Novelty For The Wealthy

When The Big Money Hits...



Ten grand, can you believe? Nice though.
I'd have it.

My wife's friend complained just last weekend about one of her husband's colleagues (well, at least it wasn't me she was talking about!) getting silly drunk with her husband.



Now these guys are regulars at probably the city's most upscale small restaurant and the types of money they spend there for alcohol is not particularly unusual I wouldn't have thought.

My own business partner is at the moment staying with some super-wealthy farmer types in the Outback and there is a troika of these 'bushmen' there all of whom know Johnnie well enough to – as they put – be able to call him Jack.

Lawrence, she's great but this is Ni Kulturni
compared to...

Okay so they drink scotch whisky.

I mean this is another one of these 'good living' subjects where there can certainly be a lot of snobbery, a lot of folklore, and a few genuinely traditional customs well worth retaining.

Sticking your finger into the small ceramic jug of water as you move it over to where you might add a little into the scotch, is something that I will personally retain mainly because that was the way my grandmother insisted that you do it – and she was born in Eaglesham so I will respect that.

I'm not a great fan of those small-lipped malt whisky glasses that have become the thing with the single malt people – not that I wouldn't ever do it. Personally I like those old heavy-based cut crystal big tumblers; supposedly too big to properly be able to get the concentration of flavours into your nose and taste receptors. I don't care what 'proper' is, I already know what all the Johnnie Walkers taste like – and I do mean all. Swing Superior included.

But what's this idea of getting so smashed that everything tends to get seriously messy and then it's 'lights out?!' I mean you just can't do this sort of thing all the time and especially not just because you have suddenly made another pile of money from whatever scheme. And you can't do it because what does it say about having a lot of money? That you have no clue about what to do with money other than make yourself unconscious?! It's ridiculous.

No I don't get all the 'complex flavours and depth of character et cetera et cetera...' I know anything Chivas tends to be a little bit sweeter than most. I know that I really like Ballantine's and Dalmore. I know that I can bear Red Label without much trouble. And much more than that I do not know.

Oh hey, don't get me wrong, I can equate a good spirit of age with a good woman of that certain age along with the best of them. And I can do the whole 'approach' and 'discovery' or 'reveal' as the French say probably even better than Richard Paterson.



A Tivioli sable being correctly modelled

No, it isn't me that I'm having difficulty with. It is all those wildly more loaded with cash and money guys around me that I'm struggling to understand what their point is in trying each day to have even more money than they already do. I'm sure that five minutes after I mention some interesting novelty to them they'd all go out and buy it and show their buddies the next new thing about what you have to do or to have or have to be, when you are rich. Or more rich, at least. I cannot think of more boring people to rub shoulders with than the Bill Gates's or the Bill O'Reilly's or all those kinds of media-exposed Ultra High Net Worthers. Seriously not. They are self-delusional narcissists whose only reason for being found 'interesting' to the uncritical, is that they are horrendously rich.

I won't be mentioning any novelties to any of them.



O, but I do know some novelties, believe you me.