Hello again amigos, Davidson and Mule here…..Hey that sounds a bit like a cop show doesn’t it? I could be onto something here. I mean there is obviously room in the TV schedules for a cop show isn’t there? Practically crying out for one! Yes I am starting to envisage it. Jim would obviously be the brash, hard, tough talking, no nonsense one, and I would be the smooth suited, good with computers, ladies man. I think the Rascal would have to go out the window though, we would have to have something a lot flashier. Nothing modern, no, a classic. An E-type jag, yes that’s it. The opening titles could have some funky jazz/ hip hop track playing in the background, and you would see Jim dive in through the passenger window, while I casually slide over the bonnet, to get to the drivers side. There would be some shots of us careering through some cardboard boxes, and diving through the air in slow motion, while duel wielding a couple of magnums. Then a man with an unfeasibly low and gravely voice would say "Davidson and Mule, they’ve got zero tolerance, they’ve got a mission, they’ve got each other…….Davidson and Mule, tonight only on itv1". Oh well, I seem to have let my imagination run away with me…..now there’s a thing!
Well what exotic places have we reached, what dizzy heights have we scaled. Well, Hunstanton actually. I don’t think the rascal is quite up to touring Europe yet. It won’t actually go any faster than forty miles an hour. I am relieved to report that the clothing situation has improved a little. The leggings were starting to chaff, and a crop top really doesn’t keep you warm this time of year. I managed to wear an elderly sales assistant down in a charity shop. I bought a pair of flared jeans (the one’s with the added triangular bits at the bottom, that make them extra flared), and an anorak. I got her down from five pounds for the lot, to two pounds, although if the truth be known, I think I just got her down! I said to Jim why doesn’t he treat himself to some new clobber, but I think he has grown quite fond of the shell suit. Money is obviously tight, but we are managing to make a little. Jim does a bit of stand up in the internet cafes, while I alternate between doing this stuff, and passing the hat round.
Money really is a problem, and a mystery to me, and always has been. I have never been able to get my head around anything financial at all. I don’t know why it is, but as soon as anybody starts talking finances, I slip into a sort of coma. I remember when Miss Marple and myself had to go and see some man about our mortgage. We followed him up to this little room, and we all sat down. Then to my astonishment, Miss Marple and this man started talking in a language I had never heard before. They both seemed to be fluent in it, but I was lost. Variable rats, index kinked, fixed roots, cash back, unit trusses, double overhead cam…….What the bloody hell were they talking about?.
Of course I understand the basic principles of money, but it’s all this high brow stuff that leaves me bamboozled. Does it all need to be this complicated I ask myself? Like everything human beings get involved in, we have to twist it, turn it, and generally bugger it up beyond all comprehension. I mean I understand that way back in cave man days and such the like, one caveman would start to covert his neighbours ox…..and things. So I suppose at first there was a lot of bashing each other on the head, and running off with each others oxen…..and stuff. So I suppose somebody woke up one morning and called a meeting. I should imagine he or she, said something like, "Look, you know how we all keep wanting each others stuff and that, and we keep bashing each other on the head to get it, well surly there must be an easier, and less painful way of getting the stuff". All the cavemen and women looked around at each other, and nodded in agreement. Financial caveman carried on, "Why don’t we have a system where if any of us wants something that someone else has got, we have to swap it with them, for something we have got". All the cavemen and women looked at each other in amazement, and agreed this was a brilliant idea. Thus our financial system was born. Of course as time went by, people realized that it could take ages to come to an agreement about swapping, I mean who is to say if one man’s ox is worth another man’s wheelbarrow, or something. Is a jug worth one or two loaves of bread? It was all very tricky indeed, and fights would regularly break out. This was of course what was trying to be avoided in the first place! So somebody eventually discovered gold, and they decided amongst themselves that a wheelbarrow was worth this amount of gold, or a loaf was worth that amount of gold etc etc.
It is at this point in our history, that it starts to become tricky for me. It was after some time, that someone had the bright idea of making coins and notes. These were to represent the amount of gold one had, but made it much more portable. I understand that it is a lot easier to carry around a few sheets of paper, than it is to have a pocket full of heavy gold, but I think this is where it all started to go awry. For a start, If I am correct (and there is a high chance that I’m not!) I believe a country has to have the exact amount of paper money and coinage in circulation, as it does have gold in it's vaults. This is all very well, but does anyone ever check? Are there little men with clip boards, beards, and corduroy jackets, that go round from country to country, checking the amount of gold a country has is correct, and above board? What’s to stop a country just running off notes willy nilly? America is apparently the richest country in the world…..who says? They could just be printing off dollar bills like there is no tomorrow.
The thing that really blows my head off, is stocks and shares and all that malarkey. What are all those people doing in there? All in multicolored jackets, waving their arms about, shouting a lot, thrusting bits of paper in the air. Bloody hell, it’s madness. "What did you do today at work dear"? Asks Mrs. Stockbroker. "Did you have your purple and orange jacket on?"
"Yes I did" says Mr. Stockbroker.
"Did you wave your bit of paper in the air"?
"Oh yes, and I got it really high. I was stretching really hard like a good boy, and got it higher than anyone else’s"
"Oh well done dear, what a good boy you are, tell me, how was the shouting"?
"Well, I had to send out for some strepsils, I was shouting louder than anybody else"
"That’s my boy"
What a load of bollocks quite frankly. Do you know, I sometimes think it would be better if we went back to bashing each other over the head again.
Anyway, Jim is coming to the end of his stand up routine now. He is finishing off with the one about the two lesbian Nuns, a large candle, and a red faced Bishop. That one gets em every time. Hopefully be somewhere a little more exotic next time around.
Cheerio for now. Andy and Jim.
Ps. Can anyone tell me what a bloody Hedge fund is?.......
