--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote: > Daniel
Davies wrote:
>
> >I've never had a circle jerk performed with
> >latex gloves, however.
>
> How's it feel ungloved?
>
Over-rated. Like Guinness, it's an acquired taste, and popular with rugby players.
Meanwhile, in response to the rugged, horny-handed rhapsodies of Chuck G and Dennis P, here's my paean to another way of earning your living.
----------------------
TVR: (Tequila, Vodka and Red Bull) 2 shots Cuervo, 2 shots no-name vodka and 2 cans of the latest trendy sports drink. Horrible stuff, like alcoholic cough syrup. The kids all drink it when they go out together on Fridays.
The kids are the latest bunch of trainees on the desk.
There's still a few old-school-tie oafs, but the majority of them these days are straight out of chartered accountant school, with regional accents and sciences degrees. They're a little bit shy among the loud-mouthed brokers, a little bit too earnest with their spreadsheets, too quick to back down when challenged and too keen on quoting bits of academic finance and talking about efficient markets. But they're learning quickly what it's all about; the great game. Soon they'll be joining the fraternity of people who live off their wits.
Chinese Ale: 1/2 pint lager, 1/2 pint bitter beer. Pour the lager in first or it won't mix; it's lighter than the bitter. Something of a local taste; I've never seen anyone order it outside Merseyside.
My Uncle Dave sits in a corner of the Seven Stars of an evening and conducts his business. He retired from the envirnmental health a few years ago with a shot thyroid gland, but that was never his real thing. He's a fixer; he knows who's around to mend a roof, or to nip over to Leeds for a few days building work. If the shooting club have a few spare pheasants he can shift them at a fiver a brace. He's a well-liked man in his corner of town, and he doesn't buy much of his own beer. Sooner or later, Bill Baker will pop in; he must be ninety now, and frankly, he's in the early stages Alzheimer's disease. But he still comes out of an evening and he always says hello to our Dave. He's sold the whole family our cars for the last forty years, and he's been a friend ever since my Grandad certified him as a aero fitter so he could stay out of Europe and keep playing in a dance band in Liverpool.
Singapore Sling: 2 measures gin, 2 measures lemon juice, 1 measure cherry brandy, shaken over ice and topped up with soda water.
It's been a good couple of weeks on the desk. I'm just settling in with a new team, but all broking teams are the same. There's a few nicknames, a lot of trash-talking the opposition and a lot of sitting around, wondering what to bother the clients with next. Today, I've been talking up a couple of stocks that everybody hates, laughing off the abuse and telling people they're wrong. It's a matter of making them laugh, telling them something that they didn't know, trying to get them to cough up what the other houses are saying. Then getting back on the phones, interpreting the news.
The kind of tired you get from selling and watching the screens isn't a good tired; you're snappy, mentally burned out, and you tend to watch a lot of television if there isn't someone to persuade you to come out for a drink instead. The buzz comes in the morning, when you're sitting down and looking at the newswires for the first time, looking ahead to see if, maybe, this is one of those days when you get the dorp on the market. It's fun.
> Doug
===== “It is necessarily part of the business of a banker to maintain appearances and to profess a conventional respectability which is more than human. Life-long practices of this kind make them the most romantic and the least realistic of men” -- JM Keynes
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