UPDATE
As my new buddy seems to get excited about markets, shares and bonds etc it dawned on me that today Friday it was market day at a local town. Filled with foreboding I kicked the scooter into overdrive (8 mph – beam me up spotty), and in only an hour or two arrived full of trepidation and inquisitiveness. What was I getting into here I wondered, however my buddy seemed to know all about markets, I’m sure he knows what he’s talking about?, he makes a living in them, he’s not an idiot?
The square was packed, both with stalls and people, ah ha! these must be the traders I thought so approaching the first one I stared at him, and he stared back. He doesn’t look very rich I thought, as the rain ran off his nose (I think it was rain), his Ferrari must be in for a service as in the background was a battered Ford transit. ‘Can I help you?’ he growled over the top of his onions. ‘Yes’ I replied, ‘do you make a living trading in the markets’ I asked? There was a silence, during which he looked like one of his beetroots, ‘Why the fuck do you think I’m standing here in the pissing rain’ he replied (these traders weren’t eloquent as I’d learnt from my new buddy). ‘Oh good’ I replied could you answer some questions?. ‘Listen if it’s artichokes from Egypt flown in this morning on an Albatross you’re after, try Marks and Spencers, I sell farm produce’.
A light went on in my head, ah? Farm produce eh? Do you sell shares?, ‘no’ he replied, but I sell shallots. Puzzled I went on to question two, ‘What about bonds’?, he looked at me smiled and winked, ‘ah! You want Mary Jayne on the leather stall’, I filed that for later, this wasn’t going how I’d expected. ‘My buddy in the USA says there’s going to be a crash in the market’, I said. ‘How the fuck is that ?’ he replied, ‘the police and council have shut off the roads into the square’. By now I was getting desperate – ‘what about short trading’ I asked, ‘Oh they went bankrupt after covid’ he replied.
The world I knew was not making sense, not a graph or chart to be seen, only chickens, veg and vape stalls, this was not a world of glamour, no the wonder my buddy is grumpy. To cap it all he handed me a cauliflower ‘Here have this free, now fuck off and leave me to earn a living’.
Wonder where he keeps his Lear jet?