What do gay people have to do with Crunchy nuts???

I mean... yes I know.. I'm supposed to write about Gina, Elaine, Xmas and all that.. but it was a bad day... Mamma mia ( the musical ) didn't go down that well and ice skating in Somerset house is a stupid idea... so... I was reading the blogs... Despite... I'm not supposed to stay on the computer.. and blablabla... ( said computer now also has a missing key, due to attack of rage the other night... fuelled by Gina)
Gina also met M. she loved her... if only she knew.. anyway... she even said.. la Cina e' vicina! she even taught her how to put eyeshadow properly for her shape of eyes..
Done the Xmas mass too which included Mike with saddled shorts and cycling shoes, humming snow machine ( yes in the church) and all that..

Anyway.... reading the blogs I learnt that our dear Pope hates gay.. ( or abnormal people as Gina calls us... well you ... ) so I googled it.. to find.. this bizarre book and the comparison between gay and crunchy nuts...

Merry Xmas

Hideous pictures of usual hideous presents from Gina and her friend will follow... they even managed a black Santa candlestick holder ( but that's fashionable this year!)

Anyway on a different note... why do people want kids ( well.. and here many of you can answer that question.. so please do )

Can somebody explain to me life?

Dutch people have a spanish tall pirate as Santa Claus

I discovered today that Dutch people believe in Black Peter, which comes by steam boat to bring presents to dutch kids.
Magic mushrooms must have been popular far before we imagine!



Before elves and eight tiny reindeer, St. Nicholas had a much more menacing assistant. Named Black Peter, this companion was the physical opposite of St. Nicholas. Tall and gaunt with a dark beard and hair, Black Peter was associated with the punitive side of Christmas. Traditionally St. Nicholas would hand out presents to good children, while it fell to Black Peter to dole out coal (and sometimes knocks on the head) to children who misbehaved.

Black Peter, or Zwarte Piet in Dutch, began in Holland in the 15th century. His dark appearance is supposed to suggest a Spaniard, a reflection of Spain's occupation of the Netherlands at the time. Black Peter was also associated with pirates, a common threat to naughty Dutch children was that he would take them to a pirate's hide out and beat them. He was often represented holding a large stick for this purpose. The large bag that he held was rumored to be used for stuffing children in for the trip back to Spain. At the time "Black Peter" was a euphemism for the devil, and it was thought that St. Nicholas, being a representative of God, had beaten the devil and made him his servant. Thus it fell to Black Peter to hand out the punishments, while St. Nicholas dealt with the more pleasant sides of Christmas.

While the Dutch St. Nicholas has always been represented in much the same way, similar to the original saint in long robes with a staff, tall mitre hat, and white beard, Black Peter has been depicted in many different ways. Originally a stereotypical Spaniard in pirate garb, due to the political situation in Holland at the time, his later incarnations would also reflect popular politics. In the nineteenth century, at the height of imperialism, he was alternately portrayed as an Indian and an African in traditional dress. Rather than the devil that had been made a servant of St. Nicholas, Black Peter was now thought to be a slave who had become the willing servant of St. Nicholas. Many of the illustrations took on racist symbolism, often showing Black Peter in shackles and tattered garments. Peter's job was to remove the hay and carrots from the shoes that had been left by children underneath their chimneys, and to drop candy and gifts in their place. If the children had been bad, Peter wouldn't remove the hay and would leave a rod in place of a gift.

In parts of central Europe like Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, the character of Black Peter was a more like a monster, with horns, long hair, and a red tongue. He was known by a variety of names: Klaubauf, Krampus, Grampus, Bartel. St. Nicholas sent naughty children to him to be beaten.

Nowadays there is still not one universal image of Black Peter, but he has lost his large stick and is usually dressed in a Renaissance page style costume with short pants, stockings, and a cap with a large feather. He has not lost his connection to Africa; he is still always portrayed by a person in blackface, and often wears gold earrings.

The character gained popularity in the twentieth century and St. Nicholas's and Black Peter's annual arrival in Holland became more elaborate. During World War II, it was thought that the tradition would be suspended, until Canadian soldiers offered some of their tanks to use for the purpose. It didn't seem to make sense to have more than one St. Nicholas. So on one of the tanks rode St. Nicholas and one Black Peter, while multiple Black Peters rode on the other tanks. The tanks, with Canadian soldiers at the helm and Black Peter sitting on the back, traversed the countryside, handing out candy and gifts to children who waited by the roadside. The practice of more than one Black Peter stuck and has continued since then.

Today the negative associations have left Black Peter and he has become more of an elf-like figure, an assistant to an overloaded St. Nicholas who helps to hand out gifts every December 5th, St. Nicholas Day in Holland. The Dutch continue to stage elaborate arrivals of Santa Claus and Black Peter. In the weeks before the feast, Santa and Black Peter arrive by boat, supposedly from Spain, and are greeted by ever increasing crowds of excited children and adults.

F.U.C.K.

It's not a swear word. It's not rude, it's just obeying to monarchy. It comes from the expression

Fornicate
Under the
Command of the
King

Credit crunch is affecting blogging

well not all blogging which has increased exponentially, but my group of friends' blogging.

Well all of us have been working harder than any other time, traveled more than any other year and after all that... a wall. Solid wall.

The strange thing is that instead of being sucked by the various systems, politics, people and so on, we could all use our talent to suck the world. Still don't understand why we don't, but there are many things that my mind can't justify.

BTW next time anybody mentions the Mafia in relations to my motherland, I won't refrain to mention Wall Street.

The only positive thing about the credit crunch is that eventually dining out has been replaced by dinner with friends.
Food is 10 times better, you can stand up and walk around while waiting between courses.
You can sip different wines and drink 10 bottle of prosecco at the price of one.. ( because you know you get 40% off at the off license). Nice no?

ah cool.. see writing a blog.. it's good. Made me found the only positive note in my life at the moment... apart from getting spot on view on the latest market view ( but that's boring for you).

Went to one of those dinners last night... Wonderful...

Welcome drink:

Passion fruit & champagne cocktail

Starter:

Scallops with chilly sause on a bed of spinach leaves

Main:

Duck filled with asparagus, heavenly mash & rocket

Dessert:
Merengue with strawberry foam.
& dessert wine.

10 bottles of prosecco
3 white wine
6 red wine

And the host tests gadgets.. So.. it was heaven for me.
The night ended with vibrating massage device session, to spot what was the best.
Other funny moments included travel electronic skipping ropes...and running up and down stairs with walkie takie.


Now.. tell me if that is possible in Nobu?

Anyway she rocks..

Meredith : The Dollar Dominatrix ( the market is at her feet)

"Listen, people. I know you all think Citi is on its last leg, about to be cast into the scrap heap of corporate history. However, I received some intel this morning which leads me to believe your worrying is for naught ("intel" = New York Post article). Meredith Whitney gave an exclusive interview to the paper in which she, not surprisingly, tore open Citi's rectum via her 8-inch spiked heel (this time not at their request). " ( from dealbreaker)

And... shall we want to compare animals here....

While searching for something else...

While searching for something else... I came across this

Love is.....

Count us in too!

I eat anything.

A. hates garlic, olives, capsicums, aubergine, salmon (as its a 'stupid' fish), lamb, british beef and she doesn't eat off stripey plates...

Haven't laught so much in a long time

highly weird and reccomended

Video has been removed to avoid annoyance 

the show is wonderful and extremely funny. La Clique

Italy is waking up to Facebook and I hate it

Well I left Sicily for a reason, I don't call my primary school mates for a reason, and it really pisses me off receiving those stupid messages as Hi- do you remember me? oh! do you live in London ? but is it you? we were at primary/secondary ( delete as appropriate) I'm now married, I have kids and I'm still studying at Uni.

Well yes, that's my picture, no I don't look like that in normal life, but there is no point of putting an ugly picture of me on my profile. yes it's me, yes I live in London, I have a job I'm about to lose and I'm as unhappy as I was then and to add to it, I even complicated my life adding a couple of twists here and there to unsettle my mind even more.

Investment banking in a nutshell.. The more Starbucks the more your country is fuked

My colleague gets fired, the other steals the Nurofen from his drawer as soon as he's out of the door...
Charming...

Very interesting article... or at least it proves that people can find analogies and correlations for almost anything

Remember Thomas Friedman's McDonald's theory of international relations? The thinking was that if two countries had evolved into prosperous, mass-consumer societies, with middle classes able to afford Big Macs, they would generally find peaceful means of adjudicating disputes. They'd sit down over a Happy Meal to resolve issues rather than use mortars. The recent unpleasantries between Israel and Lebanon, which both have McDonald's operations (here and here, respectively) put an end to that reasoning. But the Golden Arches theory of realpolitick was good while it lasted.

In the same spirit, I propose the Starbucks Theory of International Economics. The higher the concentration of expensive, nautical-themed faux-Italian branded frappuccino joints in a country's financial capital, the more likely the country is to have suffered catastrophic financial losses.

It may sound doppio, but work with me. This recent crisis has its roots in the unhappy coupling of a frenzied nationwide real-estate market, centered in California, Las Vegas and Florida, and a nationwide credit mania, centered in New York. If you could pick one brand name that personified these twin bubbles, it was Starbucks. The Seattle-based coffee chain followed new housing developments into the suburbs and exurbs, where its outlets became pitstops for real-estate brokers and their clients. It also carpet-bombed the business districts of large cities, especially the financial centers, with nearly 200 in Manhattan alone. Starbucks's frothy treats provided the fuel for the boom, the caffeine that enabled deal jockeys to stay up all hours putting together offering papers for CDOs, and helped mortgage brokers work overtime processing dubious loan documents. Starbucks strategically located many of its outlets on the ground floors of big investment banks. (The one around the corner from the former Bear Stearns headquarters has already closed).Like American financial capitalism, Starbucks, fueled by the capital markets, took a great idea too far (quality coffee for Starbucks, securitization for Wall Street) and diluted the experience unnecessarily (subprime food such as egg-and-sausage sandwiches for Starbucks, subprime loans for Wall Street). Like so many sadder-but-wiser Miami condo developers, Starbucks operated on a "build it and they will come" philosophy. Like many of the humiliated Wall Street firms, the coffee company let algorithms and number-crunching get the better of sound judgment: if the waiting time at one Starbucks was over a certain number of minutes, Starbucks reasoned that an opposite corner could sustain a new outlet. Like the housing market, Starbucks peaked in the spring of 2006 and has since fallen precipitously.

America's financial crisis has gone global in the past month. European and Asian governments, which until recently were rejoicing over America's financial downfall, have had to nationalize banks and expand depositors' insurance. Why? Many of their banks feasted on American subprime debt and took shoddy risk-management cues from their American cousins. Indeed, the countries whose financial sectors were most connected to the U.S.-dominated global financial system, the ones whose financial institutions plunged into CDOs, credit default swaps, and the whole catalog of horribles, have suffered the most.

What does this have to do with the price of coffee? Well, when you start poking around Starbucks's international store locator, some interesting patterns emerge. At first blush, there's a pretty close correlation between a country having a significant Starbucks presence, especially in its financial capital, and major financial cock-ups, from Australia (big blow ups in finance, hedge funds and asset-management companies; 23 stores) to the United Kingdom (nationalization of the nation's largest banks). In many ways, London in recent years has been a more concentrated version of New York—the wellspring of many toxic innovations, a hedge-fund haven. It sports 256 Starbucks. In Spain, which is now grappling with the bursting of a speculative coastal real-estate bubble (sound familiar?), the financial capital, Madrid, has 48 outlets. In crazy Dubai, 48 Starbucks outlets serve a population of 1.4 million. And so on: South Korea, which is bailing outs its banks big time, has 253; Paris, the locus of several embarrassing debacles, has 35.

if you want to keep reading

Propose career change ideas

So far I have

Olive picking and looking after Maremma

Apple pie making ( maybe I could expand the business and go into apple smoothies) 

Suggestions please... 

It's here, it's now... The new MACBOOK Pro

yay

See here

Back at work: my rage is in full swing

CAN SOMEBODY PLEASE FIND ME A JOB? 

PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAASE

and no I don't want to move to Geneva or to Singapore or to China

London

Why does everybody complain if I remove them from my distribution list, but nobody ever ever is willing to help me. 

because I'm not diplomatic.. Fuck that.. Diplomacy doesn't tell you what moves the market

I do...

pww

Generation X

Hello me again... long time..
managed to pack in quite a bit of activities since I last wrote.
Wednesday saw A, his first visit since his move to Milan ( about a week earlier)
Met the community at this new( to me) place in the hood, where the chef apparently cooks food only produced within the M25 ( my taste buds were disappointed and my stomach upset)
Anyhow Thursday wake up at 4 to live from Milan the market crash. Highlights were
theatrical show imitating me the Sicilian ( starred by 10 of my clients)
me falling asleep dressed in my hotel room
lunch cut short by Bank of Italy asking funds for liquidity
me arriving 1 hour earlier at client appointment ( due to abuse of alcohol the night before)
Friday- surprise arrival at Gina's. She was so delighted, she cried.
Lasagne from Pina were awaiting.
Morning after, shirts were already washed dried ironed and folded and stored in plastic sleeves.
A cake was immediately baked in my honour by neighbour, dinner invitations proposed already 7. Consider I arrived at 10.30 pm and this was only 10 am.
Only had 1 hour for shopping in my favourite shop, still managed to grab few things. Also discovered that the nice lady from the shop dumped the husband to " rumour in the street say" engage in a lesbian relationship with one of her shop assistants... Thrilling...
so...
Anyway it's now Monday, the world is a safer place and I'm back in London and once again need to unpack and tidy up.. this seems to be a neverending job. Why do I spend half of my life tidying up and my flat looks always like a bomb exploded, it's always beyond me.

On the flight back I was reading an interesting article about Generation X, basically me.. well.. and the majority of people I know.
We are basically defined as a generation that loves organic, has divorced parents, it's sad and doesn't have sex.
Let's start with the study about sex, because you know, this is a subject I have particularly at heart.

For the baby-boomer generation, sexual opportunity was opened up by the pill. Those born after 1985 are rediscovering sex as sport largely because of the internet. But, according to Edward Laumann, professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, the emergence of Aids and the divorce boom gave Generation X insecure emotions and more restricted sex lives.“There was a backlash against their parents’ attitudes, a crisis of confidence,” said Laumann, author of The Social Organisation of Sexuality, a college text-book in America. His study, based on thousands of interviews, is expected to be released next year. “It’s clear that, while Generation X has sex, obviously, it’s probably not as much or as varied in styles as their parents or today’s teenagers and students,” he said. ( can somebody please find me the varied styles previous generation used to entertain with??) . According to Laumann’s preliminary findings, about 30% of Generation X-ers have distinctly different sexual habits from their parents or today’s Generation Y; they have “substantially” fewer partners and reject adultery.

I know feel a saint.

Gen X-ers are those born between 1964 and 1980 and they can be divided into 3 main categories:

Cruisers here are those fun-loving free spirits who relish in living outside of the mainstream, like their '90s-era TV heroes. They revere Nelson Mandela, abhor McDonald's and the Pope, and have a predilection for urban, independent and specialist brands. And it looks as if Cruisers are still trying to relive the glory days. They like partying and casual relationships and, the study found, only 34% of respondents who fit into this category are happier now than they were at 18.

Nesters are those who delight in a cozy life filled with a smaller group of friends than the Cruisers, and are focused on chic home furnishings, design and fashion. They like aspirational brands and lionize Madonna, Audrey Hepburn and ET.

Super-breeders are the ones who honestly believe that their children will change the world, and for such reasons, go to extreme odds to protect their loveables from perceived threats (such as sugar and TV). They're also the ones always talking about all things "green," "organic" and "sustainable." They want brands that live up to their ideals of a perfect world. ( I know a couple of these... but they have not bred yet! )

I must say, no idea which one I fit into, maybe the cruisers... ( more in another meaning) because you see despite I'm not happier than I was at 18 ( or for that matter at 4) and I like Spiderman and don't really live outside of the mainstream ( I'm actually drawn in it).

oh well I'm back.. and you must be happy I have only mentioned briefly the financial crisis ( even if this weekend will remain in history.. but you get bored of it).

A couple of days have passed

well.. it's late.. but I thought I update you on the latest couple of days. In maybe sort of chronological order since Friday:

Broke my front tooth.. again.. while at work... they say that banking is not dangerous.. And no.. don't worry didn't end up in a work fight, was eating a chip while typing ( maybe was the punishment for me getting more and more similar to an arancino) and answering phone and all the rest, and half tooth just broke...
Panic, dentist, £45 later, superattack applied and 10 minutes later I'm back at the desk. I clearly chose the wrong career
Game night where I got absolutely drank playing some advanced model of pictionary with etch a sketch or itchy sketchy as I refer to, and trivial pursuit.. and blablabla... you know that apparently scrabble is back in fashion and the latest frenzy after sudoku it's online scrabble.. mind you still a better game than using numbers like chickens and making feel people as if they are learning math.
oh well...
Saturday was moving day, M found a flat.. it's sad, not the flat, but that it means going back to the sporadic time together.

60 boxes later, from storage to van from van to 2nd floor, Wish was awaiting. superhero night.
Very cool people like usual. Wow 10£ can buy jumping of toilet queue and 2 people in the cubicle.... credit crunch... well
Sunday didn't leave the sofa really. H came by with IM and we watched the X factor, playing a bit with the arieal, as thunderstorm had really eliminated digital images, on guess exactly which channel..
Monday... back at work.. another massive fall in stock, new record since 1987, soon will exchange COD for Euros instead ISK and there you go...
Hamleys ,the floral shops ( i.e Monsoon, Oasis et similar) Iceland ( the frozen peas shop) Harvey Nick, West Ham football club, House of Fraser and 250k savers...just in the UK.. Yes, because Iceland, was a great country model, small, ticking along, a success, well till ....
this week... This week proved globalisation wrong, because makes the world more prone to systemic risk, it's like promiscuity really but at market level.
or all started way before when the greedy decided.. oh well Iceland is small, let's destroy it, a bit like Risk.. but takes time and you start with the small ones.. I mean notice that choosing S. Marino or Lietchestein ( or that is the artist... nevermind, you got it) it would have been a bit ridiculous, the Vatican, would have been unfair, after the Pope today said the only solution is praying, also he's runnyin a bible reading marathon, people in turn read a page of the bible... apparently it takes 2 weeks.. It was unclear to me if they stayed awake for 2 weeks or what? F must know the answer, I wouldn't be surprised if she was joining in for a page or two with a thermos of broth.
I also received a message on facebook from my desk mate in secondary school.
Married with kid. I pressed delete. Couldn't cope with the hi how are you what are you doing now. .......and bla....
Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiicccccccchhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeelllllllllllllll can you reply to my texts. It's two weekends that I try to invite you to cool places and you never answer.
Roll the dice.. Let's see whose round is next in the world demolition.
Yes it was boring I know... try to do better next time, not in the mood today... but found a cool cheery picture for your amusement.

Wanna play BUSH saving the DOW?

CLICK HERE

Mesmerising

Good bye

Afternoon delight The hippy sisters.

Save the world? Hank just didn't have a clue

The staggering incompetence of the US Treasury Secretary is now acknowledged - and is a disaster for George Bush

Anatole Kaletsky- The Times

The Emperor has no clothes. If you want to know why American capitalism is on the brink of disaster, but also want to understand what will save it, then log on to the C-Span congressional website and watch the interrogations of Henry Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, by the Senate and House banking committees.
Until last week, I was in a minority of one in arguing that Mr Paulson was personally responsible for suddenly turning the painful but manageable credit crunch that had been grinding away 18 months in the background of the US economy into a global catastrophe. Mr Paulson's appearances on Capitol Hill, marked by the characteristic Bush-era combination of arrogance and incompetence, are turning my once-outlandish view into conventional wisdom: Henry Paulson is to finance what Donald Rumsfeld was to military strategy, Dick Cheney to geopolitics and Michael Chertoff to flood defence.
Mr Paulson may be a former chairman of Goldman Sachs, but as US Treasury Secretary he does not know what he is doing. His recent blunders, starting with the “rescue” of Fannie Mae, have triggered unintended consequences around the world, resulting in the death-spiral of financial values. But last Friday Mr Paulson outdid even these Rumsfeldian achievements, when he demanded $700 billion from Congress for a “comprehensive and fundamental” solution to the global financial crisis, without apparently having any idea of what he would actually do.
The good news - before I return to the perils of Mr Paulson - is that his blunders no longer matter very much. There will still be a huge US government bank bailout, which will probably avert a disastrous slump in the US and global economies. But because Mr Paulson has lost the political initiative, this bailout will now be led by the Democratic leadership in Congress and will be structured around its priorities - relief from mortgage foreclosures, restrictions on bankers' pay and big government shareholdings in US banks. For President Bush it is a disaster, dashing his last faint hope of having a tangible achievement to his name before he leaves office.
How did things come to such a pass? When Mr Paulson announced his $700 billion “plan” last Friday, everybody in the financial world (myself included) heaved a sigh of relief. Finally, it seemed, the US Government was going to do whatever it takes to stabilise the world financial system. The universal assumption was that Mr Paulson would present a detailed plan of action over the weekend, putting a safety net under the value of homes, mortgages and related assets. Yet all that appeared by Saturday evening was a three-page legislative outline, with no hint of the mechanisms to be used. The only substantive clause in the draft was a swaggering demand for untrammelled power: “Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to this Act are non-reviewable and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”
When further details of the Paulson plan failed to appear on Sunday it was assumed that the details were being untangled in late-night political negotiations. When there was still no plan on Monday, the view was that Mr Paulson must be holding back the details for his testimony to the Senate Banking Committee the following day. But then, to everyone's astonishment, Mr Paulson turned up to the committee on Tuesday morning with only the briefest opening statement, which simply repeated what he had already said the week before: the sky was falling and the only way to stop it was to give him authority over $700 billion in public money, to be spent in unspecified ways.
And suddenly the sky did fall down - not on the world economy, but on Mr Paulson. Consider the reactions from American politicians, including Republicans: “Stunning and unprecedented in its lack of detail”... “a $700 billion blank cheque to Wall Street”... “neither workable nor comprehensive”... “foolish waste of massive taxpayer funds”... “eerily similar to the rush to war in Iraq”. Best of all was John McCain's comment: “When we're talking about a trillion dollars of taxpayer money, ‘trust me' just isn't good enough.”
At first, nobody could quite believe Mr Paulson was incompetent. Was it really possible that the Treasury Secretary had no idea of what to do with this unprecedented financial firepower? Perhaps his silence on crucial issues such as what he would pay for the banks' “troubled assets” was just a tactical ruse.
But as the cross-examination rolled on, and Mr Paulson just waffled - “we will ask experts to advise us”, “we will get the best and brightest financiers to suggest ideas” - the terrible truth dawned. There was no such thing as a Paulson plan. Not only did Mr Paulson not know what he was doing. He did not know what he was talking about. When pressed to offer at least some basic principles for his rescue, Mr Paulson had no answers. When challenged about limits to executive remuneration and taxpayer stakes in future profits of participating banks, he brusquely rejected all such proposals - on the amazing ground that they might discourage some of the stronger banks from taking advantage of government support!
Could he really be so clueless? Surely not. Why, then, has Mr Paulson failed? His inability to think seriously about solutions to the present financial crisis probably has deep ideological roots. Just as Mr Rumsfeld could simply not believe that US foreign policy might be misguided, Mr Paulson simply cannot believe that markets can be fundamentally wrong. He therefore cannot imagine, for example, that government judgments about the value of bank securities may, in some circumstances, reflect economic realities more accurately than market prices. Since some such recognition of market failure is fundamental to any understanding of banking crises, it is not surprising that Mr Paulson finds it difficult to come up with a credible solution.
The ideological pendulum is now swinging but what is needed to avoid future crises is not necessarily more regulation. It is better-quality regulation, managed by people who understand and respect markets but do not worship them. Markets are usually right, but sometimes they are dangerously wrong - and they need to be managed with decisive and competent government intervention.
The people who do not understand the role of government should not be regulating markets any more than they should be fighting wars or managing flood defences. P.J.O'Rourke, the conservative writer, once remarked: “The Republicans are a party that says government doesn't work - and then get elected and prove it.” This should be the epitaph for the Bush Administration - and Mr Paulson.

Auntie Bettie forever

Between the marvellous people of Vermont many remained in my heart for different reasons,
but a special place must go to her. The unique.. Auntie Bettie.. there is no picture of her on this post, because she was the atmosphere, the peace, the place, the house in which she lives, you'll see video evidence later on... yes yes.. I'll be banging on about this trip for a while.

Anyhow, like anything in this holiday, I didn't know what to expect...
So we leave the hippy/happy farm to go to the aunt ( well the auntie bettie name, was my creation)
Hop we cross the river



to arrive at her wonderful house, where I snatched some pictys as if a was in a museum...





The lunch was delightful, had the first tortilla soup ever and it was delicious, to be prepared again. Must be said that Auntie Bettie also had a swimming pool in the middle of nature...

I want to live there.. and travel to the apple factory!




Then we all left the porch and the lovely museum house to go and welcome the first male in the house.. ( well after the groom) and auntie bettie gave us a couple of old wistles to do it in style. Even the train station was cute.

This seems made for me

this number 17 is starting to piss me off

17:17 voicemal
sorry they chose to hire a trader not you, give me a call if you would like to discuss further

I won't need any help to write a resignation letter

Went to see a Gerhard Richter opening, 4900 colours. Yes mesmerizing, also Frank Gehry's pavillion at night time and at a second look, looks a masterpiece.
Killed my sorrows in the beauty of art and cycling through London on my new bike ( yes I'm learning to love it, still haven't learnt my way around, but that will come).
M bought me flowers and tidied up all the house for me. That I didn't deserve, but it was an amazing gesture.

No dreams of my new job, stuck in that shit. Tomorrow another day, still no time or money to repair the heating or hot water, duvet is back on the bed.
I'll think of Vermont and dream.

Armageddon? No mum Goldman complained

WHAT GOES UP MUST NOT COME DOWN- THE FINANCIAL MARKET VIAGRA..

Woke up this morning, 

it looked like Armageddon, it was dark and cold this morning and I must say was still drunk from last night.. because yes I needed a drink. Wanted to say goodbye to the tots before the italian adventures and wanted to dance a bit. 

Arrive in the office.....and guess what? 

As mummy Goldman was upset that people made her stock go below 100$ she called the Fed & the treasury and all her rich friends and said.... you have to stop this..  

as I said in previous posts, in Sicily they kill you for less.

Guess what did they do after that? 

- They stopped people from short selling financial stocks.... i.e.  you can only buy them, or to be clearer it's now illegal to sell if you don't have the stock first...

So if you are short what do you do? you buy and if you are long and you can't sell what do you do?

you buy

- They also stopped money market funds from going below 1$ and  causing money market mayhem

Every possible equity index rallied the most in history!  the ftse the most since inception in 1954, the minisp was halted for trading as limited up, every single stock got halted because was going up to quickly

and guess what.. mummy goldman went up 50% today ( or at least at one point) 

But that wasn't enough... the Treasury decided to step up in buying mortgages.. 

ABSOLUTELY ridicolous.. 

"moral hazard"  - this is destruction of freedom.. this is 

a) absurd

b) it is basically saying - take as much risk as you want we bail you out

c) unfair ( because if you really wanted to organise this massive scale joke, why there are those poor lehman employees in the street ? why did you not do this earlier? 

d) they just killed lots of hedge funds that are based on arbitrage

e) made the option market illiquid because who on earth we'll make you a price if they have to hedge against an index and not against a stock

f) it's dictatorship

g) kills freedom of judgment, if you believe a company is managed badly you sell as well as you buy when you think it's well managed. It's like giving all kids a+ ( like they do at a levels in England)

I can probably arrive to z. I agree that like in every financial discussion, you can take the opposite view and think that this was right and preserved the remaining wealth instead of killing the system, but think about this

no hedge funds, no profit for banks. who they gonna sell their crap to ? the original norwegian pension fund that bought the cdo of the cdo? forget it

no ripping people off no profit

and preserved the wealth of who exactly? 

this made the rich richer and the poor homeless

and with the money of the poor.. because you think that the big swinger have got money sitting around in a cash account at Halifax? no they are in some deserted island with no tax and they pay less taxes than a fiat employee

ridicolous. 

the problem is not solved.. it's just shifted.. 

and... 

after all.. why do you think that people were selling goldman stocks? 

they wanted them to pay for destroying the other banks, as they were the ones selling the stocks and at the same time driving cds of the same names through the roof.. 

and guess who adviced on this bailout plan? 

Goldman and Pimco.. 

Lehman should sue the Fed. This is fascism. 

Today was also quadruple witching i.e. a day very well know for massive share drops as indeces, futures on them, options on them and everything expires. 

Hope all the people that exercise their options and get the stock will sell it on Monday to stop this joke.. 

For you blog readers it's ok.. your bank account is safe.. you might not be able to have 20 credit cards, but only 3 as there are about 3 banks left after this, but hey.. you can sleep well because stocks are rallying.. and mind you.. nothing absolutely nothing has changed since yesterday.. 

with all that, but midday it was also sunny in london ( apparently the Fed  can buy the sun too) 

The Fed however didn't give a job to the poor Lehman employees which lost everything they had, didn't replenish the pensions of normal people just taught many that there is no point in learning.. you just need to know people.. 

Therefore parents to be.... make sure you are rich enough before you have a kid, if you can't buy your kid expensive friends, either you live happy in a hippy family or just don't do it. 

It has been proven to me than money don't make happyness, that the hippy family exist and all, but really even there, why did the hippy family have to sell part of the beautiful place that they created if not for lack of money?

Disgusted.. but I think today really convinced me that truly really and beyond you have to use your intelligence to manipulate people.

From monday  anybody can be in banking, you just have to tell people... buy stocks, they can only go up... 10 years from now.. we will be studying why there is a bubble.. they will create new products. 

So charity people.. go ask goldman for money.. if they have a inch of heart left have to ridistribute in some way. I bet bars will make fortunes and we will read that somebody has been tipped 10000$ dollar or one of those goldman w@nkers have paid 50k for bj, while probably some of the lehman employees will just jump off a roof.. Why them? It wasn't timing... 

After all today was Lloyd Blankfein's ( ceo of GS) 54th Birthday and the Treasury wanted to apoologies for making him cry last night.. 

he real secret to Goldman's Success, has just been demonstrated. If you don't like the rule, ignore it until inconvenient then change it intermittently so nobody every quite knows what the fuck is going. The quietly big a hole out back, and dump all your shitty assets in it.

on another note.. Hillary might still be in for vice presidency.. if this happens.. I'll explain you why... some of you got my email today..

 but just to prove how many fucking idiots there are in the financial world.. here is another story, which got lost in the middle of the mayhem

the government-owned KfW bank sent funds to Lehman on the same day it filed for bankruptcy
“Germany’s Dumbest Bank,” were the headlines on the newspapers..

PREORDER NOW... you don't want to be left without

PREORDER NOW

DAYS OF GRACE THE MASTERPIECE


if you are quick I get you a signed copy!

and the financial meltdown continues

and the apple factory looks so more likely my next job!
Oh well..
Don't say I didn't tell you!
I thought all this all along, but hey, didn't make me rich ( actually I lost 90% on the shit shares they gave me and more to be accrued on the ones I that didn't even vest yet!)
actually it made me more frustrated, many people lost a job, some didn't deserve it, the ones that did, clearly found a new one just because they know somebody
and the saga continues.. the irony is , now I do actually work 14 hours a day for achieving no money and maybe keeping my job
if my company wasn't a joke already, it just got bought ( we don't know yet ) by some company which is even more shit with a ceo which will regret more than his sins having a dream of being a hero..
anyhow.. while typing another ( the biggest insurance company in the world might have been left to go bankrupt)
apple factory here I come!

Restore the breeding barn.... have a little cell for us.. where babies can stroke us and they can even guess ( which poo are you?)

let's get down to business.. TATIANA

Saturday night... Brighton Beach... I think the best word to describe the ride there, the place, the atmosphere and all the rest.. is SURREAL

First of all.. some of us were dressed as Pimps with bling... some other bought hen night presents... many just arrived very late...

yes I know what happens in brighton beach stays in brighton beach, but still... some pictys are totally needed..
the place was a posh restaurant for russians ( which I think are totally nuts) - the food was amazing, the vodka was flowing.. but the show was definetely the cherry!












Just had this memory of somebody singing a song in Russian or something with an old guy playing... 

But let's conclude with Tony Manero on rising stage and the lampshade

and back to the shit normal life

oh God... what a difference makes... 

Back home, heating needs to be flushed  (1000£ ) lights blew up, stock market crashing, one less investment bank in there, another 2 waiting to go and with that my job too. 

Only highlights of the week were

 a fabolous dinner ( hosted by me) with invaluable contribution of lovely M&M without them 

would not have been possible... thank you love you both dearly. 

and the Soros and Alain de Botton talk - inspiring

Now it's friday night, too exhausted to go out, to depressed to think. So... let's remember the jolly good times of heaven- i.e. the past week. What a wonderful experience.... 

Let's start from NYC, still not convinced I could really live there but hey! those 3 days were amazing ... 

Funnily enough... look what I found in the picture collection... and probably what would really remain of it very soon


And you can already buy Lehman parafernalia on Ebay ( just to remember the old times) !

The best week of my life

and.... Bucolic it was.. 

The most amazing place I have ever been to, the most amazing people and the most beautiful holiday of my entire life.
I haven't complained despite becoming St Lazzarus after mosquitos attack and despite spraining my ankle. 
I don't know where to start either... as I have 500 pictures in my camera... ready to be downloaded and I'm sure another 5000 on the go.. the housemates had to even buy a new hard-drive to store all the evidence.
There are no highlights, every single moment of it was wonderful.. and the wedding... wish any couple such a wonderful wedding..

I even woke up early and run two mornings in a row
I'm still weeping, I don't get nostalgic when I leave Sicily, but I cried when I left Vermont.

I could probably live picking apples, peeling them and making apple pies.. 

But back to reality... 1 hr queue at Paddington, no hot water as my boiler decided to break once again and.... workkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk ( the dreaded evil).

Photos will come.. once iphoto stops crashing....

but no worries.. I'll bang on to this for at least 10 posts... ( I'll make you beg for depressing posts!)   

U.S.A be ready I'm coming

And me too I will be in the bucolic surrounding of Vermont... 

Who will crack first?  

The challenge :  

PC obsessed vs Me

I haven't been to the States for quite a while now, not sure a lot has changed, but all my friends report back highly and they would actually consider swapping NY for London.

The way I see the States ( still open to be surprised on this trip ) as opposed to Sicily is the way you are brought up.

In Sicily, if you see somebody doing something he shouldn't, authorises you to do it as well.

In the States, if you see somebody doing something he shouldn't you report it, so nobody else will ever do it again. 

If you report it in Sicily ( even in kindergarten, all the kids will circle you and they'll start chanting... Chi fa la spia non e' figlio di Maria ( meaning, he who spies is not the son of the Madonna) 

Cultures... Let's face it... if I was born American I would have probably been electrocuted by now. Which really wouldn't have been a bad option either.

Waiting.. waiting for godot

Yup! always waiting for something that never materialises.. 

They are not dreams, you can't write a little letter to father Xmas to send things to you also because father Xmas only comes down chimneys and I only have a stupid fig tree

yes yes I know.. you can make things happens.

I know you couldn't care less. I know you will always remain of your opinion, I know you think I'm wrong and blablabla.. 

Birth? Coincidence? Luck...
X grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, and counts among his ancestors, a rogue colonist who, in 1676, launched an unauthorized attack on Indians that briefly led to his controlling most of Virginia. His father, ran the North Carolina real estate operations of both Prudential and later Merrill Lynch & Co. When his father eventually remarried, it was to the sister of a man who was fast becoming a Wall Street legend: Julian Robertson.
He is the middle of three sons. His brothers,  graduated from local public schools, he, in his junior year, ventured out of town enrolling in preppy Episcopal High School, by coincidence Robertson's alma mater. Students at Episcopal were expected to work hard and had to sit in study hall during free periods and evenings. Only in the afternoon did they get a few hours outdoors, to play football or other sports. He didn't seem to mind. One afternoon I passed through study hall, and there was him, grinding away, recalls Lee Ainslie Jr., the former Episcopal headmaster and father of Lee Ainslie III, manager of the $4.5 billion Maverick Capital hedge funds. Most other boys would have been happy to be outdoors playing.

An aficionado of Ernest Hemingway and Nathaniel Hawthorne, he cultivated his love of the outdoors in the bucolic surroundings of Vermont. Southerners at Middlebury stuck out like sore thumbs, recalls classmate Christopher Brady, who heads money management and advisory firm Chart Group and is the son of former Treasury secretary Nicholas Brady. He hunted a lot, skiied incessantly and studied.
Still, there were some early signs of the future financier: During the summers following his sophomore and junior years, He worked as a clerk for New York Stock Exchange specialist Walter N. Frank & Co. and met Frank after working on his deep-sea charter fishing boat off Montauk, Long Island, during the summer of 1976.
An early influence was Paul Tudor Jones, who was sharing an apartment with Charles Johnson, a former roommate of Zack Bacon's at the University of North Carolina. Jones, who had started out as a cotton trader, was then working as a commodities broker with E.F. Hutton.
He soon headed off to get his MBA at Columbia University, where he used his student loan as capital to continue to trade. To his chagrin, he lost it all - and had to work odd jobs to make up the difference.
From this experience, he learned how to handle risk, he landed at Shearson Lehman Hutton in 1983 as a futures broker, trading on behalf of some of the biggest names in the hedge fund world. For a 27-year-old, he deployed a powerful Rolodex. Jones and brother Zack, who deployed landed at Soros Fund Management as head trader, threw plenty of business his way. He quickly became a top commission producer.
He was very fortunate to be right in the middle of that network, notes Charles Stockley, president of Stockley Asset Management, a futures trading firm, and a childhood friend of Jones's. You can't say that his career is a story of someone starting at the bottom and clawing his way up. But he took the ball and ran with it, and ultimately he surpassed them all.
His gilt-edged client list had another advantage, in addition to the hefty commissions: By trading on behalf of Soros and Jones, he learned their investing styles.
By 1986 he had acquired enough of a reputation to start managing other peoples' money. The following year, while still at Shearson, he set up a small fund . Right off he hit a home run. He correctly anticipated the stock market crash, going short S&P futures and then shifting to a long position just as the market bottomed.
By the end of the decade, he had established a strong track record, and he decided to move to a bigger stage

That first year, the fund was up 86 percent, thanks largely to his decision to short the Nikkei index just before the Japanese markets collapsed. He also anticipated Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait and went short stocks and long oil.
As he set out to raise more money, his task was made easier by his friendship with Jones, who had decided to close his funds to new money. In a letter to investors, Jones recommended they invest spare capital with him. Jones also introduced him to Busson, who had helped him raise money in Europe. 

The story is for me and it's not for you.. also because you get bored of reading things like this I omitted some pieces and some names.

It's not luck... it's not coincidence... yes you have to be great, but somebody has to give you a chance... 

Waiting to hear what's the excuse this time.. 

I close my day with some thoughts

The world appreciates more people that recycle and donate to charity than people that respect others. 

Wish one single individual in this planet could understand that diplomacy it only serves the purpose of using your intellect to manipulate people. 

I offer them the choice to say no, I give them the opportunity to have their opinions. 

However that's wrong, because human kind prefers to be manipulated and pushed to do something, as long as that's done in a nice way.

That's an additional reason why there is no reason for the existence of human kind on planet earth. 

You can now use a service so that their phone calls don't reach a number but manipulate the system so that you can just leave a message into the answer phone, that's for people which haven't got the courage to say what they think not even on the phone. 

As people only like nice unchallenging people a new software has been developed and you can't even tell that's not a real human, it's just a nice smiling good looking diplomatic one ( i.e. the equivalent to the hologram that speaks in front of you).

Diplomacy can be replaced by a computer, thinking and opinions can't. 

But that's just a point of view, which will never be shared by unthinking individuals.  

I was born turbated and I will die deluded. Doesn't matter, I can't change the world because I'm fair, people rather have Hitler burning them alive.

He made history after all. 

Gina home alone

Errrrrrrrrrr.

11.10 : Hello... Anna... lights blew up. There is no light in 1/4 of the house.. including the fridge.. the braciolettine will defrost, what will I do with the meat?

11.12 Mum... I have been living in the house for nearly 3 years and that has never happened to me. Also... just 1/4 of the house? How is that possible? 

Let's rewind.. Where did you clean? What did you open? 

11.15 Nothing nothing nothing

well to make a story short, she manages to short circuit a part of the house while attempting to charge her mobile phone. How that's possible... not sure really!

Thanks to John ( the caretaker of the building, which loves me due to my slitty eyes connection and because when he used to have the keys of my flat used to perve on M's seminaked pictures from the photoshoot )

Anyhow.. Gina made him coffee, he switched the light back on. Bless him

15:00  ring ring  .... I found the brush ( that's to clean the carpet) how do you say flour in english? 

19:00 back home- 

there are objects on the shelves as they looked empty and M's scarf is properly ironed and packaged in a little plastic sleeve - because you know, Gina lives in that world in which in the morning, before wearing a scarf you remove it from the plastic unfold it and wear it, at night time you fold it and replace it in the bag

Come come... look what I bought? beautiful, useful... ( it's a brush to clean the floor on the balcony) I wonder how I lived without one till now

Gina bought Heinz tomato soup instead of chopped tomatoes, flour  ( which I already had) 

the nevermissable crisps ( the crunchy ones... ) 

I really don't know if my mum is like I'll be as an old woman, or as the creature I will put in the world. I think after this experience, I really learnt that no I haven't got the patience for it. 

Clearly.. as she hasn't talked all day... we have already touched the world domination the 100 rules of cleaning and the principles of cooking. 

She also said she hasn't stopped for one sec. Do you know what? I believe her. 

- I don't find these drawers suitable to keep cooking pans

- you should have allowed me to send you the sitting steps ( i.e. a small ladder which can be used as a seat) so she could reach the top shelves

- How do you clean the gas bits?? 

If I had a calculator to know how many carbon emissions she generated by using cleaning products I think will be more than a flight to NY. 

Tomorrow I'll hang a stepcount to her belt... let's see how many steps can she go through in a day in the house. I buy 10k 

Saturday: Wycombe - the caves and the trekking tour

Thanks to Diana for  the patience, the choice of trek and for spending a day with Gina and me. 

I must say it was wonderful. As you could see from previous post.. not enough to tire Gina but it was wonderful to see her happy and not complaining. She even said : You could not have chosen a better day! Bliss... what happened to that bliss only god knows.. 

As the original plan of walking 16km was "too easy" for her, she started the walk with a jog!