|
|
 |
Under attack
Dec
2002
Due
to a horrendous turn of events, Alternative Investments's manservant Farouk is forced
to step into the breach to write this month's column. There's trouble
in paradise....
Oh deary, deary, dear. I'm not sure how to explain this to you, readers
of Mr Alternative Investments, but your correspondent has failed to do his duty as
a writer and an Englishman. Unfortunately, the hostilities between
our island home, Salamander, and the berserk Colonel Mung of Fernandez,
have worsened since you last heard from him. As part of the campaign
against us, the highest echelons of the Mung Militia (fearsome, specially
trained Eskimos) have made several bids on Mr Alternative Investments's life.
In the worst of these, a Fernandezish Eskimo disguised as a statue
of Fernandezish Eskimo was carried direct into Mr Alternative Investments's quarters
by house staff who thought he was an ironic gift. The little blighter
lunged straight for our master's throat. We had to wrestle the chap
off and give him a sound thrashing, but it unnerved Mr Alternative Investments enormously.
The boss has taken to bed in fear of his life.
He has barricaded himself into his room and is refusing to do anything
other than accept extremely fine foods and wine through a specially-fitted,
eskimo-proof catflap and wail loudly about the little men of the Arctic
coming for him. Worse, he's flatly refused to write his column this
month, which means it's fallen to me, his humble manservant Farouk,
to perform his duties. These, of course, are legion.
Mister Alternative Investments usually takes a constitutional around his enormous
house twice a day, to threaten various employees with the sack or
worse in order to "keep them on their toes". This is now
my unwanted role. Only this morning he commanded me to "get down
into the cellars and threaten the catering staff with a bloody flogging".
On my way down to the lower chambers, I ponder finance. Is seems that
the day of buy-and-hold investments are over. The big indexes are
swinging as much as 5% a day and the market is transforming into an
all-out war between Bulls and Bears. Entering the kitchen, I grasp
a pair of milk pans, clash them loudly together and lunge at various
porters and sauce chefs in the same violent and intimidating manner
as Mr Alternative Investments.
Muttering about imminent cooking staff deportation to fight the Hun-like
Fernandezish on the front line, I start coming to the conclusion that
hedge funds are probably a safe investment in these war-like times.
Taking advantage of inefficient prices in markets, and betting on
macroeconomic through leverage seems like a fair bet for Mister Alternative Investments's
fortunes this month. I call his chief accountant to bark instructions
to "shift the lot into hedges", simultaneously pummelling
a soup specialist with a ladle as punishment for this morning's inferior
gaspacho. It's a tough life, I consider as the chef curls into the
foetal position to lessen the blows, but one I could maybe learn to
live with.
With Mr S. out of action for a while, and me temporarily assuming
command of the household, things are going to start changing around
here. Thoughts of stocks and shares, trust funds, Wall Street, bullion
and coffee flash through my mind as I leave the kitchen. I retire
to my chamber to work on my impression of David Gower, Alternative Investments's favourite
cricketer, and plot our further wealth. We'll be rich by the end of
this war, and no mistake...
|
|
|
|
