows that it’s simply not done to talk on the Tube.

Here’s a quick internet poll.

And finally, a Chartered Accountant dancing

See you next, um, Monday

She looks like a horse covered in rice pudding

Grrr

Platinum standard in gender diversity benchmarking

A period of deep gloom and bottomless dubitation

An opening address from our soon-to-be-former premier ministre. For those of you who don’t speak French, Monsieur Blair is announcing that as a last ditch attempt to stop Gordon Brown from taking over, the UK is to be incorporated into the French state forthwith, and that speaking French with a terrible, terrible accent will be mandatory from 28 June. I’m sure at one point he says ‘France and England are the same height.’

Here's a good bit of small print, in case you were in any doubt about copying their advert and racing your car once you've bought M&S insurance:


Next time your train home’s delayed after a long day of run-rate analysis, why not simply let the red mist descend and run riot? Alternatively, you could buy a bottle of Diet Coke and a small bottle of rum at the station, mix them together as you run to catch the train, then drink the lot by the time the train leaves the station, as I saw one of my fellow straphangers do at Waterloo the other night.

Dull property related item – the UK government has fallen out with the entire property industry about something called a ‘Home Information Pack’, which becomes compulsory shortly (after the customary 10 minute public consultation period), despite the fact that they are demonstrably pointless. Despite the endless drivel spouted by government agencies about how great they are, HIPs will really only achieve 3 things:

• It will make moving house £300 more expensive, without actually doing anything useful


• It will result in the seller receiving a patronising report about spending £30,000 on better insulation in order to make savings of £50 per year on fuel bills, and


• It will earn 6,000 freshly-minted, government-mandated (and therefore Labour-voting) Home Inspectors, £48,000 a year (or more than twice the UK average salary) for coming into your house and taking a cursory glance at your windows

For an excellent, surgical destruction of the pointless Yvette Cooper’s windy posturing, take a look at the profession’s view. But then what would the mere property professionals know, eh?

Our Paramount Leader Ken’s pointless posters are back, this time patronisingly telling us to walk for all journeys of 2km or less. Check out the hilarious transcript of the radio ad.

Strange how it doesn’t mention walking in dog turds and chewing gum, getting elbowed by joggers, yelled at by pavement cyclists, knocked down by Chelsea tractor drivers SMSing their nannies whilst shouting at their loathsome children, being intimidated by 12 year old children playing crap tinny rap music on their mobile phones, torrential rain (no umbrella, hole in shoe, all over splashing from heartless bus driver ploughing through a puddle), abused by drunks, hassled by petition wielders, charity direct debiters, Big Issue vendors and free paper distributors, oh, and the fact that on average, Londoners travel more than 10km to work each day, making the entire campaign a waste of time. Still, unsolicited advice from an organ of the state is always welcome.

Burning question of the day – are you a dispositionalist or a situationalist?

With more than 70 million competitors, here are five ways not to describe your blog if you ever want anyone to read it:
1. “General ramblings about stuff”
2. “Musings about my life”
3. “A series of rants about anything”
4. “Writing and stuff”
5. “Random thoughts, posted when I feel like it”

Finally, will you ever get rich? I am apparently heading (glacially slowly) towards ‘High Net Worth’. Apparently I’m missing the ‘X’ factor, though.

Enough random musings about my life and stuff. See you tomorrow.

Eurocorruption War Contest results

If war is a continuation of politics by other means (cf. Von Clausewitz), what on earth is the warbling and prancing of the Eurovision Song Contest?

Notwithstanding Terry Wogan’s increasingly sarcastic (and perhaps inebriated) commentary about tactical voting, there may be something in it.

The map below separates the men from the boys, in terms of the pre-arranged trading of votes with one’s neighbours, based on the final scores on the doors, Isla.

Strange that Italy and Slovakia didn’t bother turning up this year, but good to see Israel hanging onto its European status though.

At the risk of equating a crappy song competition to regional geopolitics, the dividing line between dubious and scrupulous runs remarkably close to the course of the former Iron Curtain.

No less than sixteen countries happily exchanged the maximum (10 or 12) points with a direct neighbour.

Did these shenanigans in the Balkans make any difference to the result? In a word, yes, although I’m not really clever enough to work out why. For a start, Serbia’s winning margin was 33 points, way less than the 73 dubious neighbourly points it received. Also, four of the top five finishers are coloured a sinister red, whereas the highest ranked green nice guy came in at a poor 15th.

There’s probably a maths project about game theory in all this I should think.

In the manner of a hormone-laden teen disco, there’s a palpable sense of unrequited love in some areas, wherein one smitten nation gives maximum marks to a neighbour, and is rudely given the bird (‘nul points’ in Eurovisionspeak) in return. Here, then, is the list of likely future wars in Europe:

• Bosnia and/or Serbia vs Croatia (rematch of previous local derbies in 1912, 1913, and of course the more recent decade-long affair)
• Serbia vs Montenegro (residual bad feeling following the recent divorce?)
• Russia and/or Latvia vs Estonia (the Russians are furious about a statue, and doing more than withholding votes at present; the Lats are p*ssed off that the Estonians consider themselves to be Scandinavians not Balts)
• Armenia vs Turkey (just a little historical misunderstanding)
• Ukraine vs Poland (no imminent return to the Duchy of Poland, it seems)
  

But then it’s only a bit of fun, isn’t it? Isn’t it?

Embrace randomness and come to terms with black swans

Got an email yesterday with the above title. Is there any any such thing as a black swan? Maybe that's the point.

So, back from a week in Greece and raring to go. Back to Greece, that is.

Today’s entry is brought to you courtesy of the Greek variety of the Hyundai Accent, a fine automobile that we had the pleasure of driving last week. Pity, though, that the doors were made from corrugated cardboard, and that it required two people’s grunting efforts to ram reverse gear into place. I guess that the Greek outpost of Europcar has been told that all English take pride in having terrible accents. Ah-ha.

Spent a happy week in a child-friendly holiday compound with a bunch of other London professionals who’ve waited until the brink of middle age to have children. It’s so unceasingly tiring to be a competitive middle class parent, what with proving one’s children’s running, throwing and swimming prowess, frantically singing nursery rhymes to them by way of making up for dumping them in the crèche for most of the day, and of course battle of the camcorders / digital cameras. The latter was a score draw – I counted four Canon EOSs and three Sony High Definition camcorders (including our own stolen one, of course).

Great to see that some clichés of the English abroad are timeless – the bar at the airport (which doubles up as a top secret military airfield and vegetable garden) was full of dozens of surly-looking middle-aged blokes angrily drinking litres of beer at 10am whilst waiting for their delayed flight back to Manchester.

It seems that most of the large accounting firms have been jumping around excitedly about their inclusion in a list of “Companies that count”, drawn up by the fine people at Business in the Community (a fine-sounding if ambiguous name – would drug dealing be classed as a community business?). I should blasted-well hope that accounting firms are companies that count – what the hell else would they spend their time doing?

Reminds me of a competition held at my school back in the ‘80s to devise a new motto. The winner was the memorable ‘Where everybody counts’, until someone helpfully pointed out that surprisingly few people could actually count. Deciding that ‘Where only a small minority counts’ didn’t quite hit the spot, the powers-that-be went for the much more ambiguous (and therefore more appealing) ‘Where everybody matters.’

It seems that Gordon Brown has started campaigning hard. The question is - for / against what? If he does absolutely nothing (or indeed slips away to Greece for a month), he'll still become Prime Minister without the bothersome task of asking the electorate about it, so why fly around the place making vapid speeches? So only a matter of weeks until Brown, Balls and Darling take over the country. My question is this - if the answer is 'Brown Balls, Darling' - what was the question?

Here is the story of an incompetent Credit Suisse guy busted for insider trading. The dude used the office phone to tip off his contact FFS, no wonder he’s a ‘junior banker’ at the age of 37.

Nice to see CS claiming that they ‘immediately informed’ the authorities, when in fact CS hadn’t any idea what was going on, and had to be told by the SEC.

Still, secret squirrel info is part of the game. I sit here in the knowledge that the employer of someone I know well is up for sale, which may result in their losing their job. Should I tell them? No, because it’s illegal. Do I want to tell them? Yes. It’s all down to what my MBA ethics professor would call (with an absurdly overdone French accent) one’s ‘moral compass’.

Ever wish you were young again? Maybe in your middle teens, with the best (and most heavily subsidised) years of your life just around the corner? Think again – take a look into the mind of a 14 year old. I suppose one forgets the hormone-fuelled intensity of those difficult years…

Well, it’s Friday, so why not mix your self a double-oh drink sit back, and enjoy this quite brilliant piece of creative accounting.

I’m following the herd down to Greece for a few days, so hang in there, friends…

My ass is grass and he's got a lawn mower, you dig?

Today’s supercharged entry is brought to you in association with Stephen Seagal’s Lightning Bolt, 'an energy drink as unique as the man who created it.'

If you thought Esperanto was a silly idea, why not try conversing in a new strange new Eurolanguage supported by this blog? I suggest that we cut the crap and start learning Manadarin.

Following yesterday’s global geography quiz, today’s is for those with the arrogant old-European view that US citizens passportless goons who ‘demonstrate a limited understanding of the world’ – step forward and prove your geographical superiority by naming each of the US’ very own states in 10 minutes. I petered out with 4 to go. Goddam Wisconsin.

New copy of The Idler is out, if you can be bothered.

And finally the story of a $65m pair of pants (or trousers, as we backwards Brits stubbornly insist on calling them). I love the idea that a judge is claiming ‘emotional damage’ of half a mil because his trousers went missing, plus another half mil to cover his own legal expenses. Plus 10 years’ rental car fees because he’s being ‘forced’ to drive to a different store. Send him to the tower, but don't for heaven's sake, lose his trousers.

Being born in a stable does not make one a horse

A quick one today – I have proper work to do. So, using the punchy bullet-point style so loved of due diligence practitioners:

• exchanged contracts on the new chimp enclosure in Tooting today, and if I could give you one piece of advice (or 'value add' as we call it), other than the obvious stuff about never trusting estate agents, it’s that you should never sell residential property to a junior investment bankers – it’s just not worth it.


• one of junior chimp boy’s new words this week is ‘castle.’ Problem is, he can’t quite pronounce the ‘c’, leading a number of my fellow Earlsfieldians to believe they’re being called an ‘arsehole’ by a toddler who they’ve never met. The kid will go far. Heh.


• Is it me, or is this an unpaid advert for a well known mobile operator, not an item of ‘media news’. ‘Golden spot’ my foot.

• Say what you like about Gordon Brown’s support in the country, all of 182 people on Facebook like him. Only another 44,775,003 more of us to win over, and the job’s done. Might be easier to use the more, um, ‘reliable’ system of postal voting. I don't know why we bother to elect our new Prime Ministers at all. Hang on a minute...


• For those Daily Telegraph readers out there feeling the urge to splutter in angry protest about something, why not ally yourself to the Campaign Against Political Correctness. The ‘about us’ page is particularly special - in the same way the devil has the best tunes, the lunatic fringe of the UK right has the ugliest nutters.


• If you’ve got 10 minutes to spare and need some adrenalin to brighten up your day, why not try a high-pressure geography quiz? It's simple - you name each of the 192 member states of the UN whilst a socking great stopwatch counts down your ten minute allowance.

M’aidez, m’aidez

Happy May Day, comrades, and long live the revolution. You can still join the brothers for an afternoon of marching and shouting in the May sunshine if you leave the office sharpish.

And it seems that marching and shouting are just about all the dudes at the PCS (Prop: M Serwotka Esq, controller the pen-pushers in various branches of the government machine) will be doing for a while, since they’ve arranged an unhelpfully titled day of ‘industrial action’, which should perhaps read ‘bureaucratic inaction’ on this very day.

I believe they’re striking because HMG is closing down the Job Centre Plusses (‘Job Centres Plus’?). Maybe they have a point – if the guys who help unemployed people have been made unemployed, who’s going to help them?

Here are some jobs the meaning and purpose of which escape me:

• Visual merchandiser


• Female hygiene operative


• Minister of Excellence


• Head of Proposition Development

Sharper eyed readers will note that the UK Sunday papers picked up on the Abercrombie and Bitch story featured in this very column ten days previously. The writ is in the post, gentlemen.

Out and about for some client drinks last night. The topics of conversation (in chronological order) are listed below:

• Sufficiency of working capital headroom (it’s all down to judgement)


• Impact on the year end audit of the requirement under IFRS to determine fact patterns (makes it much longer and more expensive)


• Likely effect of the new Companies’ Act on directors’ responsibilities (nothing)


• Whether South Africans who live in Putney are posher than South Africans who live in Earlsfield (probably, but there are fewer of them)


• The minimum amount of outside space a rental flat full of South Africans needs to have a braai (about 0.4m2)


• What roasted guinea pig (something of a signature dish in Ecuador, I gather) might taste like (bony chicken, probably)


• Guessing how many Polish dudes there are in London (the assembled conversers came from all corners of London, and they all had a Polski Sklep in the neighbourhood)


• Whether there’s a correlation between personal wealth and the waviness of one’s hair (yes - supported by empirical evidence from the high powered bankers standing at the other end of the room)

Can you guess the point at which the warm chardonnay kicked in?

And finally, next time you get lucky enough to see your London NHS GP and are told that ‘it’s probably a virus, I suggest you rest’, it’s time to get all pushy and North American on their complacent asses – here are three questions to ask them. I sense, however, that the responses will be a brusque (1) Nothing; (2) No; (3) Of course not, please leave immediately.

Enough already, I need to get ahead of the curve on my anchor tailored insights collateral deck. At least I think that’s what he said.

Labouring under an aberration of intellect

Question: what do:

(a) Black Economic Empowerment
(b) Harry Enfield, and
(c) Razorlight

have in common? Simple. As a result of (a), millions of bronzed, athletic, hard-drinking South African gym-bunnies have made London their home. This has led veteran comic (b) to stick the boot in with ‘Pik’, a bone-headed Afrikaaner whose life revolves around boozing and vomiting.

So where does (c) fit in? Well, for some reasons, the gazillions of little ‘Piks’ (or something that sounds like it) who live down my way love nothing better on a summer’s afternoon than drinking 3 dozen Windhoeks and singing along in a sort of strangled drunken yell to ‘America’ by Razorlight. Three separate braais audible from my back garden have pulled this stunt in the last week.

So why is this? Do our SA friends perhaps feel some affinity with Johnny Borrell, frontman of Razorlight, who is linked in the public consciousness with having an elite education, a staggeringly high belief in his own abilities, and a propensity to drink too much? I couldn’t possibly comment.

Like it or not we live in interesting times

Out and about last night (rare enough nowadays at a marginal cost of £8 per hour for babysitting), first to an art gallery (just a buncha pikchurs, innit) then to dinner with friends in Camden.

The dudes we had dinner with have one of these digital music thingies. Needless to say, and despite several patient and clear explanations, I can’t really remember what it is, or how it works. It’s very cool though.

Camden (no ‘Town’ – strictly for the tourists) might as well be on a different planet from little Johannesburg where I dwell. Whereas Planet Wandsworth is filled with Aryans trying to avoid black people, Planet NorfLandan is filled with white undergraduates trying to be black people.

I know it shouldn’t, but there’s something about white guys with dreads that winds me up. It’s all very well about ‘appreciating where you come from’, but most of these guys are from Kingston-Upon-Thames, for feck’s sake, not the other one in Jamaica.

Anyhoo, digital music guy recommended this site – a forum thing for hoody wearing soap dodgers who are old enough to know better, who spend their time breaking into old buildings and taking pictures. Once you get used to the mild whiff of nerdyness about the site, it’s strangely interesting.

Back to dull statistics – here is one of the dullest statistics-based sites I’ve seen for a while. Did you know that 900 trillion tonnes of solar energy has hit the earth this year? Um…no.

Certain of our US readers might want to consider this new model when next upgrading their cellphone / PDA / sidearm.

And finally, a quiz about Canada

Bon weekend à tous.

That's very much in the realms of technical positioning

“Making a speech on economics is a lot like pissing down your leg - it seems hot to you, but it never does to anyone else”

Thanks to LBJ (who died on the day I was born) for that insight.

Today’s hot trickle of piss in the UK is on the subject of free banking. Unlike everywhere else on earth, Brits pay no charges for running a current account (or checking account, for our North American readers).

The banks, meanwhile, make piles of cash by screwing feckless borrowers with (admittedly outrageous) charges for writing them threatening letters that they didn’t want in the first place.

So the deal is: stay in credit, and your banking’s free; cross the line, and we’ll nail your fiscal arse to the wall.

Sounds good to me: the nation’s debt-ridden underclass is subsidising my free banking.

However, the generally rather well-off Guardianista classes are moaning like hell that it’s unfair. But nothing like as much as they’ll moan when their bank starts to charge them £20 a month in ‘service charges’ and £1 per cheque, cash withdrawal and card transaction. Then, my friends, then you’ll understand that regressive taxes on the unfortunate are a fine thing.

Quote of the week from The Apprentice:
"Hmm, so you're saying that this work is the story of the ocean and the life within?... Would you be happy if a fish restaurant bought it?"
Personally, I wouldn't hire any of them. But then I'm not an employer, so it doesn't matter.

Finally, why not build your own banner? (although I'm struggling to understand what half of them mean).

An opportunity to learn valuable lessons from a controlled failure

Being the Wednesday of Administrative Professionals Week® (formerly Professional Secretaries Week®), today is officially Administrative Professionals Day® (formerly Professional Secretaries Day®). Here are some FAQs, but I'm not so sure that this lame bunch of questions are asked all that frequently.

As you may have guessed from the bunch of ®s, the phrase ‘Administrative Professionals Week’ has been hi-jacked by a gang of litigation addled Americans (the IAAP®, of course). However, if you should choose to use the more grammatically correct ‘Administrative Professionals’ Week’, you’re in the clear.

Another dull language gripe – everyone within earshot in the office is currently saying ‘irrevocable’ c.5x a day for some reason. So why the mascara’ed arse are they pronouncing it ‘irreVOCable’ not ‘irREVocable’?

Finally, here’s the strangest story of the day.

Now, where the hell is my bloody useless secretary...

I know a pissed horse when I see one. Get him a kebab.

So dazvedanya Boris - the last of the great boozers in a position of power and influence, ignoring Charles Kennedy, of course. Feeling less than great today. Output restricted to a quote from Kingsley Amis:

"What I want is a chance to decide, from personal experience, that a life
of cocktail parties, cars, weekending at rich houses, wine, night-clubs and jazz
won't bring happiness. I want to prove that money isn't everything, to
learn that pleasure cloys."

With the exception of jazz, I agree.

Not so much a smile as a grimace of controlled revulsion

Happy St George’s Day. Last I checked on Google News, the only media outlets making any reference to this were the Wimbledon Guardian, Blackpool Today (pretty similar to Blackpool yesterday, I should think), and the fabulous Suffolk Evening Star. I wonder how many junior hacks over the course of history have started the headline to their St George’s Day article with the words 'By George…'?

Call off the search - after many years of fruitless casting about, the definition of ‘holistic cross-platform solutions’ has finally been made clear. It’s a term employed by thieving swine to describe robbing the feckless poor via their tellys.

As I sat in Battersea Park over the weekend with junior chimps, chewing absentmindedly on a Mini Babybel Light (which somehow tastes of absolutely nothing at all, despite containing a generous portion of vegetable rennet, whatever the hell that is), I suddenly became aware that each of the 20 thirtysomething dads within a 200 metre radius of our tartan picnic rug was wearing identical blue Polo (with a big 'P') shirts and camel cargo shorts. So maybe there’s nothing new under the sun. I then returned to helping the junior chimps to wave a cheery ‘bye bye’ to every single aircraft flying overhead. We sat under the Heathrow flight path for 3 hours; there is a plane every 60 seconds – you do the math.

Dietary warning: a new nutritional menace is heading our way. Having never heard of it in my entire life until recently, I’ve crossed paths with something referred to as ‘the Bolivian super grain,’ or Quinoa, twice in the last week (once in a scandalously overpriced pot of plums, the other in a Tupperware pot full of baby sludge being emptied down a one year old’s reluctant throat). Mark my words, ‘the staple diet of the Incas’ is back in a big way. And we all know what happened to the Incas.

Would an Anglo-French aircraft carrier really be such a good idea? Given that it took the best part of four years to decide whether Concord(e) should be spelt with an ‘e’,, how long would it take to determine whether the speedometer (or whatever they have on boats) should read kilometres or miles, let alone whether planes should take off and land from the left-hand or right-hand lane?

Positive aggression is half the battle

Having assumed that Reader’s Digest must have closed down years ago, I am proved wrong – apparently there are still enough readers out there to appreciate Memories of Immortal Jim Reeves, and How To Clean Just About Anything (“Did you know, for example, that deep heat rub can remove chewing gum from floors?”). I would previously have made a joke about Radio 2 listeners at this point, but unfortunately a plurality of my generation fall into this category nowadays, so it’s no longer funny.

These fine digesters of reading have also published a list of the best and worst places to bring up your children, which the idiotic winning yokels in East Dunbartonshire (I had to look it up on the map, too) are terribly excited about.

Now it may be that I am bitter that despite having an almost Third World (sorry, “Global South”) birth rate, and a dangerously high concentration of buggy workout and pilates practitioners (Mrs Chimp scores double points by combining the two, don't ask me how), my own fair Wandsworth comes in at a distinctly pedestrian 355th best out of 408, but is it maybe better to live in a somewhat “edgy” urban environment (Tooting, perhaps), than an suffocating middle class suburb where every middle manager reads the Reader’s Digest?

Has anyone else seen the ‘Free Alan Johnson’ hoardings that have been put up around London? It’s part of a campaign to “show support” and to exert pressure on “everyone with influence” over the unfortunate guy’s captors, which includes an online petition, and the ability to put a little Alan Johnson button on your blog.

Now, I totally share the concern and hopes expressed by the blog-buttoners, but my question is this: how on earth will this have any influence whatsoever on the hostage-takers? Will the guys crouched with their RPGs and Kalashnikovs in a Gaza basement by any chance be surfing through blogs in their idle moments and have a prick of conscience? And what of the assorted London couriers, cabbies, commuters on cycles riding past these billboards – what are they supposed to do? Or is this perhaps an example of well-meaning people adopting the doctrine that it is better to do something utterly pointless than to do nothing at all?

Better cheer up before sign off, so here’s a new game, called ‘ASBO name bingo’ (dedicated to one Carole Olva, who having cursed her daughter with the cast-iron ASBO name of “Serenza”, has recently been busted for goading her children to fight on video).

See how many names (girls or boys, it doesn’t matter which) you can spot which practically guarantee that its owner will at some point be slapped with an ASBO. My opening bets are Leah, Scarlett, Courtney, Dylan, Reece, and Jayden.

Finally, check out this piece of Jack Bauer-type technology. Big Brother just got bigger

You're 'avin' a graph mate

Check it out - a graphical representation of this blog (yes, I've been drinking), thanks to the fine people at Websites as Graphs. Give it a go - your favourite website transformed into a slightly sinister, ever-growing cancerous cell-like structure thingy.

Can we do it on a slightly less VAT basis?

Aggressive Tre is behind today’s title – you’ve got to respect him for suggesting a VAT fraud in front of Sralan’s slightly ludicrous in-house lawyer, who had to pretend to disapprove for the sake of the cameras. After all Sralan’s the original crafty cockney, or perhaps cockney, um, winker for our adult viewers.

Another day of having a less than bulging in-tray, so I’m looking for a suitable gift to send to pair of ex-bean counting colleagues to celebrate the recent arrival of their first born. I’m guessing that the people who claim to specialise in this area have limited experience of babies, since the sheer horror of milky sick, interrupted sleep, projectile diarrhoea, nine changes of clothes a day, soggy nappies, collapsing pushchairs, and the general collapse of civilisation which the arrival of a new baby entails can’t really be erased by a bottle of £15 bubble bath, a £24 box with a small dribble-proof book in it, a £40 box containing a couple of bibs and a single muslin square (average life expectancy in the line of fire – c.7 seconds), although “beautifully presented in cellophane”, or indeed a £200 baby rattle (with accompanying Tranquility:calming candle, which you’d Bloodywell:need at that price).

The problem is, a £30 Tesco voucher which could purchase all of the above plus a decent bottle of bubbly doesn’t really hit the mark.

Now that companies have finally stopped blaming 9/11 for crap sales, a new punch bag has obligingly been slung from the roof the corporate gym – apparently global warming is the reason why DVD rentals collapsed over Easter. That and the fact that Turner and Hooch is still filed under 'Latest releases'.

On that subject, I spent an extremely middle-aged 30 minutes last evening listening the Reith lecture by Jeffrey Sachs on Radio 4 (on Freeview, the only electronic device in Chimp Towers not currently farking broken). It was surprisingly pleasant to spend a few minutes doing nothing other than listen to the wireless – one could have been an Oxford tutor lying on a leather sofa, listening more or less attentively to an undergraduate’s weekly essay.

Anyhoo, the terrifying fact is that we’re apparently doomed, except we may not be. The good thing is that unlike the bloody moaning Indie (sorry to go about them, they just wind me up somehow), Sachs lays out a calm and balanced view of the situation, and offers hope that we’re going to be OK. The bloody moaning Indie, of course, wants us to stop work, destroy our houses, offer our children for human sacrifice, and live off dandelion roots in order to further the cause of ‘global justice’, whatever the hell that is. Take a look at this map to see whether you’ll be smug or swimming by the year 2050, when sea levels have risen by up to 14 metres. I’m about to move to a house on top of a hill. *smirks*

If you’re really, really bored, try this American IQ test thing, although, like me, you’ll have to get over the rage you’ll no doubt feel rising in your breast when you see the phrase “seven intelligences”.

And finally, if you’re really serious about getting shot of the muffin top before you hit the beach, try paying an ex-squaddie (probably with ‘issues’ after a tour in Iraq) to yell at you .