Me: Where does all my money go?
My sister: Sympathetic noise.
Me: I mean, I get my hair cut once a year (it grows slowly – has always only needed an annual cut, really).
Her: Sympathetic noise.
Me: I don’t buy make up or perfume (these are supplied by my sister who is an adventurous purchaser and gives me spares). I hardly ever buy clothes. I get my books from the library now. Where does it go?
Her: I think you will find that effective savers don’t eat lunch out every day.
Siblings
Some Thoughts on High Finance
Stay with me here, alright?
I was talking to my sister recently about her friend who is very bright and asked, “Did she come first in your class in college?”
“No,” said my sister, “in our class it was only really a fight for second place because we had Joe Soap in our class. He was the cleverest man, I ever met. It felt like he was only going to lectures to be polite to the lecturers.”
“What did he do after?”
“He went to Oxford and did a PhD in Chemistry but then he decided Chemistry wasn’t for him. We were all a bit depressed when we heard because, honestly, if Chemistry wasn’t for Joe Soap then it really wasn’t for anyone.”
“So what’s he doing now?”
“Oh, he’s a banker in the City of London.”
And it just struck me that the rewards associated with international finance do attract super-smart people who are used to being right and being the brightest people in the room. Do you think that makes it likely that they would accept that it’s all their fault if something goes wrong or that they would respect the regulatory authorities?
Sample size 1 as a colleague says when I produce these kinds of things but still.
I think I might go back and re-read my copy of “The Best and the Brightest“.
Fishmonger to the Queen
You may not remember this, but when the Queen of England visited Ireland, she went to the market in Cork.
She chatted to one of the fishmongers and he has made it his business to keep this in the forefront of people’s minds, inter alia, by hanging a large picture of himself and herself over his stall (“Rebel county, indeed” as Mr. Waffle remarked sardonically at the time). This drives my brother insane and my sister and I have had hours of harmless entertainment pointing to the marketing abilities of Mr. O’Connell.
Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, he published a book. This is from the blurb:
In this heart-warming story, Pat O’Connell recalls the historic visit of Queen Elizabeth II to the English Market, which left a lasting impact not only on the market itself but also on his own life.
This is from my brother when he heard the news.
Why are they doing this to me………………I’ve had enough..this guy makes me want to buy frozen fish from an industrial fish farm in the south Pacific, with 3 gizillion food miles, online from a faceless global retailer that pays no tax, headquartered in the Caymen Islands (or maybe Ireland)….
And look, only look, at the cover of today’s Examiner: Pat getting fitted out for his trip to Buckingham Palace.
Hours of harmless entertainment for all the family.
It’s all about who?
Sister (to me last week): You haven’t updated your blog in ages.
Daughter: I know, and I have said so many blog worthy things.
So, obviously, I’m back.
Catastrophe
I have two parents and between them, they have broken 3 hips since last March. My poor mother broke her second early on Friday morning. Now that I am a veteran of the procedure, I am no longer appalled that she and my brother spent 12 hours in A&E before she got onto a ward [Is it worth pointing out that she and my father have what our Minister for Finance calls “gold plated” health insurance?]. Since both of the last hips were broken on bank holiday weekends, that meant it was days before the operation. This time, my mother had her operation on Saturday after being admitted just after midnight on Friday night which was pretty good going. My brother and sister who are both in Cork have been visiting and minding but I was down at the weekend and although it was good for me to see her, the benefit to the patient was pretty negligible as she was still sleeping after the operation for all of my time there.
I am becoming very familiar with the hospitals in Cork. I particularly enjoy the disembodied English voice at the main entrance to the University Hospita which tells visitors to sanitise their hands. It also says, vainly, to the smokers in their dressing gowns who are sucking on their cigarettes in the wind tunnel nearby that “This is a smoke free campus.” Then acknowledging reality it goes on to add sternly, “Your smoke is disturbing patients in the cardiac and cancer wings overhead.” Frankly, I would be surprised, if this were the case, given the chill wind whistling though the underpass where the smokers huddle.
I fear my mother’s recovery from this will be long and slow. Alas. Cheerful broken hip stories in the comments please.
Today’s Crisis
I found this note in the kitchen when I got home:
Further investigation revealed that the cat had finally caught a plump city pigeon [a long held ambition, previously unrealised] which she had brought into the utility room to eat. The children gleefully told me that the utility room had been filled with feathers which the childminder swept up. She also removed the bloody corpse to the intense chagrin of the cat. For her (childminder’s not cat’s) own obscure reason she deposited it in a plastic bag by the door of the shed. When Mr. Waffle got home, he had to bring it through the house and put it in the outside bin. The horror.
Also, my brother turned up unexpectedly at tea time. We had Domino’s pizza for dinner, so a day of unhealthy eating all round.
