Caveat Emptor - Revision #13 - February 29, 2008 9:49:59 PM UTC

Picking up the ladies in the old days was easy. A trader in the Golden Mile was part of an elite club. The creme-de-la-creme of financiers, yeah ?! It gave you a reputation, and opened doors. It sometimes seemed like the City belonged to us ?!

When you spotted an elephant.. that was our code for a nine or ten... one of my favourite ploys was cracking open a case of Dom Perignon and offering a glass to everyone, like I owned the place and it was on the house. Except her. Classic, yeah ?! My mates would be cheering me, and if she had male companions, I made doubly sure they got some too, and they'd be slapping me on the back... I was da Man !!.

Then, it was just a matter of letting her stew for a few minutes, wondering if she had pimples or something. Some of them even go to the toilet to check themselves out.. seriously! Then, hey, suddenly you notice her... "how could you have missed her", kinda thing, yeah ?! Offer her a glass, and you're in. Shes' so relieved, she downs it in a minute. Keep pouring on the attention and the champagne. Champagne was definitely the key... it said and did everything that was needed... how could they refuse, yeah ?! You did get the odd prune or two trying to play The Game... but that didn't get them very far. In the City, you played by our rules, yeah ?! Or you didn't play at all. They usually went home alone, the sad hags.

Anyway, when bagging time came... that's what we called clinching the deal, yeah ?!... all I had to do was slide up to her, flash my perfectly lined veneers, with Bafta-red-carpet smile to match, and say “I’ve been tested and it came back negative, but I have these anyway", and show her my box of Trojans. When you're the dogs bollocks, it's that easy to bag an elephant, yeah ?! A reputation, designer suit, champagne, a flash of gold, the women were easy. Often, I even got away without a glove.

Those were the days, when we were men... and the rest were mice.

Of course then the bloody bubble burst. We all knew it had to happen sometime... thought we'd be smart enough to see it coming and jump ship at the last minute. Our mate Peter... we laughed when he called it quits and went to Stockholm. His Swedish girlfriend was like that blonde ABBA bird... you know the one, yeah ?! Very doable ! But still, Stockholm !? Know what I mean ?! Hell, I should have followed him, and got his girl to boot, yeah ?!

Then it all went pear shaped... actually more like a chocolate truffle, that has melted into a gooey puddle of poo....