People today really misunderstand the
point of owning diamonds: even some big commercial organisations that
are in the business of selling them – other than paying the
standard lipservice that dates from another era - fail to give any
kind of indication that they either really care about what they are
doing, or care for the nature of the product itself. Like so many
other things these days, the modern-day inheritors of other people's
original achievements behave to a large extent as though they seem to
actually begrudge the role they were handed along with the wealth
which of course they readily took.
“Diamonds are a girl's best
friend.” Well not if you go by the five investment banks that
recently completely stuffed up the proposed float of Laurence Graff's
diamond house. Apparently they – diamonds - are not anyone's friend
at all. Not only did the banks fail to execute the supposedly planned
book build, but they let slip to the market and to competitors in the
process the very limited number of key clients that Graff had – no
more than twenty in all. Many questions can be asked about what those
investment banks were doing in conducting such a strategy that
claimed a float target of a billion
dollars – unnecessarily large if you couldn't be sure to
make at least close to it – and wildly irresponsible to the client
if in the normal exposure that occurs in a public float, sensitive
and otherwise also confidential commercial information is scattered
around in the breeze gratuitously when that event then becomes a
failure.
And to another 'large extent' this sad
tale is really testiment to the nothingness that the big brand-name
investment banks have themselves become. Once proud and
to-be-reckoned-with names like Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs,
even H.S.B.C., cannot but expect to be castigated because of such a
market failure (again!) of something they have tried to take to the
professional financial investor. You can't make such an insane hash
of something as prestigeous as a major diamondaire's public flotation
and hope to maintain credibility.
And so now we're going to have to put
up once again with the same old 'spin-city' peppering in the media
about how diamonds are not good 'investments' and how synthetic
diamonds have altered the profitability of the traditional market,
and how diamonds have fallen out of favour with today's super wealthy
(probably Chinese) elite. And how at the low end the ordinary
consumer cannot afford them... And how the Greeks ought to pay their
taxes and how austerity must prevail... Meanwhile of course,
Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF pays no tax at all. Pure
self-interest driven spin drivel; the whole lot of it. Welcome
to today's world, though.
'Girl' is a general term;
Elizabeth Taylor is a specific name.
See, the thing is – 'certain
specific diamonds are certain specific girls' best friends...'
Best,
Calvin J. Bear
Autism Project Donations:
Autism Project Donations here - https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=23MBUB4W8AL7E
Tuesday, 5 June 2012
Sunday, 27 May 2012
Hey Jesus... The Beef And Potatoes?
I just binned a fairly negative post I
was going to stick up here about some nonsense the tendentious
Australian media is writing about at the moment. In a nutshell
though, the media is writing nonsense that is not even slightly
factual: they are making false claims about something that is
non-value added and straight out of the ground belonging to the Crown
and that is leased to entrepreneurs, whilst forgetting about the
decades of value-added profits that other people around the world
have been generating and have tucked away into Swiss banks already.
But if I posted all that nasty stuff you wouldn't get to see or appreciate the wholesomeness of what truly wealthy people get up to... So... I binned it. And instead,
Yesterday, my wife took over a chicken mozambique (kind of mild curry thing) to a brilliant and very very wealthy deep coal gas engineer who lives in a mansion in the premier local suburb.
I had to warn her to tell him though, before he ate it, that there is a difference between fresh hand-ground spices and proper traditional cooking, and the commercial cooking he might have been used to from going out to commercial restaurants.
But if I posted all that nasty stuff you wouldn't get to see or appreciate the wholesomeness of what truly wealthy people get up to... So... I binned it. And instead,
Yesterday, my wife took over a chicken mozambique (kind of mild curry thing) to a brilliant and very very wealthy deep coal gas engineer who lives in a mansion in the premier local suburb.
I had to warn her to tell him though, before he ate it, that there is a difference between fresh hand-ground spices and proper traditional cooking, and the commercial cooking he might have been used to from going out to commercial restaurants.
Now I watch Dr. Phil as much as any of
the other several million+ of his viewers, but let me tell you, illicit drugs are dangerous but I
don't think it really is true that illicit drugs are as powerful as a
properly-made Tamil curry or a Mozambique chicken 'casserole.'
Well, okay though, this is how you get
to eat these things with me at my place:
...firstly, it's late afternoon or
evening. There are uniformed people who massage you for as long as
three hours or so in the massage rooms, using myrrh and benzoin and
almond oil. You wear comfortable slippers and something loose and you
are taken into the dining area, which is in candle-light and the
orange glow of the warming brazier. Suddenly 'Diving Faces' by
Liquid Child hits up deeply on the Bose. People wear emeralds around
the table.
Glass Slipper - by Louboutin |
You sit in Jarrah and leather dining
chairs designed by my friend Karl Teuchert (I drag him out of heaven
for this) of ARTRA and someone offers you champagne. And then the
food is brought in and you are served. And you get to see some
novelty, or some innovation, something new, always something new...
And let me tell you, you are not going
to remember much else until you wake up the next day.
See the water, wine, bread...? We are the meat & potatoes. |
And another thing – this is all real
stuff I'm talking about here. Ordinary cardamom seeds out of the
pods, if toasted a little and mixed with cloves tops and mace shroud
(fresh), in some kind of delicious food will knock your socks clean
off. Try it if you don't believe me. The staff don't need to be
wearing Nombre Noir or SL's R de N, but that also helps and if you
are conned by me into drinking the champagne out of straws
(concentrates the gasses), you won't last thirty minutes. Wealth is
what it is. And it isn't money per se.
Next post, I talk about Beef
Bourguignone, one of the most complex dishes to do correctly, but one
of the most rewarding when done correctly.
John E. N. Ward (himself).
Friday, 18 May 2012
Samsara - the eternal return
“Travelling forward to the past...”
(A phrase from an old SAMSARA perfume advertisement.)
I must confess I was a little disconcerted when I saw Dame Stella Rimington on morning television today. She's been on and off the media over a few years now and she still seems to speak with a freshness and interest in her voice that either tells me she's been having a great retirement, or that she loves to share reminiscences about her old job as the one-time head of MI5.
And who wouldn't?! I knew this and that and I couldn't tell – and now I can. Sort of.
So we've had Germaine Greer tour
through Oz just recently, and now Dame Stella. What's going on –
that we should be 'graced' with these U.K. luminaries at the moment?
Dame Stella said her role at MI5 was as a protector. And she kinda said a few words about Islamic terrorists and begged off what she did about it in her time saying: hey, well, she had had her hands full with the IRA back then.
Not a spy |
At least she acknowledged it wasn't exactly 'a war...' As in, 'a war on terrorism.'
I think these people are all a little naiive. Actually I am referring to the entire enclave that has had the public – especially the public of the United Kingdom by the throat since around Thatcher. In the evenings recently I've been watching Rebekah Brooks talk down both to a very senior judge as well as a quite brilliant QC. And I'm also sick of listening to Greer and hope she'll soon be consigned to a wheelchair and parked alongside that other piece of Oxford/Cambridge mischief Stephen Hawking.
Here's my question: did Dame Stella have no clue whatsoever that Rupert Murdoch was running quite the efficient little industry bugging thousands and thousands of people all over the United Kingdom all that time? Not even a tiny-teensy little clue...? Well hell boyh! MI5 screens and monitors the top cops and civil servants don't they? For gun analysts they sure as hell couldn't apparently work out the significance of the associations that were being maintained!
The top lady spy's story appears to be that one of the great capabilites of the master/lady spy from London Town is to be able to walk into a pub full of men, and strike up a conversation and extract a lot of detailed information about stuff from the unsuspecting target.
Uh-huh. Okay.
Actually I hope that Brooks doesn't get stepped on too much, go to jail and all that kind of thing. She's just doing a job for lots of dough. Same as I might, maybe, given similar circumstances, maybe. Who knows. Her boss is a crooked-minded individual who simply just doesn't realise that he is that – who's had the run of the whole place for a good long while. Enough already, Rupert!
Anyway, if they drag it all out, Rupert Murdoch will fall off the perch before Brooks is squeezed too hard. At least they've been apprehended at least. Though not by MI5, m'lud.
But notice how the media's use of
Rimington has set the agenda again? Back to 'the terrorists!' And
away from those right under her nose trampling over people's legal
rights every day. Still. I wonder which media company
publishes her books. Well, actually I don't wonder,
do I.
Best Austerities,
Calvin J. Bear
Wednesday, 2 May 2012
Immersive Luxury
Immersive luxury. That's the current
catch-phrase in the big marketing houses who do Mercedes, BMW, and
all the rest of that expensive middle class trash. I think an
academic name of Gilles Laurent came up with some kind of study that
claimed really wealthy people, when examined as to their lifestyles
and habits, spent a lot of time – in other words, were immersed
– using certain items and objects that could therefore more truly
define the concept of 'luxury,' compared to many other commercial
products that were generally, and probably incorrectly, also given
the title of luxury products. I've scanned the study itself and think
that it is terribly flawed, but that hasn't stopped the manufacturers
of expensive stuff exploiting the academic cachet
of the phrase 'immersive luxury.'
So, according to the researchers, food, music – and basically a lot of things commanding smaller dollars per unit – were not luxury items. What utter rubbish. It takes around 18 months to properly process a vanilla bean pod – not sure how much longer these idiots want you to immerse yourself in a luxury thing, but layering your mistress's french lace panties over half a dozen bourbon vanilla beans is decadent, and having her soak her tender pink feet in vanilla pod foot-baths will draw the vanilla essential oils up through the ascending bloodstream and help you correctly identify pussy in a masked party in a dark ballroom underneath a black satin-shrouded table on a dark night with only a few tea-lights showing the way to the ends of the obfuscated tunnels...
A vanilla bean is, I believe, in fact more expensive by weight than a new Mercedes... But it doesn't take a ridiculous sum to own the experience thereof, nor utilise the value therein.
A decent sweaty martini is a very great luxury between people who know each other well enough to have martinis together with.
Okay, I like the pink diamond in this pic, I find it a touch too middle-class Sino-design centric for my own absolute taste, but now, it is expensive, but I rather doubt anyone will be immersed in it so long that it would seem like an unhealthy obsession. But it is luxury! And so is the martini, the vanilla bean, Al Pacino's espresso, Cavalli's latest fragrance edp, and any number of things some of which may be had for small money by unit of. It isn't about money. Luxury is about quality, pleasure, and passion. And knowledge. A Paul Van Dyke album is extreme luxury. If you understand it.
Best,
J.
So, according to the researchers, food, music – and basically a lot of things commanding smaller dollars per unit – were not luxury items. What utter rubbish. It takes around 18 months to properly process a vanilla bean pod – not sure how much longer these idiots want you to immerse yourself in a luxury thing, but layering your mistress's french lace panties over half a dozen bourbon vanilla beans is decadent, and having her soak her tender pink feet in vanilla pod foot-baths will draw the vanilla essential oils up through the ascending bloodstream and help you correctly identify pussy in a masked party in a dark ballroom underneath a black satin-shrouded table on a dark night with only a few tea-lights showing the way to the ends of the obfuscated tunnels...
A vanilla bean is, I believe, in fact more expensive by weight than a new Mercedes... But it doesn't take a ridiculous sum to own the experience thereof, nor utilise the value therein.
A decent sweaty martini is a very great luxury between people who know each other well enough to have martinis together with.
Okay, I like the pink diamond in this pic, I find it a touch too middle-class Sino-design centric for my own absolute taste, but now, it is expensive, but I rather doubt anyone will be immersed in it so long that it would seem like an unhealthy obsession. But it is luxury! And so is the martini, the vanilla bean, Al Pacino's espresso, Cavalli's latest fragrance edp, and any number of things some of which may be had for small money by unit of. It isn't about money. Luxury is about quality, pleasure, and passion. And knowledge. A Paul Van Dyke album is extreme luxury. If you understand it.
Best,
J.
Monday, 23 April 2012
Abducting The Cook
What do people get up to when they have
few real problems?
Well, there was a thing that used to go
on occasionally when I was around ten or so... Abducting of cooks.
Yep. In fact there was this one particular older lady from India
somewhere – though from memory I don't think she was northern
Indian. She was incredibly
good. She could cook dishes from absolutely anywhere but she had a
few specialties for which she was absolutely famous. In fact she was unreasonably good.
Who
started it all were a set of brothers and cousins who all carried the
middle names of 'Roxborough.' Although their mother was from a
stonkingly wealthy shipping family (not related to me however,
sadly), their father shockingly insisted on making his own money as
well, from doctoring or surgeoning or something of the like... The
outcome was that the kids always had better
toys and gadgets than the kids from all the other wealthy families
with generally one stay-at-home parent. And, for some reason no one
could ever fathom, they managed to have the time and patience to put
together those ridiculously big and complicated Revel plastic kits of
huge battle ships...
But they didn't
possess the best cook.
The best cook
belonged to another 'doctor family' – this time with the wife being
the doctor and the husband an Oxford law and history graduate who for
family reasons and politics was 'merely' a senior school teacher.
My own thrown-together mild chicken curry from last night. |
...And then one day
the cook was abducted by the reprobate kids and forced to cook for
them one weekend in secret when there was a gathering celebrating
Churchill's birthday or Gandhi's ascension to heaven or the General
Milk Company's contracting the doctors for some mercantile purpose,
or something. The big families were going to have their household
cooks do the honours, you see.
The whole thing was
as far as I can recall both the greatest scandal and the most
intrepid and successful event the country had witnessed since WWII
ended. The tale of how the victim-family was invited to sample the
dishes at table to see whether they could detect what was going on or
not ranks as the biggest prank ever carried out in the hallowed
dining rooms of the upper crust of this particular country that shall
remain nameless here. I feel absolutely sure that cases of Tiger Beer
were donated by the brewery beforehand so that the targeted doctor
was as sozzled as possible before eating his own abducted cook's
fare.
But then, it didn't
end there because ransom was demanded in fact, for the cook to be
returned, no one ever admitted formally to who had purloined the
cook, and I am pretty sure both money changed hands, and the cook had
to spend time at another household as well, that had bribed the kids
to get her for a week, I think.
Oh yes wait a
minute, I remember, (now) Professor Derek Llewelyn-Jones and Major
Hunt of the Everest Expedition were g's-o.-h., at the dinner. Nothing
to do with Gandhi or Churchill or General Milk.
Ah, those were the
days. And those were the people. They don't make 'em like that any
more. Well not much like that anyways.
Best, Calvin J. Bear
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)