Rich Women, Poor Judgment

It’s not often you come across references to some of the smaller towns and villages down here in the UK papers unless it’s related to something happening in the larger communities of Nice, Cannes or Monte Carlo. I was therefore surprised when I saw the town of ‘Cagnes Sur Mer’ mentioned recently on one of the front pages of an UK Sunday newspaper.

Cagnes is a small but desirable place to live and is situated between Cannes in the west, and Nice further along the coast to the east. It has recently seen a lot of expensive new apartments built, and smart new pedestrian squares are springing up everywhere. It is very much an ‘up and coming’ place on the coast.

The Cagnes story however was not about the town or the snow which covered it last week but about a 64 year old, ‘rich’, British woman who had been murdered by her ‘toyboy’ lover.

As soon as I read the story it reminded me that this coastline is just full of rich, single, older women, looking to live out the remainder of their lives in the sun, having fun. Many of them, having been divorced, probably with large financial settlements, are just looking for a nice, quiet life with probably a bit of companionship thrown in. Many of them have been successful businesswomen in their own right and have come down to the Côte to escape the pressures of business life.

Whatever the reason and their background they are generally beautifully turned out, have used the best surgeons to ensure they retain their good looks and generally live in smart properties. They are therefore prime targets for ‘toboys’ and other ‘Casanovas’ looking for an easy ride. An allowance, a car, good clothes and the best restaurants. All they have to do is groom themselves, smell nice and be attentive both in and out of bed.

I just cannot fathom why these women don’t see it coming. Certainly, those who have founded and run businesses in the UK should have the nous to suss these scoundrels out, but all sense seems to go out the window and before you know it, the ‘toyboy’ has moved in and is beginning to take over their finances and the rest is usually a very sad story.

Finally, and this is a bit of a coincidence given his values and morals, my alter-ego, Nigel, is now writing a blog. It will not be a daily blog, probably bi-monthly and any postings will be highlighted here. It can be found at the following address but beware, it will sometimes contain ‘adult themes’:

http://monaconigel.blogspot.com/

No blog today. My friend Brian had a serious car accident in the South of England yesterday and after a tricky period has stabilised and will face further operations over the next few days to try and repair his broken body.

Apparently Brian was on his way to work when his car skidded on black ice and went off the road. As Brian got out of his car another vehicle did the same thing and as Brian helped the other driver escape through the rear hatch of his car, a third car also left the road and struck Brian. Details of the accident were reported in the Portsmouth News - URL below.

C'mon Brian. get yourself mended and let's see you smiling face down here soon.

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/newshome/Crash-dramas-outside-pub.6079744.jp

Banking on the Banks

I’ve been a stock market player from the early 80s when the UK government started selling off the phone, electricity, gas and water industries it owned. In addition, the building societies converted themselves into ‘normal’ banks and gave their ‘loyal’ customers shares in their businesses so after a few years I had built up quite a portfolio. Although I monitored my shares on a daily basis, I rarely, if ever, sold any, preferring to hold for the long run.

Along the way, there were a variety of successes and failures. The successes however were more than offset by some spectacular failures. Railtrack, the railway lines and stations business was taken back into public ownership after the Government declared the business bust and it was only after a long court battle and a few years, that investors got their money back. Similarly, British Energy went ‘bust’ and again was taken back into public ownership. This time however, I lost the lot.

One of the spectacular successes was a bit of a tax fiddle to say the least. The government offered to pay you back the tax you’d paid on money invested in social programmes and when I read a particular prospectus about the refurbishment of nurses homes, I simply could not believe it was true. You sent them say £10,000 and a month later you got a cheque back for £16,000 – a 60% gain, which if extrapolated over a year would equate to a return of several thousand percent – incredible. I tried to talk the guys in my office into going for it but they simply believed it was ‘too good to be true’ and I was the only one who invested.

Then there was the time I pressed the wrong button and bought ten times as many shares as I intended and sweated blood all day until I could sell them again, unfortunately at a bit of a loss – even then I was lucky – it could have been a blood bath!

These days I’m a bit more careful although having invested all my spare cash in the UK banks, some people would say not. It’s a bit of a long shot but I reckon the UK banks are creaming it and hopefully some of that cream will come my way. The spread (difference) between what they’re borrowing money for and what they’re lending it out at is at historically high levels and although I believe they’re artificially keeping their profits low because of the public outrage at their recent behaviour, sometime soon, when all the hullabaloo dies down, their publicly stated profits will soar. Also – the UK government will want the billions it ploughed into the banks back, so I assume that they will ‘help’ the share prices climb so they can sell their stakes. As I say, it’s a long term bet but one I reckon will pay off.

PS – Barclays announced record profits yesterday.

Better Late Than Never

OK – it was Valentine’s day on Sunday and I’m afraid my efforts wouldn’t have won any prizes compared to past years. Normally, it’s a tray with Scrambled egg and smoked salmon, fresh baguette with a glass of bucks fizz and a large bunch of flowers served to my darling wife in bed but for various reasons not much of that happened. In fact, none of it happened!

For a start J doesn’t like my scrambled egg anymore – she says I put too much milk in it! She’s also on this everlasting diet so anything I produced for breakfast would, in her Weightwatcher’s opinion, have too many points in it, and as for champagne before lunchtime – sacre blue! I knew she’d be up to go to church as she’s not been recently and to turn up for a dose of religion smelling of booze just would not do. I’d also tried to get flowers but the shops only had a few straggly specimens left on Saturday so that wasn’t on. It was going to be a disaster so I came up with an alternative plan.

As you know J has been trying desperately trying to get me to forsake my small, cheapo bistros for something with stars on the board outside – namely Michelin Stars – so I decided to take her to arguably the best restaurant in the region, Le Moulin de Mougins. They’ve been promoting a €49 lunch so I thought I’d push the boat out and take her there – after all a nice lunch down here will cost between €20 - €30, so the extra for dining in a famous restaurant, headed by an equally famous chef, seemed like a good deal – to a Scotsman!

Unfortunately, all mentions of Le Moulin were met with incredulity and scorn. She simply did not believe I was serious - so nothing happened. On Sunday night when I repeated that I had actually offered something ‘special’ for our ‘special day’, I was met with a blast of invective and various swear words, which, considering she’d been praying that morning, was quite something to behold.

Sanity prevailed however. J cooled down and suggested we could go this week, but as we were scheduled to go for lunch on Friday to another smart place, I said it simply wasn’t on. I mean for a guy on a pension, eating out twice in a week just wasn’t good Scottish economics. But then our friends who were due to lunch with us on the Friday called off and I could see the glint in my devious wife’s eyes.

Being a pretty smart guy, I nonchalantly suggested we could therefore go to Le Moulin on Friday. Well, J did an excellent impression of an Olympic floor athlete, completing several double somersaults and a triple twist as she headed back to the kitchen to prepare lunch. Thereafter, choruses of ‘Love is a many splendoured thing’, came wafting through the kitchen door. Oh I do know how to please a woman!

We’ve booked for Friday – a late Valentine’s day treat. I’ll let you know how we get on.

Le Moulin’s website is below just in case you wish to salivate. Oh – and the picture is of Cupid.

http://www.moulindemougins.com/fr/index.php

It's All Gone - Well Nearly

One of the differences I can see in the winter weather down here is that when it snows, like it did on Thursday, it disappears pretty quickly (see picture and compare to Friday’s), unlike in the UK where it tends to lie for days if not weeks, thawing and freezing each day and night.

The deluge of white stuff kept us housebound on Thursday. I suppose we could have tried to go out in our 4x4 but we didn’t need to go into the village, so it wasn’t worth risking it. On Friday it had started to thaw and we ventured into the Midi and it was clear when we made it to the main road that there had been some real problems the day before. Cars were abandoned all over the place, even some 4x4s, trees littered the side of the road all the way into Tourrettes and it was deathly quiet – that is until we got to the Midi which was packed to the rafters. I don’t know whether this was because it was a Friday or whether people, who had been cooped up in their houses the day before, had decided that they should make a ‘go of it’ and head into the village.

Guy, of course, was constantly relaying the point of view that unlike the UK which he’s heard on the news grinds to a halt at the first sign of snow, the villages round here get to work immediately to restore things back to normal.

Certainly all the fallen trees and branches had been dragged off the roads and there were signs that bulldozers had been out moving the 8 inches of snow which fell, to the roadsides. It was remarkable that such a small community could sort itself out so quickly.

Some of the smaller roads, particularly those on hills, had been blocked off to prevent cars slithering off into oblivion but I did notice one thing - with all the house construction going on around the area, and small JCBs and mini-bulldozers used everywhere on building sites, they had all been utilized to clear the snow. Of course, the builders who operate these things will probably have asked for ‘zee bonus’ for doing something not in ‘zee contract’!

Anyway, after three days of thawing weather, all we’re left with now is a smattering of snow on the higher slopes and an attempt at a snowman on my upper terrace. Needless to say, everything is soaking but I’d rather have that than 8 inches of snow, no matter how pretty it looked.