http://www.thehour.com/story/497753
Dateline: GENEVA, January 18, 2011
By FRANK JORDANS
Associated Press
Good news for Swiss bankers: They may soon be allowed to wear red underwear, black nail polish -- and even eat garlic.
Swiss banking giant UBS AG said Monday (January 17, 2011) it is revising its 44-page dress code telling its Swiss staff how to present themselves, which generated worldwide ridicule for its micromanagement of their dressing and dining habits.
The code instructs employees on everything from their breath -- no garlic or onions, please -- to their underwear, which should be skin-colored.
"We're reviewing what is important to us," UBS spokesman Andreas Kern told The Associated Press.
He said the bank would issue a pared-down booklet with more general guidelines on how to impress customers with a polished presence and sense of Swiss precision and decorum.
The existing code tells female employees how to apply makeup, what kind of perfume to wear and what color stockings are acceptable. It advises them not to show roots if they color their hair and to avoid black nail polish.
"You can extend the life of your knee socks and stockings by keeping your toenails trimmed and filed," Zurich-based UBS told its female staff. "Always have a spare pair: stockings can be provisionally repaired with transparent nail polish and a bit of luck."
Men are told how to knot a tie, to make sure they get a haircut every month and to avoid unruly beards and earrings.
"Glasses should always be kept clean," the code instructs. "On the one hand this gives you optimal vision, and on the other hand dirty glasses create an appearance of negligence."
The guidelines also recommended that employees always wear wristwatches to signal "trustworthiness and a serious concern for punctuality."
The UBS style guide prompted derision and disbelief when it first surfaced last month, but Kern insisted it was still good for the bank's reputation in the long run.
"Everyone knows the staff in our banks strive for the perfect look," he said.
So will employees now be able to wear red underwear? Who checked to see if they did before? Kern declined to give specific examples of planned changes.
A spokesman for rival bank Credit Suisse said he understands what UBS was trying to achieve.
"Every Swiss bank with private or retail customers has some sort of guidelines," Marc Dosch said. "UBS has taken it to absurd lengths, but in general it's a good thing that people have some guidance."
He noted that banks aren't alone in telling their employees what to wear: "There are gas stations, burger bars and supermarkets where you have to wear ties, and even silly hats at Christmas," he said.
The 157-year-old UBS has a history of providing detailed advice for its employees, which numbered 65,000 worldwide at the end of 2009. A handbook for bank trainees gives a country-by-country behavior guide.
In Russia, it tells employees to be prepared to hold your drink at business engagements and to "never reject an invitation to the sauna."
In Latin America, "turning up before an appointment might even be considered rude."
And in the United States, it says, "never criticize the President."
[END STORY]
**********************************************************************************
I don’t know what has possessed the elders in Zurich to revise our dress code. Listen, I’m as modern as the next guy, but black nail polish just doesn’t go with my stuff anyway, although occasionally I could go for something in the lacy red Unterwäsche department.
Even before I began my mandatory dress code courses I never refused an invitation to the sauna while holding a drink, anywhere.
And being Swiss I don’t need any instruction on punctuality, thank you. Nevertheless I wear a wristwatch to signal my trustworthiness and my serious concern for punctuality. The face on my IWC Schaffhausen Portuguese Grande Complication is a little hard to read so I clean my glasses obsessively, maintaining optimal vision so I can see the bloody thing and don’t appear negligent and about to be tardy. Naturally I am synchronized with the NIST-F1 Cesium Fountain Atomic Clock which, although it is in the U.S. (Apologies to the Verband der Schweizerischen Uhrenindustrie FH), does not deserve criticism for dropping a second every 10,000 years any more than does the President of the United States.
In order to be late in Latin America, I have had to resort to extreme measures. I’ve discovered that it is hard to turn an atomic clock back, certainly not for me just because I’m in Latin America for a couple of days. So I think it’s a good idea to wear silly hats in Brazil, or Uruguay or wherever, especially if being Swiss I am going to be compulsively punctual for a reunión de negocios.
And while I’m waiting for my meeting to begin in Bolivia I can extend the life of my knee socks and stockings by keeping my toenails trimmed and filed. If in the stress of making my connection through Manaus my knee socks and stockings develop the runs they can be provisionally repaired with transparent nail polish and a bit of luck, both of which I always carry on my person for such emergencies.
Actually, it’s not a bad idea to get a monthly haircut and cover those unsightly roots while I am cooling my Santoni-clad heels in La Paz. Have you ever seen unsightly roots on a Bolivian person’s head? No way. You can smell the garlic and their ghastly perfume a mile away, but no matter how close you get to your Bolivian colleague you won’t see a single unseemly root.
In summary, I am always striving for the perfect look, thanks to the UBS style guide. Others with their unruly beards and earrings may have been prompted to deride, ridicule, and disbelieve what has become the foundation of UBS’s global success, but they’re all just slobs.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
“Spaniels’ Theory of the Universal Conservation of Stupidity”
I cannot say that the inspiration for the theorem I have so elegantly proven with mathematical precision is entirely my own inasmuch as it was originally hypothesized by a former colleague of mine, a lawyer. Unfortunately my colleague succumbed to the effects of a prolonged and undiluted exposure to the same phenomena I have crisply articulated in the fashion of the legends of physical law: Newton, Heisenberg, Einstein, and Murphy.
I have of course submitted a lengthy paper unveiling my explosive discovery to the International Journal of Conclusive Physical Phenomena and, in recognition of my contribution to humanity, and of course petitioned the Vatican in full expectation of securing a sainthood alongside Valentine, Nicholas, Adolphus, and Murphy. The Nobel Prize Committee is also in receipt of a massive tract documenting my epic discovery, and it is no doubt at the top of the pile of far lesser achievements. I have also applied for a position in the U.S. Patent Office and the Library of Congress. Einstein himself was an employee of Das Wiemarbundespatentsburo; deep-sixing any application that may have rivaled his revolutionary E=mc², such as E=bs², E=fu², and E=cya,² among others, and penning numerous rejection letters with his characteristic simplification of the cosmic: “Not original enough.(signed) A. Einstein, Wiemarbundespatentsburo". I have also employed the services of a highly reputable legal firm called LegalZoom to further canonize my wholly original thinking.
Secure in the knowledge that I have left no stone unturned in my pursuit of immortality, I can now present to you
What this unquestionably demonstrates in its brilliant deconstruction of the highly fuzzy and subjective is that there is a finite quantity of stupidity in the Universe. It is a cosmic force, interleaved by gravity and energy itself.
In my elegant equation, S is the total sum of Stupidity, which is a constant to the 4th power multiplied by stupid people, places, card tricks, and things.
With this simple equation, I have accounted for the grand mass of all Stupidity across the Universe, which ipso facto may be lesser in the galaxy of Alpha Centuri and greater in some places like Nutley, New Jersey.
Various particle accelerators here on earth have already recorded physical evidence of “S-Rays” as I like to call them, and until now, those little dots and squiggly lines, captured and analyzed on massively arrayed computers, have baffled the finest physicists in the world. To date these scientific lights assumed that what they saw was really laundry lint stuck in the lenses of their Swiss Large Hadron Supercollider.
Now it’s “ah ha!” time in Switzerland! Move over Higgs-Boson!
To say that Stupidity is a by-product of the Big Bang would not be far afield. It has been around for billions of years with powerful “S-Waves” continuing to radiate throughout the Universe, and first recorded by amateur astronomer Hayward Gatling at Giants Stadium in 2006.
Of course, Einstein himself did not have access to today’s prodigious theories of parallel-parked universes, silly strings, Dark Sides, The Force, and naturally, aliens. Until we actually find some alien life we can safely conjecture that Spaniels’ Theory of the Universal Conservation of Stupidity applies, and aliens in vast numbers are wandering about the Universe, completely lost. The fantasy of intelligent life in the universe is busted!
The exponent ” ⁴” is meant to accommodate up to four alternate universes comfortably, in style and Corinthian leather.
Naturally, black holes devour galaxies, talk-radio transmissions, errant neon sign emissions, unpaired socks, and Stupidity in vast quantities, and all of it is spat out and shared equally among these unseen universes. It’s just a matter of time and closet space before it starts coming back.
Down here on Earth, Darwin’s Theory of Evolution serves up a good example of Spaniels’ Theory of the Universal Conservation of Stupidity at work.
Let me explain: Stupid-looking creatures started us off, mutating into larger laughable pea-brained things that fell into tar pits, but not before begetting other things with Stupidity infused in their DNA.
Stupidity literally does not disappear. It just pops up somewhere else, ergo sum demonstratum: universally conserved.
You can’t just kill Stupidity. Viral stupidity is very tricky as it can masquerade as inspired intelligence.
Even with their much-vaunted prehensile thumbs, Homo Sapiens have churned out Stupid Cars, Stupids (a confection), and Stupid Carpet Bombs -- proving with devastating clarity that Stupidity has a built-in Conservative Party here on Earth. (Confession, I use Carpet Bombs on my carpets at home! If "Comet" poops, the carpet gets a shot of a George Foreman Carpet Bomb! It's lemony fresh!).
According to my extended calculations, Earth has an unusually large mass of Stupidity (40.903420 to be exact) compared to Uranus with a Stupidity weight of only .5874322, which is consists mostly of the planet's name. The law of gravity, as postulated by one of my fore-bearers, Sir Isaac Newton, is at work here. Earth literally attracts S-Rays and S-Waves because of its dense mass of Stupidity that would explain why lost aliens end up in Nevada.
The ramifications of my discovery are mind-boggling.
To think of its implications for religion, politics, fashion, and daytime television is to wonder what uncharted seas may be over the horizon. What possessed man to shroud the Grand Canyon in tear-resistant rayon? Worship rocks as pets? Decorate lawns with pink plastic birds? Raise the U.S. national debt to trillions of dollars, and enable Goldman Sachs to sack a country like Greece, which not even the mighty Trojans could do? The answer: Spaniels’ Theory of the Universal Conservation of Stupidity.
It is with immeasurable confidence that my place in scientific history has been firmly planted, and I can leave my pursuit of Stupid Science to those who will, with scientific tools today unknown, continue to prove again and again the universal truth which I have divined and hold to be true while I search for my glasses.
Now I must on to my day at hand. I await my first sitting with the world’s greatest living artist, Fred “Freddy” da Vinci, from Bayonne, New Jersey, who will render me timeless in white marble in repose while contemplating Universal Stupidity.
Personally I wanted a ceiling tribute a la the Sistine Chapel, with God and me pointing fingers at each other. But Freddy talked me out of it on the basis that no one in the Bayonne train station looks up at the ceiling.
See you in Stockholm!!
I have of course submitted a lengthy paper unveiling my explosive discovery to the International Journal of Conclusive Physical Phenomena and, in recognition of my contribution to humanity, and of course petitioned the Vatican in full expectation of securing a sainthood alongside Valentine, Nicholas, Adolphus, and Murphy. The Nobel Prize Committee is also in receipt of a massive tract documenting my epic discovery, and it is no doubt at the top of the pile of far lesser achievements. I have also applied for a position in the U.S. Patent Office and the Library of Congress. Einstein himself was an employee of Das Wiemarbundespatentsburo; deep-sixing any application that may have rivaled his revolutionary E=mc², such as E=bs², E=fu², and E=cya,² among others, and penning numerous rejection letters with his characteristic simplification of the cosmic: “Not original enough.(signed) A. Einstein, Wiemarbundespatentsburo". I have also employed the services of a highly reputable legal firm called LegalZoom to further canonize my wholly original thinking.
Secure in the knowledge that I have left no stone unturned in my pursuit of immortality, I can now present to you
“Spaniels’ Theory of the Universal Conservation of Stupidity”
Or
S=sc⁴
What this unquestionably demonstrates in its brilliant deconstruction of the highly fuzzy and subjective is that there is a finite quantity of stupidity in the Universe. It is a cosmic force, interleaved by gravity and energy itself.
In my elegant equation, S is the total sum of Stupidity, which is a constant to the 4th power multiplied by stupid people, places, card tricks, and things.
S=sc⁴
With this simple equation, I have accounted for the grand mass of all Stupidity across the Universe, which ipso facto may be lesser in the galaxy of Alpha Centuri and greater in some places like Nutley, New Jersey.
Various particle accelerators here on earth have already recorded physical evidence of “S-Rays” as I like to call them, and until now, those little dots and squiggly lines, captured and analyzed on massively arrayed computers, have baffled the finest physicists in the world. To date these scientific lights assumed that what they saw was really laundry lint stuck in the lenses of their Swiss Large Hadron Supercollider.
 |
| Density of Stupidity Captured by Hubble in yellow, blue and white |
Now it’s “ah ha!” time in Switzerland! Move over Higgs-Boson!
To say that Stupidity is a by-product of the Big Bang would not be far afield. It has been around for billions of years with powerful “S-Waves” continuing to radiate throughout the Universe, and first recorded by amateur astronomer Hayward Gatling at Giants Stadium in 2006.
 |
| Galaxies wiped out by S-Rays |
Of course, Einstein himself did not have access to today’s prodigious theories of parallel-parked universes, silly strings, Dark Sides, The Force, and naturally, aliens. Until we actually find some alien life we can safely conjecture that Spaniels’ Theory of the Universal Conservation of Stupidity applies, and aliens in vast numbers are wandering about the Universe, completely lost. The fantasy of intelligent life in the universe is busted!
The exponent ” ⁴” is meant to accommodate up to four alternate universes comfortably, in style and Corinthian leather.
Naturally, black holes devour galaxies, talk-radio transmissions, errant neon sign emissions, unpaired socks, and Stupidity in vast quantities, and all of it is spat out and shared equally among these unseen universes. It’s just a matter of time and closet space before it starts coming back.
Down here on Earth, Darwin’s Theory of Evolution serves up a good example of Spaniels’ Theory of the Universal Conservation of Stupidity at work.
Let me explain: Stupid-looking creatures started us off, mutating into larger laughable pea-brained things that fell into tar pits, but not before begetting other things with Stupidity infused in their DNA.
Stupidity literally does not disappear. It just pops up somewhere else, ergo sum demonstratum: universally conserved.
You can’t just kill Stupidity. Viral stupidity is very tricky as it can masquerade as inspired intelligence.
Even with their much-vaunted prehensile thumbs, Homo Sapiens have churned out Stupid Cars, Stupids (a confection), and Stupid Carpet Bombs -- proving with devastating clarity that Stupidity has a built-in Conservative Party here on Earth. (Confession, I use Carpet Bombs on my carpets at home! If "Comet" poops, the carpet gets a shot of a George Foreman Carpet Bomb! It's lemony fresh!).
According to my extended calculations, Earth has an unusually large mass of Stupidity (40.903420 to be exact) compared to Uranus with a Stupidity weight of only .5874322, which is consists mostly of the planet's name. The law of gravity, as postulated by one of my fore-bearers, Sir Isaac Newton, is at work here. Earth literally attracts S-Rays and S-Waves because of its dense mass of Stupidity that would explain why lost aliens end up in Nevada.
The ramifications of my discovery are mind-boggling.
To think of its implications for religion, politics, fashion, and daytime television is to wonder what uncharted seas may be over the horizon. What possessed man to shroud the Grand Canyon in tear-resistant rayon? Worship rocks as pets? Decorate lawns with pink plastic birds? Raise the U.S. national debt to trillions of dollars, and enable Goldman Sachs to sack a country like Greece, which not even the mighty Trojans could do? The answer: Spaniels’ Theory of the Universal Conservation of Stupidity.
It is with immeasurable confidence that my place in scientific history has been firmly planted, and I can leave my pursuit of Stupid Science to those who will, with scientific tools today unknown, continue to prove again and again the universal truth which I have divined and hold to be true while I search for my glasses.
Now I must on to my day at hand. I await my first sitting with the world’s greatest living artist, Fred “Freddy” da Vinci, from Bayonne, New Jersey, who will render me timeless in white marble in repose while contemplating Universal Stupidity.
Personally I wanted a ceiling tribute a la the Sistine Chapel, with God and me pointing fingers at each other. But Freddy talked me out of it on the basis that no one in the Bayonne train station looks up at the ceiling.
See you in Stockholm!!
© 2015 Charles Spaniels III
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
The Word from the ‘Hood
Lately, I’ve been chillin’ with my boy, Cecil. Yo, if you want to chill wit’ me too, you better know what I’m sayin’, m’sane?
Here is some words verbato you got to get!
Psychoillogical (Psychological)
Percurious (Precarious)
Stewbility (Stability)
Wrigley (Rigorous)
Cricklum (Curriculum)
Likeded (Liked)
Nipplation (Manipulation)
Satisfications (Satisfaction)
Roofless (Ruthless)
Kinneygarden (Kindergarten)
Tittytoddler (Teetotaler)
Reservations (Plans for the future; usu. Taking drugs/alcohol)
Extricate, Extradite,
or Expunge (Remove ((as in: “I’m expunging myself from the mere situation!”))
Spectations (Expectations)
Petickly (Particularly)
Troof (Truth)
Finazz (Finesse)
Charmly (Charming)
Some Kind of Way (Resentment)
Baby Mama (Ex-girlfriend now raising your child)
Dickament (Predicament)
Meet-in (A.A. or N.A. meeting)
Alcohols (Alcoholic)
Msane (“What I mean is . . .”
Nameen (“Do you know what I mean?”)
Investus (Asbestos)
Judgify (Justify)
Fillin (Feeling)
Alization (Analysis)
Spearmint (Experiment)
Afrodiddy (Ad Infinitum)
Phoenician Blinds (Venetian Blinds)
Infinite (Infant)
Axesed (Asked)
Whorl Order (World Order)
Armaghetti (Armageddon)
Purposie (Purpose)
Empacide (Empathy)
Sympacide (Sympathy)
Beliterate (Belligerent)
Tiblets (Tidbits)
Chillin’ (Relaxing, taking drugs or drinking alcohol)
Skolits (Scholars)
Maclun (Immaculate)
Nakkins (Napkins)
Big words, bo! Most of ‘em from Rehab! We got more, yo! -- Larceny, Stipulate, Ipso Facto, Ab Initio, Recidivist. That's goin' on, man!
Nex’ time you runnin’ wit’ me Pippin, you speakin' my language, nameen?!
Yo man! The new Delmar Washington Japanese-to-English Phrase Guide has got me covered!
Here is some words verbato you got to get!
Psychoillogical (Psychological)
Percurious (Precarious)
Stewbility (Stability)
Wrigley (Rigorous)
Cricklum (Curriculum)
Likeded (Liked)
Nipplation (Manipulation)
Satisfications (Satisfaction)
Roofless (Ruthless)
Kinneygarden (Kindergarten)
Tittytoddler (Teetotaler)
Reservations (Plans for the future; usu. Taking drugs/alcohol)
Extricate, Extradite,
or Expunge (Remove ((as in: “I’m expunging myself from the mere situation!”))
Spectations (Expectations)
Petickly (Particularly)
Troof (Truth)
Finazz (Finesse)
Charmly (Charming)
Some Kind of Way (Resentment)
Baby Mama (Ex-girlfriend now raising your child)
Dickament (Predicament)
Meet-in (A.A. or N.A. meeting)
Alcohols (Alcoholic)
Msane (“What I mean is . . .”
Nameen (“Do you know what I mean?”)
Investus (Asbestos)
Judgify (Justify)
Fillin (Feeling)
Alization (Analysis)
Spearmint (Experiment)
Afrodiddy (Ad Infinitum)
Phoenician Blinds (Venetian Blinds)
Infinite (Infant)
Axesed (Asked)
Whorl Order (World Order)
Armaghetti (Armageddon)
Purposie (Purpose)
Empacide (Empathy)
Sympacide (Sympathy)
Beliterate (Belligerent)
Tiblets (Tidbits)
Chillin’ (Relaxing, taking drugs or drinking alcohol)
Skolits (Scholars)
Maclun (Immaculate)
Nakkins (Napkins)
Big words, bo! Most of ‘em from Rehab! We got more, yo! -- Larceny, Stipulate, Ipso Facto, Ab Initio, Recidivist. That's goin' on, man!
Nex’ time you runnin’ wit’ me Pippin, you speakin' my language, nameen?!
Yo man! The new Delmar Washington Japanese-to-English Phrase Guide has got me covered!
Tribute to a Moth
I’d like to pay tribute to a moth that died stuck to the second hand of my clock radio. This was the clock radio that saw me through my days and nights at boarding school quite some time ago. You know, when clocks had hands and dials with numbers. I’m not sure how he got in there. I believe he got into it sometime during a summer when my school stuff was stored in the garage. One September, returning to school for my second year, I unearthed my trusty clock radio and there he was. He wasn’t very big nor was he particularly distinguished, and I don’t know how he got stuck on the second hand. For whatever reason, I didn’t have the heart to try and shake him loose or poke it off with a pencil by jamming it inside the plastic housing of the clock radio, for fear I’d break the whole thing. And so he was stuck there for years thereafter, orbiting the Camay-colored dial each minute; hour after hour, day and night, week after week, month after month. I don’t know why I thought of him recently. It seems as if, for some horrible offense he had committed either in a present or previous incarnation, he was doomed to transit the passage of time like some moth version of Prometheus or Sisyphus, consigned to the eternal torment of going around and around on the sweeping second hand of a clock radio. Daily wake-ups, frantic essay writing, study periods, free time and quiet hours, meals, periods of boredom or frustration, homesickness, forsaken loves – were all measured by my moth. He and the AM radio delivered streams of popular music hits from the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Trogs, Yardbirds, Turtles, Kinks, Byrds, Jefferson Airplane, Strawberry Alarm Clock, Beach Boys, Jay and the Americans, and yes, Sonny and Cher, later immortalized singing through a clock radio at the same time each morning in the film Groundhog Day. And there were tragedies. It woke me up to the news that Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated. Martin Luther King’s murder, daily tallies of the war dead in Vietnam, endless and vain nuclear disarmament negotiations with the Soviet Union, the bombing of Cambodia, marches and demonstrations – I heard it all on my clock radio. A decade flowed past. And all the while the moth circled serenely around the dial. Of course, the moth stopped spinning when I pulled the plug for the last time and went off to college with a new AM/FM clock radio. I suppose that my moth was crushed and buried in its clock radio casket somewhere, and there it rests. Or maybe somebody picked up the radio from the trash can, took it home and plugged it in. Maybe the moth is still there, stuck on the second hand, telling time and telling no stories.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Nigel's Got It
One miserable gray afternoon recently I lunched at the Club with my sometime school chum and frequent dining companion, Nigel. I don’t mean to drop names but Nigel is Sir Nigel Ennui-Rivit, the preeminent British architect and partner at the legendary architectural firm Carbunkle Associates, whose career has been distinguished in the main by his oeuvre of truly awful buildings.
In recognition of his odious contribution to the English industrial landscape, and with a wisp of French/English aristocracy somewhere in his bloodline, Nigel snagged an O.B.E. and the title “Purveyor of Low-Income Housing” to H.R.H. herself.
I quite like dining with Nigel. He wears his Scottish tweed rather well, smokes the obligatory Barking Dog in his pipe, serves up a jolly chortle at inappropriate moments, and is an idiot.
I don’t mean that Sir Nigel is a pompous ass. He’s loveable in that sort of Central Casting British goofball way. Like many of the wealthy before him, Nigel thrives on meaninglessness, and he will reduce the profound to the irrelevant in an instant without the faintest clue of what he’s talking about or what anybody is saying or what’s going on around him. I prefer to believe that this Nigel World is the key to his success. What blows past him will just go away and enable him to concentrate on the trivial, which is actually brilliant because other wealthy and odd people like him – his investors and clients -- also appreciate meaningless things while making vast sums of money. Others think he’s a loony and have taken swings at him out of absolute frustration.
With a coal fire glowing from the fireplace of the oak-paneled dining room and the cheery din of hail-fellows-well-met coming from the bar, Nigel and I toasted ourselves with a bottle of pungent Chateau de Wawatuse ’02, which Nigel confidently introduced as a South African vintage, but it in fact came from Wisconsin.
Tucked into an iced platter of the Whelk Club’s finest, our opening chit chat was naturally about football. Nigel can skirt any Building Code in the United Kingdom, but he can’t win a punt on any football match known to man, even those that have taken place in the past. “Poor Tottenham”, sighed Nigel. Obviously, he’d dropped a bundle on the recent disaster at Arsenal.
“I say, old man,” said Nigel, probing the shell of a reluctant whelk with his fork. “What do we think of China these days?”
Having known Nigel since St. Thumbly’s, I knew this to be Nigel Code for ‘Carbunkle is tanking in the fastest growing economy since Holland began trading tulips in 1637. “We’ve been having a rather rough go of it lately.”
Now I was stabbing at a whelk. “I would have thought you’d be sprouting all sorts of Carbunkles in that God forsaken industrial wasteland.” My, that wine is lousy. “You know; lowest architectural standards this side of Somalia; nameless cities found nowhere on any map with empty 80-floor skyscrapers; a mother lode of corruption; giant colonies of ha-penny labour. I’m surprised, old tick. Seems like your kind of place.”
“Indeed”, said Nigel, giving up on the whelks. Whelks 1, Nigel 0. There’s a bet I could have taken. “Even more baffling is that I’ve sold scads of earthquake-proofing in England and nary a taker among the inscrutable Chinese. Bloody profitable, that.”
“My good man, that is odd. The Chinese are rather fond of devastating earthquakes.”
“Quite so. Ah, the miserable East!”
Now, I knew full well that it was by design that a Carbunkle building will succumb to almost anything but old age. A puff of an ill wind, an English rain, or a few simultaneous indoor domestic disputes have all been known to pancake a Carbunkle. Neither could class action lawsuits, insurance claim denials, nor the scorn of the International Society of Competent Architects dim Sir Nigel’s mission to promulgate vulgar disposable architecture anywhere and everywhere.
“What the hell are these things? Whelks?”
“Yes, old bean. This is the Whelk Club. You belong to it.”
“Bloody awful!”
“Have you tried Feng Shui?”
“Never. Is it on the menu?”
“It’s Chinese.”
“Charles, my dear, you know I dislike Chinese food with an unbridled passion.”
“Not food. It’s an ancient Chinese spiritual discipline of divination by signs of the Earth. The Chinese arrange buildings and interiors in a fashion favorable to the Spirits. It involves alignment according to proper angles, direction, positioning and even colors. “
“No, no, Charles, I’ve got that. What I need are some slimy bureaucrats to grease.”
The waiter appeared. Nigel placed our order, though I don’t recall discussing it. “We’ll both have the raspberry glazed wild boar with a macademia nut puree. And other bottle of this exquisite Wawatusa.”
“Nigel, old boar, would you mind terribly if we go for something different?”
“Not at all, dear boy. Waiter, a bottle of the Raritan Schoss Lederhosen ’93, iced to perfection.”
Waiter disappears raising eyebrow.
“Superb little Riesling from the people who brought us the Blitz,” whispered Nigel. [CHORTTLE]
“Well Nigel, I reckon that if you hired a Feng Shui priest to advise you, you’d stand a better chance with the Chinese.”
“The little buggers just need some incentive. I’m considering favoring a few of the more impressionable with cheap replicas of that charming place Elvis Presley lived in, what was it? Wasteland or something?”
“Graceland.”
The boar appeared and whilst sawing at the poor thing Nigel launched into door knobs. Where to get the cheapest in bulk, and so on. Putting the finishing touches on his latest abomination –The Bermley Hall Proctology Wing of Saint Ovarian Hospital, in Leighton Buzzard – Nigel was down to doorknobs. Like magic Nigel had turned a thousands-of-years-old Chinese cultural tradition touching billions of lives into doorknobs.
“Terribly sorry to run, good friend, but I must off to a rendezvous with the Bulgarians. Seems they are looking for a penitentiary with a touch of whimsy. I’ve called in my partner Zip von Ferschunkenah from our Berlin office. You know Zip, don’t you? He’s rather good with these sorts of things.”
“No, I confess never to have had the pleasure.”
“Ah, perhaps the three of us should lunch together, say, a Christmas fete.”
“I’d enjoy that, Nigel. Ta!”
“Ta!”
Nigel disappeared into the miserable London weather.
I absolutely hate it when someone says “I’ve got it” to me. It makes my blood boil. Of course they don’t “got” it. They never do. Anyone who does that to me is a bleeding wanker.
Except for Nigel. He’s in Nigel World, and he’s actually a scream.
Doorknobs. Really.
In recognition of his odious contribution to the English industrial landscape, and with a wisp of French/English aristocracy somewhere in his bloodline, Nigel snagged an O.B.E. and the title “Purveyor of Low-Income Housing” to H.R.H. herself.
I quite like dining with Nigel. He wears his Scottish tweed rather well, smokes the obligatory Barking Dog in his pipe, serves up a jolly chortle at inappropriate moments, and is an idiot.
I don’t mean that Sir Nigel is a pompous ass. He’s loveable in that sort of Central Casting British goofball way. Like many of the wealthy before him, Nigel thrives on meaninglessness, and he will reduce the profound to the irrelevant in an instant without the faintest clue of what he’s talking about or what anybody is saying or what’s going on around him. I prefer to believe that this Nigel World is the key to his success. What blows past him will just go away and enable him to concentrate on the trivial, which is actually brilliant because other wealthy and odd people like him – his investors and clients -- also appreciate meaningless things while making vast sums of money. Others think he’s a loony and have taken swings at him out of absolute frustration.
With a coal fire glowing from the fireplace of the oak-paneled dining room and the cheery din of hail-fellows-well-met coming from the bar, Nigel and I toasted ourselves with a bottle of pungent Chateau de Wawatuse ’02, which Nigel confidently introduced as a South African vintage, but it in fact came from Wisconsin.
Tucked into an iced platter of the Whelk Club’s finest, our opening chit chat was naturally about football. Nigel can skirt any Building Code in the United Kingdom, but he can’t win a punt on any football match known to man, even those that have taken place in the past. “Poor Tottenham”, sighed Nigel. Obviously, he’d dropped a bundle on the recent disaster at Arsenal.
“I say, old man,” said Nigel, probing the shell of a reluctant whelk with his fork. “What do we think of China these days?”
Having known Nigel since St. Thumbly’s, I knew this to be Nigel Code for ‘Carbunkle is tanking in the fastest growing economy since Holland began trading tulips in 1637. “We’ve been having a rather rough go of it lately.”
Now I was stabbing at a whelk. “I would have thought you’d be sprouting all sorts of Carbunkles in that God forsaken industrial wasteland.” My, that wine is lousy. “You know; lowest architectural standards this side of Somalia; nameless cities found nowhere on any map with empty 80-floor skyscrapers; a mother lode of corruption; giant colonies of ha-penny labour. I’m surprised, old tick. Seems like your kind of place.”
“Indeed”, said Nigel, giving up on the whelks. Whelks 1, Nigel 0. There’s a bet I could have taken. “Even more baffling is that I’ve sold scads of earthquake-proofing in England and nary a taker among the inscrutable Chinese. Bloody profitable, that.”
“My good man, that is odd. The Chinese are rather fond of devastating earthquakes.”
“Quite so. Ah, the miserable East!”
Now, I knew full well that it was by design that a Carbunkle building will succumb to almost anything but old age. A puff of an ill wind, an English rain, or a few simultaneous indoor domestic disputes have all been known to pancake a Carbunkle. Neither could class action lawsuits, insurance claim denials, nor the scorn of the International Society of Competent Architects dim Sir Nigel’s mission to promulgate vulgar disposable architecture anywhere and everywhere.
“What the hell are these things? Whelks?”
“Yes, old bean. This is the Whelk Club. You belong to it.”
“Bloody awful!”
“Have you tried Feng Shui?”
“Never. Is it on the menu?”
“It’s Chinese.”
“Charles, my dear, you know I dislike Chinese food with an unbridled passion.”
“Not food. It’s an ancient Chinese spiritual discipline of divination by signs of the Earth. The Chinese arrange buildings and interiors in a fashion favorable to the Spirits. It involves alignment according to proper angles, direction, positioning and even colors. “
“No, no, Charles, I’ve got that. What I need are some slimy bureaucrats to grease.”
The waiter appeared. Nigel placed our order, though I don’t recall discussing it. “We’ll both have the raspberry glazed wild boar with a macademia nut puree. And other bottle of this exquisite Wawatusa.”
“Nigel, old boar, would you mind terribly if we go for something different?”
“Not at all, dear boy. Waiter, a bottle of the Raritan Schoss Lederhosen ’93, iced to perfection.”
Waiter disappears raising eyebrow.
“Superb little Riesling from the people who brought us the Blitz,” whispered Nigel. [CHORTTLE]
“Well Nigel, I reckon that if you hired a Feng Shui priest to advise you, you’d stand a better chance with the Chinese.”
“The little buggers just need some incentive. I’m considering favoring a few of the more impressionable with cheap replicas of that charming place Elvis Presley lived in, what was it? Wasteland or something?”
“Graceland.”
The boar appeared and whilst sawing at the poor thing Nigel launched into door knobs. Where to get the cheapest in bulk, and so on. Putting the finishing touches on his latest abomination –The Bermley Hall Proctology Wing of Saint Ovarian Hospital, in Leighton Buzzard – Nigel was down to doorknobs. Like magic Nigel had turned a thousands-of-years-old Chinese cultural tradition touching billions of lives into doorknobs.
“Terribly sorry to run, good friend, but I must off to a rendezvous with the Bulgarians. Seems they are looking for a penitentiary with a touch of whimsy. I’ve called in my partner Zip von Ferschunkenah from our Berlin office. You know Zip, don’t you? He’s rather good with these sorts of things.”
“No, I confess never to have had the pleasure.”
“Ah, perhaps the three of us should lunch together, say, a Christmas fete.”
“I’d enjoy that, Nigel. Ta!”
“Ta!”
Nigel disappeared into the miserable London weather.
I absolutely hate it when someone says “I’ve got it” to me. It makes my blood boil. Of course they don’t “got” it. They never do. Anyone who does that to me is a bleeding wanker.
Except for Nigel. He’s in Nigel World, and he’s actually a scream.
Doorknobs. Really.
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