The Old Orders

Lord Trencherman, whose banking career was forged pre Big Bang, will be guest blogging this weekend. He will consider how disillusion with career politics and politicians has brought about the re-emergence of the old orders. Will old values follow?

10:10 Vision

I recently learnt that a couple of the spods who’d been developing financial forecasts at FTP Bank - the rocket scientists, so to speak - had gone over to the ‘dark side’. Driven by their 'consciences' (no less) they’d decided to channel the mathematical expertise once tailored to predicting market movements into the building of climate change models.

Presumably they intend to exploit the very mathematical methods that didn't foresee impending market catastrophe to prove that another catastrophe - an environmental one - is in fact inevitable. Does that make sense?

Now, I know that it’s not the done thing to question climate change. Like Islam, it is the one area that we lovers of free speech approach with trepidation. I’m by no means faint hearted. I’m a Cambridge boxing blue. But in a room full of tree huggers, even I might be reluctant to question these climate dogmas. Eco-folk throw bottles and custard pies and launch verbal abuse at anyone who is less than convinced that the world is eco-buggered.

But I have to ask: Why does the bourgeoisie reject the bad old computer models used in market trading, claiming them to be esoteric and misleading, but readily accept those of climate science, though they are no less impenetrable?

Of course the Monbiots of this world claim that climate change ‘deniers’ have room temperature IQs. So what are we to make of the likes of Heather Mills, or Gwen Stefani or Cindy Crawford who are eco-fanatics? Perhaps these celebs have hidden genius; perhaps they knock out bucket loads of statistical models before breakfast… on their computers. Maybe they spend their free time discussing quantum mechanics and astro-physics. (Of course, such is their respect for the big names of science that they maintain their copies of ‘Brief History of Time’ in mint condition!).

The fact is that many simple folk, celebs included, accept science as unquestioningly as worshipers do religion. Quote a bundle of incomprehensible stats, bombard people with equations and they will stare at them with fascination, scratch their chins and say, “Ooh… really, that’s amazing. I had no idea.” (They still don't.)

Indeed science, like faith, is rather a useful marketing tool. Put it another way, where there’s science there’s brass. Those rocket scientists that left FTP to join the green movement did so I suspect because they really thought: that’s where the money is right now. Of course with the financial markets turning round, these spods might well return to the ‘golden goose’. We’ll see.

It all rather leaves me wondering whether the scientists that juggle such numbers have any more insight into 'saving the planet' than the vacuous little brand consultants that produced that inane 10:10 logo… Another attempt, it appears, to whip up unbending support for some shallow new green initiative that the public does not understand and that a bunch of politicians cynically rally behind to show they care. 10:10? Always makes me think of Herge’s boy reporter.

Nothing to fear from the Shallow Chancellor

I don't understand why the chaps in the city get hot and bothered about young Osborne. I know that he keeps making noises about curbing bonuses and bringing bankers to book. But I seem to remember a young MP called Gordon Brown railing against greed in the city back in the early nineties. And look at him now.

You see, no one really cares for these 'golden geese' - unless they happen to own one. And when they own one, they do not understand how selfish it is to let goosey feed on common land, whilst keeping all the gold themselves.

And so it is with investment banking. The opposition accuses the government of failing to regulate the bankers, and promises that they will not repeat the error. Then once in office, surprise surprise, they conveniently forget the promise and become buddy buddy with the 'big swinging dicks'.

We must not choke off the entrepreneurial spirit of the bankers, they now stress. We must not burden them with red tape, tax their hard earned bonuses into oblivion as did Wilson and Healey in the seventies. Do we want to cause a brain drain? Do we want our most successful operators to flee to that little place where they eat fondue and yodel day and night? No, we, the public, must make them feel welcome and show gratitude for their much needed 'trickle down' (horrible phrase - sounds like they're pissing all over us.)

Of course, what the government is really saying is, "We want some of your lovely lolly... They're saying: FTP Bank? Third quarter profits of three billion? We'll have some of that. They’re saying: Trillions of dollars flowing through London each year? Yes please. Two million pound donation to the Tory / Labour / Liberal party... er, maybe it is unwise to stray into the area of party donations right now. As a prospective Conservative candidate, I don't want to unsettle our generous sponsors.

Anyway, I digress. The point is, once you are in government the rules of the game change. You suddenly have to make ‘tough decisions’. You have to think about revenue, cashflows, growth, employment. What fool could honestly wish to alienate our blessed wealth generators?

No, my chums in Moorgate can sleep tight, I'd say. Old Harrovian Boy George might be labeled an oik by his Etonian front bench colleagues. But when it comes to the city of London, he won't look a gift horse in the mouth. Governments, all governments are humbled by the flows of capital, and always will be. There's no escaping that.

The best way to react to George's grumbles is to hold tight and accept that once the boy's in No.11, reality, pragmatism, will rule. And at this point he will do whatever he can to encourage a new age of exuberance, to stimulate a new period of growth, of prosperity, of speculation, of accumulation, of... anyway, you get the idea.

If an old Presbyterian socialist like Gordon Brown can beat a path to mammon, then how hard can it be for ingenious George?
Posted by guest blogger Burgoyne

Once more unto the breech...

Last night I bumped into a chap who used to work at FTP. I was staggering, slightly blotto I admit, out of Julie's Wine Bar in Holland Park when I spotted a cheesy Oriental grin that I'd seen somewhere before. I realised that it was the Chinese fellow who'd headed our analytics unit. He was what they call a 'rocket scientist'. His team built weird and wonderful computer models that predicted where the market might 'boldly go' and that gave us some insight into how we might fleece the competition.

After these computer models proved themselves to be positively 'toxic' and after the market collapsed, he soon pissed off back to China and began working for one of the state banks. Maybe he felt a little guilty about the part he'd played in the meltdown... or then again, maybe not. I don't know, perhaps he'd decided that the rich pickings had gone for good and there was no point sticking around.

Anyway, this fellow was trying to woo a pretty Eurasian lady whom, it transpired, he had abandoned when he'd buggered off back to Peking or Beijing, or whatever they call it nowadays. She was heavily pregnant, one could clearly see. Was it the Chinaman's baby, I wondered? Anyway, I offered to buy them both espresso Martinis (she hesitated naturally) and began picking his brains.

Now... he soon confessed that he was trying to get back into the European financial markets. His departure had been premature, he'd decided. And he had realised that people (in the banking world at least) were no longer blaming rocket scientists and their funky derivatives models. He'd actually heard from a friend still working at FTP that the banks were hiring like crazy, and that this hiring included the 'rocket scientists'.

I offered to put him in touch with my old chums in the city and you should have seen the look on his face. All of a sudden he got down on his hands and knees and confirmed that his charming companion was indeed carrying his baby and that the little fellow was expected to sally forth any day now. He was desperate to do the right thing by her. He was terrified that he couldn't support her unless he returned to the land of plenty.

Of course I reminded him that the UK (in general) was not the land of plenty it once was. I added though that the bankers were coining it again thank you very much. And if he played his cards right he might be able to secure a post offering a modest bonus guarantee. He might even scoop up a cut price property in a decent school catchment area that would allow him one day to provide his little blighter with a half reasonable education.

"You mean state school?" he asked.
"Yes" I replied. "Since the market collapsed last year, these catchment areas have become much more affordable. Good time to buy, while the middle classes are tightening their belts."
"No. I do not want to buy advantage like all these middle classes do, sir. I just want to send boy to private school just like honorable investment bankers."

"I like that," I replied, somewhat confused by his logic. "A man who has no prejudices, no resentment, no envy... who doesn't want more than his fair share... who will work, work, work for what he wants and needs in life... who just wants what is best for his children."

"Thank you, sir," he replied and he bowed and scraped for a while longer.

"By the way," I asked. "How do you know that it's a boy? The baby, I mean."

I don't actually remember whether the fellow gave me a convincing answer to this question. He gave me some spiel about lucky numbers. But I'd had enough of this chit-chat by then, and decided to cab it home. Funny people the Chinese.
By guest blogger, Burgoyne.

Into the valley...

I know that I have not ‘blogged’ for a couple of days, as I promised I would. But when a chap leads as hectic a social life as I, it’s irksome having to sneak away to rattle off a post. Also it might not be appropriate to blog on my exploits this weekend. It might appear a trifle rude if I revealed that I have something going with the Baroness who invited me to dinner on Saturday night, or that her husband – the CEO of a certain multi national media corporation - knows nothing of our affair. It might be amusing, but it is nevertheless inappropriate to divulge that, as a non-exec director of his company, I'll be sitting very close to him at a board meeting later this week.
Oh, no. I told the fellows that run this site that I wasn't going to blab about my private life, however fascinating it might be. Instead I’d like to give you the benefit of my wisdom, my broad knowledge of the finance and investment industry and my take on the bozos who currently pack the Commons benches. And on that very point, I recently picked up an interesting insight into what is currently happening in the banking world. It says a lot about this government’s approach to the investment banking community. It is clear that despite the public outcry about bonuses, Messrs Brown and Darling are effectively turning a blind eye to what is actually happening on the trading desks.
You see, the other day I was chatting to a fellow who used to run the credit derivatives desk at FTP. The bank wasn’t as heavily involved in dodgy asset-backed securities as some of the players, but nevertheless had to 'hold out its begging bowl' at the time of the meltdown. This fellow, we’ll call him ‘Henry’ for now, recently moved to one of the big US institutions that are coining it all of a sudden.
Henry says that these big players are not just creaming it by trading the bonds that the government has been issuing to revive the economy. They have even returned to dabbling in the credit products we have all grown to know and love.
What is happening, unbeknownst to Joe Public, is that these clever bankers are developing brand new structured credit products on their derivatives desks – and appear to be making a mint out of them. But even more amusing, they are now actually wheeler-dealing the very distressed asset backed securities that were the root cause of the catastrophe in the first place. Apparently they can do this because they have ring fenced the dodgy stuff - they call it ‘legacy trades’ - and have reported them as losses. But they are still allowed to knock those same products out to punters at bargain basement prices – say at ten pence in the pound. They trade these products freely, as though the events of a year ago never happened. They call it ‘learning to move on’.
Brown and Darling clearly know that this is happening – or else they are as ignorant as they were a couple of years back. But they have decided that it is wise to turn a blind eye. After all, new tax revenue will flood in to the Treasury on any profits made. Plus ‘economic activity’ will appear to be returning (to London at least).
Sometimes I wonder whether I should return to the old square mile and make a few more bucks whilst the sun still shines. But then I recall my vow: Time to give something back to the community. Yes indeed, it is time to do my old mates a good turn by entering Parliament, God-willing by entering government. Because in years to come it will be my turn to do what Brown and Darling are doing right now: To encourage once more the exuberance of the trading desks of London; to restore unquestioning public faith in the markets; reignite the ‘get rich quick’ mindset of the British people; turn a blind eye to anything that ultimately wins votes; focus on jam, jam, jam today.
I feel that this is my calling: To lead my people as the General leads his troops. For it is the role of the politician, indeed the role of the General, whether times are good or times are bad, to summon those troops out of the trenches, to exhort them to sally forth, and to pursue those glorious spoils that await them up ahead.
By guest blogger Burgoyne

The call of duty

Of course, people often ask why I would desert the city only to pursue something that is equally contentious. It appears that the two most loathed types right now are bankers and politicians. Isn’t it a case of, out of the frying pan into the fire?
I always point out however that my circumstances are markedly different to those of your average banker or politician. Let me make it clear: I did not bring my bank to the edge of the abyss one year ago. I left of my own accord and at the time of my choosing, and with a rather big pat on the back. Similarly I did not have any silly ideas in my head about escaping the rat race or pursuing an 'alternative lifestyle' - which as far as I can tell means shacking up with a couple of tarts and coming up with harebrained schemes to make money.
Oh no, I had made my pile for sure, and a pretty pile it was. But I simply decided that it was time to move on, to pastures new and all that. This meant that I could approach the whole political scene with a fresh eye, with an enviable bank balance, and with a genuine desire (for once) to give something back to the ‘community’.
I regularly stress that the reason politicians are so loathed right now is because they appear to be on the make. If it isn't filling their boots, it is gaining status, gaining influence (so that they can fill their boots some time in the future, a la revolving door.)
Well none of that for me. I would never pretend that plasma TVs and pornographic movies could count as expenses ‘incurred in performing ones duties as an MP’. Surely this would be as foolish as claiming that Madame Sadie of Shepherds Market could count as expenses ‘incurred in performing one duties’ etc… (If only!)
But the point is this: Even though I have a moat – and one that is essential for keeping nosey Mirror journalists at bay - I would, as sitting MP, insist on financing its upkeep out of my own pocket! And if only we had more people in the lower chamber with that kind of attitude, then the old place would be ship shape in no time.
That is why I am putting myself through this wretched selection process. And indeed, wretched it is. One day I am being awfully nice to ghastly home counties, four by four driving, little Englanders. The next I am in fits because this leftie Old Etonian, David Cameron, is considering imposing one of these daft all women shortlists on my target seat. Sometimes I wonder why I bother. But let’s face it; the party, the country desperately needs chaps like me.
And that is why I have decided to make the ultimate sacrifice, and find this safe Conservative seat before the next election, come hell or high water... whatever it takes.
I shall indeed let you know how I get on.
By guest blogger Burgoyne

Alternative Drift...

Panic... After another late night, the ladies are wandering around the flat naked... I receive a call from my estranged wife. She has to be in work early and is bringing the kids round. I’ll have to take them to school.
Few know about Minxy and certainly not about naked Minxy. And I don’t want anyone to see the state of the flat. So I chuck on some clothes and dash out to meet them halfway. The kids and I will take a stroll through the park before registration, I decide.
I feel ragged. I wish that these ‘pep’ pills had arrived. We sit in the park café, sipping hot drinks. I try to sound with-it, but my mind drifts. I’m thinking, that’s the thing about ‘alternative lifestyles’… there are always, always responsibilities.
A woman with a buggy is reading a free-sheet. The headline reminds all those, who don't already know, that this year’s city bonuses are going to be bigger than last year’s. Depressing. I’m burning through my cash pile, whilst my old colleagues back in Moorgate are rebuilding theirs.
I need to set a time limit on my alternative lifestyle and these alternative ventures. There’s too much madness, too much chaos right now. As the kids are stirring their chocolate drinks, I’m staring out of the window thinking, I’ll give it until December, maybe February… Spring?
By guest blogger, Wat Tyler


We will be returning to guest blogger, 'Wat Tyler' and his alternative drift in a few weeks, by which time he will have no doubt received his pep pills and maybe even sorted his life out. Tomorrow his former boss at FTP Bank, whose nom de plume is 'Burgoyne', will take the reins. He will be blogging about what he got up to after he left the square mile, and about his attempts, during his semi-retirement to get into politics and, God-willing, secure a safe Conservative seat before the next general election.

Inside Track

I tried the mobile number that Hamish, my old city pal, had given me. The phone tripped straight onto an ansaphone message. The voice didn't sound much like Theo Paphitis - at least not the one that I had listened to on the box. In fact it was rather more like someone putting on a fake North London Greek accent. Even stranger, the voice, the tone and pitch was faintly recognisable. After trying the number another fifteen times to no avail, I just left a message.
Then an hour later, my phone rang and somebody calling themselves Stelios said in a obviously false London-Greek accent, "Why you calling my phone? Who are the bleedin' hell you think you are leaving that message?"
I responded cautiously, "So you're not Theo, Theo..?"
"Theo? I'm not Theo. I told you, I'm Stelios."
"Okey dokey... Sorry about that," I replied and called off, confused and suspecting that Hamish might have been up to some of his old tricks. Back to square one it seemed. Maybe I should try Marcus - the guy with the inside track on Dragons Den. I know this idea of mine seemed far-fetched, just appearing on the set unannounced, but then isn't that how all these entrepreneurs get what they want? Through nerve, through daring?
In the end I spent the rest of the morning faffing. Lacking motivation after the heavy weekend, I aimlessly browsed the internet - as many, many bored city workers do in this dull and directionless segment of the week.
Something caught my eye: Legal Uppers. It was on a website called "Legally off your face." The drugs claimed to offer a perfect solution to 'those weary Monday morning blues'. However they were produced in a molecular form that meant that they were legal and that you could even give them to your grandmother.
Ever since Minxy had started spending more time at the flat, I required a bit more pep in the mornings to get me going. Maybe this was the answer. I clicked on the buy-now link, gave my credit card details and then just sat idly back in my chair gazing into space. Then I thought, maybe I should try and get hold of Duncan Bannatyne's mobile number instead. I'm sure Uncle Otto says he knows him.
Posted by guest blogger Wat Tyler

Dirty Weekend

The three of us decided to spend a dirty weekend in a seaside town long associated with dirty weekends. We had tried this once before but found ourselves in a bed that would have been a squeeze for two, let alone three. So this time we decided to go for somewhere big, corporate and faceless. This also meant that we would be able to come and go without raising eyebrows... at least we hoped.

We booked a 'business room' with kingsize bed in a three star - a venue for conferences and dull wedding parties. When we arrived the lobby was teaming with men sporting carnations and suited kids running wild. At least it looked anonymous. Even so, we decided to enter separately. Minxy and I entered first and checked in. As I filled in the forms, I blushed. A greying forty year old with a blond twenty something. Pretty obvious what was going on. It didn't help that Minxy put on an manifestly sullen look, making it appear that she was a reluctant secretary made to spend the weekend with her boss. The guys at reception appeared to be suppressing grins. Or, maybe I imagined it.

Aurora turned up, looking mildly sheepish and dumped her bag. She took one look at the bed and suggested we start there. We piled in, spending the next couple of hours clambering on and off one another. Eventually I became restless, because my mind had turned to something else, another pleasure. The other two wouldn't budge though and berated me for getting agitated. I was fixated on food though.

By ten we finally found somewhere to eat. We spent the next couple of hours picking wearily through our meal and rambling on about politics and popular culture and celebrity. I clearly managed to get their backs up as I banged on about how vacuous it all was. Very few women, even smart ones it appears, reject wholly the celebrity culture thing. These two, perhaps in line with their modern political value system, staunchly defended the connection that commonly exists nowadays between politics, public perceptions and celebrity culture, whilst I repeated how shallow society had become as a result. You would have thought that their awareness, at least, of alternative lifestyles would generate some cynicism towards these aspects of our society. But, no.
By guest blogger Wat Tyler

Triangulation

The girls didn't half make a racket last night. Lucky I don't have to be up at 7am these days.
The evening started civilly. Although over our lamb chops and a lot of wine we had an annoying argument about ‘all women shortlists’ – a debate that nowadays even the Conservatives are addressing. I joked that the Tories were thinking about introducing all-Etonian shortlists in some areas. It was a lightweight joke, nothing more.
But my New Labour apparatchiks did not find it in the least bit amusing. It apparently just showed my ignorance of the issues… those issues that New Labour had tried so hard to address for some years now – like equality. Also they stressed that they didn’t generally care for my ‘armchair analysis’ of issues close to their hearts - because of course, I have no ‘practical oversight’. I responded that we’d had plenty of debates where I’d pointed out massive inconsistencies in their arguments. Like the one a couple of nights back about the government criticising city bonuses, then doing nothing actually to tackle them. That didn’t go down well either. Maybe they think that someone who once worked in the city simply could not understand the central concerns of government… or policy… or actually putting your money where you mouth is?
Aurora said that she was off to bed, and Minxy, keen to conciliate, followed after and then whispered back, “Come on.”
I followed a few minutes later and then a new riot kicked off…
I popped to the loo, and I heard the music cranked up. Mid-flow I had to rush back to remind them to keep it down. "They're strict in this block. You know that. You don't want me to be booted out, do you?"
Then I got into a heated row with Aurora after she thought that I was showing Minxy too much love and attention. We were entwined for a minute or two too long, I suppose. This threesome thing is not something that you take up lightly. In fact it's an emotional minefield - and I say that as the least emotional of the three of us. No sooner are you finding fulfillment in one corner, than the other corner starts to complain.
Aurora, still lying on the bed, kicked out at me and landed a couple of blows on my chest. As she went for a third, I grabbed her leg, caught her by the ankle and twisted it. She flew off the bed and landed with a bit of a thump. Minxy stepped in and tried to calm us both down. "You tell her to calm down," I said and I wandered off to fix a drink. I came back to find the two of them snogging. I was tempted to say, "It's ok for you, then, isn’t it?" but I thought better of it.
We do, I have to admit, make up quite quickly after these episodes and we accept that when emotions are being strained in this way and the dynamic is fuelled by drink, it’s easy to get steamed up. After some more to-ing and fro-ing... and thrusting... we managed to settle down around 3.30. The girls had to get up early the next day, and I couldn’t get back to sleep after they’d gone. I was bloody exhausted.
By guest blogger Wat Tyler

Question Time

Don't outraged political commentators wonder sometimes whether the next bunch of fascists have actually been identified? Is it possible to identify them? Or do they creep up on you unawares, in a shape that you do not recognise? And then, by the time you see them for what they are, it's too late.
Aurora is banging on about the BNP appearing upon Question Time last night, a programme that I didn't really get a chance to watch, because she and Minxy chattered throughout the entire programme. They weren't even discussing any of the issues. They were simply trying to stop me listening. And whilst I agree that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, I am not sure that this freakish bunch really have what it takes to change the hearts and minds of the majority of British people. Have we really identified the next totalitarian threat?
"We shouldn't give these people a platform." she says, true to form.
"What are you talking about? Everyone has a platform. The streets and the homes and pubs of Britain are platforms. Or are you are you trying to say that there is some special platform offered to people by the revered BBC... you know, an official platform, and one that is only available to those who venerate its very existence? And are you saying that if you do not get onto the special BBC platform then all those people who flirted with your ideas will go off and flirt with someone else's ideas? I don't think so."
"What on earth are you talking about? All I'm saying is that I don't think that we should be giving these people the oxygen of publicity."
"I reckon the best way to discourage these views is to stop treating ordinary people, ordinary voters like idiots. The best way is to get people trusting mainstream politics again. Instead people are appalled by the politicians that they should be trusting. They are disgusted by the corruption and the incompetence and the greed of these people. And when things fall apart in that way, that is when people start flirting with whackos. It's not the oxygen of publicity we have to worry about, it's the decay of trust."
"I don't know how you can sit in front of the box and listen to that man. You already know what his views are."
"I don't know why you can't see that the next threat will come at us like a bolt from the blue. You won't see it coming. It will be something that is far more insidious, far more subtle, far more... undetectable than you imagine. It will be something that spreads its message through the offices of every government department, that could also be influencing other governments elsewhere as well, that wants to control the way in which every person lives, that seeks to modify, re-educate people, manipulate their thinking, that cannot tolerate dissent. You don't see that that's how totalitarianism will re-emerge. And you never know... it could be happening around you right now. You just cannot see it."
"Ok, so enlighten me. Are you actually referring to something specific?"
"Maybe."
"Maybe... what?"
"I don't know, for example...Maybe the whole global warming thing, the green agenda, for example. Doesn't that meet the criteria above?"
"Oh dear, now you really are clutching at straws."
"It was just an example."
"Hardly the same thing. Somehow, I don't see people being rounded up," she said. And with that she and then Minxy got up and wandered off towards the bedroom.
By guest blogger Wat Tyler

Alternative lifestyle

Of course, darling Aurora thinks I’m crazy pursuing this Dragon’s Den idea. What are you actually hoping to achieve? she asks. Apart from maybe pissing a few people off big time? I know you view these ‘Dragons’ as attention-seeking egotists, but they didn’t get where they are by being total dicks. The plan does seem a little half-baked, don’t you think?
Yes, yes, I know that her way of life has rather more direction than mine. She knows exactly what she'll be doing in six months time; she’s part of a team with vision and focus etc. But if she’s really into this alternative lifestyle thing, as she has always claimed to be, how come she spends most of her waking hours living by the same conventions as the rest of the population? How does that work then?
She responds that she has an ‘alternative love-life, alternative sex-life’. And that is actually rather different. It doesn’t mean you have to go the whole nine yards and make everything in your life alternative, surely? And also you still have to feed yourself, don’t you, even if you do live in a teepee… or whatever it is you call your flat? You still have to pay the bills? How alternative is ending up on the scrapheap or on benefits?
Suppose she has a point. If I don’t get my shit together soon, I’m going to end up burning through my cash pile – not that it’s so much a pile any more. Still, right or wrong, it hurts hearing this argument from someone who hails from a conventional political background. Feels like I’m being preached to by an apparatchik.
I tell her that I have a few things up my sleeve when it comes to the Dragon’s Den idea. She smiles sympathetically. I explain that I’ve been in touch with a guy from Uni days who works on the show. He might be prepared to tip me the wink when they’re next filming, and I can slyly show up with my laptop and the web software loaded onto it, grab Peter Jones’ attention. “Peter… a minute of your time, guvnor…”
Aurora doesn’t even attempt to comment but smiles once more, and then turns to check herself in the mirror. Says she’ll catch me later and that Minxy will definitely be coming around tonight as well.
“Any chance of us cooking something other than steaks on that grill tonight darling? They are lovely, but, you know… nice to have a change. Also Minxy says she's off carbs at the moment.”
As I watch Aurora hurry down the corridor, I think, Minxy's always off carbs.
Minxy…that means another heavy one tonight. I'm going to be knackered tomorrow. Another morning written off.
Really better pull my finger out this afternoon then.
By guest blogger Wat Tyler