05 July 2009

The dockland breeze blew chill

I was sitting in the sunlight, the early morning sunlight - the pearl grey sunlight that settles over Cabot Square, sipping a rich and hot, bitter and dark, Cafe Brera macchiato.

I was cooling down after a long and weary, fast and furious, almost record-breaking two wheeled commute.

Hunched over my blackberry I quickly sent enough emails to give the impression that I was in the office, (that is worth something when you think about it, that is worth some money) and then I stretched out my legs sipped my coffee, and turned to the Guardian crossword

"Excuse me?"
It was a kid, early 20s, besuited, betied, hot-looking. I tried my hardest to glower
"Can tell me... I mean sorry to disturb you... but do you know.... I mean I thought that you would know:  Which one is Morgan Stanley?"

I looked him up and down for a moment or two not, I hope, unkindly:

"Interview, eh?"

And the early morning sunshine darkened as the ghost of my interviews past returned to earth.

The interview where they kept me waiting... and waiting.... until I finally up-sticked and left. The interview-while-walking-around, the 'How do you value a knockout option?' interview, the 'What's so bad about inflation anyway?' interview, the time I was assaulted on the tube on my way to an interview, the flying back from New York overnight on Friday for a Saturday morning interview, and the 'I've read your CV carefully and I have to say I have absolutely no idea why you applied for this job" interview.

The dockland breeze blew chill, and around the edge of the square swayed the bourganvillea and roses of Jericho.

"Um, yes actually, it is an interview", he said, "how did you know?"

I smiled, I hoped enigmatically, "Never mind, hey well, best of luck with that, anyway! Morgan Stanley? Sure, of course I do:  it's that one over there" and I pointed carefully at Barclays Capital.

For I have a dark side.

And one day he might write a blog and then he'll thank me for it.

8 comments:

M4GD said...

You ‘Dennis the Menace’ You!!!!!

This one is for you! ‘The Layers’ By Stanley Kunitz - one of my all time top favourite poets:
“I have walked through many lives,
Some of them my own,
And I’m not who I was,
Though some principle of being abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
As I’m compelled to look
Before I can gather strength
To proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
Toward the horizon
And the slow fires trailing
From the abandoned camp-sites,
Over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
Out of my true affections,
And my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
To its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
The manic dust of my friends,
Those who fell along the way,
Bitterly stings my face,
Yet I turn, I turn,
Exulting somewhat,
With my will intact to go
Wherever I need to go,
And every stone on the road
Precious to me.
In my darkest night,
When the moon was covered
And I roamed through wreckage,
A nimbus-clouded voice
Directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter”
Though I lack the art to decipher it,
No doubt the next chapter in my book of transformations
is already written.
I’m not done with my changes.”
Hope the coffee was good! Happy Monday:-)

Larkin said...

Thus man hands out inhumanity to man, eh?

I don't believe a word of it, Mr.Botogol. There's no bourganvillea in Docklands.

Botogol said...

@M4GD - I like that poem, thank you
@Larkin - :-) you'd be surprised.

Burgin Streetman said...

cold hearted bastard.

Botogol said...

:-) cold-hearted dennis the menace you mean?

if I have weaknesses
don't let them blind me now.

=======================
btw, in case any of my readers aren't totally familiar with the small one's back catalogue - a reference

M4GD said...

Well, Dennis I suggest you learn a different Paul Simon tune dear! Something like: You Got to Learn How To Fall Before You Learn To Fly - So you can start serenading the guy if he ever sees you again! This is provided of course that you actually have 60 seconds grace period before his fists land on a precious body part of yours!

BTW If you like reading about trends similar to the US unwed mom phenomenon on your side bar, there is a book from 2007 that is really good by Mark Penn, ‘Microtrends: the small forces behind tomorrow’s big changes” The concept of Microtrends in social behaviour turning into major change is not new though I think it may have started by a Yale Law School Professor W. Michael Reisman. His book “Law in Brief Encounters” was published in the 70s attempted to link social phenomena to the growth of new Micro Legal Systems for example.

And Hanson’s advice to Alpha Males re maintaining long term relationships simply SUCKS!

And That’s my two cents for the day:-)

Sir Walter said...

See the sidebar: "Just another burden on the welfare state" has bugged me all day as a song lyric and I've finally got it!!

MysterShopper said...

Oh my God!! Is this the guy?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/5822253/Morgans-Stanley-teenage-star-I-understood-banking-within-a-week.html