Stupid Letter of the Week
This is from Private Eye, but it is worth repeating here.
Spot the flaw in this letter to Eye reader Carl Mungal, who wrote to Sky to cancel his late mother’s account.
“I’m sorry to hear about your loss and would like to offer my condolences. As this account is not registered in your name, I;m unable to process your cancellation request. To be able to cancel the above account, we’ll need the account holder to contact us.”
It’s not the first time an organisation got their bereavement process wrong! Every one should have a simple set of rules that they apply. They might even get more business, as it would show them to be someone who cares.
What a Trophy!
I saw this trophy in the Museum of London.
The Chris Brasher Sporting Life Trophy
It was originally presented by the Sporting Life in 1909 to the winner of the Polytechnic Marathon. In 2003 Chris Brasher‘s name was added to commemorate his founding of the London Marathon.
But there is also controversy about the ownership of the trophy, according to this on Ian Ridpath’s web site.
I have always had a soft spot for Brasher.
I remember, as a nine-year-old, getting up in 1956 and hearing that he had won the gold medal in the 3,000 metres steeplechase in the Melbourne Olympics. I’ve also worn his walking boots for years, I’ve watched many of his London Marathons and admired his journalism on both the television and the printed media.
He also was the interviewer when Barnes Wallis, the designer of the bouncing bomb, said one of my favourite quotations.
There is no greater thrill in life than proving something is impossible and then showing how it can be done.
Never give up in life!
The Princess of Shoreditch
One of the problems of being a coeliac is that you have trouble with eating on the hoof. Today, I was walking through Shoreditch, just looking at the buildings, when I came across a (gastro)pub called the Princess of Shoreditch.
The menu looked that one or two of the items were gluten free, so I thought I’d go in and see if I could have a meal. I entered and found that they had Aspall Cyder on draught, which is always a welcome sign for me. And probably for a lot of other coeliacs too!
I asked whether the poached cod on the menu was gluten free and this was checked with the chef. I got a friendly thumbs up sign, so I ordered it.
Poached Cod
It was very good and the whole lunch including a pint of Aspall and coffee cost twenty pounds. I’ll go again.
Since I’ve got home, I’ve checked Time Out. They like it too!
The Crypt at St. Martins-in-the-Fields
St. Martins-in-the-Fields is one of London’s most famous churches. It sits in the north-east corner of Trafalgar Square and you can see and hear the church in the video I made when I was on the Fourth Plinth.
The crypt contains a nice cafe and is now entered through a new entrance to the north of the church.
The Entrance to the Crypt of St. Martin-in-the-Fields
It is worth a visit.
A Quick Caserrole
On Saturday night, a quick meal was in order, so we took a tray of vegetables to be baked in the oven from Waitrose and put two small lamb steaks in it and then livened it up with a slurp of red wine. It took forty minutes in the AGA and was delicious.
Harry Markopolos
Harry Markopolos is the sort of man I like.
In 2000, he was asked if he could find out how Bernard Madoff made such high returns. So he reverse-modelled Madoff’s results and concluded that he was either running a giant Ponzi scheme or he was illegally trading clients money.
He stuck at it and in 2005 to sent a document to SEC regulators stating.
Bernie Madoff is running the world’s largest unregistered hedge fund. He’s organized this business as “hedge fund of funds privately labeling their own hedge funds which Bernie Madoff secretly runs for them using a split-strike conversion strategy getting paid only trading commissions which are not disclosed.”
No action was taken and we all know now that he was right as in December 2008, Madoff confessed and he is now spending the rest of his life in jail.
Harry has just written a biography called No One Would Listen; A True Financial Thriller.
I shall be buying.
As to Madoff, he just proved that if something is too good to be true, it probably is. It’s just that when people do what Madoff did, no-one listens to the Harrys of this world.
The Anonymous Widower 