Valley of the Trolley Dollies

Oh My God!!!

Still exploring this site, but the “In the kingdom of the blind” Quote has me sold. Since I was 9 or 10 I have loved the original French version of the quote:

“au royaume des aveugles, les borgnes sont rois.”

Yes, I was a pretentious queen at nine. Sue me. Actually, there’s a funny story there. Remind me to tell you it some time.

You’re busy. We’re busy. Summer has, if you’ll pardon the expression, been a shit soup: Little nuggets of joy floating in a thick and at times impenetrable broth of shit - of my own and other peoples making.

But fall (look at me! How Americaine am I? That’s your actual French, you know!) is shaping up to be weird.

Weird insofar as, after a summer of shit, I can’t quite remember how to be normal and relaxed and enjoy - I want to run up to “good” grab it, and hug it to my breast desperately. Which makes me sound like Glen Close in that film with the Casserole du Lapin.

I need some Yoga classes, but nobody will touch me til I work out how to make my shoulders touch the floor (apparently I’m looking buff  “But sweetheart,” said one of my trainers - yes we have several; the benefits of being queens with friends in the fitness industry - “You could play Richard the third without prosthetics!”). And apparently my Chakra is all out of whack, but that’s nothing that a few Valium and vanilla smoothies can’t cure.

Have been informed by a rather odd “Psychic Jewess” at work (what is it with me and the Chosen People? I don’t know if she’s really Jewish or just psychically so, but that’s how she introduced herself to me) that I “Simply must be at least a thirty-second Jewish,” which wouldn’t, apparently, have saved me from the camps, but entitles me to a subscription to Heeb magazine, so I suppose that’s something to be positive about…

Anyway Raquel (I reckon her parents named her Rachel, but it wasn’t “Psychically Jewess-y” enough for her) reckons she can foresee futures using a mixture of Kaballa, automatic writing and Strong Psychotropic Drugs, and sees me “Living in Manhattan by the age of sixty.”

SIXTY? Jesus. I don’t wanna be Quentin Crisp; I wanna be Lou Reed.

Am I rambling? Do stop me….

Think: Eight years ago, the world was ending, and here we all are. My city of choice has changed; our lives have changed. The world is different. But we’re still here, and we still have love and respect for each other, and that means a HUGE HUGE amount to me.

Raaaaaaaaamblingg…….

Seriously; things haven’t been great of late, but the old ship has sailed the reefs, and the sight, on the horizon, of friends, Beloved people, places, memories and the knowledge that what we have, and have had – all of us, together and apart - is too huge to be anything more than scraped by the storms of the past 5 months, has kept us going.

Right. Love you.

We outta here. Peace. But Beyonce SHOULD have won that award!!!!!

Dxxx

Top 10 for the past week:
 
 
Whitney Houston – Million Dollar Bill (Freemasons Radio Edit)
 
Alexandra Burke ft. Flo Rida – Bad Boys (CDQ)
 
Sugababes – About A Girl
 
Backstreet Boys – Straight Through My Heart (Dave Aude Radio Edit)
 
Calvin Harris – Ready For The Weekend
 
Mika – We Are Golden (Calvin Harris Radio Edit)
 
Bananarama – Love Comes (Wideboys Radio Edit)
 
Sugababes – Get Sexy (Main)
 
Alcazar – Burning (Cahill Radio Edit)
 
Beyoncé – Sweet Dreams (Steve Pitron & Max Sana Mix)

Autumn is here, and Derek is filled with the excitement of a whole raft of upcoming new releases - as well as a few long running faves that are still hanging around.

Schadenfreude is defined as “largely unanticipated delight in the suffering of another which is cognized as trivial and/or appropriate.”

Well, nothing could really be more appropriate than this chain of events, really.

Major old player in the world financial system is diying. Another major old player swoops in to buy the bits of the carcas that are still viable, but has to act quickly, as the host is fading fast.

Potential New Owner (PNO) recognises (as so many who have been complaining lately about the salaries and bonuses paid to bankers have failed to) that a bank is, essentially, worthless without the talented people who can differentiate it from the dozens of identikit competitors engaged in the same crap shoot. (And dont start on the “How talented do you have to be to lose billions of dollars. Just ask Michael Cimino David Lynch or George Lucas how talented you need to be to make huge profits for ages then piss it all away when the wind changes).

PNO decides that they need to ensure that the Best talent in the dying beast don’t jump ship. PNO engages Headhunter to ensure they keep the talent they want.

Headhunter, some months later presents bill for 25% of the first years salaries of the staff they obtained for the New Owner. Said 25% comes to a tidy Ninety Million Pounds. You do the maths; I’m too busy weeing my pants with laughter…

For recruiting staff at a time when the entire world was awash with unemployed bankers.

“Negotiations” follow, which the HeadHunter records for posterity.

Read the article, and tell me you don’t experience a certain degree of schadenfreude…

Highlights: “hire Riccardo, if he was key to getting the others, and then get rid of him in six months’ time”.

Nomura “couldn’t get rid of Barry as he was the only European who knew how to deal with the Japanese”.

Ms Sutton is alleged to have said that Nomura’s senior people in London felt “shafted” by Tokyo’s senior managers.