Tell Her I'll Be Waiting, The Usual Place

Today's P&L: GBP40.00

Today's Booze: Nothing

Today's Soundtrack: Roxy Music, Bryan Ferry


One quick exploratory trade today, a quick buy of FTSE 100 futures, the markets are far too range bound for me to make any money trading. Unless there is some real movement I cant cover the spread which is the difference between the bid, (price to buy) and the offer, (price to sell). These markets are unsatisfactory. I need to make some money and soon. The Federal Reserve maintained base rates at 0.25%, which is great for the banks rebuilding their balance sheets, but at this stage and with unemployment so high, consumers are not responding - what more do you have to do, give away money to encourage people to buy? The continuing reliance on cheap credit is worrying to me. You know any one reading this that thinks I take the markets seriously, should know that I am aware this is all bull. Its what I do for a living because its the only thing I have ever done - I have no other skills. I understand that ordinary people have real jobs and little interest in the markets, I have parents that live in Euro land and don't really understand why their pension varies every month based on what seems to them random numbers on a screen. I am aware that the pools of capital that are magically multiplied through derivatives are the results of peoples working lives. People like my parents fail to understand that there really wasn't any expectation for them to live too long past their retirement. The pyramid scheme that is National Insurance in the UK rather hoped that people like my parents would die shortly after retirement and not be too much of a drain on the system. My father was born in one of the worst areas of Glasgow in nineteen thirty nine and whatever actuaries they used then predicted the average life expectancy of someone like him as fifty four. He has rather inconveniently lived longer than he should have.

Talking of the news, Reuters had a story that the Ukraine has announced a deal to sell 20 tanks and 10,000 Kalashnikov rifles to the Congo for eighty million dollars. I spent three days in Matadi a lifetime ago and the last thing they need is more guns.

Why the fuck am I worried about the helpless people of the Congo, when I am hanging on by the thinnest of threads? Must be my Catholic guilt. Mind you I am just like everyone else what am I going to do, join Amnesty International?

Today I was listening to Roxy Music, just the name is enough for me. Roxy Music, makes me think of Art Deco dance halls and cinemas with neon signs inviting you inside, long ago before going to the cinema meant an anonymous multiplex. Bryan Ferry is a strange frontman, so casually elegant. Apparently he was born in some poor northern family. He is sort of the musical equivalent of Cary Grant, who famously said "even I can't be Cary Grant all the time". According to the computer these are my top five Roxy/Ferry songs today:

Slave To Love - obvious choice for a closet romantic like me. The vocals are light, sometimes too distant but the passion that bubbles throughout the song comes to the surface in the guitar break. Check out the video on youtube and see how effortlessly stylish Ferry is. The lyrics "To need a woman, You've got to know, How the strong get weak,And the rich get poor", mean a lot to me but I still can't decide does it mean if you finally have to count on a woman, have you gone from strong to weak or does the woman make you weak? The other lines that matter to me are "The storm is breaking, Or so it seems.We're too young to reason,Too grown up to dream".

Same Old Scene - A song about how young love turns old or how you wish old love could be more like young love? "Nothing lasts forever, of that I'm sure". "In our lighter moments, precious few, Its all that heavy weather we're going through". Young love may be cruel but as you get older the sweet moments become rarer and rarer. The banality of life infringes on you.

Jealous Guy - One of the few songs that many people will say is better than the original, and when your talking about Lennon your on touchy ground. I just feel that the delivery Ferry gives is extraordinary. It reminds me of all the times I have deliberately hurt women because I was too scared or cowardly to face my responsibilities. This song reminds me of Lucy.

Oh Yeah - This song reminds me of the first date "How can we drive to a movie show, when the music is here in my car". My life hasn't always been so different, I did have some normality although it is hard to imagine. The Stalker once choked on her drink when she asked me how my parents taught me about sex education and I told her about having a few beers in a bar/brothel in Africa with my father when I was twelve.

Avalon - Music to sleep to. A sublime song that sums up that feeling at the end of a party, as the sun struggles to illuminate the sky. But also a song that reminds me of that point when your with a girl and you don't need to say anything. You both know what is happening between you. Her gestures signals compliance, you know you can touch her neck or caress her arm and there is no awkwardness.

Anyway as always,

In case I don't see 'ya...good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight!