Starfish Soup

My bloody Valentine

2009-04-12T16:22:00.000-07:00

I gave my heart to a boy, and it wasn't pretty.

So what is this Starfishing lark anyway?

2009-03-08T09:01:00.000-07:00

Apart from being a book that I'm in what is Starfishing? Answers on a postcard. I've been trawling the web to see what other people think but no one's quite got the answer I'm looking for yet.

From the Urban Dictionary:

When an individual, who is too fatigued to engage in sexual activity themselves, lay spread out on the bed for their partner.

The term "Starfish" comes from the shape that the individual makes when they spread out.

"She was full starfishing for me last night...I full doodled her good!"

From the interweb:

A place where things happen without warning.

From Amazon.com

An album by the Green Chili Jam Band

On the bloggosphere here and here

At Yahoo! answers there is talk about it but few answers.

If you want to find out what it has to do with my story, well, you're just gonna have to buy the book. Go on. You know you want to.

When it comes to the crunch…

2009-03-02T08:51:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted here for ages and the main reason for that is I had fuck all to say. I was busy too. Busy keeping hold of my job and your money ha ha. Yes, I am an evil trader who has made the country go wrong.

I have to say that all of this recent fuss about traders and bonuses has done my head in. Don't get me wrong; I know the money we get paid is obscene, we all do. I don't think for one second that I deserve it or anything. Some days I sit at my trading screen and I laugh at what I’m doing, piss my sides that there’s someone willing to pay good hard cash for me to do this.

But the credit crisis is my fault? What a pile of crap.

First of all, I'd like to point out the difference between a retail bank, like Lloyds TSB or Barclays, and an investment bank like Merrill Lynch or CSFB. Retail banks are the ones who look after your money for you, give you a bit of interest, and lend to you if your credit rating's good enough (at least, that’s the way it’s supposed to work lmfao.) These banks probably have a treasury department and, yes, these treasury departments will trade interest rate products and so on, but they're not really traders. They exist to make sure the bank has enough ready cash to pay out what it needs to, but also to use any surplus money to earn more profit overnight. Believe it or not, the perfect bank balance for someone like Halifax or Barclays is zero, at least when they’re sleeping, because that way they’ve used any leftovers to make more money. Efficient.

Are you with me so far?

An investment bank or trading company is whole different kettle of bananas and, yes, these companies are out to make a profit from the market. A brokerage, like I work for, provides market access for those who can't go direct and the customers have to pay a fee for the privilege. Like a stockbrokers, except we deal in futures and options.

And guess what? The crisis we've got to now is more complicated than either of these things.

You could blame the traders, labelling us greedy, irresponsible wide boys and girls. We’re an easy target. Nobody likes it that there are people in the world earning what we do, living our lifestyle. I can see about a million reasons for Joanna Public to hate the likes of me, but the credit crisis isn't one of them imo.

You could blame the retail banks. The ones with the piss poor management and irresponsible lending policies. You'd be nearer the mark. The whole thing started with banks in the states lending money to people who couldn't afford it and then, hey, guess what, they didn't pay it back. Shock fucking horror.

You could also blame the regulator. Sure as hell there were things the FSA could have done better. You only have to look at the example of Northern Rock to realise that. And what were Northern Rock doing wrong? Oh, they were lending to people who couldn't afford it. Is this sounding familiar?

The politicians have played their part in this debacle, no fucking doubt about it, don’t they always? You can go all the way back to Maggie and look at ways things have been regulated, or not more to the point, and blame her if you like. Why not? Everyone does and there’s something in it.

But, you know what? You need to go a lot closer to home to really get to the root of all this evil.

Have you ever borrowed money for something you didn’t really need? Have you ever borrowed more money than you really should have? Do you regularly spend more than comes in your wages? Do you have more shoes than you need, rails of clothes you don’t wear? Can you honestly say that you don’t fall for the crap of designer labels or strive for the perfect home, collecting things and buying right into the consumer bollox that we all do? Don’t get me wrong; I can’t. But I’m not the one getting holier than thou here.

There’s all sorts of shit in the world right now that you can blame anyone you like for. Global warming. Endangered species. Reality TV and Girls Aloud. You can sit at home and moan about all this stuff till you’re blue in the face, but have you ever done anything about any of it? Like fuck you have.

If the crunch fits…

Murder...

2008-06-12T10:52:00.000-07:00

I read this in a book today:

"All men are murderers, Juliet thought. All of them. They murder women. They take a woman, and little by little they murder her."*

It made me sit up, that statement. It made me wonder if that was true or not. I've certainly met my fair share of men who are this kind of murderer. I've definitely felt murdered in this way before. But ALL men?

The character in the book, Juliet, she's pissed off because some knob had a bit of a sexist shot at her at a dinner party and her husband, instead of backing her up, he sat back and made some comment about her tits. Lol. Juliet should have a go in my book, see how she feels. I doubt she'd last five minutes. I'd love to see her face when the lads on the trading floor shouted 'beaver' at her. I'd love to see how she reacted when they whistled and shouted the first time she walked in.

But she does have a point about some men, a certain type of man. The kind who has affairs behind his wife's back. The kind who'll shag you in the toilets while she sits sipping vodka and tonic upstairs. This kind of knob needs to be careful. Women can be murderers too....

*From Arlington Park, by Rachel Cusk (which is a very good read, if you wanna know about it...)

Some oxymorons...

2008-05-25T08:25:00.000-07:00

Pymgy Giraffes
IBM compatible
Organised anarchists
Angry buddist monks
Honest Politician
Holy War
American Intelligence

Been around the world....

2008-04-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

So I've not had time to blog for a bit. Been travelling. Hong Kong, Chicago, and home via New York.

I love New York City. It was a love affair from the moment I first set foot there, some, well, some years ago. My first trip there didn't end so well, but that's another story, and not one I'm going to go into here.

There's something about being in New York. I've only ever been for short stays, which adds to the magic because you're a bit jetlagged, so it feels like your soul's moved to the right of your body just a step. Not that I believe in that soul shit, but it's the best way I can think to describe it. It's like your brain is set to echo mode. Things take just that little bit longer to happen, or to be processed as happening. Sounds vibrate. Music seems louder and yet further away because your ears haven't recovered from the flight.

Most of all, being in New York is like being in a theme park. It's a city that feels like a reproduction of itself. You've seen the streets and buildings that you pass a million times before, on TV, in the movies. The brown stones with the metal fire escapes cascading down them, they look like they belong in a film studio. The walk and don't walk signs. The trucks with big noses. The steaming grates on the 'sidewalk'.

I love it I love it I love it. I'm gonna move here. I like American men too - the accent just does something for me. But don't tell Jase that ;)

Margaret Thatcher versus the Blow Job

2008-04-08T12:59:00.000-07:00

I have a little game for ya. I call it Margaret Thatcher versus the Blow Job.

First, get your friends talking about Mrs Thatcher. The most effective way to do this is to get them in a room, make sure there's at least one loony lefty there, and suggest that old milk snatcher might have done some things good for the country. It never fails. Soon you'll find debate, insults and four letter words (sometimes beer) fly round the table.

Next, say something like 'Fuck this for a game of soldiers. Why we talking about Mrs Thatcher when we could be talking about something more interesting?' Suggest to your friends they start talking about blow jobs instead. Note how they all laugh, and giggle, and start talking about blow jobs.

But then, before you can even believe it, notice how the conversation flows right back to Mrs T.

Mention blow jobs again.

Watch how you end up back on Mrs T.

Do this until you get bored and note the count. That's your score.

My highest was 22. What a night! Lol.

Spaced...

2008-03-25T17:56:00.000-07:00

Last night I was so tired I was hallucinating. Who needs acid when you can starve yourself of sleep? Someone once told me that you die faster from lack of sleep than either thirst or starvation and I didn't believe them but I did decide that seeing things was a sign I'd gone too far. It wasn't like I saw goblins or unicorns, just people who weren't really there, but still...

I arrived yesterday in Seattle on a business trip so jetlag played its part, but I added to my own troubles by skipping a night's sleep on Saturday. I wasn't out, or on anything, I just didn't go to bed. Sometimes I do this. It's not exactly a choice. I have nightmares that are terrifying and, after a few nights in a row, I avoid my bed for as long as I can. (Until I start hallucinating.)

Seattle is a trip, it really is, whichever way you look at it. The most surprising thing I've found here is that the major landmark is smaller than I thought it would be. This is at odds with what I expect from landmarks. In my experience, they are always much bigger than you can ever imagine. You always think you're much closer to them than you are because of their sheer bloody size. The number of times I've unwisely tried to walk to places like the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building because I look at them and think 'a few blocks' and it's actually fifty. So when I saw the Space Needle from my hotel last night, I didn't get too excited.

You know that old saying about buildings not being small, but being far away? Well when we went exploring to find breakfast this morning, and walked towards the Space Needle, I realised it wasn't far away; it was small. And there's nothing on it except the viewing deck at the top, where there's bar and restaurant and signs to show you what you can see from the windows. The Needle was built for some expo, as a concept building to represent the the way the world might be in the future. Which is kind of screwy, if you think about it, because why would anyone build a huge structure like that to put a few rooms at the top? Not exactly an efficient use of land or resources.

I've warmed to Seattle. I think it's the kind of place I could spend a lot of time. I've visited Chicago, and New York, and I liked them too but I couldn't go back. There's history there I think would come back to haunt me.

Tonight Jason wants to eat at the top of the Space Needle. I'm trying to think of ways to get out of it. I just don't like heights. Heights, and dreams, I'd rather avoid them. I'm spending the rest of the afternoon pinching myself, and thinking up an excuse about tonight. My arms are a mess from all the pinching, my head from the dreams.

It's like Frankie Cavanagh.... on acid....

2008-03-16T13:39:00.000-07:00

It's a great phrase that one, on acid. People use it all the time and I don't think they consider what they're saying at all.

"It's like the Wombles, on acid." So what would that mean, exactly? Wombling free, they start to tidy up but get so fascinated with one Snickers wrapper they sit and stare at it for three hours and no one can rouse them? Cos that's the kind of thing people do on acid.

People use that phrase when they're trying to describe something or someone who's that little bit wackier, crazier or more fun than what they're comparing them to. But my experience is that people on acid are boring to be around. Sure, they're having a good time, busy in their head with all sorts of crap. They can examine the curve of the back of someone's head for an hour, and go on you about its shape, hypnotised by the golden ratio or some shit. They giggle to themselves and don't share the joke.

I once watched my boyfriend Jase on acid, sitting at his computer giggling at the titles of his junk mail. He kept reading the headers, then collapsing with how funny he thought it was. I have to admit, he did get me going after a while reading all that shit that comes through about bigger penises and more ejaculate, and Nigerian businessmen with money to give him if he would just send them his bank account details and passwords. It was even kind of funny when he decided to google 'Google' to see what would happen. Not much, obviously, but enough to make Jase fall on the floor and laugh for about an hour.

The two worst experiences of my life involved LSD. But I ain't going there here or now or anytime. All I'll say is that this bloke I knew, well, he was like Frankie Cavanagh on acid. And that's pretty mad, by anyone's standards, I got to admit.

It wasn't me...

2008-03-12T15:36:00.000-07:00

Saw this today in the papers and it caught my attention. Honest guvnor, nothing to do with my good self.

No animals, plants or invertebrate sea creatures were harmed in the making of this blog.

Anarchy part deux

2008-03-06T06:56:00.000-08:00

The street below seemed to explode. I noticed an element I hadn’t seen before, louder, nastier. There were a bunch of skinheads throwing things and breaking windows. It was like they came out from hidey holes when they saw the police coming, ripe and ready and up for a fight. The street was filled with shouting now, and the rushing of the broken hydrant and glass being thrown and broken.

People around me were getting twitchy. Someone sent word up that the protestors had got into the building, but I don’t think any of us believed it. Most of the men headed downstairs, telling us to stay put. I ignored that, and walked with Nick back down to the trading floor. I wasn’t missing the action.

When you open the door and walk into the trading floor, usually, you’re hit by a boom of sound. Today it was different; there wasn’t much trading going on, though there was still a deal of noise. Locals and brokers were stood in groups, chatting. There was the smell I associate with the place, at it worse times, during nasty crashes that leave our screens sprayed red with the numbers that have gone down, so that it looks like there’s blood all over the room. It’s not an easy scent to pin down; sweat, tears, adrenaline, the smell of bodies under stress.

A couple of security guards came rushing into the room, shouting at us to stay back. Of course, they were ignored, and people ran past to find out what was happening. There were protestors coming up the escalators, waving sticks and bottles in the air. A couple of the projectiles came our way, but most of the invaders kept hold of their weapons. Some of the lads were straight in there, getting stuck in at the top of the escalators and sending a few protestors flying. Others were taking it turns to lose it and get ready to get stuck in, and holding back their mates saying ‘it’s not worth it’ and suggesting that our visitors ought to buy some soap. Close up, the anarchists did look unwashed, jagged at the edges.

Just as the fastest, and perhaps the most organised, anarchists made it to the turnstiles and were climbing over, a barrier started coming down. It was like the metal shutters they pull over shop windows at night. Most of the protesters were trapped the other side, though one or two had come through, and there was one poor guy trapped under the thing and trying to wriggle free. Anarchy suddenly didn’t seem such a good idea to the ones left on our side and they quietened right down and looked at the floor. There was lots of ribbing from the traders then, and one or two who walked right up to the unwashed blokes, menacing, but nothing proper kicked off.

The building was cleared of anarchists and we all went back to work. But not for long. The water from the burst hydrant was flooding the basement so trading was suspended. Stop the City, that’d been their plan. An early finish would normally be a bonus, but we weren’t allowed out of the building. We were barricaded in until nearly Six O’Clock.

When they finally let us out into the street, the scene looked like a bomb had gone off. Loads of broken windows. A car on the forecourt of the Mercedes Garage had been trashed and there was graffiti screaming CAPITALIST PIGS and FAT BASTARD CATS from every angle. There was this young lad with blond dreads pulling down a banner, tidying up. Jase had come to meet me, and he walked over to him.

‘What the fuck was this all about, then?’ he said.

The boy shrugged but Jase pressed him.

‘Well it’s about capitalism and all that, how it’s bleeding this country dry,’ dreads told us. His voice was bought and paid for, Eton or Harrow, I’m guessing.

Jase grimaced at him. ‘Yeah, that’s about right. Keep hold-a mum and dad’s cash, eh?’ He looked like he might do something then, so I wrapped my hand under the crook of his elbow, gave him a gentle tug to move on. He stood giving the boy a hard stare first, though.

We were back in work Monday as usual. The windows were mended, there was a new Mercedes on the forecourt. All the graffiti had been cleaned away. They hadn’t stopped the City, they hadn’t dented it. They hadn’t even left a mark.

Anarchy in the City

2008-02-28T16:02:00.000-08:00

I used to work on the LIFFE floor, broking the FTSE future among other things, though a mate of mine used to say I was breaking it. It made her laugh. Probably the strangest memory I’ve got of those times was not long before it all finished and we went to screens.

The May Day riots, they used to call them, though they didn’t happen on May Day exactly. There wouldn’t have been any point because, on May Day, we were all sitting at home with our families or (more like me and my lot) recovering from a huge night and possibly morning out. Partying on a Sunday always feels better; like a bonus. Like you’re getting away with something.

But I digress and I’ll get back to what I was writing about; the riots. First we knew about it was the papers, saying a bunch of organised anarchists were targeting the City that day. You’ve got to laugh at that. You what kind of anarchists? Organised ones? Jase and me met for breakfast that morning. He spat coffee everywhere he laughed so hard when he read this headline, and showed me. It was a Friday, dress down day, and we both wondered how easy it’d be to tell the terrorists from the City traders given that.

Then Jase headed to Camomile Court where his screen trading desk was, and I went off up towards Cannon Bridge. It was early, but I could tell even then that something was going to happen. There was a feeling in the air, which sounds stupid and vague, but it was the kind of feeling you get before it kicks off anywhere, the kind that makes you feel sick and want to get out of there. The kind of feeling you get on the floor just before a crash comes.

I’d moved company not long before, and was working for a small French brokers. I didn’t like my new boss nearly as much as I’d liked my old one but, there you go, I’d fucked that up and there’s not much more I can say about it. His name was Philippe, and there was nothing wrong with him, he was just a bit dull. He was animated this morning though. Lots of oh la las and Gallic shrugs.

It was quiet that day. Fridays often were, specially with a holiday coming up. The anarchists livened it up a bit, though. I went out mid-afternoon for a coffee, and people were dancing in the street. It was sunny, and there was a lot of music and smiling; it looked like my kind of scene and I was tempted to join them instead of going back to work.

When I came back in, so Philippe sent me up to the office to do some admin. No wonder I didn’t like him. Our office was above the floor, quite high in the building, and I watched the protestors having the time of their lives outside. Things started to get interesting. Two hippy types broke the fire hydrant in the street, then took their clothes off and were dancing around in the fountain it made. By now, colleagues of mine were coming into the offices around me to get a look. Some were leaning out of windows.

I was leaning out too, and I could see something that made me breathe faster. At the end of Cannon Bridge, a good way from where the naked couple were dancing, four or five police vans arrived. The vans just sat there, at the end of the street, looking menacing. A precaution, I assumed.

I turned back to the fun down my end of the street. Nick (I used to work with him at UBF and we called him Leeson but he wasn’t the infamous rogue trader, a much less well-known one) had photocopied some twenty pound notes and was throwing them out of the window. Some people below threw obscenities in our direction and they got them right back. I noticed a few people throwing bottles, and someone shouted that they were trying to get into our building, but I couldn't see that.

When I turned back towards the other end of the street, police in riot gear were emerging from the vans like ants, and heading up the road towards the crowd of hippies…

TO BE CONTINUED...